11-12% body fat & stopped losing weight over 4 weeks. Help please?

[puthsardarade]

Hi,

I gym on average 6 times a week.
I do hiitt classes on some days and strength programmes on other days.

I am definitely eating at a calorie deficit, I had tried fasting from 9pm to 1pm next day and have also worked out in fasted state and then eaten.

I was losing on average 0.5kg a week and dropped from 73kg to 64kg I think from around 18% to around 11-12% body fat in around 4-5 months.

5ft 9.5inches tall, 32 inch waist and 36 chest with partial visible abs.

I just want to lose a little more fat and my target is 9-10% body fat and 2 inches from belly.

I read I may need to cycle calories to get over this weight loss plateu. Can people please advise possible effective ways of doing this quickly?

Eg. 2 days high calories 1000 more than usual then 5 days calorie deficit?

Thanks in advance

[Tommy W.]

You need to drop your weekly calorie intake.

Fasted training, calorie cycling, etc does nothing

Losing 20 lbs means dropping your calories by 200-300 a day to keep from stalling with fatloss.

[xsquid99]

Hi,

I gym on average 6 times a week.
I do hiitt classes on some days and strength programmes on other days.

I am definitely eating at a calorie deficit, I had tried fasting from 9pm to 1pm next day and have also worked out in fasted state and then eaten.

I was losing on average 0.5kg a week and dropped from 73kg to 64kg I think from around 18% to around 11-12% body fat in around 4-5 months.

5ft 9.5inches tall, 32 inch waist and 36 chest with partial visible abs.

I just want to lose a little more fat and my target is 9-10% body fat and 2 inches from belly.

I read I may need to cycle calories to get over this weight loss plateu. Can people please advise possible effective ways of doing this quickly?

Eg. 2 days high calories 1000 more than usual then 5 days calorie deficit?

Thanks in advance

If you were in a deficit you would be losing weight.

[JulieForFitness]

Its natural for your weight loss to slow down and it is also true that the last few pounds are the hardest to lose.
As you mention, cycling calories can be incredibly effective and I used to implement this in the days in which I competed as national level.
The concept behind this is that you have lower calorie days, -500 from your maintenence, coupled with higher calorie spikes, like 500+ above maintenence. Primarily you want these calories to come from clean carbs as they have the most impact on Leptin and Thyroid Hormones (which play a key role in the strength, robustness of your metabolism) and how quickly you burn energy and stored fat.
My show prep was like this:
monday-friday - 2000 calories,
Saturday - 3000 calories,
Sunday - 2500 (maintnece)
You get the idea, but play around with your own calorie intake and macros - see how you get on and adjust accordingly.

[Tommy W.]

The concept behind this is that you have lower calorie days, -500 from your maintenence, coupled with higher calorie spikes, like 500+ above maintenence.
.

So again back to weekly calories need to provide a weekly deficit. If people would worry more about that than calorie cycling, etc they'd be a lot more successful with fatloss. Stick to the basics.

[jinda628]

Damn 141 lbs at 5'9" and you are still not satisfied? If you can still see fats at that stats, then maybe the solution is actually to bulk. Meaning, you don't have enough lean mass to actually look good at 141 lbs or less.

How much calories are you taking now?

[puthsardarade]

Damn 141 lbs at 5'9" and you are still not satisfied? If you can still see fats at that stats, then maybe the solution is actually to bulk. Meaning, you don't have enough lean mass to actually look good at 141 lbs or less.

How much calories are you taking now?

It seems that there are different opinions on calorie cycling I am in no way an expert as this is the first time I'm doing this but a lot of articles discussing weight loss plateau refer to calorie cycling or zigzap calories as a way to overcome this.

I did some calculations on my weight, height and age and my maintenance should be 2200-2300 depending on where I look up this info and I should target around 1800 calories for weight loss.
I train 6 times a week for around 1.5 hours on average combination of gym classes and strength training.

I've set my new calorie goal on myfitnesspal with macros of Protein 45%, Fat 35% 20% carbs (although I may initially struggle hitting the protein as much as 45% and carbs as low as 20%) From trackings I had done in the past I was averaging 1800-2000 calories a day so below maintenance. I am going to try for another 10-14 days and lower my calories by 100-200 and ensure I hit 1800 maximum and try and aim at 1700 and see if that results in any changes on the weight I will also try and reduce my carbs and monitor the macros more which is something I had neglected in the last few months.

If the slight reduction of calories and lower carbs does not give me the results I desire then I will have to consider calorie cycling or the zigzag calories approach.

The only other thing which could be a factor is that the strength programmes I am doing have been the same for over 6 months and I've not changed there and I use these around 3 times a week with the classes - although even if they are not as productive I would have through the hitt classes which i attend would still result in losing calories so I'm not so sure that is as big factor as the calories. If anyone has suggestion on new programmes mainly around strength training then please point me in the right direction?

Thanks for the replies

[Tommy W.]

You can zig zag calories, calorie cycle, carb cycle until you're blue in the face and it won't do anything unless you're in a weekly calorie deficit consistently over time. Until you understand this you'll spin your wheels

[jinda628]

I did some calculations on my weight, height and age and my maintenance should be 2200-2300 depending on where I look up this info and I should target around 1800 calories for weight loss.

I'm same height as you, I'm 43 and 164 lbs.
I started my cut at 1800 cals when I was 180+. I have been cutting at 1550 cals since I was 169 lbs. I work out at least 5x a week mostly circuit training type so its more like HIIT, bodyweight and cardio and still just losing 1 lb a week on the average. Will probably transition to bulking when I hit 160 lbs.

Comparing from my stats, you should be eating a lot less or working our more than me being about 20+ lbs lighter.

[Nfloares]

Completely agree with above points.

[puthsardarade]

I'm same height as you, I'm 43 and 164 lbs.
I started my cut at 1800 cals when I was 180+. I have been cutting at 1550 cals since I was 169 lbs. I work out at least 5x a week mostly circuit training type so its more like HIIT, bodyweight and cardio and still just losing 1 lb a week on the average. Will probably transition to bulking when I hit 160 lbs.

Comparing from my stats, you should be eating a lot less or working our more than me being about 20+ lbs lighter.

Hi,
That's interesting to know. You've done really well.

I did my calorie calculations over 3 websites and the figures quoted were averages over all 3 websites using my age, height and current weight and stating I work out 3-5 days a week, although I am working out 6 days a week.
Not sure how you did your calculations although if it's working for you and you are losing 1lb a week on average then I think that's irrelevant.

I will start monitoring calories more so than I have been and I have set the target at 1700 so will see how that goes, I just need to get to the 9-10% bodyfat target which i had, then I can start to eat more at my normal desired level for a couple of weeks before bulking, I was hoping that the weight I had got to would be sufficient but I think another 2 inches on the belly and abs more defined should be achieved first which means perhaps another 2 kgs of weight to lose.

I think it does not help that family members are commenting all the time how much weight I've lost (in a negative way), my 32" waist trousers are too big and I need to wear 30" waist trousers and from medium tshirts to small etc - I suspect these things have also played a part and maybe I have eaten a little more thinking what I'm doing is working and perhaps been over confident.

Thanks

[dipatel13]

Post a picture, you might be better off not losing more weight at your stats.

[rhadam]

Its natural for your weight loss to slow down and it is also true that the last few pounds are the hardest to lose.
As you mention, cycling calories can be incredibly effective and I used to implement this in the days in which I competed as national level.
The concept behind this is that you have lower calorie days, -500 from your maintenence, coupled with higher calorie spikes, like 500+ above maintenence. Primarily you want these calories to come from clean carbs as they have the most impact on Leptin and Thyroid Hormones (which play a key role in the strength, robustness of your metabolism) and how quickly you burn energy and stored fat.
My show prep was like this:
monday-friday - 2000 calories,
Saturday - 3000 calories,
Sunday - 2500 (maintnece)
You get the idea, but play around with your own calorie intake and macros - see how you get on and adjust accordingly.

This is complete nonsense and you should not be giving advice to anyone, ever.