Weight not coming off :( help

[Lemonzest]

Hi

Been going to the Gym for 9 weeks now, and eating healthy for over year and a half, and after a small loss of 5kg in the first two weeks, nothing since has come off, i workout 5 days a week mon-fri 20 mins cardio a day and about an hour of weights full body, my lifts have been going up at about 5kg a week i'm doing 50kg x 10 x 4 sets, and the cardio is on the cross trainer (elliptical??)

Diet is 50% P 28% C and 22% F

getting about 150g Protien

[blueguitar322]

Doing some quick conversions for us Americans and our stupid units 5kg = 10.4 lb. You can expect ~2lb (0.9kg) fat loss per week on a good week. I average ~1.5lb (0.7kg). Anything more than this and you're probably losing muscle mass as well. Since that all came off in the first couple weeks, it's probably largely water weight.

How many calories are you eating? My guess, based on 150g protein = 50% of your cals, that you're around 1200 calories. If so, this is WAY too low. I'll post below a long diatribe of mine about how to calculate your ideal calories eaten. It might sound absurd that by eating more you can lose more fat, but because of hormonal/metabolic complications, it's actually true.

Apart from the calories issue, my guess is that you're "suffering" what we call "newbie gains". In other words, you're adding muscle at roughly the same rate you're losing fat. This can be terribly discouraging if you're relying on a scale for progress results, because a scale only registers weight and can't distinguish fat from muscle. The fact that your lifts are going up on such low cals makes me think this is at least partially the case.

Dave

[blueguitar322]

My old diatribe...

Wow, there's a lot of confusion about calorie calculations on this thread...so here's a clear, concise explanation.

BMR = Basal Metabolic Rate. This is the amount of calories your body would burn over a 24-hour period if you remained at rest - i.e. a coma - all day long. BMR, by itself, does NOT take other activities into account. There are several formulas to figure out BMR, including:

Harris-Benedict Formula: 66 + 13.7 * (mass in kg) + 5 * (height in inches) * 2.54 - 6.8 * (age in years)
Katch-McCardle Formula: 370 + 21.6 * (lean body mass in kg)

Remember, kids, 1 lb = 0.45359237 kilograms (alternatively, 1 kg = 2.20462262 lb)

Most people (myself included) prefer Katch-McCardle if you can get accurate body fat estimates.

To Calculate Calories Burned
Cals burned = BMR * Activity Factor

Activity factors: (stolen from http://www.shapefit.com/basal-metabolic-rate.html)
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
Extr. active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.)

I run 12-16 miles per week and lift 3x per week; I use an activity factor of 1.65 and it is spot on for me.

To Calculate Ideal Calories Eaten
You can drop 500 cals per day to average 1lb/week of fat loss. BUT this isn't always ideal - especially if you have LOTS of fat to lose or you're already pretty small (women in particular). MUCH preferred is what I call a "Fat Loss Modifier".

Fat Loss Modifier = 0.8 is a great starting point; this is solid, steady progress and should be safe, allowing you to retain all of your lean mass.
Fat Loss Modifier = 0.7 is much more aggressive. You will lose faster, but you also risk losing lean mass (risk is less with greater fat amounts)

Example
At 6'3", 199lb, 17% BF my BMR (Katch-McCardle) is 1988.

To get cals burned: BMR * activity factor of 1.65 = 3281 cals per day.

Now, my chosen Fat Loss Modifier is 0.75; moderately aggressive. When I get below 12-13%, I'm going to scale it back to 0.8. BUT for now,

Ideal Cals eaten = Cals Burned * Fat Loss Modifier = 3281 * 0.75 = 2460.

How much fat should I lose with this diet? 3281 - 2460 = 821 cals per day. 821 cals/day * 7 days/week *1lb/3500 cals = 1.64 lb /week.

Guess what my results have been the last 6 weeks? An average loss of 1.6lb of fat.

Hope this helps,
Dave

Edit: Credit for the "fat loss modifier" goes to Tom Venuto, though he calls it something different. Heck, credit for just about everything I know about fat loss goes to Tom Venuto. If you haven't already, buy his "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" ebook. Worth every penny.

AND

FOR THE RECORD

NO guy should be eating only 1400 cals per day. In fact, almost no girl should be eating 1400 cals per day.

1400 cals per day, with your activity, ends up being a roughly 1500cal/day deficit. (A little more, actually). This should be 3lb per week.

What? You're not losing 3lb of fat per week? Now we see the negatives of a very low calorie diet: your metabolism has adjusted downward, meaning you burn fewer calories than you should....which makes fat loss REALLY difficult.

Not to mention that the moment you lose your dedication and splurge, all those extra calories aren't used effectively and are stored as fat. This is why yo-yo dieters have such difficult times.

And if you are losing 3lb/week and you're not clinically obese, I hate to break it to ya but you're losing muscle here (unless you have radically superior genetics. In which case...you must have done a real number on yourself to end up fat to begin with). Less muscle = lower metabolism = less fat burned = more calorie reductions to maintain progress = less muscle and the cycle continues.

Again, I hope that helps
Dave

I'll also quickly add my experience.

Started out at 260lb, 33% body fat on a 1700cal diet. Lost a lot of weight quickly. Thankfully, I still didn't lose it too fast (rarely more than 2-3lb per week) so my lean losses were minimized. (The ONE benefit of being really fat).

But eventually, around 24% body fat, I plateaued. It's like my losses just stopped in mid-stride. I started to lose motivation, stopped working as hard or eating as clean, and kinda let things slide for 2 months.

Those two months were actually helpful, as they served as a "pseudo-refeed" and allowed my metabolism to slowly creep up to where it should've been. Since then, I've wisened up, changed my calorie intake to ~2450 each week (although after the occasional cheat meal, I've been roughly 100cals over on average). Guess what? I'm still losing, steady as she goes, averaging 0.68% body fat per week.

What's even better is that if I hit a plateau, I still have a little bit of room (not much) to drop calories for that final push. At 1700 calories, I tried to go lower...but my body wouldn't let me. Lepitin levels were all shot and the hunger pains were pretty tough to deal with.

Dave

P.S. Yes, I keep food logs...so I'm not just making these numbers up. It's sometimes tempting to go super-low-cal, but 99 times out of 100, it won't be as effective.

Hope this helps.

[emchowdhury]

I agree with blueguitar. Consuming more calories might enhance your metabolism so you might loose more fat. Give yourself a cheat day once a week. that might help.

[Lemonzest]

Just worked out my calories on http://www.cordianet.com/calculator.htm

and did second method based on body fat % and suggests

Estimated Base BMR: 1775 Calories.
Estimated TDEE: 2751 Calories.
Estimated Daily Caloric Need For Weight Loss: 2251 Calories.

so i was thinking off adding a bowl of oatmeal at 6am 1cup oats to 1cup skim milk, and having a pasta meal at about 4pm after my gym session, would that add enough calories? as you may be able to tell, i'm a little paranoid of my intake, was a former fatty at 325 lbs, and its taken me a about 5 years off and on to lose the 120lbs. thanks for any and all input.

[blueguitar322]

www.calorie-king.com will help you find calorie values for almost all common foods.

You read my story above, so you know that I had to face that fear when going from 1700cals to 2400cals. Rest assured that any weight you gain making that transition will be water weight and it'll fall right off after a week or so. I actually only gained 0.5lb when I upped my cals.

I would say NEVER eat below your BMR. Start eating that amount immediately and then, over the next month, slowly increase to ~2200 cals. You should be able to stick with that number for a while. Write down every calorie you put in your mouth. It's a pain for a while but eventually you learn the numbers for your common foods and don't have to be quite as anal (although, for maximum benefit, I'm still anal about it...)

Keeping track of your exercise and calories will give you the feedback you need to figure out what is and isn't working.

Congrats on the weight loss!

Dave

P.S. I would strongly encourage you to check out "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" by Tom Venuto. Best resource available. $40 downloadable e-book and worth every penny. I've read it 5-6x over.