You spend 5 or 6 days in the gym...you track your macros to the point...you rarely cheat on your diet and yet your weight doesn't change...your measurements don't seem to be moving no matter how hard you work and you're thinking what the heck is going on!? So what really IS going on here...let's assume that you're healthy, you have a perfectly performing thyroid, no crazy genetics working against you (and of course you will have checked all this stuff out with your DR before starting in on a weight loss/training regime, right?? RIGHT??!!) Why aren't your workouts working for you?
I am definitely no expert, but I can share what has worked for me, especially when it comes to plateaus and just not seeing what I want to see as far as progress goes.
Let's start off with the biggest obstacle most people face when trying to lose weight/body fat - being accountable and being HONEST. You can track your macros, (fat/protein/carbs) but you need to account for every. dang. thing you put in your mouth. ERRRRTHAAAAAANG. You can't track just the healthy stuff. If you have a glass of wine or 3 after work, track it. If you are making cupcakes for the kids at school and you're cleaning out the tub of icing with your finger - track it. If you're clearing the table after your dinner and you're snacking on some leftovers (come on we've all done it) TRACK IT. We often overlook a number of calories when tracking our macros if we aren't paying attention to what we are doing. It takes absolutely no time to hit a 3000 calorie day if we are not careful. It requires 100% honesty and attention. If you don't track your macros - or at least your daily calories - you should start - at least until you have a pretty solid idea of what you're eating/when/and what you're dealing with regard calories in vs. calories out. Now, I'm going to be a little blunt here, but if you want to honestly lose weight, like really commit to it, just cut out the crap. 100% Learn how to eat clean, unprocessed foods and then once you've hit your goal weight or body fat % you can start introducing those "fun" foods back into your diet - in moderation. Including alcohol (I know - I am NO fun whatsoever) Cutting out the crap also means cut out the BS excuses you give yourself and others as to why you can't lose weight or workout or take a 20 minute walk every night. And hey, if you want a tray of cupcakes at 3am on a Saturday night - go for it, but don't wake up the next day wondering why your diet or workouts aren't working. If you've followed along with me long enough I'm pretty sure you know I don't like the word DIET. A diet is temporary - I don't know of anyone who wants to lose 15 lbs and then gain it back again, so along with the crap - cut out the word diet and start thinking in terms of lifestyle change - you want to lose the 15 lbs forever. (Or maybe you want to gain 15 lbs - same rules apply just differently).
OK so you say but I do eat well, I track consistently and always meet my macros, I do train regularly and its still not working for me, what now smarty pants? To that I say its time to examine your cals in/out and your training regime. Most people make the mistake of not eating enough to support their goals - our bodies need a certain amount of calories just to lie on the floor and do nothing...so if you're dieting down to 1200 calories a day - your body won't be able to support that sort of lifestyle for long and metabolic damage will start to set in, your body will start holding on to everything that you're putting into it to use as energy to just get through the day (let alone support any workout you're doing) in the form of fat. As an example, I am roughly 160 lbs, my basal metabolic rate (BMR) is somewhere around 2400 calories. So just to rest my body expends 2400 cals a day. Throw some training sessions in there and the number increases. Because I am in fat loss mode, my daily calories in are approximately 1900. So a 500 calorie deficit per day - which should see me lose about a lb a week. (500 calories x 7 days = 3500 calories which is what a lb of fat 'costs') Essentially you want to aim to get 80% of your calorie deficit from nutrition and the other 20% from cardio.
So if you made it through all those numbers, really take a look at your body type and determine what your actual calories in should be (there are different BMR or TDEE calculators out there on the interwebs) and adjust them as necessary. And no need to go crazy - adjust maybe by 200-300 calories for a few weeks and see what happens - if you're seeing action, great keep it up! If you're still not seeing any movement try another hundred or two - but keep it safe! I wouldn't suggest over 500 or 600 from your BMR because remember you don't want to put your body into starvation mode! You can track your macros by protein fats and carbs, but since I went plant based, my carbs shot up and my protein went down but I have found that as long as my calories are bang on I am seeing results. So don't get too hung up on the particulars if you're eating clean, whole, unprocessed foods your individual macros won't matter too much (come at me, broscience!)
Regarding your nutrition, another factor that comes into play is what you're eating when. If you want to burn fat either do your cardio fasted (i.e first thing in the morning) or at the end of your weight training. If you're doing your cardio fasted, fat stores will be called upon to give your body the energy it needs to get through. If you go for a run or hit the gym for cardio after dinner say, your body is going to use up the glycogen it has stored away from your meal, as opposed to the fat stored. If you weight train, do your cardio afterwards - the glycogen has burned away through the hour or so of weights and your post-weights cardio will rely on those fat stores. Follow up your cardio session with some good carbs to make that burn last and give you a quick boost of energy. I know I've focused on HIIT training over steady state cardio so I won't go into too much detail here but aim for those high intensity intervals, and try and get 3 good cardio sessions in per week. An added boost of cardio on your training days can come from active rest periods. Instead of 60-90 seconds of rest, try and use that time for some plyometrics (mountain climbers, jumping jacks, jumping rope, burpees *shudder* high knees etc) and move right into your next set.
If you are new to weight training you can start with full body circuits for the first 30 days or so to get things started, but after that I would highly suggest a training split that would focus on particular body parts to really start building and toning some lean muscle. You all know I follow different programs from BBCom that will last anywhere from 4-12 and sometimes 16 weeks...my goals change between muscle building and losing body fat - and sometimes trying to do both at once - but I never do one thing for too long. This allows the muscles to keep from getting used to the same movements week in and week out and even within one program there are often lots of different changes happening. Circuits also don't allow much time to hit each different part of a muscle group to get a well-rounded symmetry. But focus maybe one workout on maybe back and biceps, and you can hit upper, mid, lower back, lats, and both the long and short head of the biceps. For your next session, focus on chest and triceps for balance. Personally I like being in the gym as much as I can so I do a 5 day split with 2 days rest from lifting, but on those "rest" days I am trying to get additional cardio in. Right now I am 5k training with the Couch to 5K running app at least 3 times a week and also doing a 30 day Yoga Challenge so my "active rest" is pretty fairly covered. If I am in pure muscle gaining mode I don't do any cardio. After my 5K is done I will go back to 3 days of cardio sessions per week.
So like I said at the beginning, I am no expert, these are just things that have worked for me, and I always go back to when I hit a wall. The most important thing is to make sure any changes you're making are done smartly with your overall health as the number one priority. It is also important to remember that changes don't happen overnight so give any change you make a good 3-4 weeks to start working. In the meantime, cut yourself some slack, if you're dedicated to the change, and you're being honest and accountable it *will* happen, it may just take some tweaking. Everyone is different and different things work for each of us in a different way.
You are a beautiful human being - let that be your mantra as you continue on your journey to a healthier you.
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