Are you still working out hours a day? Because from my experiences and my research, it's ideal and recommended you work out 45 mins -an hour. After that point, your body hits a plateau and it's like you're over exerting and working for nothing. I've definitely noticed I've gained a lot more results that way than when I was there for 2 hours.
Not in my experience. Once upon a time I transformed myself from a wimpy flabby skinny girl into a buff hard-bodied woman whose calf fibers popped out if I wiggled even one toe - and I did it in three weeks eating only vegetarian food and using no supplements and working out almost every day. Not only that, I didn't watch my consumption level. I ate until I was full. At the end of it I had two ankles with achilles tendonitis from overuse and I was on crutches, but I was strong, even if my heels creaked when I walked. I also dropped a pant size even though I was already thin, and I gained at least 15 lbs of muscle because that's how much more I weighed, which is a lot on my frame. I was solid. After my heels healed, I kept those gains for a long time. So, I don't believe that working out over 45 minutes is "for nothing" because that was quite an incredible transformation in an incredibly short period of time, but I don't recommend it because you could injure yourself like I did. Every once in a while my ankles still feel a little "gritty" inside and I wonder if I didn't do some sort of permanent damage.
When I'm lifting at the gym I try to max out. I'm not as young or in the same kind of shape as I was then and now I'm wiped out after 45 minutes of lifting. I can't push at that intensity for longer than that, but if I lowered my effort level, I could probably go for hours, which is what I did before. So I think it depends on how hard you're working. I can't give 95% for long, but if I lowered my effort level to 75% then I could keep going. I'm going for strength gains right now, so I'm not spending more than 45 minutes on any lifting workout.
My hubs is out of town (out of the country) for three weeks... so I am going to "do better" while he is away and try to tone up a bit.
Are you also lifting weights? I know that a lot of women are afraid of lifting too much weight, but the kind of transformation that can occur from it is simply amazing. The only body parts I avoid working on my biceps and I'm afraid to use weights for ab work. My biceps get some working out during compound movements for my shoulders or back or triceps, but I don't focus any special attention on them or do isolation work on biceps. I think that large biceps on a woman can give a manly appearance and I think I look more feminine with thin lithe arms. I work my deltoids (shoulders) and triceps, though, because I think that women who have nicely developed shoulders look very sexy and firm triceps can help with the "bat wings" we women are prone to getting, especially when we gain weight and lose it again.
Regarding diet, I thought I'd share the findings from a recent Australian satiety study I read because I thought that maybe you would find it interesting and useful. It compared how long a person would remain sated consuming the same number of calories from different food sources. Of the foods that were tested, for maximum satiety add to your diet potatoes, which topped the list, oatmeal (my personal favorite, which includes "savory oatmeal"), fish, oranges, apples, and grapes. I'm a personal believer in eating lots of oatmeal for one's health already due to it's high level of soluble fiber and low glycemic index score, so I felt vindicated to see it score so highly in this study, too. Fish scored significantly higher than any other meat on the list, way above the rest, giving us yet
another reason why we should be eating more fish. I also wish that they had tested more vegetables, but they didn't. I hate attempting to infer from so little data, but overall my guess from the data gathered is that vegetables are going to score higher than anything made from any kind of grain or rice with the exception of oatmeal.
Bananas were found to be as satisfying as cookies, but more healthy, obviously. I wish I understood why bananas scored so much lower than the other fruit tested because the fructose:glucose ratio and the carbohydrate content is the same as grapes and it has the same percentage of sucrose as apples, so why didn't it score as well? I find it interesting, but I'm a geek like that.
Surprisingly, white rice scored higher than brown rice and both were much higher than white bread. Finally that answers a curiosity I've had for a long time because the glycemic index score of white rice is the same as white bread, but I've always been certain that the whole picture was more complicated than that.
At the bottom of the satiety list were, in order of speed of digestion: croissant, cake, donuts, Mars bar, peanuts, yogurt, potato chips, and ice cream.
So, what I'm trying to say is that according to this study, if you want to feel less hungry and eat less as a result, then choose fish, oatmeal, potatoes (maybe in a vegetable soup or a stew), oranges, apples, and grapes.