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ok, DD (age 24) and I are taking a boot camp style fitness class. We go 5 days a week and basically get the crap beaten out of us for one hour with kickboxing and all sorts of drills. Yeah, I went into it in shape but I've never worked out this hard. I always eat healthy, except for a nightly cocktail.

After 8 weeks of this I've gained 4 lbs and this morning when I put on my dress my arms wouldn't fit. My middle is maybe a little smaller but my stubborn love handles remain.

What will it take to freaking lose this? Or is this a losing battle at my age.

I get very discouraged exercising for weight loss. Running 3 miles only burns 300 calories, and then my appetite increases, and if I track it, it’s a lot more than 300 calories worth of food I’ll want to consume. So I try to just focus on fitness goals with exercise and save the calorie counting for my diet.

That being said, 4 lbs is not very much. Is this a sustained weight gain or possibly a fluctuation? As for your shirt being tighter, if it wasn’t the dryer’s fault, well buff arms aren’t necessarily a bad thing Either way, bootcamp 5x a week is great, especially for quality time with your DD. Hang in there!

I agree. I dont' really mind having muscle or weighing more, it's just that I thought there'd be a bigger change... and that I'd get really ripped...

she's lost 20! and I lOVE doing this with her. She's a former D1 athlete and you can tell she's still got it! I, OTOH, hold up the line during some of the more intricate drills.! HA!

Are you going 5 straight days or is the schedule staggered? With high-intensity programs, you really should be giving your body some adequate rest time in between workouts.

Love handles are handled at the meal plate, not the gym. Although you are eating a healthy diet, research MUFA’s – (fat burning foods) to help with that. Some right off the top of my head are nuts, dairy products (particularly Greek yogurt), eggs, peanut butter and whole grains (quinoa, brown rice and whole grain cereals). As you’ve mentioned your one cocktail an evening indulgence, keep in mind you’re consuming all empty calories with each one you drink and alcohol plays havoc on a women’s mid-section.

It also wouldn’t hurt for you to measure yourself. You’d be amazed at a difference consistent working out will do for your overall measurements. I measure myself about every three months and in the course of just over a year, I’ve lost over 30 inches on various body parts. Your arms are more than likely bigger because your muscles there are bigger, particularly if you do a lot of upper body conditioning moves.

Whatever you do, don’t give up! You may want to talk to your instructors to see what specific techniques you can use to target the areas from which you’d like to see better results.

ETA: Also - drink TONS of water during the day and make sure you are drinking a lot during your workouts. It's a natural diuretic.

AJ’s MOM

[This message edited by ajsmom at 1:23 PM, December 3rd (Tuesday)]

thanks AJ's Mom! I eat heavy on the protein, light on carbs - I won't do any dairy either because it has sugar so no on the Greek yogurt. I'm pretty much slow carb if anything... today for lunch leftover turkey and flacker (crackers made with flax seed) and hummus. having tea now... started day with Steel cut oats.

its 5 straight days, I take SAturday off and then swim 2000 yards on Sunday am and do hot yoga that night...

OOH I sooo feel your pain... I work out 5 days a week, weight training, spin classes, running, eliptical, I do it all and try to mix it up. And as a result I am much hungrier and I struggle with eating. I dont usually gain weight but rarely lose any unless I starve myself. I am 46 and I think the older you get the harder it is to lose... its an endless battle... uuugghhh

Hang in there!

Aj'som nailed it.

Its mostly about nutrition, not just the exercise sadly.

Get someone at your club to measure your body fat percentage and to from there.

It takes 3500 calories to burn 1 pound of fat. If you divide that up in a week it is a 500 calorie deficit per day which can be done by burning 250 more calories and eating 250 less calories a day. That's like not eating an extra banana. Your workouts should be burning anywhere from 300-350 based on what you've described.

That being said, my bet is on your diet not your workout. Also, you need to make sure you are eating enough and eating clean enough to fuel muscle development.

Hang in there!!!!

[This message edited by whiteflower99 at 10:21 PM, December 3rd (Tuesday)]

If you are eating that much protein and going hard 5 days a week you are probably building muscle mass. It's better if you stagger it like Ajsmom said - try mon/wed/fri if it is high intensity stuff, do a 1/2 hr of yoga on the off days instead.

Also, don't cut out all the carbs, move some of them to the evening meal. The no carb/low carb diets are about putting your body into starvation mode, which is bad. Consuming carbs as a majority of your diet is also bad, but like everything there is a happy medium.

This is a fun article that talks about the Broscience of No Carbs At Night:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/carbs-at-night-fat-loss-killer-or-imaginary-boogeyman.html

Control Group

So what's the explanation for the nighttime carb group losing more body fat and being more satiated than the control group (maybe we should call them the "bro" group)? The researchers postulated that more favorable shifts in hormones may be the difference. The baseline insulin values in the experimental group eating the majority of carbs at night were significantly lower than those eating carbs during the day.7 So much for carbs at night decreasing insulin sensitivity, right? Additionally, the experimental group had much higher levels of adiponectin, a hormone associated with increased insulin sensitivity and fat burning. They also trended toward slightly higher leptin levels. Furthermore, the nighttime carb munchers had lower levels of LDL (bad) cholesterol and higher levels of HDL (good) cholesterol.

Overall, the people eating the majority of their carbs at night lost more bodyfat and had better markers of health by the end of the study than those who ate more of their carbs during the day.

So What's The Verdict?

I am not ready to say that we should all be eating the majority of our carbs at night. I would like to see this study repeated but with a bolus amount of carbs eaten at one meal in the morning to properly compare it to the single high carb meal at night, whereas the previous study compared a bolus night time carb meal vs. several feedings of carbs throughout the day. It may very well be that the beneficial effects of the diet in this study was more associated with limiting carb dosing (and insulin secretion) to a single bolus rather than spreading them throughout the day.

However, I think what can be said with relative certainly is the notion that consuming carbohydrates at night will lead to more fat gain, or impair fat loss compared to consuming them at other times of the day, is false. Write it down: "Don't eat carbs at night, bro" has officially been busted as broscience!

Thanks everyone! I suspect I'm not eating enough. I know when I have a cheat day- thanksgiving - I don't drink at all.

One of the biggest lessons for me lately has been eating enough to actually lose weight.

Your body will go into preservation mode if you're not eating enough – while you are building muscle it will store the fat and hang onto it like a bratty kid who won't share a toy.

I too do high intensity classes - Body Attack primarily - three times a week. I supplement when my schedule allows with good old cardio and resistance and core training. As I got into the classes it became harder and harder for me to lose the weight. Why? Because I wasn't eating enough - particularly the "good" carbs. Now on workout days I eat a really big lunch - loaded with many fat burners, protein and good carbs. I also eat steel cut oats for breakfast and snack at least 4 times a day, usually fruit, veggies and almonds. I eat almonds incessantly and have a package in my car to grab when I feel like I need something.

Your schedule is very athletic which means you have to eat like one to support what your body is giving out in terms of energy. Think about what Michael Phelps ate during the Olympics - 12,000 calories A DAY! Obviously I'm not saying that, but you can't starve yourself with such a high energy-burning regimen such as you're on.