This big push of more exercise and less caloric intake is beginning to affect my energy level. I'm tired.
Yesterday around noon I took a quick nap (20 minutes) and I still slept 8 hours last night. This morning, after an 8 hour sleep, I just feel drained.
I hope I'm not getting sick, but I have no signs of getting sick - just lethargy.
But it makes sense. I'm eating 1300-1500 calories a day and exercise 5-6 times a week and when I exercise, I give it my all. My body is running at a big deficit and all the reserves are getting used up (probably are used up) and my body is burning fat (and muscle - though I'm trying to prevent as much muscle loss as possible with strength training and exercise).
This competition is only 2 more weeks, so I can keep it up as I'm not doing anything extreme. I'm only eating a tad less than I normally would and only working out at most one extra day a week than usually. It's just not how the body likes to work. It doesn't like to dip into reserves. It doesn't want to burn the stored fat, so it tries to slow everything else down so that it doesn't have to burn fat.
Darn stinking body! I wish I could send it a message that in fact we are not in a food shortage, it's just that it's storing TOO MUCH FAT and I want to decrease the stores, but promise not to let it get too hungry.
I really don't understand how anyone could do this long term and decrease caloric intake even more. I could never be anorexic. I cannot stand being hungry and I don't like feeling lethargic. Eat under 1200 calories a day? I can't even do it for a day, let alone weeks on end!
And today is weigh in day. I drank lemon water all afternoon and stayed away from carbs for dinner last night. I lost a pound of the water weight I was holding, but I still won't see a loss for this week and might even have a slight gain. As usual. Two weeks of loss. Two weeks of holding steady on the scale.
Update: I did see 3/4s of a pound lost on the scale. I think that's because I was still "whooshing" before weigh-in last week as the scale is definitely higher for me at home than it was last Friday (before TTOM and the great stall-out arrived).
Congrats on the scale moving in the right direction, even if it's not as fast as you'd hoped.
ReplyDeleteI don't know how people can live below 1200 cals/day either. As I read the 3FC boards, I see some people are significantly below even that. It freaked me out for a bit, since I thought I was doing well averaging 1800/day. I know I need more since I'm bigger, but your mind can work with those things. I find myself thinking "If so many people are eating so much less than 1800, then there's no WAY I'm going to lose doing this". I've posted the plan I'm starting out with on my blog, and would love to hear if you have any advice. You're a rock star!!