Where am I going wrong?

[SamDowdy]

Cant lose weight and im actually gaining, I was eating around 1600-2000 cals a day and lost some weight then it stalled out, A nutritionist convinced me to up my calories to 3000 or more everyday. I done this and gained 7 lbs since tuesday.. I do kickboxing for a hour or more in the mornings and weight training and another hour on the treadmill or stationary bike in the evenings.. I get my carbs from oats, brown rice, fruits and veggies and only eat them pre workout, I get proteins from tuna, protein shakes, fish, hamburger, turkey, chicken, boiled eggs.. Seriously I dont know what to do, I go down to 2000 calories or less exercise hard, pop thermogenic pills like candy, stack that with addipex and still cant lose then im told im in starvation mode and I need to up my calories to 3000 or more and stop doing so much cardio, so I listen and I gain weight like crazy and what kills me is somewhere some lard ass who dont even exercise is sitting on his couch watching tv and just cutting his little debbies in half or cutting a can of pop out a week and losing weight like crazy and here I am exercising hard and eating clean foods to perfection and gain weight.. Any Advice? Im considering going to nothing but protein shakes, tuna and eggs and cutting down to 1000 cals a day..

[BloodySalad]

Slow down dude.

First thing - read the stickies.
Second thing - work out your BMR and TDEE.
Third thing - decide what sort of a diet you want.
Fourth thing - eat at a deficit.

It doesn't matter what sort of foods you eat - shakes, brown rice, lemon popsicles, whatever. To lose weight it's more calories out than in. Simple as that.

[ScSc0rP]

How long have you been doing this? 99% of the people who complain about not losing haven't been trying for more than a week or two.

The scale is deceiving. Keep trying, you'll lose weight. If you don't, you are either grossly underestimating the calories you are eating, or are an alien.

[SamDowdy]

I read the stickes some, maybe I will have to go back over them.. I read somewhere on here about the calories in vs calories out theory and asked the trainer about that and they seem to think I will only burn muscle not fat but im one of the people that stores everything I eat I think even with exercise. I may burn alot of muscle but I will just have to eat less and move more I guess..

[SamDowdy]

How long have you been doing this? 99% of the people who complain about not losing haven't been trying for more than a week or two.

The scale is deceiving. Keep trying, you'll lose weight. If you don't, you are either grossly underestimating the calories you are eating, or are an alien.

For years, I was 380 at one time then got close to 300 and had to have hernia surgey and got back up to 340 or so and im down to around 317 right now.. I have tried low carb, no carb, low calorie, and so on.. The most weight I lost was eating around 1600 cals a day from nothing but veggies, turkey patties and protein shakes and doing boxing for around 3 hours a day and weight training for 1 hour.. I will have to go back to that the way it looks

[phoenixr2]

How are you tracking your calorie intake would be my first inquiry. If you are gaining you are consuming too much. Working out like crazy and creating massive deficits with food while popping weight loss pills definitely isnt the best practice. What have you eaten this last week (Cals and macro breakdown) and whats your activities been?

[nlite2000]

For years, I was 380 at one time then got close to 300 and had to have hernia surgey and got back up to 340 or so and im down to around 317 right now.. I have tried low carb, no carb, low calorie, and so on.. The most weight I lost was eating around 1600 cals a day from nothing but veggies, turkey patties and protein shakes and doing boxing for around 3 hours a day and weight training for 1 hour.. I will have to go back to that the way it looks

You're 300 pounds. If you ate 3000 calories a day, that's everyday, and you count every bite you take, weight would fly off of you.

[JVRICHARDS]

I read the stickes some, maybe I will have to go back over them.. I read somewhere on here about the calories in vs calories out theory and asked the trainer about that and they seem to think I will only burn muscle not fat but im one of the people that stores everything I eat I think even with exercise. I may burn alot of muscle but I will just have to eat less and move more I guess..

Your trainer is stupid and should be fired.

[SamDowdy]

How are you tracking your calorie intake would be my first inquiry. If you are gaining you are consuming too much. Working out like crazy and creating massive deficits with food while popping weight loss pills definitely isnt the best practice. What have you eaten this last week (Cals and macro breakdown) and whats your activities been?

Im writing everything I eat down and figure up calories, carbs and proteins at the end of the day. Here is what I had yesterday and pretty much everyday is about the same as far as my routine and meals and timing of meals, 6am= Oats, 10 boiled eggs (then hit the weights for a hour) 8am= protein shake, 2 servings of fish 10 am= 2 servings of strawberries, protein shake 12pm= Turkey, veggies (1 hour boxing) 3pm= Chicken, lettuce, olive oil 6pm= Bananna, Tuna (1 hour treadmill) 8pm= Protein shake

[SamDowdy]

You're 300 pounds. If you ate 3000 calories a day, that's everyday, and you count every bite you take, weight would fly off of you.

Thats what I thought too man, Because I have seen people who do nothing at all lose more weight by walking a mile a day or so. I had my thyroid checked and it was normal.. Im not cheating either and adding in let's say dressing on my salads or eating a cookie here and there or whatever.. I was floored when I weighed this morning and had gained that much weight.

[SamDowdy]

Your trainer is stupid and should be fired.

Thats why im on here for advice trying to figure out what the heck to do.. I simply think some people are right when they say you simply got to burn more then you take in..

[nlite2000]

I simply think some people are right when they say you simply got to burn more then you take in..

That's incontrovertible fact.

[Brklyns_Finest]

Thats what I thought too man, Because I have seen people who do nothing at all lose more weight by walking a mile a day or so. I had my thyroid checked and it was normal.. Im not cheating either and adding in let's say dressing on my salads or eating a cookie here and there or whatever.. I was floored when I weighed this morning and had gained that much weight.

If you have no thyroid condition, then you're just not counting and measuring right. Sorry dude, thats all there is to it.

Like Lyle McDonald says, you are either "that 1 in 100,000 person with a metabolic rate below 1400 at that [300 lb] bodyweight (who has never been found to exist in any study on the topic over a span of about 5+ decades), or they aren’t being accurate in how much food they are eating or how many calories they are burning each day. You can probably guess which one I think it is."

[alexanderbrown1]

Slow down dude.

First thing - read the stickies.
Second thing - work out your BMR and TDEE.
Third thing - decide what sort of a diet you want.
Fourth thing - eat at a deficit.

It doesn't matter what sort of foods you eat - shakes, brown rice, lemon popsicles, whatever. To lose weight it's more calories out than in. Simple as that.

agree

[mpipes]

The fatty on the couch, cutting his ho-ho intake in half and losing weight at a consistent pace is on to something.

As long as I've been at this game, I always seem to get my best progress doing the absolute minimum, and end up in stalls every time I try to push the limits. That hasn't stopped me from pushing of course


keep the proteins, veggies and fruits in your diet but drop the starch - oats, brown rice, pasta, potatoes, etc.

Then reduce your exercise to 2 or 3 days lifting each week, and moderate/light cardio 3 days/week or do 6 days if you want but keep the intensity very light, nothing more. No more kickboxing and no more morning/evening sessions on the same day.

If you feel you need more activity, get a hobby that will keep you busy for hours at a time, but is nowhere close to being considered exercise. All you want is general activity/busy work, very low grade physical exertion.

The exercise stress plus dieting stress is spinning you in circles, and as you have experienced, refeeds (ie the 3000 kcal recommendation) along with starch carb intake will mess you up if you put too much stock into what scales say.

Getting rid of the starch will knock a HUGE chunk of useless calories out of your daily intake and reducing exercise load will allow you to not miss those carbs at all. Of course with less carbs you won't have the gas for higher intensity work which is fine, that stuff is messing you up and right now you need to take a step back from training and chill out. The hobby will give you something to do to take your mind off the training you're no longer doing, and hobbies that take an extended amount of time also help with calorie burning and stress relief. Less exercise, less calorie intake, less frustration. Life is good.

Sounds like your expectations might be too high as well. Weight "flying off" you would be about 2-3lbs per week. At 300lbs this target is surprisingly easy. I mean, it still sucks pretty bad, dieting is dieting, but at your weight you don't need to pull the training tricks out just yet. When you're down in the low 200's ****'s gonna get real hard if you rely on exercise too much when you're 300lbs!

[rob44023]

Buy a set of food scales from Walmart. I paid $18 for my digital set and weighed everything that went into my mouth down to the gram. Log your food on a site like livestrong.com. In fact you need to preplan what you are going to eat so you don't over eat. Make sure you are getting at least 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per lean body pound to minimize or completely avoid losing muscle. My guess is that you are in a different place then your trainer if he is filling your head with the nonsense that you are going to lose muscle if you are in a calorie deficit. We are genetically programmed to store fat to burn for energy when times are lean. You just need to make certain you are providing your body with the proper nutrients. This will probably equate to taking a few supplements, in particular whey protein and glutamine. I just totally transformed my body in 12 weeks for the ON Challenge through hard work, proper nutrition, and having a sound plan to accomplish my goals. You can do it. Good luck!

[SamDowdy]

If you have no thyroid condition, then you're just not counting and measuring right. Sorry dude, thats all there is to it.

Like Lyle McDonald says, you are either "that 1 in 100,000 person with a metabolic rate below 1400 at that [300 lb] bodyweight (who has never been found to exist in any study on the topic over a span of about 5+ decades), or they aren’t being accurate in how much food they are eating or how many calories they are burning each day. You can probably guess which one I think it is."

I have always had probs dropping weight, the only time I ever lost any noticable weight was doing around 3 hours of cardio a day and a hour of weight training and staying very low calorie for about 3 months and dropped 60 or so lbs.. Im measuring out portion and serving sizes exaclty to what they are and using a calculator to add it all up and double check it everday.. But I dont know whats going on.. I dont know how many calories im burning exercising but im not candy assing it when I do my boxing or steady state cardio workouts so I dunno. Im just gonna have too burn more then I take in from now on

[SamDowdy]

Buy a set of food scales from Walmart. I paid $18 for my digital set and weighed everything that went into my mouth down to the gram. Log your food on a site like livestrong.com. In fact you need to preplan what you are going to eat so you don't over eat. Make sure you are getting at least 1 to 1.5 grams of protein per lean body pound to minimize or completely avoid losing muscle. My guess is that you are in a different place then your trainer if he is filling your head with the nonsense that you are going to lose muscle if you are in a calorie deficit. We are genetically programmed to store fat to burn for energy when times are lean. You just need to make certain you are providing your body with the proper nutrients. This will probably equate to taking a few supplements, in particular whey protein and glutamine. I just totally transformed my body in 12 weeks for the ON Challenge through hard work, proper nutrition, and having a sound plan to accomplish my goals. You can do it. Good luck!

Thanks for the advice, I will check into the scales and the livestrong site

[SamDowdy]

The fatty on the couch, cutting his ho-ho intake in half and losing weight at a consistent pace is on to something.

As long as I've been at this game, I always seem to get my best progress doing the absolute minimum, and end up in stalls every time I try to push the limits. That hasn't stopped me from pushing of course


keep the proteins, veggies and fruits in your diet but drop the starch - oats, brown rice, pasta, potatoes, etc.

Then reduce your exercise to 2 or 3 days lifting each week, and moderate/light cardio 3 days/week or do 6 days if you want but keep the intensity very light, nothing more. No more kickboxing and no more morning/evening sessions on the same day.

If you feel you need more activity, get a hobby that will keep you busy for hours at a time, but is nowhere close to being considered exercise. All you want is general activity/busy work, very low grade physical exertion.

The exercise stress plus dieting stress is spinning you in circles, and as you have experienced, refeeds (ie the 3000 kcal recommendation) along with starch carb intake will mess you up if you put too much stock into what scales say.

Getting rid of the starch will knock a HUGE chunk of useless calories out of your daily intake and reducing exercise load will allow you to not miss those carbs at all. Of course with less carbs you won't have the gas for higher intensity work which is fine, that stuff is messing you up and right now you need to take a step back from training and chill out. The hobby will give you something to do to take your mind off the training you're no longer doing, and hobbies that take an extended amount of time also help with calorie burning and stress relief. Less exercise, less calorie intake, less frustration. Life is good.

Sounds like your expectations might be too high as well. Weight "flying off" you would be about 2-3lbs per week. At 300lbs this target is surprisingly easy. I mean, it still sucks pretty bad, dieting is dieting, but at your weight you don't need to pull the training tricks out just yet. When you're down in the low 200's ****'s gonna get real hard if you rely on exercise too much when you're 300lbs!

Thanks for the advice, I plan on cutting out the rice and sticking to mostly fruits and veggies for the pre workout carbs.. I may try cutting back on one or more of the extra cardio hours during the week and see what happens and switch cardio to first thing in the morning and weights in the evening

[creepa200]

One thing I learned over the past year is to many changes to fast is not good. Wait for a 3 week stall before doing anything. You could have easily ate more sodium the day before weigh in which would lead to extra water weight. So many things can change from week to week. I personally weigh myself every single day so I know which way I'm headed some what.

I'm currently in a plateau myself around 156-158 for like a month now. Tried jumping up to 2000-2500 calories per day and still the same. No weight gain or loss. Really disappointing but least I know I can eat up to 2500 and not gain lol. I been eating 1600 since January. Was working fine but lately just nothing is making me drop weight. Tried the upping of calories for like 2 weeks and still no change. Gonna drop back down to 1600 and see if my body was just ****ed up.

Don't look at plateaus as a bad thing though. Really your body could be recomping or it could be simple water weight. Personally this plateau feels like I'm recomping cause I notice stomach and moobs are smaller but some muscles seem thicker and more dense. I'll take whatever my body decides to change. Though no scale change is surely demotivating sometimes.

Keep pushing and don't change to much at once or you'll never know what works and it'll always be a up and sown battle.

[SamDowdy]

One thing I learned over the past year is to many changes to fast is not good. Wait for a 3 week stall before doing anything. You could have easily ate more sodium the day before weigh in which would lead to extra water weight. So many things can change from week to week. I personally weigh myself every single day so I know which way I'm headed some what.

I'm currently in a plateau myself around 156-158 for like a month now. Tried jumping up to 2000-2500 calories per day and still the same. No weight gain or loss. Really disappointing but least I know I can eat up to 2500 and not gain lol. I been eating 1600 since January. Was working fine but lately just nothing is making me drop weight. Tried the upping of calories for like 2 weeks and still no change. Gonna drop back down to 1600 and see if my body was just ****ed up.

Don't look at plateaus as a bad thing though. Really your body could be recomping or it could be simple water weight. Personally this plateau feels like I'm recomping cause I notice stomach and moobs are smaller but some muscles seem thicker and more dense. I'll take whatever my body decides to change. Though no scale change is surely demotivating sometimes.

Keep pushing and don't change to much at once or you'll never know what works and it'll always be a up and sown battle.

I used to weigh myself everyday as well but was told not too because water weight could cause a 2-3 lb swing everyday so I waited about 4-5 days and then had the 7lb weight gain, so I dont know it may be water weight, I just know im scratching my head because I know how hard I killed it in the gym this week and I know I stuck to my diet and to see a gain like that sucks bigtime and has got me confused on weather to go back to very low calories or try to get around 3000 or more as some have said, I will probably just stay the same for another week and see what happens, may back off on exercise a little as I may be overtraining too

[madgravity34]

Listen man, take a second, clear your head, and take a step back. This is the stage that many weak-minded and emotional individuals never get passed because you are too busy focusing on one thing: "If I diet, then everytime I check my weight in X amount of time, it should be lower." Let me clarify something to you, THIS IS NOT THE CASE and thinking so will screw you up as it already has.

It appears to me that you are fighting more of a psychological battle than you are a physical one. Quite simply, its a matter of math/physics/energy. NO IF ANDS BUTS or exceptions to this rule: CALORIES IN MUST BE LESS THAN CALORIES OUT. So now once you accept this, you must take a psychological note, you must say to yourself that you are not unique. That your body and your struggle to lose weight is the same as everyone elses. You may start at a higher weight, and your metabolism may be slightly lower, but hell, 90% of this process is the same for you as for me.

Now take the above and move on to the next step. Accept that this process is to create a healthier lifestyle and a healthier you. You are not in a rush. Where are you trying to go? Are you saying once you get 40lbs lighter that you are done eating healthy? Are you saying that once you get to 200lbs you are done eating healthy? You see what I am saying here? This is a path to creating a new lifestyle, this aint no 90 day **** son!

Feel free to experiment, feel free to allow yourself to cheat or slip-up every once in awhile, these things happen, but trust me they make this process a lot of fun and allow your body to make huge changes.

So on to your concerns and frustrations. You gained 7lbs when you expected not to, big deal, this is actually expected. You went from cutting to suddenly eating extra calories, what happens is the cutting makes your body very sensitive to carbs and re-storing water. As soon as you ate 3000 calories, your body absorbed a lot of water you had lost in the previous days jumping your weight up. If you eat at 2000 calories for the next few days you will notice you will urinate more despite how much water you are drinking and you will see your weight get back down. These are things you should come to expect.

In fact, I often mentally state to myself that I consider myself to still be 230lbs if I wake up in the morning and weight 222. This is because I know that all it takes for me to jump up is a carb-heavy day or 2. So don't freak out when you see this.

My Advice:

The best thing you can do is to start at a number, say 2500 calories. Learn to enjoy this number and decide what works better for you are your schedule. Do you obsess everyday and always calculate food, or just create a plan for on/off days and eat the same thing so you can relax and focus on other things? Pick what you like but stick to it.

Do not weight yourself for the next 2 weeks while you are at this number. Focus on STICKING STRICTLY TO 2500 CALORIES! Then 2 weeks from your first 2500 calorie (take a baseline weight on this morning), weight yourself. Weight yourself at the exact same time and after you have pissed/crapped and before you have put anything in your body (this is the reason my weigh-in is every Monday morning first thing after I do my thing, right before breakfast). See where you are and if you are down then continue on. You can move to weighing yourself every week (same time + conditions) but always keep in mind that some weeks you won't see a change, or maybe it will be slightly up, and some weeks you will see a big drop down! Be ready for all of it, this is why sticking with your diet and educating yourself are so important, because you can KNOW that you are doing the right things to reduce your weight and that its only about HOW LONG it takes for YOUR BODY to get there.

I do hope you calm down and learn to take this in stride, because once you do, you will realize this whole process is a lot easier than you are making it out to be. And you will look back and read these posts of yours and laugh at how stressed you were over nothing.


-MG-

[Brklyns_Finest]

Listen man, take a second, clear your head, and take a step back. This is the stage that many weak-minded and emotional individuals never get passed because you are too busy focusing on one thing: "If I diet, then everytime I check my weight in X amount of time, it should be lower." Let me clarify something to you, THIS IS NOT THE CASE and thinking so will screw you up as it already has.

It appears to me that you are fighting more of a psychological battle than you are a physical one. Quite simply, its a matter of math/physics/energy. NO IF ANDS BUTS or exceptions to this rule: CALORIES IN MUST BE LESS THAN CALORIES OUT. So now once you accept this, you must take a psychological note, you must say to yourself that you are not unique. That your body and your struggle to lose weight is the same as everyone elses. You may start at a higher weight, and your metabolism may be slightly lower, but hell, 90% of this process is the same for you as for me.

Now take the above and move on to the next step. Accept that this process is to create a healthier lifestyle and a healthier you. You are not in a rush. Where are you trying to go? Are you saying once you get 40lbs lighter that you are done eating healthy? Are you saying that once you get to 200lbs you are done eating healthy? You see what I am saying here? This is a path to creating a new lifestyle, this aint no 90 day **** son!

Feel free to experiment, feel free to allow yourself to cheat or slip-up every once in awhile, these things happen, but trust me they make this process a lot of fun and allow your body to make huge changes.

So on to your concerns and frustrations. You gained 7lbs when you expected not to, big deal, this is actually expected. You went from cutting to suddenly eating extra calories, what happens is the cutting makes your body very sensitive to carbs and re-storing water. As soon as you ate 3000 calories, your body absorbed a lot of water you had lost in the previous days jumping your weight up. If you eat at 2000 calories for the next few days you will notice you will urinate more despite how much water you are drinking and you will see your weight get back down. These are things you should come to expect.

In fact, I often mentally state to myself that I consider myself to still be 230lbs if I wake up in the morning and weight 222. This is because I know that all it takes for me to jump up is a carb-heavy day or 2. So don't freak out when you see this.

My Advice:

The best thing you can do is to start at a number, say 2500 calories. Learn to enjoy this number and decide what works better for you are your schedule. Do you obsess everyday and always calculate food, or just create a plan for on/off days and eat the same thing so you can relax and focus on other things? Pick what you like but stick to it.

Do not weight yourself for the next 2 weeks while you are at this number. Focus on STICKING STRICTLY TO 2500 CALORIES! Then 2 weeks from your first 2500 calorie (take a baseline weight on this morning), weight yourself. Weight yourself at the exact same time and after you have pissed/crapped and before you have put anything in your body (this is the reason my weigh-in is every Monday morning first thing after I do my thing, right before breakfast). See where you are and if you are down then continue on. You can move to weighing yourself every week (same time + conditions) but always keep in mind that some weeks you won't see a change, or maybe it will be slightly up, and some weeks you will see a big drop down! Be ready for all of it, this is why sticking with your diet and educating yourself are so important, because you can KNOW that you are doing the right things to reduce your weight and that its only about HOW LONG it takes for YOUR BODY to get there.

I do hope you calm down and learn to take this in stride, because once you do, you will realize this whole process is a lot easier than you are making it out to be. And you will look back and read these posts of yours and laugh at how stressed you were over nothing.


-MG-

[bigmikey81]

Cant lose weight and im actually gaining, I was eating around 1600-2000 cals a day and lost some weight then it stalled out, A nutritionist convinced me to up my calories to 3000 or more everyday. I done this and gained 7 lbs since tuesday.. I do kickboxing for a hour or more in the mornings and weight training and another hour on the treadmill or stationary bike in the evenings.. I get my carbs from oats, brown rice, fruits and veggies and only eat them pre workout, I get proteins from tuna, protein shakes, fish, hamburger, turkey, chicken, boiled eggs.. Seriously I dont know what to do, I go down to 2000 calories or less exercise hard, pop thermogenic pills like candy, stack that with addipex and still cant lose then im told im in starvation mode and I need to up my calories to 3000 or more and stop doing so much cardio, so I listen and I gain weight like crazy and what kills me is somewhere some lard ass who dont even exercise is sitting on his couch watching tv and just cutting his little debbies in half or cutting a can of pop out a week and losing weight like crazy and here I am exercising hard and eating clean foods to perfection and gain weight.. Any Advice? Im considering going to nothing but protein shakes, tuna and eggs and cutting down to 1000 cals a day..

-At 2000 cal per day at 300+ you did not stall out. I'm on a 2000 cal per day diet for 2 months now and I'm losing as steady as ever. You are not counting calories properly. Eyeballing it is a major flaw in amateurs, like you and I, when it comes to dieting.

-At 3000 cal per day you would still be losing fat at your weight with the exercise you listed.

-Where your carbs and protein come from is irrelavent. What matters is how many you have and how many calories they add up to, fat included of course.

-You do not need thermogenic pills, or addipex (no clue what it is, but it's a waste).

-You are not in starvation mode. Unless you are 5% body fat at 328, which I'm taking an educated guess that you are not. Arnold was 5% body fat in 1975 when competing to give you a reference.




Read the stickies. You WILL lose weight if you apply the great information they provide.

[SamDowdy]

Listen man, take a second, clear your head, and take a step back. This is the stage that many weak-minded and emotional individuals never get passed because you are too busy focusing on one thing: "If I diet, then everytime I check my weight in X amount of time, it should be lower." Let me clarify something to you, THIS IS NOT THE CASE and thinking so will screw you up as it already has.

It appears to me that you are fighting more of a psychological battle than you are a physical one. Quite simply, its a matter of math/physics/energy. NO IF ANDS BUTS or exceptions to this rule: CALORIES IN MUST BE LESS THAN CALORIES OUT. So now once you accept this, you must take a psychological note, you must say to yourself that you are not unique. That your body and your struggle to lose weight is the same as everyone elses. You may start at a higher weight, and your metabolism may be slightly lower, but hell, 90% of this process is the same for you as for me.

Now take the above and move on to the next step. Accept that this process is to create a healthier lifestyle and a healthier you. You are not in a rush. Where are you trying to go? Are you saying once you get 40lbs lighter that you are done eating healthy? Are you saying that once you get to 200lbs you are done eating healthy? You see what I am saying here? This is a path to creating a new lifestyle, this aint no 90 day **** son!

Feel free to experiment, feel free to allow yourself to cheat or slip-up every once in awhile, these things happen, but trust me they make this process a lot of fun and allow your body to make huge changes.

So on to your concerns and frustrations. You gained 7lbs when you expected not to, big deal, this is actually expected. You went from cutting to suddenly eating extra calories, what happens is the cutting makes your body very sensitive to carbs and re-storing water. As soon as you ate 3000 calories, your body absorbed a lot of water you had lost in the previous days jumping your weight up. If you eat at 2000 calories for the next few days you will notice you will urinate more despite how much water you are drinking and you will see your weight get back down. These are things you should come to expect.

In fact, I often mentally state to myself that I consider myself to still be 230lbs if I wake up in the morning and weight 222. This is because I know that all it takes for me to jump up is a carb-heavy day or 2. So don't freak out when you see this.

My Advice:

The best thing you can do is to start at a number, say 2500 calories. Learn to enjoy this number and decide what works better for you are your schedule. Do you obsess everyday and always calculate food, or just create a plan for on/off days and eat the same thing so you can relax and focus on other things? Pick what you like but stick to it.

Do not weight yourself for the next 2 weeks while you are at this number. Focus on STICKING STRICTLY TO 2500 CALORIES! Then 2 weeks from your first 2500 calorie (take a baseline weight on this morning), weight yourself. Weight yourself at the exact same time and after you have pissed/crapped and before you have put anything in your body (this is the reason my weigh-in is every Monday morning first thing after I do my thing, right before breakfast). See where you are and if you are down then continue on. You can move to weighing yourself every week (same time + conditions) but always keep in mind that some weeks you won't see a change, or maybe it will be slightly up, and some weeks you will see a big drop down! Be ready for all of it, this is why sticking with your diet and educating yourself are so important, because you can KNOW that you are doing the right things to reduce your weight and that its only about HOW LONG it takes for YOUR BODY to get there.

I do hope you calm down and learn to take this in stride, because once you do, you will realize this whole process is a lot easier than you are making it out to be. And you will look back and read these posts of yours and laugh at how stressed you were over nothing.


-MG-

Some much needed advice and motivation, I do realize now that it is in my case anyways calories in vs calories out, My goal is to get down below 300 first then to get to 250, I was hopeing to achieve this before the year is out, I think 2500 cals is a good number to start with and see what happens, it's kinda in between what I would consider low and high calorie which is good and should let me know how my body is gonna react after a few weeks.. I have just been down this road so many times with the weight gains and stalls even with me knowing im doing everything I can to change. I will let you know in a few weeks if anything changes or not

[SamDowdy]

-At 2000 cal per day at 300+ you did not stall out. I'm on a 2000 cal per day diet for 2 months now and I'm losing as steady as ever. You are not counting calories properly. Eyeballing it is a major flaw in amateurs, like you and I, when it comes to dieting.

-At 3000 cal per day you would still be losing fat at your weight with the exercise you listed.

-Where your carbs and protein come from is irrelavent. What matters is how many you have and how many calories they add up to, fat included of course.

-You do not need thermogenic pills, or addipex (no clue what it is, but it's a waste).

-You are not in starvation mode. Unless you are 5% body fat at 328, which I'm taking an educated guess that you are not. Arnold was 5% body fat in 1975 when competing to give you a reference.




Read the stickies. You WILL lose weight if you apply the great information they provide.

I wreckon im doing it right, like when I fix rice im measuring a half a cup like it says for a serving and throwing some tuna in there for my proteins, same thing with my chicken, eggs, fish, strawberries and so on. I try to measure it exaclty.. I will go back and read the stickies, I been on here all evening pretty much reading in the nutrition section, But I wont ever give up on losing the weight, I just didn't think I would be struggling so much with even getting the ball rolling. lol

[bigmikey81]

I wreckon im doing it right, like when I fix rice im measuring a half a cup like it says for a serving and throwing some tuna in there for my proteins, same thing with my chicken, eggs, fish, strawberries and so on. I try to measure it exaclty.. I will go back and read the stickies, I been on here all evening pretty much reading in the nutrition section, But I wont ever give up on losing the weight, I just didn't think I would be struggling so much with even getting the ball rolling. lol

Took me a while too man. I was a mess when I first started. Then I learned about macros and the need to count everything and how to calculate a proper deficit. You'll get there. Keep reading. I'm still reading and learning and I'm a few months into it. So much to learn about nutrition, especially with so much bad information out there making the whole process more complicated than it needs to be. Just don't get discouraged. You'll laugh about this a month from now when weight is steadily melting off.

[SpecialKay517]

Bed bath and beyond sells a food scale that will tell you exactly how many calories are in the food that you are weighing.It will actually tell u everything-carbs, protein, sugar. The only thing it doesn't is the vitamins. The one I bought has a food nutrition label on the glasstop, and digital numbers fill in the info when u place the food on top, and after you've entered the code for that food type. I love it, now you can always b sure of EXACTLY how many calories you're consuming. It costs $60. Best Buy also carries it in certain locations, or u can order it online.

[SpecialKay517]

Almost forgot, it has the ability to keep a running total for you, so you don't have to add it up on your own all day. Good luck!