what if I told you I can't lose fat? well, its true

[kain06]

Ok heres my story. I have a very thin frame and since I was about 12 years old I have been carrying about 20 pounds of fat around my waist. About 1 year ago I embarked on my journey to get rid of the fat. I started a carb cycling routine with an average of about 2400 calories, I weight lifted hard and heavy about 4 times a week, did cardio about 3 times a week. I noticed slight and I stress SLIGHT changes in fat loss over the course of about 2 months. I did gain some good muscle which I believe is due to the fact that I had never lifted before. Since fat wasn't coming off fast enough, I finally decided to change my course of action. I began eating a steady diet of about 2400 cals, without cycling carbs. I did the moderate carb approach and I upped my cardio to 30 minute runs about 8 times a week and still lifted 4 times although I did more reps and lighter weights. After a month or so I think I might have lost about a pound because I looked SLIGHTY different as usual. Geting frustrated but still going, I again changed my diet to low carb and still did plenty of cardio and trained with weights. I averaged about 2000 calories this time. After 3 weeks I noticed absolutely nothing different in the mirror. I weighed about 6-8 pounds less but am highly convinced it was water weight. I then tried the keto diet for 3 weeks and just lost water weight. I finally went back to low carb and encorporated an eca stack into the diet. I went all out with exercise and at one point did mad cardio 3 times per day. Wow, no fat loss. THe epedrine was only good for the extra energy it seemed and I got used to the max dose within a week.

So after 1 year of trial and error I have to say I have lost probly 5 pounds fat maximum. THe weird thing is cause of my skinny frame I look good standing up but then I sit down and have crazy lard everywhere. I am easily around 16-18% body fat and my lower abs are still well buried. Any suggestions. I have come to the conclusion that I am just one of those unfortunate souls with ****ty ass genetics I guess. Although I can seem to get away with eating anything I want without gaining much fat. I just cannot lose the fat for the life of me. Any help would be appreciated, as long as it is not in the form of the usual "increase cardio, decrease carbs" b.s.

The thing that blows my mind is that both my brothers are almost pure ectos and I have substantial ecto in me, but I also have a little endo and meso in me as well. You'd think someone with my body type wouldn't have trouble with fat. Well I wish that were true.

[DJohnson]

Nah man, it's just that you need patience. You keep saying that you have a thin frame so you probably have a low maintenence. For example if you are 140lbs than using 15xbodyweight rule your maintenence is around 2050 calories so of course a 2000kcal cut isn't going to get you super fast results.

Anyways, if you're not in a rush. Just lift weights heavy and try get as much strength gains as possible for a year. Make sure your eating enough calories to gain half a pound a week. I guarantee in a year you'll love the changes you've made.

[kain06]

yeah i do have a thin frame, although I packed on quite a bit of muscle (15 pounds or so) since I began my fat loss journey a year ago. I guess I should be proud of my gains, although muscle gain wasn't my goal, fat loss was. I guess as long as i'm losing the fat, even if its slow it is ok. I think I might need more patients, although I get frustrated with everyone saying that you should lose about a pound a week. I lose probly around 1/4 pound a week if i'm lucky. Here are my stats below:

height: 6'3
weight:195
bf%: 16-17% (guess)

Even though I waas trying to cut at around 2400 calories, if i gained some good muscle it must mean that is too high, is that correct?

[Fat Balls]

Try 1800 calories.

[355 Spyder]

First of all - good job on your dedication. Keep it up.

I do not agree that you cannot lose the last bit of fat that you want to. From your post three things come to mind:

1. You might be over-training - try to lift 4 to 5 times a week for 45 min each max and keep cardio to about 5 days at 20 t0 30 min each session. Rest is as important as diet and workout in the health equation.

2. Keep cutting calories till you get to your desired look. The human body has a tremendous ability to adapt and your body will resist at every stage. Your lowest caloric intake was 2000 which is still pretty high. You can keep cutting your calories safely till 1500 as long as you keep your food macros about 45/35/20.

3. I hope you are eating healthy fats. One of best successes I had when my body hit a wall was to add good fats. Fish Oil and Flaxseed Oil are very useful.

I would suggest that you start again at 2400 calories at 40/40/20 and slowly cut 200 calories every week. Once you get lower than 2000 calories switch your macros to 45/35/20.

Here is an excellent article - http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/topicoftheweek88.htm

Remember this is just a suggestion. Listen to your body and see how it responds. Then minor modifications will be easier.

Good Luck!

[numinix]

You were doing too much cardio and not enough heavy lifting. By doing high reps you are pretty much just doing more cardio and won't make any sizeable gains in muscle. All of this would result in muscle loss and not help in raising your BMR through the addition of muscle. Start bulking up and then try cutting.

[kaplanfx]

yeah i do have a thin frame, although I packed on quite a bit of muscle (15 pounds or so) since I began my fat loss journey a year ago. I guess I should be proud of my gains, although muscle gain wasn't my goal, fat loss was. I guess as long as i'm losing the fat, even if its slow it is ok. I think I might need more patients, although I get frustrated with everyone saying that you should lose about a pound a week. I lose probly around 1/4 pound a week if i'm lucky. Here are my stats below:

height: 6'3
weight:195
bf%: 16-17% (guess)

Even though I waas trying to cut at around 2400 calories, if i gained some good muscle it must mean that is too high, is that correct?

Lets do some math, if you think you gained about 15 pounds of muscle, and lost 5 pounds of fat, it means you had a net gain of 10 lbs of the specified period. This means that you have been eating "OVER" your maintainance calories. You need to slowly reduce calories until you are losing a lb or so of fat a week. at 195 and 6'3 I would think 2000 calories would do it, but everyone is different, so just slowly (100 cals or so a week) reduce your cals until the fat starts coming off.

-Kap

[kain06]

all right thanks for the tips,

i guess i just gotta keep experimenting. Spyder, you mentioned i gotta keep cutting calories till i get my desired look. Maybe thats where I have fallen short. I have made it a point to try to eat below maintenance although I havn't kept EXACT track of what i eat. I usually ballpark and make sure im within 100 calories of my daily intake. Is this where I could be lacking? Is it really necessary to hit the caloric intake exactly? I usually just try to make sure im close. Don't get me wrong im not a lazy ass, i do count, although not too strenuously. Right now I am dieting around 1800 cals to see how that goes. If I don't lose fat does it mean that my calories are too high if I am training heavy and doing sufficient cardio? Sorry for all the questions, I just want to hear from ppl who have gone through this.

Take care

[355 Spyder]

all right thanks for the tips,

i guess i just gotta keep experimenting. Spyder, you mentioned i gotta keep cutting calories till i get my desired look. Maybe thats where I have fallen short. I have made it a point to try to eat below maintenance although I havn't kept EXACT track of what i eat. I usually ballpark and make sure im within 100 calories of my daily intake. Is this where I could be lacking? Is it really necessary to hit the caloric intake exactly? I usually just try to make sure im close. Don't get me wrong im not a lazy ass, i do count, although not too strenuously. Right now I am dieting around 1800 cals to see how that goes. If I don't lose fat does it mean that my calories are too high if I am training heavy and doing sufficient cardio? Sorry for all the questions, I just want to hear from ppl who have gone through this.

Take care

Kain06 - I will be honest - you have to be pretty anal if you want perfection. If you are not exact in your approach you cannot analyze your results objectively. Then you can only guess what hindered your progress - was it the extra chicken or the extra oatmeal.

Also I can tell you that losing the last 2 - 3% of bf is not as easy as the first 2 - 3%. It requires a considerable will power and dedication. You need to measure everything you eat and track it down to the last gram and calorie.

It looks like you have the will power - your mammoth cardio and lifting is proof. Now just become very dedicated and you should be able to drop 1-2% of bf every week.

PM me if you need more help.

Plus do read the article I linked to in the earlier post. It is very close to what I would suggest.

Good Luck!

[lordofchaos]

1. the whole going with not really keeping track of calories doesn't work. I have tried that in the past and it is not effective in actually figuring out what you have eaten and it is not hard to be off by 500+ calories at the end of the day.

2. I will second the you are overtraining thing. Lift heavy 3-4 days a week (depending on what split you go with) and do cardio 4-5 days a week and you and should start to see some good gains.

3. I will agree again with the idea that if you gained 10lbs, you were above not below maintenence, go back to my first point and realize you need to start to track accurately your caloric intake (fitday is ok for this as long as you use custom foods not their generics unless you can find exactly what you have in there generics (like for instance Kraft ranch dressing or something where it has the brand you are using) or you can just start an excel spreadsheet log of what you eat and what the macros on it are.