Advice needed

[Ockerti]

Good afternoon, I'm having a little bit of a problem and wanted to see what other people think. First I'll give a little bit of a background. I'm a 21 years old, ~86kg, 1.80m male, structural engineer (sedentary job). I've been in a calorie deficit for the past 5 months so I went from 96kg bodyweight to 86kg, a decrease of 22 pounds (to make things easier for you guys from US). I lost my first ~2kg very quickly and I don't even count them towards weight loss achievement, so I lost roughly 8kg of bodyweight in 5 months.

I had an issue calculating my TDEE since most of the calculators online are trash, let me explain. Most calculators have an estimation of daily activity as a single option and instead it should be 2 options (one for daily activity at work and the other for activity in the gym). I calculated my TDEE to be at 2800-3000kcal a day, but I had a hard time believing it so I made my own assumptions through experience. I am working out 3 days a week, doing full body and splitting it into 2 intensity days and 1 volume day.

An example of my intensity day: Bench press 5x6, triceps extentions 3x8, dead lifts 3x6, pull ups 3x6, rows 3x6, bicep curls 3x10, upright rows 5x6, lateral raises 3x12, shrugs 5x8, squats 3x6.

An example of my volume day: Chest cable flyes 5x15, triceps extensions 4x20, dead lifts 3x6, pull ups 3x15, rows 3x15, bicep curls 4x20, lateral raises 5x20, shrugs 5x15, leg extentions 5x to failure.

Usual workout take around 2hours to complete. So now that you know that, you might understand why I do have a problem estimating my TDEE, calculators let me choose my activity as for ex. sedentary (while most of my day is), but then it doesn't account for my hard work at the gym (which it is). Besides my workouts I take around 6000 steps every day so that makes my expenditure a little higher too. At the end I estimated my TDEE to be around 2400 kcal a day, since my metabolism is on the slower end (not an excuse), I went with it for my past 5months, so my cutting calories were and still are 1800 kcal a day.

Now here is where the fun stuff begins. I've hit a stall and I really do have a problem believing that my body maintains at 1800 since I do carry quite a bit of muscle (my 1 rep max results: 130kg Bench, 150kg squat, 150kg deadlift). I added an extra of 15min steady state cardio at the end of my workouts, but that somehow didn't show much of a change.

Another fun thing is how my weight is fluctuating (was since the beggining). When I started it was hard to lose weight from the beginning an example: I had it happening all the way, I wouldn't lose a single pound for two weeks, then at the end of two weeks scale jumps down to 1kg lower than it was before and stick to that point, then it would not drop for another two weeks and then again drop down 1kg and stick to it, which was extremely bizarre. At this point I'm stuck for about a month at ~86kg body weight.

Example of my weight for last 5 days: 86.7Kg, 86.9Kg, 86.4Kg, 86.9Kg, 86.2Kg and it has been like that for a past month.

I'm sort of getting paranoid with my weight not moving down, but at the same time I refuse to believe that my body maintains at 1800kcal. So now I am thinking of a few options, either I should go on a few week maintenance phase ~2300kcal to get my hormone levels back to normal or I should go even lower to lets say 1500 kcal.

I can't increase my cardio time, because my workouts take a lot of time and simply cannot find any more time to add to the cardio because of my job and university.

Before someone says, that I should have another way of measuring my progress, I do, but I didn't mention it because that shows no good as well.

My excersising age (around 3-4 years, at least 2 years were spend on my younger age and I had a big window of not excersising, so around 2years non stop now)

My dieting history: Went throught a few cycles of bulking and cutting, biggest cut being from 107kg to 82kg and the a dirty bulk (stupid idea) from 82 to 96kg and now from 96kg to ~86kg.

Thanks for lending me your time, hope I can get some good advice.

[Ockerti]

The thing I forgot to mention is my diet. I'm eating pretty much clean, calculate my protein at around 150g a day, the only sugary thing i consume is my energy drinks, besides that i eat meat, vegetables, fruits and other good sources of carbs like rice, potatoes etc.

[spradish]

Nobody is going to read all that. Ask a question, provide applicable details, use paragraph breaks. Delete everything else.

[Ockerti]

I did, wrote every detail that I knew was important to share. If it is too heavy on your head to read a post, don't trash talk for no reason and don't read.

[hardyboysare]

I did, wrote every detail that I knew was important to share. If it is too heavy on your head to read a post, don't trash talk for no reason and don't read.

[Ockerti]

Bodybuilding community in a nut shell.

[hardyboysare]

I'm guessing you are attention seeking or something.

Just save everyone the time and delete your account and move on to something else.

[Ockerti]

Seeking attention by asking a question?

[hardyboysare]

No, to insult the first person who tries to help ensure someone actually reads the book you just wrote.

As spradish stated no-one is going to read a whole block of text not because we can't, more that why should we, its your problem after all doesn't effect us (the reader).

So either break it up into the problem you have directly and someone will try and help or you will get no answers as no-one is going to care that much to respond to your whole write up of Shakespeare's works.

[Ockerti]

Look, I know how this thing work. I'd make it shorter by deleting details and then people would start yelling basic things like: ,,You probably underestimate your calories!", ,,Do more cardio!" , ,,Do you eat enough protein?" or my favorite ,,Do you even lift?". She attacked me for no reason and it wasn't just a nice advice or something it was rude. Why would you bother talking like this to me in the first place? If you don't have the patience to read that, don't, but stop randomly attacking me just for asking a question.

[BBB8910]

You are working really hard and it seems you try to note every detail you consider important, what is your goal? Want a perfect body on every side?

[BS57]

Paragraphs would be a good starting point OP.

[hardyboysare]

Nothing she said was rude we can see the message lol

OK fair enough I see our advice is not going to be consider hopefully someone will read the very long paragraph and answer your question.

As I like to help most people whatever your question is (as I am not going to read a page worth in one paragraph), it will be answered by looking at the stickies or simply one of two answers:-

1) If you are not losing weight then you are not in a calorie deficit no matter how thorough you think your calorie counting is, therefore drop calories or exercise more.

2) If you wish to gain weight eat in a calorie surplus, if you can't gain weight then eat more.

That is all I am willing to say and hopefully someone a lot more patience then me will read your text and go into detail but the above answer is the solution for 99% of problems (as long as your goal is the correct one) about weight gaining/loss, as long as you follow good nutrition (see stickies) and a proven progressive training program (see stickies).

[Ockerti]

You are working really hard and it seems you try to note every detail you consider important, what is your goal? Want a perfect body on every side?

You might be correct. I've never in my life been what I would consider ,,being lean". For the most part I always had a mentality of a powerlifter, but now I want to break my barriers and become lean ~10-12% bodyfat,
and then build as much strength and muscles as my body allows.

[spradish]

You have got to be one seriously sensitive soul to think that was an attack. You are asking a group of strangers to take time out of their days to give you free advice. The least you can do is write in a clear and concise format.

You did not even ask a question in all of that. Believe me, I hit Ctl-F to search for a question mark and there were none.

[Ockerti]

You have got to be one seriously sensitive soul to think that was an attack. You are asking a group of strangers to take time out of their days to give you free advice. The least you can do is write in a clear and concise format.

You did not even ask a question in all of that. Believe me, I hit Ctl-F to search for a question mark and there were none.

I haven't posted much in the forum at all, I didn't know people would go ape sh*t about paragraphs. You could now take a shot at my grammar, even tho english is not my 1st nor 2nd language.
With all these things mentioned, it should be clear what my question is, even without a question mark.

With all that said, I don't want any more conversations not related to the topic and would appreciate people doing the same. I lost way too much hope in humanity today.

[BS57]

Good afternoon, I'm having a little bit of a problem and wanted to see what other people think. First I'll give a little bit of a background. I'm a 21 years old, ~86kg, 1.80m male, structural engineer (sedentary job). I've been in a calorie deficit for the past 5 months so I went from 96kg bodyweight to 86kg, a decrease of 22 pounds (to make things easier for you guys from US). I lost my first ~2kg very quickly and I don't even count them towards weight loss achievement, so I lost roughly 8kg of bodyweight in 5 months.

I had an issue calculating my TDEE since most of the calculators online are trash, let me explain. Most calculators have an estimation of daily activity as a single option and instead it should be 2 options (one for daily activity at work and the other for activity in the gym). I calculated my TDEE to be at 2800-3000kcal a day, but I had a hard time believing it so I made my own assumptions through experience. I am working out 3 days a week, doing full body and splitting it into 2 intensity days and 1 volume day.

An example of my intensity day: Bench press 5x6, triceps extentions 3x8, dead lifts 3x6, pull ups 3x6, rows 3x6, bicep curls 3x10, upright rows 5x6, lateral raises 3x12, shrugs 5x8, squats 3x6.

An example of my volume day: Chest cable flyes 5x15, triceps extensions 4x20, dead lifts 3x6, pull ups 3x15, rows 3x15, bicep curls 4x20, lateral raises 5x20, shrugs 5x15, leg extentions 5x to failure.

Usual workout take around 2hours to complete. So now that you know that, you might understand why I do have a problem estimating my TDEE, calculators let me choose my activity as for ex. sedentary (while most of my day is), but then it doesn't account for my hard work at the gym (which it is). Besides my workouts I take around 6000 steps every day so that makes my expenditure a little higher too. At the end I estimated my TDEE to be around 2400 kcal a day, since my metabolism is on the slower end (not an excuse), I went with it for my past 5months, so my cutting calories were and still are 1800 kcal a day.

Now here is where the fun stuff begins. I've hit a stall and I really do have a problem believing that my body maintains at 1800 since I do carry quite a bit of muscle (my 1 rep max results: 130kg Bench, 150kg squat, 150kg deadlift). I added an extra of 15min steady state cardio at the end of my workouts, but that somehow didn't show much of a change.

Another fun thing is how my weight is fluctuating (was since the beggining). When I started it was hard to lose weight from the beginning an example: I had it happening all the way, I wouldn't lose a single pound for two weeks, then at the end of two weeks scale jumps down to 1kg lower than it was before and stick to that point, then it would not drop for another two weeks and then again drop down 1kg and stick to it, which was extremely bizarre. At this point I'm stuck for about a month at ~86kg body weight.

Example of my weight for last 5 days: 86.7Kg, 86.9Kg, 86.4Kg, 86.9Kg, 86.2Kg and it has been like that for a past month.

I'm sort of getting paranoid with my weight not moving down, but at the same time I refuse to believe that my body maintains at 1800kcal. So now I am thinking of a few options, either I should go on a few week maintenance phase ~2300kcal to get my hormone levels back to normal or I should go even lower to lets say 1500 kcal.

I can't increase my cardio time, because my workouts take a lot of time and simply cannot find any more time to add to the cardio because of my job and university.

Before someone says, that I should have another way of measuring my progress, I do, but I didn't mention it because that shows no good as well.

My excersising age (around 3-4 years, at least 2 years were spend on my younger age and I had a big window of not excersising, so around 2years non stop now)

My dieting history: Went throught a few cycles of bulking and cutting, biggest cut being from 107kg to 82kg and the a dirty bulk (stupid idea) from 82 to 96kg and now from 96kg to ~86kg.

Thanks for lending me your time, hope I can get some good advice.

Stop trying to use the TDEE calculators for exact numbers....people can't seem to understand this. It's a starting point, PERIOD. Forget trying figure-out your activity level, pick whatever is closest, you're just working towards getting your best guess starting point. That's all, it's not something that should keep you up at night, nor take a slide-rule and 3 hours to figure.

I don't see the huge deal with a few ounces if weight fluctuation.

As far as gain/loss.....it's as simple as adjusting caloric intake, period. You're repeating your workouts each week, so if you're not gaining weight, it's not because you should have picked a different activity level from the calculator, it's because you need to adjust your intake.

Pick a starting point, give it 3 weeks, and adjust from there.

I haven't posted much in the forum at all, I didn't know people would go ape sh*t about paragraphs. You could now take a shot at my grammar, even tho english is not my 1st nor 2nd language.
With all these things mentioned, it should be clear what my question is, even without a question mark.

With all that said, I don't want any more conversations not related to the topic and would appreciate people doing the same. I lost way too much hope in humanity today.

Well, for someone claiming to be an Engineer, one would assume your education included a bit of sentence structure. Nobody wants to tackle the wall of text as you
had initially posted it. You want someone to be considerate enough to reply to your posts, be considerate enough to post in a way to make it simple as possible to read.

Meh, we're even....I lost all hope in the education system long ago.

[Ockerti]

Sorry, Sir, I didn't give a lot of thought into my text structure, instead I concentrated on to things I wanted to bring up. Yes, I am an Engineer and I am good at physics and math, not languages specifically.

My biggest concern is, how likely I've hit a new maintenance at 1800kcal? That feels too low...I'm not confident bringing calories even lower, since I'm around 20-22% body fat and still have a long way to go.

I have a little bit of a mental thing going on as well. As I've mentioned, I really have a mentality of a powerlifter and numbers do matter to me. My performance dropped a lot during those 5 months and dropping calories
lower feels insane to me...Some women tend to eat more than 1500kcal and lose weight and yet I am working really hard at the gym and should go to the same energy intake to see weight loss further...

[xsquid99]

Sorry, Sir, I didn't give a lot of thought into my text structure, instead I concentrated on to things I wanted to bring up. Yes, I am an Engineer and I am good at physics and math, not languages specifically.

My biggest concern is, how likely I've hit a new maintenance at 1800kcal? That feels too low...I'm not confident bringing calories even lower, since I'm around 20-22% body fat and still have a long way to go.

I have a little bit of a mental thing going on as well. As I've mentioned, I really have a mentality of a powerlifter and numbers do matter to me. My performance dropped a lot during those 5 months and dropping calories
lower feels insane to me...Some women tend to eat more than 1500kcal and lose weight and yet I am working really hard at the gym and should go to the same energy intake to see weight loss further...

You're likely not eating 1800 calories, most people test to miscount by at least 25%. If you're not losing weight for 3 consecutive weeks then drop calories until you're losing 1-2 lbs a week. Come on dude, you're at 20-22% which means you are very far from starving.

[Ockerti]

I understand it very clearly, but I have a very hard time noticing the weight loss since the beginning, because of the huge weight fluctuation.

I'll give you my food for today and I'd appreciate if you could tell me if I did something wrong:

350g of chicken wings (151 kcal per 100g)
360g of persimmon (127 kcal per 100g)
200g of mango (60 kcal per 100g)
180g of pickles (34 kcal per 100g)
2 cans of energy drink (250kcal each)

3.5*151 + 3.6*127 + 2*60 +1.8*34 + 500 = 1667kcal.

Am I doing something wrong? I suppose it should be correct, isn't it?

[GunsNsteak]

OK at 5'10 and 190 your calories for maintenance should be in the range of 2000-2300 maybe 2400. You're not counting your calories right. I don't mind chiming into say that but just stay motivated, adjust, and persist. Don't stop. I mean really you added no pertinent info that any of us can use to help you. Where's your macros? What are you eating? Are you reading any of the stickies? Have you looked into health at all on the internet? You personally my friend should assess your calorie counting skills and stay exercising. That's all that's it from me.

OK so lemme edit a little seeing your mealplan. That's a horrible diet. Where's the greens? Drop the energy drinks if you can. But srs do a little reading the next time you want to post something so detailed that it's confusing. You need to polish up that diet and reduce calories if you're not losing. You're at 22% bodyfat . You're definitely not going to starve.

[spradish]

The math there is correct but that doesn't mean that the quantities or calories are correct or that's all you ate/drank. Plus one day's food doesn't mean much. If you haven't lost weight in a month, you're eating too much to lose weight.

[xsquid99]

I understand it very clearly, but I have a very hard time noticing the weight loss since the beginning, because of the huge weight fluctuation.

I'll give you my food for today and I'd appreciate if you could tell me if I did something wrong:

350g of chicken wings (151 kcal per 100g)
360g of persimmon (127 kcal per 100g)
200g of mango (60 kcal per 100g)
180g of pickles (34 kcal per 100g)
2 cans of energy drink (250kcal each)

3.5*151 + 3.6*127 + 2*60 +1.8*34 + 500 = 1667kcal.

Am I doing something wrong? I suppose it should be correct, isn't it?

Where are you getting that data for chicken wings? Wings are super high in fat and that calorie number seems very low to me. Also how are you cooking them?

[Ockerti]

The math there is correct but that doesn't mean that the quantities or calories are correct or that's all you ate/drank. Plus one day's food doesn't mean much. If you haven't lost weight in a month, you're eating too much to lose weight.

Well, the only way my counting would be incorrect is if my scales lie to me. You guys have no idea what crazy amount of time I've invested into reading articles, scientific studies, watching informative content on youtube etc.
There is no possible way of me not accounting for something I eat, since I scale everything, every drop of ketchup and every grain of rice. I mean, it pretty much worked for my first 22pounds...

Everything just drives me insane at this point and I feel absolutely livid with myself.

When it comes to macros, I don't bother much, I just track my calories to be at around 1800 and my protein to be at 150g (except for today, since i gave up on my protein, because of emotionally horrile day)

[Ockerti]

Where are you getting that data for chicken wings? Wings are super high in fat and that calorie number seems very low to me. Also how are you cooking them?

I got it from the local website in my country. Cooking it in the oven with no added fats or anything else.
I even do the calculations to keep it relative. I scale raw chicken, calculate calories and scale it again after
Its done, to account for loss in mass after cooking.

edit: 350g are bones included, I keep the weight of the bones in as a tool to keep inconsistencies in measurement away.

[Ockerti]

OK at 5'10 and 190 your calories for maintenance should be in the range of 2000-2300 maybe 2400. You're not counting your calories right. I don't mind chiming into say that but just stay motivated, adjust, and persist. Don't stop. I mean really you added no pertinent info that any of us can use to help you. Where's your macros? What are you eating? Are you reading any of the stickies? Have you looked into health at all on the internet? You personally my friend should assess your calorie counting skills and stay exercising. That's all that's it from me.

OK so lemme edit a little seeing your mealplan. That's a horrible diet. Where's the greens? Drop the energy drinks if you can. But srs do a little reading the next time you want to post something so detailed that it's confusing. You need to polish up that diet and reduce calories if you're not losing. You're at 22% bodyfat . You're definitely not going to starve.

Today's diet is another story, just having a bad day, don't want to throw things completely so I just track calories. This isn't how my diet looks daily, I'd be dead by now if it did. I usually consume
0 calorie energy drinks, so that It wouldn't get in the way.

When it comes to greens, I have a problem eating them, since most of greens make me gag, I've been this way since my childhood. To account for that I do my best trying
to consume as much fruits as I can. I add some veggies like broc****, pickles, carrots, tomatoes, but besides those, I have a trouble eating veggies since it makes me sick
badly for the most part.

[xsquid99]

I got it from the local website in my country. Cooking it in the oven with no added fats or anything else.
I even do the calculations to keep it relative. I scale raw chicken, calculate calories and scale it again after
Its done, to account for loss in mass after cooking.

edit: 350g are bones included, I keep the weight of the bones in as a tool to keep inconsistencies in measurement away.

Interesting, just pulled mine out of the fridge, they are 250 calories per 84g raw (bone included).

[BS57]

OP- That's all well and fine, but starting out with an attitude generally doesn't go well with those offering their help. You just need to grow a little thicker skin (don't let it bother you), and move on. Enough about that.

You need to track cals and macros, otherwise you're likely missing your nutritional needs. I also agree with xsquid99 in that you're likely missing the caloric value of those wings (by nearly half).

In addition, if you learn the nutritional value of what you eat, you can expand your selection of foods. It gets old eating the same foods day in and day out.

You give the impression of being a bit on the emotional side, letting things in life effect you. I'm aware some people are wired this way, but emotions can cause people to make poor choices, such as in food. You may want to consider this, and even look into changing your outlook on things and how they effect you.

You need vegetables, period. Buy some frozen ones, cook a few spoonfuls at a time to eat. Force yourself to if need be. Try a selection, you'll find they're not that bad, and you're likely making them worse than they actually are. Unless you have to rare allergy, vegetables don't "make you sick", and that's you making an excuse not to eat them.

Grow-up and eat your vegetables.