Stuck....and its depressing

[SociallyChallenged]

I would still suggest at least trying a heavy cardio routine for a week or two. If the OP is depressed because his progress is stagnating, making a relatively small change to his diet plan may not help in that regard. If you make a big change in your routine by doing heavy cardio while keeping your diet the same, you will start noticeably losing weight right away, which will be encouraging.

Cardio is just ineffective at enabling people to lose weight. I've known a lot of people who just lost the weight while weightlifting with no issues. Every individual I've talked to who did it with significant cardio remembers it being terrible - hunger pains especially. I support my reasoning and so does the physiology.

 

[KoolDrew]

I would still suggest at least trying a heavy cardio routine for a week or two. If the OP is depressed because his progress is stagnating, making a relatively small change to his diet plan may not help in that regard. If you make a big change in your routine by doing heavy cardio while keeping your diet the same, you will start noticeably losing weight right away, which will be encouraging.

Dietary changes will always have a much more profound effect.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Dietary changes will always have a much more profound effect.

Yep, and resistance exercises do not regulate hunger hormones, but still allow for maintenance of LBM. Win-win.

 

[rcpratt]

This is part of why I usually work out later at night. If I get back at 9 or 10 I can restrain myself from eating. Although to be honest I've never noticed cardio making me any hungrier than anything else.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

This is part of why I usually work out later at night. If I get back at 9 or 10 I can restrain myself from eating. Although to be honest I've never noticed cardio making me any hungrier than anything else.

That's because you eat enough on average. Try doing it in a substantial (~20%) caloric deficit and you'll notice the difference. Also, it depends on the individual. Some people don't get hungry very easily, while some are hungry by default. This method works well for both.

 

[rcpratt]

I'm a pretty hungry guy in general, and I was on a pretty substantial deficit at the beginning of my cut. Not saying what you say isn't true, it just never really seemed to affect me personally.

 

[QuantumPion]

I'm a pretty hungry guy in general, and I was on a pretty substantial deficit at the beginning of my cut. Not saying what you say isn't true, it just never really seemed to affect me personally.

Same here, maybe because doing a lot of cardio makes me thirsty, and drinking a lot of water after exercising offsets hunger.

Anyway while it's true that strict diet control and weight-lifting is the way to go in the long run, the reason why I suggested switching to heavy cardio is because the OP is already dieting and doing weight lifting but has been stuck with no results for a month. I think when this happens it is beneficial to change things up for a bit.

 

[QuantumPion]

Cardio is just ineffective at enabling people to lose weight. I've known a lot of people who just lost the weight while weightlifting with no issues. Every individual I've talked to who did it with significant cardio remembers it being terrible - hunger pains especially. I support my reasoning and so does the physiology.

Sorry, but that is just baloney. Just because some people can lose weight without doing any cardio doesn't mean cardio is ineffective. A pure diet+resistence program may be ideal, but I would say that a majority of people lose weight primarily through cardio (including myself).

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Sorry, but that is just baloney. Just because some people can lose weight without doing any cardio doesn't mean cardio is ineffective. A pure diet+resistence program may be ideal, but I would say that a majority of people lose weight primarily through cardio (including myself).

It's typically not the cardio that aids in most of the weight loss - it's the dietary changes. Cardio, in itself, has been shown in research to ONLY be effective as a weight MAINTENANCE tool. Dietary modifications are necessary to actually make sure weight loss can occur. However, most people aren't just looking for weight loss, they're looking for loss of fat mass. To conserve lean body mass, a resistance program is optimal. On top of that, as I said, hunger hormones (ghrelin, leptin, peptide Y, Neuropeptide YY, melanocortins) are more tightly regulated when the individual participates in endurance exercise. They aren't with resistance exercise.

Most people get overweight because of lifestyle issues or because they're frequently hungry. For those individuals who are frequently hungry, they may have either endocrine shifts (not pathologies, but some issues) or frequent/extreme perception of hunger (brain wiring issue). Hunger is probably the number one problem in why people fail diets. Second is probably self-discipline issues. For those individuals who always feel hungry, it's best to kind of nip that issue in the butt before they get demotivated.

 

[roguerower]

I am a hungry person if there is an abundance of food nearby. If not, then I am usually not hungry. My daily regimen involves a Cliff Bar in the morning, water throughout the day, and a pretty decent sized lunch. I go home, hop on the erg and do my workout for the day which can range from short sprints to 10k+ distance rows. I'll have an apple or some chips after that before going to bed. I've been at this about 4 weeks now and i can notice that i'm starting to slim down and replace the fat with muscle. My times also reflect this.

I really don't like going to a gym. I don't know if it's working out around people or not being able to control the atmosphere but I have found that I am more succesful with my PT when I can do it at home. Hence my success with P90X and my current workout regimen. I come home and my erg is sitting right in the living room telling me to get my lazy ass on it and love the burn. Haven't missed a day yet (Mon-Sat, Sun rest).

 

[thatsright]

Yep. I know it sounds counterintuitive to getting healthier, but losing fat mass improves your health by default. If you read the fat loss sticky, you can see what kinds of food will make it easy to get full (on few calories). Honestly, when I cut, I never felt hungry. The instant I started doing cardio though, I was ravenous... and it all makes sense physiologically. If you don't lose weight while measuring all your food (exactly) and counting every calorie you put in your mouth (yes, even those 3 chips), drop the calories by 200-300cal, then keep going. You'll find the sweet spot. Keep lifting heavy too and you'll notice difference soon enough.

I will drop all cardio for the the next two weeks. And I will cut back on cals by at least 10%. I've already reduced calories and have seen a noticeable weight loss that has been sustained for a few days now (well, at least when on I check on the scale). So I'll try this for the next two weeks and then evaluate.

 

[KoolDrew]

Sorry, but that is just baloney. Just because some people can lose weight without doing any cardio doesn't mean cardio is ineffective. A pure diet+resistence program may be ideal, but I would say that a majority of people lose weight primarily through cardio (including myself).

Even ignoring the research SC mentioned (which is correct), we know a pound of fat is around 3500 calories. Do you have any idea how much activity is required to burn 3500 calories? You'd have to burn something like 10 cal/min for 60 minutes, 6x a week. Compare that to simply removing 500kcal from your daily diet. This is why most research has shown compared to dieting alone, exercise tends to add very little in terms of quantity of weight lost. Especially considering that when most people think of cardio they end up doing something like a brisk walk 30 minutes 3x a week. Without any sort of dietary changes, they'd get absolutely nowhere. Even when added to a solid diet, it doesn't really add much calorie burn unless your a highly trained individual doing a lot of aerobic work. Then again, those usually aren't the ones that need to lose weight anyway. The simple fact is realistic amounts of activity are usually not going to account for much, the calorie expenditure just isn't significant enough.