Eating below RMR & NOT losing :(

[kseniashep]

I had my RMR (resting metabolic rate aka what I'd need in a coma) tested at the hospital on Monday - output is 2146 and daily caloric intake is 1584. I started at maintenance calories and cut 10C/2F every week until this point, when I started to realize that something must be wrong. Yes I'm weighing and tracking everything to a T. I don't lay in bed all day, I lift weights 5x a week (3 heavy lifting, 2 accessory days) and am currently doing 1200cal of cardio/week.
I am not losing and have a lot of fat to lose. Any thoughts? Experience with this?
I'll be getting blood work done as well to understand what is going on but appreciate any help/feedback!

[Znik]

Either A. Incorrect calorie tracking or subconsciously snacking (most likely scenario) or B. water retention (if it's been more than 3 weeks 4 weeks if female then it's not the problem)

[Alyspaleo]

How are your clothes fitting?
Have you kept track your body measurements?

Are you taking any bodybuilding supplements to build muscle? (some bloat muscles with water changing scale numbers).

Have you had previous problems losing weight?

I also want to add there was a recent study that showed that not everyone burns weight at the same rate. The actual caloric deficit to lose weight for some was 1600 calories to 3000 calories per pound lost. (study done only on young obese people, and doesn't represent everyone empirically)

Another study showed the type of bacteria in your intestinal tract determines how many calories you consume. Firmicutes will get more calories out a bolus of food then bacteroidetes. Meaning absolutely no one knows how many calories they are actually taking in at a physiological level....

So people who push the law of thermodynamics, "calories" obviously doesn't recognise that physiology is not equivalent to simple physics.

Most common Things that could be holding your body back : insulin problems, testosterone /progesterone /estrogens ratios, food allergies or intolerance, autoimmune, cortisol not optimal, thyroid issues, vitamin deficiencies specifically : iron, vit D, selenium, zinc, iodine, amino acids, fatty acids, b vitamins, and several others that are less common.

Avoid all alcohols, including sugar alcohols. And some people react badly to food additives which are in everything, including milk.

What do you do with all that?
Consider changing your diet, what you eat, is as important as how much because bodies are complex physiological systems.
I obviously am pro paleo, and keto for me. But your body is not mine so I'm not sure if low carb, high fat is ideal for you. But I do recommend playing with your food macros with whole food.

I'm not sure this will help you, but it is generally something to try first.

Oddly, you may do better eating more calories. Not going below bmr.

After this, if this doesn't help, I would suggest blood work and blood food intolerance testing.

[benh2]

This mentions RMR so it's close enough.

Someone posted a formula for calculating RMR on these forums and it seemed very good (much better than the calculators on the main site). I forgot to copy it down and now I can't find it. Anyone help?

[Znik]

Have you had previous problems losing weight?

I also want to add there was a recent study that showed that not everyone burns weight at the same rate. The actual caloric deficit to lose weight for some was 1600 calories to 3000 calories per pound lost. (study done only on young obese people, and doesn't represent everyone empirically)

Another study showed the type of bacteria in your intestinal tract determines how many calories you consume. Firmicutes will get more calories out a bolus of food then bacteroidetes. Meaning absolutely no one knows how many calories they are actually taking in at a physiological level....

So people who push the law of thermodynamics, "calories" obviously doesn't recognise that physiology is not equivalent to simple physics.

Oddly, you may do better eating more calories. Not going below bmr.

Yep, yet another study that does not account of lbm loss, muscle loss, water and glycogen loss, water retention etc. etc. People never lose weight at the same rate because of those factors, a pound of fat is still going to be around 3500kcal. It is still going to require a 3500kcal deficit to lose 1 lb of FAT but it can require less to lose 1lb of weight due to previously mentioned factors.

The bacteria thing, yes there is evidence of it making a small impact in terms of absorption, but one thing that's always neglected is that they focus on the bacterias themselves and not our digestive tract functions like the Ileal brake which will kick in if absorption rate is low to allow for everything to be absorbed. Our bodies doesn't waste much, especially not in a deficit. On top of that, bacteria cultures in our gut can change their roles if required, and quite often do so when its not even required, so everything is going to be absorbed (apart from those things that cannot be broken down and digested).

A calorie is a calorie, it's a fundamental law and backed up by science time and again. Yes there are differences such as turnover cost (protein to glucose to glycogen to fat etc.) and thermic effect of food. But when you have a set calorie intake those things are already accounted for.

We conclude that a calorie is a calorie. From a purely thermodynamic point of view, this is clear because the human body or, indeed, any living organism cannot create or destroy energy but can only convert energy from one form to another. In comparing energy balance between dietary treatments, however, it must be remembered that the units of dietary energy are metabolizable energy and not gross energy. This is perhaps unfortunate because metabolizable energy is much more difficult to determine than is gross energy, because the Atwater factors used in calculating metabolizable energy are not exact. As such, our food tables are not perfect, and small errors are associated with their use.

In addition, we concede that the substitution of one macronutrient for another has been shown in some studies to have a statistically significant effect on the expenditure half of the energy balance equation. This has been observed most often for high-protein diets. Evidence indicates, however, that the difference in energy expenditure is small and can potentially account for less than one-third of the differences in weight loss that have been reported between high-protein or low-carbohydrate diets and high-carbohydrate or low-fat diets. As such, a calorie is a calorie. Further research is needed to identify the mechanisms that result in greater weight loss with one diet than with another.

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/79/5/899S.full

^^ That study also takes a note of the differences in weight loss rate at set calorie intakes and explains them.

In the end, if you are not losing weight over time (3-4 weeks to rule out water retention masking a loss) you are not in a calorie deficit. It's that simple.

[sdunn96]

In addition, we concede that the substitution of one macronutrient for another has been shown in some studies to have a statistically significant effect on the expenditure half of the energy balance equation. This has been observed most often for high-protein diets. Evidence indicates, however, that the difference in energy expenditure is small and can potentially account for less than one-third of the differences in weight loss that have been reported between high-protein or low-carbohydrate diets and high-carbohydrate or low-fat diets. As such, a calorie is a calorie. Further research is needed to identify the mechanisms that result in greater weight loss with one diet than with another.

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/79/5/899S.full

^^ That study also takes a note of the differences in weight loss rate at set calorie intakes and explains them.

In the end, if you are not losing weight over time (3-4 weeks to rule out water retention masking a loss) you are not in a calorie deficit. It's that simple.

Did they elaborate on this any more???
Cause I remember reading one guys study and he stated he believed the thermodynamic value of protein to be about 3.2 calories vs 4....but in all studies it is just associated w/ 4 calories.

So I have often thought that people on higher protein diets might would lose more weight in the long run due to this, and they not realize it.
Cause if we calculate 100 gr of protein
@ 4 calories == 400 calories
@3.2 calories == 320 calories.
So a difference of 80 calories.

[Groce]

Did they elaborate on this any more???
Cause I remember reading one guys study and he stated he believed the thermodynamic value of protein to be about 3.2 calories vs 4....but in all studies it is just associated w/ 4 calories.

So I have often thought that people on higher protein diets might would lose more weight in the long run due to this, and they not realize it.
Cause if we calculate 100 gr of protein
@ 4 calories == 400 calories
@3.2 calories == 320 calories.
So a difference of 80 calories.

Isn't the protein 4 cal/gram the caloric value with the TEF already taken into account?

[sdunn96]

Isn't the protein 4 cal/gram the caloric value with the TEF already taken into account?

I guess it would be, you are correct.
But then the calorie value should be about 3.2 calories for protein.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11299073

[Znik]

Did they elaborate on this any more???
Cause I remember reading one guys study and he stated he believed the thermodynamic value of protein to be about 3.2 calories vs 4....but in all studies it is just associated w/ 4 calories.

So I have often thought that people on higher protein diets might would lose more weight in the long run due to this, and they not realize it.
Cause if we calculate 100 gr of protein
@ 4 calories == 400 calories
@3.2 calories == 320 calories.
So a difference of 80 calories.

Fat/protein/carb gets labeled as ME (metabolisable energy) and not NME (Net Metabolisable Energy) so yes, in terms of actual available energy protein comes out at around 3.2kcal/g , carbs 3.8kcal/g and fully-fermentable carbs (stuff like sugar alcohols) at 1.91kcal/g.

I guess they keep them at 4/4/9kcal just to keep it simplified, people gets confused easily enough by round numbers just imagine how it would be with things like 3.2 3.8 8.98 etc.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11177207 explains it a tad.

But as I usually say, when you track your kcal intake and macros you already compensate for the TEF differences as you get X amount of kcal/prot/fat/carb to maintain and substract X amount to get in a deficit.

Otherwise it just becomes a series of complicated maths to accurately track, for instance 1g of carbs would be 3.8kcal but if that 1g of carb got turned into fat it would only net around 1.9-2.8kcal as there is a 30-50% turnover cost for carb to fat. Or glucose to glycogen which would make the 3.8kcal net 3.4kcal worth of energy as glycogen (approx 0.36kcal/g turnover cost)

Same goes with protein, TEF of protein is about 25-35% , turnover cost for protein to glucose by gluconeogenesis is around 33%, which nets you about 40% of the energy of the protein as glucose and even lower as glycogen and even lower than that as fat (which is unlikely to ever happen anyway in a deficit).

So it gets rather complicated.

[sdunn96]

Fat/protein/carb gets labeled as ME (metabolisable energy) and not NME (Net Metabolisable Energy) so yes, in terms of actual available energy protein comes out at around 3.2kcal/g , carbs 3.8kcal/g and fully-fermentable carbs (stuff like sugar alcohols) at 1.91kcal/g.

I guess they keep them at 4/4/9kcal just to keep it simplified, people gets confused easily enough by round numbers just imagine how it would be with things like 3.2 3.8 8.98 etc.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11177207 explains it a tad.

But as I usually say, when you track your kcal intake and macros you already compensate for the TEF differences as you get X amount of kcal/prot/fat/carb to maintain and substract X amount to get in a deficit.

Otherwise it just becomes a series of complicated maths to accurately track, for instance 1g of carbs would be 3.8kcal but if that 1g of carb got turned into fat it would only net around 1.9-2.8kcal as there is a 30-50% turnover cost for carb to fat. Or glucose to glycogen which would make the 3.8kcal net 3.4kcal worth of energy as glycogen (approx 0.36kcal/g turnover cost)

Same goes with protein, TEF of protein is about 25-35% , turnover cost for protein to glucose by gluconeogenesis is around 33%, which nets you about 40% of the energy of the protein as glucose and even lower as glycogen and even lower than that as fat (which is unlikely to ever happen anyway in a deficit).

So it gets rather complicated.

Yeah does get rather complicated.

[kseniashep]

Thanks everyone for the feedback! I am sure I'm tracking everything. I weigh everything - condiments, raw meat/veg before cooking, protein powder & packaged foods etc. Everything. I am a female - water retention is involved and can make me go up/down 2-4lbs in a single day (oh the mind games!) on the scale but I'm talking about an overall fat loss. So would blood test be my next best thing? I'm just stumped & pretty frustrated. Considering my 2146 RMR I have been in a deficit since March and not lost a single pound (outside water weigh fluctuations).
I lost eight inches between April and May - will be measuring May to June soon, but despite the 29" - at 210 as a 5'6" female - I need to lose fat.

[sdunn96]

Thanks everyone for the feedback! I am sure I'm tracking everything. I weigh everything - condiments, raw meat/veg before cooking, protein powder & packaged foods etc. Everything. I am a female - water retention is involved and can make me go up/down 2-4lbs in a single day (oh the mind games!) on the scale but I'm talking about an overall fat loss. So would blood test be my next best thing? I'm just stumped & pretty frustrated. Considering my 2146 RMR I have been in a deficit since March and not lost a single pound (outside water weigh fluctuations).
I lost eight inches between April and May - will be measuring May to June soon, but despite the 29" - at 210 as a 5'6" female - I need to lose fat.

Try eating at 1500 calories for 2 weeks.
See how your body responds.
14 days @ 1500 calories....no cheat days.