doing cardio but can't loose weight

Hi,

I'm 36, 1m78 and i weigh 77 Kg. This is not a total disaster, but i'd
like to loose some weight, especially 'around the mid section' as they
say.

I don't diet, but i don't eat fast or junk food. I don't eat very
little but not much either. I guess i eat normal which is vegetables,
not that much meat, etc.

But most of all, i started doing a lot of cardio a few weeks ago!
Currently, since my health is improving, i'm burning between 350 and
500 calories per day!! I find this personally quite a lot and
increasing this is virtually impossible due to lack of time and having
a girlfriend who is not into sports :-).

Anyway, because of this cardio exercising, i feel better, my health
is increasing and i can exercise longer and longer! I feel great and
i don't intend to stop doing it.

However -here comes the problem- i am not loosing any weight. Nothing,
nada! Also in the past, when i was doing A LOT OF CARDIO(!!) --
running 20 km's without stopping-- i didn't loose weight. My health/
stamina increases a lot and i love that, but i don't loose any
weight?! Because i'm getting older, i'm having a bit of a problem in
the mid-section ;-), so i'd love to loose some weight. What can I
do? If this much cardio doesn't help me and in the past even more
cardio didn't help me. It's weird....

Any thoughts? I'm willing to try several things like counting
calories (which i never did before so i have no idea where to start).

But can someone tell me why all this cardio never helped me to loose
calories? I don't gain weight and i don't loose weight. Basically,
watching tv all evening or doing cardio all evening does have its
effect on my health and stamina BUT NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on my
WEIGHT! Is this possible??

Thanks for your input people!

Best,
Luc

Perhaps with the new exercise you have lost a little fat, but are retaining
water in your muscles, which is very common when you first start an exercise
regime.

Other possibility is that with the added exercise, your appetite is going up
too, and you might not even realize that you are eating to compensate.

I would reccommend counting calories for a few weeks, even if you hate doing
that, to attain a baseline. Try something web-based and free like fitday.
Count EVERY SINGLE MORSEL. There are so many little ways to sneak calories
in, a bite here, a bite there. It really adds up. It doesn't take much to
totally derail a 350 calorie workout.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi,

I'm 36, 1m78 and i weigh 77 Kg. This is not a total disaster, but i'd
like to loose some weight, especially 'around the mid section' as they
say.

I don't diet, but i don't eat fast or junk food. I don't eat very
little but not much either. I guess i eat normal which is vegetables,
not that much meat, etc.

But most of all, i started doing a lot of cardio a few weeks ago!
Currently, since my health is improving, i'm burning between 350 and
500 calories per day!! I find this personally quite a lot and
increasing this is virtually impossible due to lack of time and having
a girlfriend who is not into sports :-).

Anyway, because of this cardio exercising, i feel better, my health
is increasing and i can exercise longer and longer! I feel great and
i don't intend to stop doing it.

However -here comes the problem- i am not loosing any weight. Nothing,
nada! Also in the past, when i was doing A LOT OF CARDIO(!!) --
running 20 km's without stopping-- i didn't loose weight. My health/
stamina increases a lot and i love that, but i don't loose any
weight?! Because i'm getting older, i'm having a bit of a problem in
the mid-section ;-), so i'd love to loose some weight. What can I
do? If this much cardio doesn't help me and in the past even more
cardio didn't help me. It's weird....

Any thoughts? I'm willing to try several things like counting
calories (which i never did before so i have no idea where to start).

But can someone tell me why all this cardio never helped me to loose
calories? I don't gain weight and i don't loose weight. Basically,
watching tv all evening or doing cardio all evening does have its
effect on my health and stamina BUT NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER on my
WEIGHT! Is this possible??

Thanks for your input people!

Best,
Luc

On Apr 23, 9:05 am, wrote:

Any thoughts? I'm willing to try several things like counting
calories (which i never did before so i have no idea where to start).

" I exercise and eat well, but I still can't lose fat" is a common
lament.

There have been studies that even educated, conscientious people will
consistently underestimate how much they eat unless they track their
intake.

It is extremely easy, even with healthy food, to undo the weight
control benefits of exercise with what you eat.

I saw on a web site that if a man of my size works out on a rowing
machine for an hour, he will burn 661 calories. It would seem that
if I did that everyday, I would be golden in terms of weigh loss. A
person only needs to use 500 extra calories a day to lose a pound a
week.

Assuming all of my meals are reasonable, lets say that after my
workouts I like to get a drink and a snack:


1 20 floz bottle of coke - 220 calories
1 1.5 oz bag of potato chips - 228 calories

Both of these are sizes you would get from vending machines.....like the
snack machines at a high school or in the office.

Then, lets a few hours after I had my reasonable dinner I stay up late
to watch the news and pick a few Hershey Kisses out of candy dish.
Lets say I had 8.....another 200 calories.

All of my snacks for the day seem innocent enough. Anybody watching
me would not have said that I was a glutton and gorging myself, but
look at how it adds up:

220
228
200
--
648 calories - from typical snacking habits.

661 deficit from rowing - 648 snacks = a mere 13 calorie deficit in my
day, not enough of a deficit to make any meaningful change.

However, if I had counted my calories I would have known to skip the
snacks.....a very small sacrafice and at the end of the month I would
be about 5 lbs lighter. No starvation, just trimming the corners.

writes:

I'm 36, 1m78 and i weigh 77 Kg. This is not a total disaster, but i'd
like to loose some weight, especially 'around the mid section' as they
say.

Interesting, we are the same age, same height and about the same
weight too, I'm at 77.6 kg, down from 93.

However -here comes the problem- i am not loosing any weight. Nothing,

I guess it could be that you have magic metabolism and are really
eating quite a lot but don't gain weight even though you don't burn
it. It could also be that you eat more when you excercise. I don't do
much cardio as my appetite tends to be about twice the calories burned
or thereabouts...

Any thoughts? I'm willing to try several things like counting
calories (which i never did before so i have no idea where to start).

Fitday.com is one place to start. I don't count calories either since
in my opinion it would turn my life into food micromanagement hell and
I have been succesful with losing weight anyway. Anyway, just logging
everything you eat can give you a better understanding of how much
you're eating.

On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 09:22:20 -0700, determined wrote:

Perhaps with the new exercise you have lost a little fat, but are retaining
water in your muscles, which is very common when you first start an exercise
regime.

You spit this garbage out like you have a clue, which, you don't.

Other possibility is that with the added exercise, your appetite is going up
too, and you might not even realize that you are eating to compensate.

I would reccommend counting calories for a few weeks, even if you hate doing
that, to attain a baseline. Try something web-based and free like fitday.
Count EVERY SINGLE MORSEL. There are so many little ways to sneak calories
in, a bite here, a bite there. It really adds up. It doesn't take much to
totally derail a 350 calorie workout.

Totally clueless.
--
http://www.steppenwolf.com/lyr/mnnster.html

On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:51:19 +0300, Anssi Saari wrote:

I don't count calories either since
in my opinion it would turn my life into food micromanagement hell and
I have been succesful with losing weight anyway. Anyway, just logging
everything you eat can give you a better understanding of how much
you're eating.

Sanity, a breath of fresh air.

A Saari mentions, focus on the volume of food you are eating. Counting
cals is so inexact as to be practically useless.
--
http://www.steppenwolf.com/lyr/mnnster.html

On 23 Apr 2007 06:05:37 -0700, wrote:

However -here comes the problem- i am not loosing any weight. Nothing,
nada! Also in the past, when i was doing A LOT OF CARDIO(!!) --
running 20 km's without stopping-- i didn't loose weight. My health/
stamina increases a lot and i love that, but i don't loose any
weight?! Because i'm getting older, i'm having a bit of a problem in
the mid-section ;-), so i'd love to loose some weight. What can I
do? If this much cardio doesn't help me and in the past even more
cardio didn't help me. It's weird....

Nothing weird about it at all. First, you overvalue exercise as a
caloric reducer. If you were sitting on the floor doing nothing except
breathing, you would have some caloric burn. Add cardio, you get
marginally better burn.

Don't let all the doofi tell you about this and that, it's very simple,
the amount of food you intake and the amount of cals you burn are nearly
the same = zero weight gain or loss. Since increasing caloric burn thru
additional exercise is not on the table for you, eat less.
--
http://www.steppenwolf.com/lyr/mnnster.html

On Mon, 23 Apr 2007 09:22:20 -0700, determined wrote:

Other possibility is that with the added exercise, your appetite is going up
too, and you might not even realize that you are eating to compensate.

"If there are any magic bullets in losing weight - exercise is it.
~Determined Nov 28 2002, 7:08 pm"



--
http://www.steppenwolf.com/lyr/mnnster.html

On Apr 23, 6:05 am, wrote:
Hi,

[... can you interpret my posting and point out the obvious? ]

Sure!

I'm 36, 1m78 and i weigh 77 Kg. This is not a total disaster, but i'd
like to loose some weight, especially 'around the mid section' as they
say.

[ You see, I've only run into forty-seven people who told me that
there isn't such thing as spot reducing, short of surgery, liposuction
and perhaps injection of thermogenic drugs into specific fat tissue
sites. If only seventeen more people tell me that, I will believe it,
I promise! ]

I don't diet

[ I don't bother controlling intake, so I'm relying on dumb luck for
my intake to be less than expenditure. ]

, but i don't eat fast or junk food

[ ... because I read in a very reliable blog that that only junk food
has calories. ]

I don't eat very little but not much either.

[ That is to say, my eating pattern is somewhere between near
starvation and stuffing myself to a stupor. That ought to be in the
right ballpark for losing body fat, right? ]

I guess i eat normal which is vegetables, not that much meat, etc.

[ I don't get it. Vegetables aren't particularly fattening, and
neither is lean meat in small quantities. Do you suppose it could be
all that ``etc'' stuff? ]

But most of all, i started doing a lot of cardio a few weeks ago!

[ Ah, did I say earlier that I rely on dumb luck for my caloric intake
to be less than my expenditure? What I really meant to say was,
``exercise-assisted dumb luck!'' ]

Currently, since my health is improving,

[ Aerobic capacity equals health, right? No endurance athlete ever
keeled over from coronary heart disease. ]

i'm burning between 350 and 500 calories per day!!

[ Or, should I say, some unknown base number /plus/ 350 to 500
calories from exercise. So my energy expenditure is: unknown number
X + 500, where X is my base metabolism plus basic daily activity. And
my intake is unknown number Y, where Y is an unknown quantity of
calories from food which I don't measure or control. When you
subtract these, don't the two unknowns cancel out, leaving --500? So,
damn it, why aren't I losing weight? ]

Any thoughts? I'm willing to try several things like counting
calories (which i never did before so i have no idea where to start).

[ Well, I /thought/ at starting by writing down the very first thing I
put in my mouth after waking up in the morning, and determining the
number of calories in it. But that seems too obvious to be right! ]

On 24 apr, 00:19, Kaz Kylheku wrote:
On Apr 23, 6:05 am, wrote:

Hi,

[... can you interpret my posting and point out the obvious? ]


Hahaha :-), i had a really good time reading your reply. Thanks!

So counting my 'intake' as you call it, will be the solution to my
problem? Cool!
I'll start today...

Another question, let's presume(!) that my intake is still higher
than what i burn....
I never have a feeling of having stuffed myself, feeling absolutely
'full' or that i have eaten so much.
So.... if i should lower my intake then, won't i walk around all day
feeling (a bit) hungry?...

-Kris