I totally screwed up and mixed my reply in with what I was quoting for reference. To avoid confusion and misunderstanding, the following is what I wanted to say:
I’ve got to agree with pretty much what everyone has said, and I’m in the same boat of having to be careful with my weight. A couple of things:
Do some weight training – it helps reshape your body and burn calories. You don’t have to be some muscle-bound gym-hound. A personal trainer is good if you can afford it; your school’s athletic dept might also be able to set a program up for you. There are also lots of books out there.
What will help you get fittest fastest is to throw in a little intensity. If you are jogging, break into a run every now and then – to the point where you notice some difficulty breathing (what you’re actually doing is getting your heart rate up). You want to stress the system a bit to make it get stronger for the next time.
Swimming is a great cross training exercise, but you don’t burn a lot of fat doing it. It will really help you tone though. So if you want to swim, make sure you also get up on your legs and run a bit.
Finally, signing up for a race is great incentive to exercise. You don’t necessarily have to do a marathon, but it certainly can be done. A lot of us do a run/walk technique (say run 5 minutes, walk 1 minute) and I’ve done two marathons and a half Ironman with this strategy. Many marathons have time limits of 6-7 hours, which is really doable for a new runner with proper training. And there is nothing like getting that medal around your neck at the end.
Ken
Definitely start lifting. It’s amazing the difference it can make in your overall tone. And it’s sooooo cool to see the new muscle developing. I was always the slightly pudgy/puffy type and I didn’t really lose it until I started lifting weights. I still have big thighs but at least now they’re big muscluar thighs. I’ve seen many avid cardio fans who still look fairly flabby because they don’t have enough muscle. But, dont’ get discouraged if you find you feel a little bigger when you first start. You’ll be building muscle under the fat and it will take a little while to lose it.
Plus, pick some sort of cardio that you love and will do fairly consistently. If you wanna run, see if there’s a runner’s club in your town. Around here, the local running shoe store has organized workouts available for all levels of runners.
Anyway, don’t give up. Even if you don’t see a difference, all the exercise and healthy diet is makin’ a huge in your health. It’s tough to tell at 21 but, believe me, you’ll definitely be able to feel a difference at 35.
FWIW, I believe Mercury is female, from the fact that the OP mentions cellulite and “size 5”. Also, I know from Ogre’s other posts elsewhere that he is a working scientist, so he must be significantly older than the OP who is 21.
One thing I have to bring up is this: if the OP is really, honestly, cutting her caloric intake, then it doesn’t seem right that it should be so hard to lose weight at her age. I’m therefore wondering if there are some medical issues going on here. I suggest that, in addition to doing more cardio, she go to a doctor of the appropriate specialty (not just a nutritionist). I’m not sure what that specialty would be. Probably not “baryatric”, because it doesn’t sound like the OP is really fat anymore.
The exercise suggestions make good sense, but she’s not exactly a slug now. Middle-aged men and women should be the ones worrying about stepping up their metabolism (and I know!), not 21-years-young women.
A couple points for you, Mercury:
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If you drop your caloric intake too low, your metabolism becomes depressed and your body sheds muscle rather than fat. That’s bad, and could account for some of your difficulties. Or your caloric intake was right, but you didn’t change it as you lost weight in the first place, and now you’re maintaining on what you used to be able to lose on.
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If you’re going to run, run for distance. Studies that have compared a combination of a diet and a traditional aerobic program (30 minutes on the treadmill per day, or something like that) to just the diet alone have found that the exercise doesn’t really make all that much difference.
Ah, yes. ahem
Sorry.
Step up your cardio and try to add two days of weight lifting as well. You may gain a few pounds in the beginning, but that will only be because you are turning fat to lean muscle mass, and muscle DOES weigh more than fat. Don’t despair, though. You will start to notice a major difference in 4-6 weeks. Your arms will be firmer, your thighs will be firmer and you will feel more confident. Plus, muscle burns calories more efficiently than fat, so you will find that your body is becoming a calorie-burning machine once you have been lifting for a while. And you really only need 20-30 minutes for a decent weight lifting session. Just do 2-3 sets of 12 reps per exercise. Aim for 8 - 10 different weight lifting exercises.
If you don’t have a gym membership, don’t worry about it. You can buy a few sets of free weights to start. I’d recommend getting a set of 5 lbs., 8 lbs., 10 lbs. and 12 lbs. if you’ve never lifted before. A balance ball really helps, too. You can get free weights and a balance ball at any sporting goods store, or even at a Target or K-Mart. If you’re not sure how to use free weights to get a full-body strength work out, there are a lot of good sources out there. One of my friends swears by Body By Jake as a good source for exercise tips. I’m a big fan of the Runner’s World Web site myself. They have a strengthening section that, while geared toward runners, has a lot of good common sense advice on overall strengthening and targeted toning: Runner’s World Strengthening.
I agree with everyone who recommended you see a MD. When you go, get him/her to check your insulin levels. I happened to run across another thread in which you mentioned hair growth, which is very much linked to insulin resistance.
Boo Boo Foo, thanks for the information. That makes me think that I am on the right track with the stepper. (It is hydraulic and my feet do not impact with anything.) I would love to cycle but an accident put an end to that with a damaged tailbone.
Mercury, you might want to consider seeing an endocrinologist.
Sorry for not posting back sooner.
Yes, I am female. 
Also, as many people have pointed out, I have hormonal problems. I am currently on the pill. I lost 40 pounds before I was on the pill and 15 more after I started on it. Supposedly, as long as I take it, all should be well, but it seems like every day is a struggle not to become enormous.
Thanks to everyone for your advice. Right now, I do all my running inside, either up and down stairs or on a treadmill. During the summer, I started running. My boyfriend ran with me. He has asthma, so while I ran as hard as I could, as long as I could, and was half-dead by the time I was done, he ran like my grandpa. In a week, he was too thin for his pants.
Over the course of a month, nothing happened to me. I ran every fucking day, and nothing happened. This is part of what I’m talking about. It’s infuriating.
No, I’m not a slug, I try really hard. It would just be nice if you could *tell * how hard I work.
If you are havign hormonal problems that are helped by being on BC pills, it may be that you don’t process carbohydrates well. Maybe try the Atkins diet or something similar. My cousin told me about some inherited hormonal thing that she had (some sort of ovarian cysts), when I checked with my doctor because it runs in families, she told me the treatment was BC pills and one of the results is you don’t process carbohydrates well. The Atkins type diets are great for that.
Secondly, make sure you are exercising right. 20 well done crunches are more effective than 200 not done right. Joyce Vedral has some good weight training books for women. Make sure when you do cardio you are working out at level 7 or 8 but not higher or lower. Lower and you aren’t maximizing the benefit, higher and your body will start conserving calories just as if you were eating too few calories. Cellulite is a fact of life, not much you can really do about it that I can tell. Make sure you are drinking lots of water, pure water, not soft drinks, etc.
Third, don’t pay attention to what your boyfriend can do or not do. Our bodies are designed for differnt things. Women’s bodies are designed to further the species, in order to do that, it will store calories if it thinks it will be not getting enough ie a time of famine. I wish my car could learn to get by on less fuel.
I saw lots of cardio in your OP, but no weight training. Muscles are the little furnaces where fat is burned. Without adequate muscle mass, all you’re doing is barely keeping up (as you’ve discovered).
Further, with TOO much cardio, you can also eat away at precious and necessary muscle mass, not to mention potential cartilage and joint damage (though at 21, I doubt you have to worry about that much at this point).
Pick up a good book on weight training and add it to your routine. And no, you don’t have to spend 5 hours a day in the gym to have an effective routine. Even Jack LaLanne has a decent routine. The most effective and user friendly one for beginners that I’ve seen is Body for Life. It’s like the training wheels for beginning weight lifters, but without being condescending, AND with the added benefit of leaving out all the confusing jargon.
Yahoo has a ton of great online support groups to help with weight training questions, as well as provide rah-rahs, kicks in the butt and other support.
Hope that helps, good luck!!!
Mercury, if you have PCOS, the pill will fix the periods, but not the metabolic imbalance of insulin resistance. As adhemnar mentioned, a low carb diet might work well for you, but you also might need medication. If you do have PCOS and do have high insulin levels, you might have high triglycerides as well, all of which is not good for you in the long run as well as making it difficult to lose weight.
My own experience is that when I got my insulin measured, it was 5 times the normal level and although my blood sugar was creeping up, it was still normal. Too many MDs test blood sugar only, which I think is a mistake. Often by the time it is high, it is too late. Once I got on the right dose of metformin (aka glucophage, a drug used for diabetes that also works to lower insulin), I was able to lose weight for the first time ever and my triglycerides dropped from somewhere in the 300s to less than 100. I ended up losing 100 pounds with the combination of control of my insulin, a low carb diet, and exercise.
I believe you. In my original post, I mentioned that if you start running, you were likely to gain weight for the first month or so.
The question becomes, are you trying to get a fix here, or remake your body? You shouldn’t be thinking in terms of days or months, but in years.
You’re going to have to be living with your body for a long time. Think so and steady.
You can only make seven or eight pounds of new muscle per year no matter how hard you work out, but you can lose that muscle mass quickly if you diet
Also be aware that weight loss through exercise is most often a precipice event. You have to reach a certain take off point.
How far do you run in how much time? How many miles a week?
I have to agree with Ilsa here. You are doing far too many crunches. Scale back on those to maybe 100 per day. Abs are the only muscles that repair themselves quickly enough that you can work on them daily, but you cannot burn the fat off your stomach with crunches. Cardio is the ONLY way to lose the fat there.
~J
[QUOTE=Jaade]
Abs are the only muscles that repair themselves quickly enough that you can work on them daily…
[QUOTE]
Er…what?
The fibers of the rectus abdominis are no different from the fibers of any other muscle in the body. The only reason you can do crunches every day is because they really can’t do enough damage to make your abs sore. Throw in some decent weight, and you’ll find it takes just as long for them to recover as anything else.
On a related note, ultrafilter, I read that you get results from your abs much more quickly if you do crunches while holding a weight of, say, 20lbs. Is this true?
P.S. - I don’t have a cite to hand but ultrafilter is right about your abs needing as much time to regenerate as all your other muscles.
It’s really a question of what you’re aiming for. Keep in mind that crunches just aren’t going to burn fat off your midsection, so if those are the results you want, you need to concentrate on other things. If you’re looking to strengthen your abs, which can be a very good thing for preventing lower back pain, then adding weight is a good idea, but you probably need more to build any significant strength.
Personally, I feel that crunches are a waste of time unless you’re using very heavy weights, and even then, you can get the same results from multi-joint lifts–squats, deadlifts, military presses, etc.
I’m going to go in a TOTALLY different direction here.
You think you are too fat - but does anyone else? Look at the recommended weight tables. Are you overweight for your height or where you should be or underweight?
If you are underweight are you telling yourself that those tables don’t apply to you because you still look hideously fat? While you may indeed regain weight very quickly if you indulge, 5 pounds is not going to give you “rolls and rolls” of flab overnight. So I have to wonder if your body image isn’t just a little bit screwed up.
I’m not a fitness expert, but your current excercise program (300 crunches a day) could be considered excessive. And for all the excellent advice given here, lifting weights, etc. etc. isn’t going to help you lose your “excess” weight or keep it off if you are 10-20% below starvation levels already.
IF you are below desired weight levels right now, I’d worry very much that you are suffering from anorexia nervosa. This is nothing to toy with, it’s dangerous. Some people die while they are suffering from it, and those who recover have lasting health effects.