History and Christmas Fat Loss Goal

[02PRUV]

After getting really lazy for 7 years and not doing any exercise and not eating very well and getting up to 253lbs at 33 years old, I finally decided 8 months ago I needed to make a change. Got into functional training and fell in love with it. After the first 2 weeks I have been training 10-12 hours a week. I got down to 245lbs after a couple of months and got stuck. My strength was going up but I felt like the fat just wasn't moving. I cleaned up my diet a bit and was trying to track my calories at around the 2200 calories a day.

More time past and got down to 238lbs and again I felt the fat wasn't going anywhere.

I decided I needed to go see a professional so I could learn more about the eating side of things. I felt I was doing as much as I could on the training side of things. I ended up getting a DEXA scan and found I still had 28% BF. I was a bit put off by this considering the effort I had put in training hard. I thought about it afterwards and imagine how high it would of been when I first started.

Well after I long discussion and some learning it turns out my base metabolic rate was 2050 calories and my calories to maintain with the amount of training I was doing was 4600 calories. Calories to cut was 3800 calories.

So I was told I wasn't eating enough. Well that's different than what you see on TV? This is where I started my learning when it comes to food. For years I would not eat breakfast, sometimes have lunch if I was hungry and have a big dinner. Apparently it was the worst thing I could have done I slowed down my metabolism and my thyroid. Slow these down and you will never lose the fat as I've learnt. Also due to not eating enough I was also told I wouldn't of been putting on the muscle I could of been in the last 8 months.

So I was given a meal plan 4 weeks ago and told to eat more. 5 meals a day, week 1 starting at 2500 calories and going up each week. Last week was week 4 and I'm up to 3750 calories and getting hungry. So I guess I have started to speed up my metabolism now. I also got another DEXA scan and in the 4 weeks of increasing calories I put on 3lbs of lean muscle and lost 8lbs of body fat which got me to 26% BF.

For these next two weeks I'm staying on 3750 calories to really make sure my metabolism is going, then start dropping off calories each week. The aim is to get down to 210lbs with 12% BF and more muscle mass by Christmas. Looking forward to this as I have never looked ripped in my life as yet. So it will be a good achievement.

[Compy386]

Don't you love professional nutritionists?

I went to one once and was told to eat more carbs and less protein because it's unused protein that "makes you fat"

But hey I had an excuse to eat bagels in the morning and call it healthy so heck ya!

Just like you OP going and wanting to lose weight: first step eat MORE calories and reverse diet? That is the exact opposite thing you should be doing.

Stick to 3700. I would be SOOOOO happy if I could cut on 3700 calories, and I want to see if you actually lose weight. And if you don't, will the advice then be to up calories more to further "undamage" your metabosm? Is there such a thing as a dreamer cut?

Good luck OP.

[GravyVeins]

Cool man good luck. Interesting to hear your experience with dieting.

[02PRUV]

After 2 weeks on 3750 calories I didn't lose much body fat. Went from 26% to 25.8%. But the good thing was I put on 1.2lbs of lean muscle mass in the two weeks for a total of 104lbs of muscle. My total fat free mass now is 182lbs. This week coming I will be reducing calories to 3600.

[02PRUV]

So for 4 weeks I dropped down calories slowly to 2880 calories. Should of seen a good BF loss I would of thought. Instead I gained 0.2lbs of fat and lost 0.5lbs of muscle. Stuffed if I know what's going on. Someone has suggested the only reason this might be happening is I have a lazy thyroid. I have been very put off by this. Considering I'm training 10-12 hours a week and have been eating super clean and getting sick of sweet potato, broccoli and chicken everyday and not getting results it's very off putting.

Any advise will be welcome.