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The weight is just not coming off...

O

Oilucy

New member
I am a 39 y/o mother to four children, the youngest who is 4 1/2 the oldest almost 14.
I am 167cm, 58kg and 18.5% BF and am carrying some extra BF around my belly and hips which appeared mainly after the arrival of #4 and is refusing to budge!
I would really appreciate if there is anyone out there in the know who can critique my diet and give me some tips on how I can change things to aid in the loss of BF - my personal ideal is about 17% BF. I know I have very little to lose but these 3 KGs are proving difficult!
Currently I exercise numerous times throughtout the week: That is, twice on Tuesdays, twice on Wednesday and twice on Thursdays (I go before work and also in my lunch break - an hour session each time), plus one hour on Friday and one hour either Saturday or Sunday. Exercise comprises decent weight training together with 2-3km of sprints on the treadmill immediately following the weights. I have vamped up the weight I am lifting considerably in the last month and have seen noticeable and positive changes to arms, legs, glutes and abs whereby they are so much more toned now. I am really happy and motivated by the changes I see to muscletone however I cannot seem to budge my belly and hip fat and I know there are firm abs under there!
Diet wise, this is a sample of what I eat in a typical day:

Breakfast:
Porridge with almond milk
Protein shake with water and creatine

Morning Tea:
Boiled egg OR 1 slice toast with vegemite

Lunch:
Gigantic Smoothie (about 600-800mls) made from predominantly water with almond milk, frozen banana, 1 tblsp vanilla yoghurt, 1 tblsp avocado, maca powder, chia seeds, kelp granules (supposed to increase your metabolism), WPI powder, spirulina, flaxseed oil, acai berry powder and ice. I thought that this should be fairly healthy BUT is the banana not ideal for weight loss? Acknowledge my previous nutritionist (who was amazing) always said to avoid avocados due to fat content even though they are good fats. They make the smoothie so yummy and creamy though! I occasionally replace the banana and avo with raw cacao powder for a choc smoothie.
I also add either 2 boiled eggs or small tin of tuna or small tin of chick peas to my lunch and feel pretty full as the protein shake is really thick and fills me up

Dinner comprises things like:
Salad with zucchini fritters
Shepherds Pie
Fish with steamed vegetables
Salad with chicken fillet cooked on BBQ

I would consume circa 2-3 litres of water every day.

I generally have a cup of tea 4 times a week which gives me a huge boost pre workout but any more than that and I get a build up of caffeine and then a migraine.

Any suggestions as to whether any part of my diet needs attention would be sincerely appreciated. I'm worried the protein shakes I make might not be very good for weight loss though when I look at all of the ingrediants they seem ok to me with the exception of the banana and avocado??

I dont think I can realistically do any more exercise than I am currently doing as a) I dont have any more spare 'child free' time and b) I already push myself as much as I can at these sessions and try and increase the weights I use every few weeks.

Hoping to go back and see the Nutritionist I use to go to before baby # 4 was born but sadly I cannot see that happening until after Christmas.....
 
Oh geez I think I've just answered my own question. Went on to the Calorie King website and entered the ingredients of my daily protein shake together with the respective quantities of each ingredient - it turns out my shake has a total of 35.6g fat and 738 calories!!
Yikes!
I think I will be giving this up, sadly :(
 
Shakes, fruits, nuts... womens diets can be funny.. so high in calories. Nuts especially are insane.

Cut out anything that is small but has a lot of calories. Liquids (protein shakes etc) are the worst. Nuts are associated in the minds of most people with 'eating healthy' but can be worse than chocolate for putting on weight .

Something that I find fills me up and doesnt have many calories is several boiled eggs with toast & pepper (NO BUTTER!).
 
Oilucy said:
Oh geez I think I've just answered my own question. Went on to the Calorie King website and entered the ingredients of my daily protein shake together with the respective quantities of each ingredient - it turns out my shake has a total of 35.6g fat and 738 calories!!
Yikes!
I think I will be giving this up, sadly :(
Click to expand...

I know that shocked feeling.

I make my shakes with:

2 bananas
100g almonds
30g whey
Top up to 1L with milk.

1300 calories, ~500 each from the nuts and the milk.
 
Losing weight is simple but doesn't make it easy. You just have to burn more calories than you are taking in.

It will be difficult at times. You will have cravings and get hungry but you just have to try and work around it.

First you need to at least roughly work out the calories you are eating. As you have found out some foods will surprise you.

Ditch the shakes and protein powders. Not very filing, high calorie.

Don't bother with things that claim they boost metabolism. They don't and are a waste of money.

Find foods that fill you up.

Work with your body rather than against it. Eg if you often get cravings at night, save more calories for that time.

Eat a range of foods you enjoy and don't try and class foods as good or evil. That just sets you up for failure.
 
Bellyfat is a bugger when trying to drop the last few. I have never managed to shift mine even when I was at 19% bf.
Goodluck :)
 
Oilucy said:
Oh geez I think I've just answered my own question. Went on to the Calorie King website and entered the ingredients of my daily protein shake together with the respective quantities of each ingredient - it turns out my shake has a total of 35.6g fat and 738 calories!!
Yikes!
I think I will be giving this up, sadly :(
Click to expand...

Have a look here for some different ideas. Just because it says it is a preworkout shake doesn't mean you HAVE to have it preworkout. Also doesn't hurt to take stuff out or add stuff in, just keep an eye on roughly how many cals it is.

Smoothie Recipes for Everything | Smoothie Infographic
 
jj80 said:
Shakes, fruits, nuts... womens diets can be funny.. so high in calories. Nuts especially are insane.

Cut out anything that is small but has a lot of calories. Liquids (protein shakes etc) are the worst. Nuts are associated in the minds of most people with 'eating healthy' but can be worse than chocolate for putting on weight .

Something that I find fills me up and doesnt have many calories is several boiled eggs with toast & pepper (NO BUTTER!).
Click to expand...

I was always fearful of butter, so never used it.....

Then i weighted out a serving size and logged it.... its 36 calories for 5g

and 5g is plenty of butter to fry to eggs in.

I love my butter fired eggs :)
 
Bazza20 said:
Losing weight is simple but doesn't make it easy. You just have to burn more calories than you are taking in.

It will be difficult at times. You will have cravings and get hungry but you just have to try and work around it.

First you need to at least roughly work out the calories you are eating. As you have found out some foods will surprise you.

Ditch the shakes and protein powders. Not very filing, high calorie.

Don't bother with things that claim they boost metabolism. They don't and are a waste of money.

Find foods that fill you up.

Work with your body rather than against it. Eg if you often get cravings at night, save more calories for that time.

Eat a range of foods you enjoy and don't try and class foods as good or evil. That just sets you up for failure.
Click to expand...

This should be a sticky. And doing some light exercise (which the OP is already doing) helps burn calories.
 
Am I the only one who thinks that a woman who is already under 20% body fat who has had kids should not worry about losing more weight?
 
I think if she wants to cut her BF to 17% then who are we to tell her she doesn't need to worry about it? Just my 2c.
 
Agree with Riddles and Shrek.

20-21% is considered the lower threshold of "athletic" for a women aged 20-39, depending on which scale you read. Once you hit 40, the number goes up to 23%

18.5% is already well within the range that is considered "underfat". It's the equivalent of being under 8% for a man. If you rock that bodyfat level day to day you should be proud of yourself.

This is assuming the method used to measure bodyfat % was accurate.
 
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