I have been the same weight for about two-three weeks now. I am only eating fish and vegetables. I am strength training and doing about 45- 1 hour of cardio. What is going on? Has anyone else experienced this? What advice can you give. I want to do a show in June and am getting really discouraged. I have done 5 shows and this is the first time that this has happended to me. Please help!

quote:

Originally posted by abeauty:
I have been the same weight for about two-three weeks now. I am only eating fish and vegetables. I am strength training and doing about 45- 1 hour of cardio. What is going on? Has anyone else experienced this? What advice can you give. I want to do a show in June and am getting really discouraged. I have done 5 shows and this is the first time that this has happended to me. Please help!

Its called metabolism stall out. Why are you eating so low carbs and doing almost 1 hr of cardio?

Are you at least refeeding, taking one day to eat a good amount of carbs, if not.

I can guarantee you this is your issue. YOu need to fix this now or you wont make it to your show because there is nothing to pull from this diet.

Also only fish, unless its salmon, that means your fat intake is REALLY low too. So in essence you are only meeting your protein needs for the day. Just a bad strategy all around. Plus fish runs through me like crazy, its to light to diet on.

Good Luck!

For breakfast I eat 1 whole egg and 3 egg whites, 1/2 cup oatmeal

Lunch: spinach salad and tuna

Dinner: sweet potato and talipia or tuna and vegetable or I will eat brown rice in place of sp

What should I eat to increase carb intake?

Oooh sister, you need to be eating more. I have a ton of questions for you to answer for us to help you out.

Your show isn't until June? That means you are 12 weeks out and that is way too far out to not see any fat losses especially in 3 weeks. Are you basing your fat losses off of the number on the scale or are you getting caliper checked? Are you doing figure, bikini, or BB? What is your BF now? What are the portions/weights of the foods you are eating now for lunch and dinner. You haven't given us a whole lot of information but I can help you out a little until you give us more information and the boys chime in.

First off, you only eat 3 meals and should be eating 6. Add two protein shakes with some veggies and that would be an easy addition. Bring some white potato into the mix too, its good for you. Quinoa also.

With the extremely low calories and lengthy cardio, where can you make changes to continue fat loss and prevent stalling. You need to really revamp your approach. If you really want to set yourself up for success, there is time to use Jason's services and he will do the diet macros to the gram for you. PM me if you want and we can chat offline.

P.S. How'd I do Jason? Have I learned anything from ya or do I sound like a complete ninny?

now Im confused you originally said all you were eating was fish and veggies. I see some carbs in there. Id need to see the whole diet. Know what you weigh, bodyfat blah, blah, blah. Much more info basically.

I have no clue what your macros are as amounts arent posted. Do you know your macros or calorie count? Start there.

You need to eat to lose -it's true.
Post your detailed diet, we need to know amounts for each serving at each meal.

quote:

Originally posted by abeauty:
For breakfast I eat 1 whole egg and 3 egg whites, 1/2 cup oatmeal

Lunch: spinach salad and tuna

Dinner: sweet potato and talipia or tuna and vegetable or I will eat brown rice in place of sp

What should I eat to increase carb intake?

WOW, this is NOT cutting it. Plus you said you were only eating protien and veggies? There is sweet potato and oatmeal on this plan. How about your fats? HOW MUCH sweet potato are you eating?? Obviously you are trying to lose weight, and you should be doing exactly that with a diet so low in calories, but you've stalled out.

What are you doing for "strength training"? And what kind of cardio are you doing for 45mins-1hour?

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I guess I was trying to lose the weight that I gained after my last show--which was in November. I weighed 113 lbs then.

I am basing my weight from using my scale. Last time I took my weight, I was 130 lbs.

I have decided to go back to my very first diet:

Breakfast: 1 whole egg, 3 egg whites, 1/2 cup of oatmeal, cream of wheat, grits, etc.

Lunch: Spinach salad, chicken 4 oz, 1 cup vegetable, sweet potato (1 medium) or some other starch (1/2 cup)

Late afternoon meal: Protein drink or sweet potato, chicken or tuna, vegetable

Dinner: Vegetable, chicken, salad, starch

I also drink 64 oz of water per day, as well as put salsa on my foods and eat pineapple and walnuts for snack.

I started the above diet the next day after posting my message. I do feel a lot better. I haven't taken my weight so I am not sure where I am at this point. I am quite sure I haven't lost much if any.

Since Jason mentioned that I was doing too much cardio, I cut it back to 20-30 minutes. I do upper body one day and lower body the next.

I used Jason's services before, but don't have the $$ to continue with him right now.

quote:

Originally posted by abeauty:
Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I guess I was trying to lose the weight that I gained after my last show--which was in November. I weighed 113 lbs then.

I am basing my weight from using my scale. Last time I took my weight, I was 130 lbs.

I have decided to go back to my very first diet:

Breakfast: 1 whole egg, 3 egg whites, 1/2 cup of oatmeal, cream of wheat, grits, etc.

Lunch: Spinach salad, chicken 4 oz, 1 cup vegetable, sweet potato (1 medium) or some other starch (1/2 cup)

Late afternoon meal: Protein drink or sweet potato, chicken or tuna, vegetable

Dinner: Vegetable, chicken, salad, starch

I also drink 64 oz of water per day, as well as put salsa on my foods and eat pineapple and walnuts for snack.

I started the above diet the next day after posting my message. I do feel a lot better. I haven't taken my weight so I am not sure where I am at this point. I am quite sure I haven't lost much if any.

Since Jason mentioned that I was doing too much cardio, I cut it back to 20-30 minutes. I do upper body one day and lower body the next.

I used Jason's services before, but don't have the $$ to continue with him right now.

Oh hey I remember you, we never did finish you were going to come back, lol. I hope your show went well with you taking the control.

Regarding the above, I didnt say pull back on cardio. I was just saying if you were doing zero starches I thought 1 hr was to much day in day out. If you are adding the carbs you may need to keep it in there.

Sorry to confuse you.

For sure. You have to tailor your training and cardio to your diet. Now that you have increased your calories and carbohydrates, this new diet that you are doing will call for the SAME amount of cardio that you were doing when you first posted. DO NOT CUT BACK ON YOUR CARDIO!! It will negatively impact your physique if you do that.

Feed the machine, keep burning those calories. Your new diet looks good. You are on the right track with your training AND your diet now. Good luck.

Thanks. I forgot to include that I eat beans and pasta as well. So to be clear, do I continue with doing about 20-30 minutes of cardio or do I do 1 hour of cardio?

quote:

and pasta as well

"Step away from the plate. Put your hands in the air!"

Pasta, it won't matter what type, whole wheat or plain white flour, this will stall you, especially on a tight diet. If pasta was all you ate, you may have some energy, but you'd look like you fell out the back end of a horse (on stage).

The closer you stay to whole, unprocessed foods, the easier you may find it reaching goals.

Thanks! I'll stay away from the pasta and keep with the 45-60 min cardio. I'll keep you posted.

quote:

Originally posted by abeauty:
Thanks. I forgot to include that I eat beans and pasta as well. So to be clear, do I continue with doing about 20-30 minutes of cardio or do I do 1 hour of cardio?

Little by little we get more and more diet info out of you. It's like pulling teeth. LOL. JK really. If you don't have the diet written down and follow to the gram then its really really hard to keep track of what you are taking in and almost impossible to make adjustments. Yup, definitely do as Frank says and step away from that pasta plate and beans. It's best to just get your complex carbs from oats, sweet & white potato, and green veggies.

Nope, not like pulling teeth. I just did not remember to include those items when i posted-- I don't keep my diet right in front of me. I also try to change up my meals so I am not eating the same thing everyday.

No offense meant. I just eat the same thing day in and day out. No variety whatsover so I can tell you at the drop of a hat what each meal consists of and its weights. Variety is off season, none whatsover during a contest prep. I'm sorry I made the assumption that others follow the same protocol.

quote:

Originally posted by AF Chiq:
No offense meant. I just eat the same thing day in and day out. No variety whatsover so I can tell you at the drop of a hat what each meal consists of and its weights. Variety is off season, none whatsover during a contest prep. I'm sorry I made the assumption that others follow the same protocol.

I do the same otherwise either you have 10 diets built so you know the calories of each or you are guessing at caloric intake, in which case its near impossible to make proper adjustments and bring a winning physique to the stage. If you really want to zero this in I suggest building a diet in fitday.com so you know exactly what you are eating calorie wise on a daily basis. If after one week the monring weight isnt down at least 1 lbs. Then you take out 500 cals. That over 7 days will be a 3500 deficit and should result in a pound lost.

I have actually begun to enjoy the monotony of a cutting diet. Mainly for the same reasons as AF, there is too much time invested, for me, to risk my diet not working.

AF, no offense taken. When I first started competing, I worked with a trainer that built my diet on fish, chicken, turkey, bison, green vegetables, beans, and pasta.

I then started working with Jason and ate white potato, lean beef and turkey, rice, and oats

I talk with other people who compete and it seems everybody's diet is different. I guess listening to everyone has caused me to get very confused.

Thanks Jason for the web site.

Good, glad to hear that I hadn't come across wrong. It's so difficult at times to interpret tone in an email.

Anywho, everyone does have their own approach and it does get confusing if you try to incorporate what they say. Just pick a diet and stick to your guns. As long as you follow it and keep focused on the end result, you'll be fine. Just take their advice all in stride and maybe use it later on. Right now you are spot on with what Jason set you up with the sweet, white, top round, turkey, oats, and greens.

You'll be fine. Best wishes in your competition. Knock em dead sister.