First, let me preface this by saying I know this is what you all do for a living and I respect that. If you aren't comfortable giving professional advice I understand and won't hold it against you :-)
I mentioned in the weekly how are you doing thread that I am experiencing frustration with several things.
First, my running has really really sucked. About 17' and my legs are fried. I push through to about 25' but by the end it is an embarrassing shuffle. I'm doing leg work when I do strength training and I'm wondering if being tired from that is holding back my running. I would think building strength would help but now I'm thinking I should leave my legs alone for now and focus on core and upper body. My running is more important to me than lunges.
Second, I am not seeing an overall trend downward with my weight. There is no change in the fit of my pants. When the big daily fluctuations are taken into account the line is staying pretty much flat. I've been training regularly again for a month and I'd hoped I would see more progress. I track my calories and am on target +/- 100 calories occasionally. That means I'm taking in 1200-1300 calories a day. My weight is currently averaging 141 and my age is 43.
http://www.withings.com/en/utils/graph?userid=308151&publickey=b19917bc39fdfe95&massUnit=lb&forcedisplay=fm
I no longer have the personal trainer in my budget because Gold's requires a package purchase and I can't plunk down that much money all at once. I'm also not convinced my trainer understands my goals but I am noticing small improvements in balance but my upper body is still weak. This is after 3x/week strength training on her program. I'm beginning to doubt her effectiveness.
My current training looks like this:
Strength training 3x/week
Running 20-25' 2x/week
Swimming 30' 1x/week
Other cardio 20-25' 2x/week
If I switch up my training to something like:
Strength training 2x/week
Swimming 30' 1x/week - Potentially more if I ever get my butt in the lake
Running 20-25' 3x/week and slowly building to longer
Other cardio 30' 2x/week
All of the durations are going to be slowly increased over time. This is where I currently am today.
This would replace one strength training a week with cardio. Could this make a difference? My priority is weight loss then running. I am 15-17 lbs over where I am normally and on someone 5'2" with a small bone structure that means 2 sizes in pants and 1 size larger in tops to hide my gut.
As you can tell I am very frustrated. Am I expecting too much? I thought a 1lb/week weight loss would be a realistic target and that doesn't seem to be happening. I'm worried that cutting any further back on my calories would backfire.
Some of this is probably more of a rant than anything but any insight would be really appreciated.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jen
"In order to keep a true perspective on one's importance, everyone should have a dog that worships him and a cat that will ignore him." - Dereke Bruce
I mentioned in the weekly how are you doing thread that I am experiencing frustration with several things.
First, my running has really really sucked. About 17' and my legs are fried. I push through to about 25' but by the end it is an embarrassing shuffle. I'm doing leg work when I do strength training and I'm wondering if being tired from that is holding back my running. I would think building strength would help but now I'm thinking I should leave my legs alone for now and focus on core and upper body. My running is more important to me than lunges.
Second, I am not seeing an overall trend downward with my weight. There is no change in the fit of my pants. When the big daily fluctuations are taken into account the line is staying pretty much flat. I've been training regularly again for a month and I'd hoped I would see more progress. I track my calories and am on target +/- 100 calories occasionally. That means I'm taking in 1200-1300 calories a day. My weight is currently averaging 141 and my age is 43.
http://www.withings.com/en/utils/graph?userid=308151&publickey=b19917bc39fdfe95&massUnit=lb&forcedisplay=fm
I no longer have the personal trainer in my budget because Gold's requires a package purchase and I can't plunk down that much money all at once. I'm also not convinced my trainer understands my goals but I am noticing small improvements in balance but my upper body is still weak. This is after 3x/week strength training on her program. I'm beginning to doubt her effectiveness.
My current training looks like this:
Strength training 3x/week
Running 20-25' 2x/week
Swimming 30' 1x/week
Other cardio 20-25' 2x/week
If I switch up my training to something like:
Strength training 2x/week
Swimming 30' 1x/week - Potentially more if I ever get my butt in the lake
Running 20-25' 3x/week and slowly building to longer
Other cardio 30' 2x/week
All of the durations are going to be slowly increased over time. This is where I currently am today.
This would replace one strength training a week with cardio. Could this make a difference? My priority is weight loss then running. I am 15-17 lbs over where I am normally and on someone 5'2" with a small bone structure that means 2 sizes in pants and 1 size larger in tops to hide my gut.
As you can tell I am very frustrated. Am I expecting too much? I thought a 1lb/week weight loss would be a realistic target and that doesn't seem to be happening. I'm worried that cutting any further back on my calories would backfire.
Some of this is probably more of a rant than anything but any insight would be really appreciated.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jen
"In order to keep a true perspective on one's importance, everyone should have a dog that worships him and a cat that will ignore him." - Dereke Bruce