Help! Losing weight, but not fat

[NewSc2]

In the past 3 months, I've dropped from 197 to 165lbs. I'm ~5'10".

My fat, though, hasn't been falling at all. Calipers show about a 1% decrease in fat over the last 10-15 pounds I've lost. The calipers that I use put me at about 17% BF, but from the mirror I see a decent 4-pack unflexed with a the last 2 hiding under a medium layer of fat, and I've compared my physique with others' pictures and that way I'm about 13-14% BF.

Despite my progress in losing weight, though, I'm really frustrated with this fat not coming off. My goal was 160 lbs and 8% BF. If I keep the same amount of LBM I have now (which has been a problem) and just lose fat pounds, I would reach 8% BF at 154 lbs.

Why am I not losing fat? I do about 20-30 minutes of cardio (medium to high intensity and HIIT) daily, I lift weights 3-4 times a week, and I keep my calorie intake at about 2000 calories, with about a 40/40/20 ratio.

I've also been lifting more and my arms, chest, shoulders have all gotten bigger (slightly) over the past month, so I think my muscle mass isn't dropping that badly, but this damn layer of fat is still hanging around my abs and obliques.

Any advice? Should I look to supplements and should I be really focusing on cutting carbs out?

[TheSupaKorean]

have you had a refeed recently? your leptin levels could be extremely low.

BTW so far you've done a good job with your cut, and if you have a 4 pack then your guess is probably right that you are around 13-14% bodyfat or a little less.

What type of cardio are you doing? Twenty minutes is rather low if it is medium intensity.

Also what is your nutritional breakdown of calories.

Once i got down to about 10 % bodyfat to get any lower i had to bump up my cardio ( i did medium intensity) to 45 min a day 5-6 times a week.

[NewSc2]

1. Yeah, I had a pretty big week of cheat meals here and there. 2 weeks ago I was about 167 lbs, and I ate probably 7-8 "cheat" meals throughout that week. The cheat meals weren't extremely bad for me, but they weren't that great - stuff like bagels w/ cream cheese, In-n-out cheeseburgers with lettuce bun and no fries and water, etc.

At the end of the week I weighed in at about 170, and now I'm down to 165.

2. My cardio usually consists of a good run, and I keep my heart rate at about 80% for 20 minutes. (~2.5 miles in 20 minutes). Days I allot for 40 minutes of cardio usually involve a 1 mile run + 30-40 minutes of racquetball, full court basketball, stair climbing, and other cardio exercises that aren't as intense as running but still pretty intense.

3. My calorie breakdown is about 40/40/20. My usual meal (2x day) is tuna sandwich with rye bread, decent amount of veggies, no mayo. I've been drinking protein shakes with fat free milk as well about twice daily (morning, post-workout).

- I've been wondering if I should ditch the bread and milk totally, and just drink protein shakes with water and 1 can of tuna + 2 servings of lettuce or something.

[as0l0]

excuse me for a second.

can you please post a typical day of dieting and training.

[NewSc2]

Wake up: 7:30am

Half Tuna sandwich with rye bread + Metamucil drink and multivitamin.

Class - 8am-10/11am

Workout:
5 minutes 1/2 mile warmup jog
20-30 minutes weights
20-30 minutes cardio (75% heart rate)
or
30-40 minutes cardio (HIIT ~15-20 minutes, 75% heart rate cardio ~15-20 minutes) on a non-weights day.

Non-weights days usually involve either a good ab workout (crunches/leg lifts) or some easy calenthetics (sp?) such as 2 sets of 3 pullups or 2 sets of 25 pushups just to test my natural body strength.

After workout: 11am-12pm

Half Tuna Sandwich + Protein Shake w/ skim milk

2pm-3pm: Afternoon Snack

1 serving Walnuts + Snack (usually 1 serving fruit or veggies + 1 serving shrimp or chicken)

Ex: 1 serving walnuts, 1 serving carrot sticks, 1 serving shrimp cocktail. Or 1 serving walnuts, 1 serving grapes, 1 serving chicken.

6pm: Dinner

Usually 1-2 servings meat (usually salmon, sometimes chicken) + 1-2 servings fruit/vegetables

Ex: 8-10 oz. salmon, 1 serving beans. Or 2 servings chicken, 1 serving lettuce (chicken salad), 1 serving grapes.

9pm-10pm: Protein Shake

Protein Shake with skim milk

Sometimes I substitute in the fruit/veggies serving for my afternoon snack or dinner with some carbs like rice or bread. I'd say in a typical cutting week I might have 1 or 2 cheat meals, and those cheat meals would be something like a slice of pizza or a lettuce bun In-N-Out cheeseburger.

I know my diet isn't perfect, but it's not bad, and I've been doing pretty well sticking with it so far. I drink about 3/4 gallon - 1 gallon of water each day, not including milk.

I'm not very concerned about bulking, so I haven't really paid much attention to different types of weight training. I do Chest/Shoulders/Triceps on Mondays, Back/Biceps on Wednesdays, and Legs (if my legs aren't tired from all the running) on Fridays. I try to stick to some sort of pyramid weight-lifting routine, but I'm not very strict to myself about my weight-lifting regiment. I usually don't get around to doing legs every week, as I play basketball about 2-3 times a week and at least once over the weekend, so sore legs aren't very welcome. Hence I probably work out my legs about once every other week.

[NewSc2]

*bump*

[Homer_Simpson]

curious if hes not losinf bf whats he losing.muscle?

[as0l0]

or water.

[as0l0]

I wouldn't say your diet is bad...but I would say that there's not a lot of food there, i'd like to see some numbers if possible...you should know them, cals, protein, carbs n fat. if you don't know them then that's the first thing your doing wrong.

" I'm not very strict to myself about my weight-lifting regiment." - this is one way to lose muscle, another way is to do cardio near lifting, another is to not eat enough, another is to not eat enough protein...to much cardio is real good way, you are doing a LOT of cardio when you factor in the b-ball.

also, try and find pictures of people with similar height weight BF% so you can compare to see if your measuring correctly