Youve helped me before...

Question
Hi Richard!

I've asked you for your help about this time last year and it really worked.

I'm 5'5, female, 274lbs. I was 360 at one point, and I shed 100 lbs, but I keep gaining weight suddenly. I'm only consuming anywhere between 1200-1500 calories a day, and I try to stay active, whether it's running around at work, or working out at home. Aside from work, I'd say I get in about an extra 30 mins of exercise a day. Typically I burn 300-600 extra calories a day.

I'm very picky about what I eat and I count every little calorie. On friday I weighed in at 265lbs, now this morning I weighed myself in at 274lbs. This seems to be an ongoing occurence. I'll gain 10lbs in a week and I'm just afraid it's going to keep going up until I'm 360 again.

For breakfast I typically eat 2 slices of light carb reduced oatmeal toast, and some cottage cheese. This is at 430AM.

Lunch is at 12:10 and I'll bring in vegetables and meat or a salad, I usually will have a light and fit yogurt or apple with lunch.

Sometimes I have a quick snack after work, rice cakes or cottage cheese, sometimes an extra slice of toast.

For dinner - it's always ground turkey or chicken... and again vegetables.

Sometimes I'll have a yogurt for desert or a serving of frozen yogurt.

I usually eat out once sometimes twice a week and I try to order from the children's menus... When I have plans for dinner somewhere, i will not eat much during the day in order to compensate.

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I know I can't take this stress of constant weight gain....

Any suggestions?

Answer
It sounds to me like you're eating right. You've got all healthy foods listed there, and you're tracking your calorie intake. Good for you.

Your workouts... are you including STRENGTH TRAINING exercises? Weight lifting is VERY important. If you don't build muscle, then your body will metabolize muscle tissue before it burns fat. This is bad because muscle burns more calories (even at rest) than fat does. So you want to make sure to BUILD MUSCLE. If you don't your body will burn the muscle tissue you have, SLOWING your metabolism even more.

I'd like to see you get 20 to 30 minutes of cardio 2 or 3 times a week. Then on ALTERNATING DAYS start working out with some weights... even little dumbbells to start with. See my web site for a full list of exercises.

http://www.RicksWeightLoss.com

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