Weight loss stagnated, looking for solutions

[kingfish]

Hey all,

Haven't been here in a while, prob since my 2.5 year old twins were born. I'd got some good advice here before so I'm back to try again. Trying to diet and it's been an on-again off-again struggle. I'm 45, 6' and 250 trying to lose 30lb. Between Jan and Apr I managed to drop almost 20lb but then hit the wall and struggled for 3 months. I'm taking 100mg test cyp weekly due to a low T situation (my endo is the coolest; she lets me stick myself) Just a few years ago when I was benching near 400 I wanted to build mass & get big, but now I'm just interested in leaning out, maintaining what size I have and get healthy. Ideally I'd like to reach 20% BF but it's just been a grind.

I've been following a 2k calorie diet with workouts & cardio 3 - 4 days per week. During the week I eat pretty much the same thing which has worked well for quite a while until I reached a plateau. Now I need to find a simple diet to follow because I know anything too involved will mean I won't stick with it. Would appreciate hearing from those who've "been there".

[Brazensol]

What kind of cardio and how much (time wise)?

[kingfish]

What kind of cardio and how much (time wise)?

30 minutes, typically on the treadmill. I try breaking it up with the elliptical on occasion. I started hitting legs again, on the advice of my old trainer to get my metabolism going.

[Brazensol]

The legs are the largest muscle group and you'll burn some calories training them. What is your current bf? Using your goal of 20% and your current weight of 250 you need ~3000+ calories a day now just to maintain your current weight. Crazy as it sounds, at 2000 calories, you may be over-cutting on your calories. Try taking your weight minus your bf% and multiply that by 15 (250 - xx%bf x 15). Subtract 500 from that and see use it as your daily calorie count. If you want a bigger deficit do it through more cardio.

How long have you been stuck at your current plateau? I often would have temporary "sticking" points but they would typically last 4-5 days... then the weight would start dropping again.

[kingfish]

When I started at 270, my BF was 29%. Not sure where I'm at now, but I can get with my trainer and use his hand-held BF measurement tool. I used one of the online calorie calculators and came up with 2900cal for maintenance - I figured 2000cal would provide a good daily deficit without slowing down my metabolism. You're thinking that's too much? Maybe 2500cal daily might work better? Using your calc with an assumed BF of 27% I came up with 2845, which hardly seems like much of a deficit. Oy, wish I understood this diet stuff better..

The last plateau lasted 3 month (very frustrating) and I assumed it was diet-related but wasn't sure how to go about fixing it. I got down to 249 last week but have bounced back up to 252. Is calorie deficit thru exercise preferable to just cutting calories?

[Brazensol]

Your first post you said you weighed 250#. So that minus the 27% bf gives us 183#'s of lbm. Multiply that by 15 and we get 2745 calories to maintain that 250 pounds. So we subtract the deficit of 500 calories and your new daily total is 2245. Cut calories through both diet and exercise. Most of the time I was cutting I used 400-500 for my deficit. I also did a lot of bike riding. Also look at Austinites far burn stack in the supplement section. It certainly helped me.

[kingfish]

Ok, I see I missed a critical step with that formula. Is that 2245 calorie before or after cardio?

I quickly read thru Austinite's thread - there's no way I can take anywhere near what he's taking and spend that kind of $. I believe in supplementation, but that's gone to an extreme. Which ones did you find helpful?

[Brazensol]

Ok, I see I missed a critical step with that formula. Is that 2245 calorie before or after cardio?

I quickly read thru Austinite's thread - there's no way I can take anywhere near what he's taking and spend that kind of $. I believe in supplementation, but that's gone to an extreme. Which ones did you find helpful?

Forget the cardio! As far as counting it in your equation goes that is. You need to eat 2250-2300 calories a day with a macro split of 40p/30c/30f or somewhere thereabouts. Think of any calories burned through cardio as a bonus and not as a reason to eat more food. If I factored in my calories burned through cardio and weightlifting I only net about 900-1200 calories a day.

EDIT: Almost forgot! I was only talking about Austinites fat burn protocol. Very reasonable price for that. This stack consists of synephrine, EGCG and chromium picolinate.

http://forums.steroid.com/supplement...-products.html

[kingfish]

Forget the cardio! As far as counting it in your equation goes that is. You need to eat 2250-2300 calories a day with a macro split of 40p/30c/30f or somewhere thereabouts. Think of any calories burned through cardio as a bonus and not as a reason to eat more food. If I factored in my calories burned through cardio and weightlifting I only net about 900-1200 calories a day.

EDIT: Almost forgot! I was only talking about Austinites fat burn protocol. Very reasonable price for that. This stack consists of synephrine, EGCG and chromium picolinate.

http://forums.steroid.com/supplement...-products.html

Okay I'll use 2300 as a daily target - I'm really curious now to see what difference 300cal makes. Figuring out the macros has always struck me as a pain in the ass, but I guess without it the nutrition picture is incomplete. Thanks for the link; I wasn't able to find it before. I'll try hitting up Amazon tonight.

[Brazensol]

Remember, it takes 3500 calories over your maintenance level to create (and store) one pound of fat. Three hundred a day for a month is 9,000 calories or well over 2 pounds of fat. Assuming your metabolism is average and your hormones are in check you will lose weight on this cut. Even more so if you hit the cardio religiously. And yes, tedious as it is, keeping track of what you eat and how much is important. Probably more so for cutting than bulking.

[kingfish]

Thanks man. I'm on an Amazon shopping spree right now

[Brazensol]

Just remember it is no magic pill but it will help. And when you see consistent results from stepping on the scale or looking in the mirror it helps to keep you motivated. Then it becomes an almost self-feeding monster... lol.

[kingfish]

No argument there, but I'm kind hyped to see how effective the protocol will be. The big effort (PITA) will be figuring out how to plan meals so they conform to the 40/30/30 breakdown. Now that I don't bench heavy any more (got hurt last time) I'm really not interested in getting big, but rather leaning out and getting BF down to a healthy level. Thanks much for the help; I'll let ya know how it works out.

[ObviousDecoy]

For me I hit a wall and the only thing to get me past it was to start prepping my own food. Weighing and assigning proportions for the next day assured that I'd eat exactly what I planned on eating. Its very easy to cheat a little when you are guessing portions.

[Brazensol]

No argument there, but I'm kind hyped to see how effective the protocol will be. The big effort (PITA) will be figuring out how to plan meals so they conform to the 40/30/30 breakdown. Now that I don't bench heavy any more (got hurt last time) I'm really not interested in getting big, but rather leaning out and getting BF down to a healthy level. Thanks much for the help; I'll let ya know how it works out.

It won't take long to get it down. You'll quickly learn what the protein, fat, and carbs are for your favorites. Just build around those at first but be sure to add new things so as not to get bored. If you get bored then you will be more likely to cheat. Which you will do anyway - just don't make it a habit! lol.

[baseline_9]

Brazensol, just remember that LBMx15 does not factor in any activity.... So taking 500 calories off of that and using that as a base is probably not wise IMO.... Remember to factor in cardio and training before you set baseline calories....

[Brazensol]

Brazensol, just remember that LBMx15 does not factor in any activity.... So taking 500 calories off of that and using that as a base is probably not wise IMO.... Remember to factor in cardio and training before you set baseline calories....

If that's the case I've been super cutting! So lbm x 15 is only a maintenance calorie level? Crap... I've was using that number minus my deficit and then on top of that I was also doing (and still am) a lot of cardio plus weightlifting four days a week. Let me break down a typical day for me when I was cutting hard using 11 July from my log as an example:

TDEE (using 15xlbm)............2248 cal's (based on 150 pounds lbm)
Cut deficit...........................450 cal's
Calorie goal.........................1798
Actual cal's..........................1656
Cardio.................................25.1 miles @ 15.4 mph (1,314 cal's burned according to my calculators)
Chest/Tricep day..................300 cal's (my estimate, not really sure on this).
Net cal's after cardio/lifting.....42!!!

Based on the above how many calories do you think I should have been eating? Except for my exercise time my activity level is otherwise pretty low. I guess I have been overachieving to say the least. But it seems to have worked. And somehow I managed to even gain some lbm over this cutting period. I hope that is a good indicator of what to expect on my first cycle.

I feel like I owe myself one big pigout day at the buffet.

[baseline_9]

Ill show u how I do it

(LBM x 15) x 7 (for weekly total) + cardio and training expenditure per week (300 for upper body, 400 for lower body)

Then take the weekly deficit off of that and devide by 7....

Now I do it like this because I feel that starting lower on a cut is going to give you problems down the road and I can't prove it but I think no matter what you start a cut on your body responds to very similarly (when were talking maybe (500 cals difference)... This is probably due to your energy levels and the activity that you do or do not do based on how u feel.... For example, if you start a cut of 3000 cals and loose 1 lbs a wk vs starting on 2500 cals a week and still loosing the same 1 lb, I'd submit that the case may be that you have auto-regulated your own energy expenditure (without thinking about it) based on the fact you either feel good on 2500 or great on 3000... And I think that most can start at or around mtnce (LBM x 15) and create the deficit with training and cardio to begin with...

[FONZY007]

Ill show u how I do it

(LBM x 15) x 7 (for weekly total) + cardio and training expenditure per week (300 for upper body, 400 for lower body)

Then take the weekly deficit off of that and devide by 7....

Now I do it like this because I feel that starting lower on a cut is going to give you problems down the road and I can't prove it but I think no matter what you start a cut on your body responds to very similarly (when were talking maybe (500 cals difference)... This is probably due to your energy levels and the activity that you do or do not do based on how u feel.... For example, if you start a cut of 3000 cals and loose 1 lbs a wk vs starting on 2500 cals a week and still loosing the same 1 lb, I'd submit that the case may be that you have auto-regulated your own energy expenditure (without thinking about it) based on the fact you either feel good on 2500 or great on 3000... And I think that most can start at or around mtnce (LBM x 15) and create the deficit with training and cardio to begin with...

Learn something new everyday...