not a single pound lost?

[3apa3a]

The needle on the scale has been bouncing up and down for the past month. I've been watching what I eat, eating less (in college, you either eat crap, or you don't have time to eat, and I cut crap out of my diet), and dancing every day (for the first two weeks) for two hours, for a week after that for an hour a day (serious muscle pains), and took a few days off (shin splints set in and knees gave out - old wrestling injury).

The thing is, I really haven't lost any weight, at least not nearly as much as I feel I have lost. My legs are suddenly a lot more defined (weren't bad to begin with), I've gained cardiovascular stamina, and have been steadily picking up speed on the pad (6-7 feet, working on 7-8 feet). But the scale refuses to budge.

And another thing. I'm starting to kind of get bored with the game. I love the effects, but I can't do it if it feels like a workout, since the original reason behind me doing it was because it didn't feel like a workout and 2 hours felt like 10 minutes.

Any thoughts, ideas?

[Sateri]

OK, I'm not an expert here, but I'll take a shot at answering some of your questions...

Something I've heard a lot at this site is that exercising too much and not eating enough puts your body into "starvation" mode. Your body thinks that it won't be getting food anytime soon, so it holds onto all the fat it can in case of a famine or something along those lines. 2 hours a day--or even an hour--sounds like an awful lot (I think 30-45 minutes is generally suggested for a workout...). I don't know what exactly you've been eating or how many calories you've been burning, but that might be why you haven't lost weight.

If your legs are more defined, though, you probably have lost weight, even if it doesn't show. Muscle weighs more than fat, so if your legs are suddenly more muscled and you weigh the same as you used to, you have lost weight, whatever the scale says.

Bored with the game... I get this sometimes, too. But have you tried all the game's options? I don't know which game you have, but in the games I've played (all the PS2 ones), there are options to turn the patterns of the arrows, or to make them scroll from top to bottom instead of the other way around. Experiment. Choose songs at random if you play a few songs over and over (like I tend to do) and see if any new ones become favorites. Or try doing a mode you don't do often--endless mode always gives me a good workout, and the random songs it selects holds my interest. If all else fails, buy another game; you'll have a ton of new songs to choose from. Or see if you can have competitions with someone else--that might make it seem more like fun and not as much like a workout.

Phew. Hope that helps. Good luck

[Laura Moncur]

This might sound like heresy on a DDR board, but you could do other things for your daily exercise. I like taking walks to go to the grocery store or restaurant instead of driving.

There is a game called Yourself! Fitness, which is a workout video for your gaming console (Xbox, PC and PS2 was just released). It's pretty fun. You can read my reviews here:

www.starling-fitness.com/archives/2004/12/01/yourself-fitness-for-the-xbox/

Plus, running on the treadmill with a good movie to watch rarely feels like a workout for me.

[nonskanse]

Oh no! Other exercise!! *gasp*

Try a class (yoga, dance, kickboxing, whatever) if you can. They might get boring but if you pay a little money for it you'll be more motivated.

And do watch out for that starvation mode thing.

Also, as to weight not seeming lost...
I went about a month without "losing" any weight, or so I thought but I "suddenly" I was 3 pounds lighter one day, and it lasted. Sometimes your digestive system has to readjust to the smaller amount of food I think, so it freaks out a little. Try eating more fiber, it will ... help your digestive system cope a little and its better for colon, blah blah blah

[Jsn]

If you've noticed positive results then it's not nearly time to get down on this. You may not be losing weight at the speed you'd like but you have said you've lost some. Weight isn't easy to lose. It takes 3500 calories burned to lose a pound. When you're quite heavy it should start to go off pretty quickly with proper work... Then it slows down.

Once your body gets used to the workout you're doing then it needs more. If you're bored then things have become too easy and mundane to your mind. Go up on difficulty. That'll give you a harder workout and should keep you better entertained.