Lost 40lb and hit plateau - help!

[thatsright]

Hi guys. The stats:

5'10"
May 1st 2010 - 262lb
Sept 8th 2010 - 223 lb
Went from size 42 pants to 34"

In June I started going to my PF gym and go about 5 days a week. I alternate between 2 days mostly cardio (35min) and then the other 3 days weights/resistance training. I've had relatively great success till now. My spare tire is almost gone. I look/feel great. Everyone at work is asking me "....uhh, you working out?" Changing my diet and going to the gym has not been hard at all. The one big problem is my lack of sleep. I'm lucky if I get 6hr's during the week.

But for most of August my weigh loss has slowed to 1.5lb per week. The last two-three weeks combined I think I've lost 1-2lb tops. So something is really off. The last few days especially, I've been jogging in the gym during my cardio day. Since then, I'm frequently starving during the day. I've gotten good about spacing out several meals during the day. But before lunch today I wanted to gorge myself I was so hungry.

My original goal was pure fat loss. And I did good at that. Then I would build up muscle. But, during this phase I probably wasn't taking in enough protein. I figure I need 200gm per day to build muscle.

Here todays cal intake:

I'm trying to balance fat loss and muscle buildup. I still want maximum fat loss. But my lower body is 2-3x ahead of my upper body in terms of muscle definition. So I need to build up from my neck to the waist area. Should I dramatically scale back the cardio? No jogging? Focus mostly on weights? Upp cal intake as Im actually hungry now during the day (which I never was before)? My goal is to get under 200lb by the end of November.

Thoughts.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

You haven't plateaued until you stop losing weight. The actual suggested rate by nutrition and exercise professionals is 1-1.5lbs of weight loss per week so you're pretty on par with that. Also, I'd like to add that only early on can you even think about losing fat and gaining muscle. They are contrary goals - losing fat requires a caloric deficit while gaining muscle requires a caloric excess. Keep in mind that as you've been losing weight, the difference between your caloric intake and caloric expenditure has slowly been decreasing. If you were burning 3000 calories and only eating 2200 before, you had a 800cal deficit. Now that you're smaller, you're easily burning 300-400 calories less. That decreases your deficit to 400-500cal, thereby slowing your progress. If you're losing a pound a week, you're still completely fine (and probably in a healthier range because of it). Just keep working.

 

[thatsright]

You haven't plateaued until you stop losing weight. The actual suggested rate by nutrition and exercise professionals is 1-1.5lbs of weight loss per week so you're pretty on par with that. Also, I'd like to add that only early on can you even think about losing fat and gaining muscle. They are contrary goals - losing fat requires a caloric deficit while gaining muscle requires a caloric excess. Keep in mind that as you've been losing weight, the difference between your caloric intake and caloric expenditure has slowly been decreasing. If you were burning 3000 calories and only eating 2200 before, you had a 800cal deficit. Now that you're smaller, you're easily burning 300-400 calories less. That decreases your deficit to 400-500cal, thereby slowing your progress. If you're losing a pound a week, you're still completely fine (and probably in a healthier range because of it). Just keep working.

Ok. Though I should of clarified my statement above. In the last three weeks total, I have probably only lost about 2lb TOTAL for all 3 weeks combined. So would you say I've kind of come to the end of the road in terms of having two contradicting goals: fat loss and building muscle? (I'm actually worried I have 'wrecked my metabolisim' if such a thing is possible?) If my metabolism has 'adjusted' to my diet and how my body burns calories, do I have to add more calories if I want to build muscle-but if I do this...then this will stop the fat loss angle?

Should I go up a bit on my cal intake or just space meals out a bit more during the day? Since I started jogging during my cardio sessions, I am starving during the day which never happened before.

 

[KoolDrew]

Don't try to do two things at once - either try to lose fat or try to gain muscle. Since both require complete opposite types of diets, you're not going to get anywhere trying to achieve both unless you do some sort of cyclical diet. This doesn't mean don't weight lift. You still need to in order to maintain lean body mass.

Also, as you lose weight calories will have be adjusted downwards to continue fat loss. Your going to burn less calories in a day just from being smaller, and there is going to be an adaptive component to it as well. If you've been consistently losing weight for the past 4 months I'd definitely say it's time for a diet break. Take two weeks where you eat at maintenance calories and get at least 100g of carbs a day. This serves a couple of purposes, both psychologically and physiologically. You'll be able to eat more and not be miserable and allow everything to return to normal such as leptin levels and other hormones that effect your metabolism. The important thing is to still treat it as part of the diet though, don't start pigging out because your on a "break." That'll just set you back further. I think everybody should incorporate diet breaks. How often depends on how lean you are. At your weight, I would say take a diet break every 12 weeks or so.

Also, eat more whole food protein. It appears most of your protein intake is from shakes, which is not going to help hunger nearly as much as whole food. If you were to choose shakes, I'd rather see you at least choose a casein protein instead of whey, but whole food would be even better.

 

[thatsright]

Don't try to do two things at once - either try to lose fat or try to gain muscle. Since both require complete opposite types of diets, you're not going to get anywhere trying to achieve both unless you do some sort of cyclical diet. This doesn't mean don't weight lift. You still need to in order to maintain lean body mass.

Also, as you lose weight calories will have be adjusted downwards to continue fat loss. Your going to burn less calories in a day just from being smaller, and there is going to be an adaptive component to it as well. If you've been consistently losing weight for the past 4 months I'd definitely say it's time for a diet break. Take two weeks where you eat at maintenance calories and get at least 100g of carbs a day. This serves a couple of purposes, both psychologically and physiologically. You'll be able to eat more and not be miserable and allow everything to return to normal such as leptin levels and other hormones that effect your metabolism. The important thing is to still treat it as part of the diet though, don't start pigging out because your on a "break." That'll just set you back further. I think everybody should incorporate diet breaks. How often depends on how lean you are. At your weight, I would say take a diet break every 12 weeks or so.

Also, eat more whole food protein. It appears most of your protein intake is from shakes, which is not going to help hunger nearly as much as whole food. If you were to choose shakes, I'd rather see you at least choose a casein protein instead of whey, but whole food would be even better.

Ok. So after thinking about it if you had to press me, I'm more interested in loosing body fat compared to building muscle. Once I'm down to a good body fat level, then Ill shift to gaining muscle mass. Can I do it this way?

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Ok. So after thinking about it if you had to press me, I'm more interested in loosing body fat compared to building muscle. Once I'm down to a good body fat level, then Ill shift to gaining muscle mass. Can I do it this way?

Yes, and that's exactly what many people do. They lose the fat mass and then gain muscle until they're satisfied with their size. Sometimes, after that, they may even lose a bit of fat again so they're muscular and have a decently low body fat.

 

[mchammer187]

I'd say one thing is you are getting way too much protein from supplements and probably too much protein as a whole

850 calories of your diet are from protein supplements.

the thing about protein shakes is they don't fill you up as much since they are a liquid

I shoot for a roughly equal distribution of calories 1/3 fat 1/3 prot 1/3 carb and your meals will be much more satisfying 2.5-3g carb to 2.5-3g prot 1 g

replace the supplement in the morning with eggs, bacon, cottage cheese and some carbs like fruit

instead of the protein bar have a tuna sandwich or something.

replace the shake in the evening with something hearty like meat and vegetables.


shakes are fine for post workout but they shouldn't be a staple calorie source when you are cutting since they are very calorie dense but aren't filling.

 

[shortylickens]

You do realize that as you lose fat you gain muscle?
When you stop losing weight, what do you think that means?

ENJOY IT MAN! You earned it.

 

[KoolDrew]

You do realize that as you lose fat you gain muscle?

Uhh... what?

 

[shortylickens]

Uhh... what?

I mean: In this particular case.
Not always, obviously.

 

[thatsright]

Ok. Can you guys suggest how I really focus on loosing fat while maintaining my lean muscle mass? Right now I'm hitting gym 5 days a week. Two cardio days with minimum 30+ minutes on treadmill with periods of jogging and then some weight lifting. No more than an hr in the gym. The other 3 days I do splits of upper and lower body weight resistance training. At this point, my lower body is at least 2x ahead of my upper body in terms of definition.

Should I do mostly cardio now? If so, should I cut cals or go up? And I will say the MetRX powder based shakes are pretty filling, but the RTD51 canned drinks maybe not so much...

 

[KoolDrew]

Ok. Can you guys suggest how I really focus on loosing fat while maintaining my lean muscle mass? Right now I'm hitting gym 5 days a week. Two cardio days with minimum 30+ minutes on treadmill with periods of jogging and then some weight lifting. No more than an hr in the gym. The other 3 days I do splits of upper and lower body weight resistance training. At this point, my lower body is at least 2x ahead of my upper body in terms of definition.

Should I do mostly cardio now? If so, should I cut cals or go up? And I will say the MetRX powder based shakes are pretty filling, but the RTD51 canned drinks maybe not so much...

1) Keep the deficit reasonable. Aim to lose between 1-1.5lbs a week
2) Keep protein intake high (1g/lb bw)
3) Maintain your intensity and strength in the gym (lift heavy)

That's basically it. The first one is kind of generalizing and depending on the individual and how lean/fat they are, it may change. In other words, the fatter you are the faster you'll be able to lose weight safely. The best indicator is your performance in the gym. If you're only losing 1lb a week, but your losing strength like crazy, it's still probably too much.

Also, weight lifting should definitely have the priority over cardio. Too much cardio can do more harm than good (so can too much weight lifting), especially when it comes to retaining muscle mass. Post your routine though. At first I thought you were only weight lifting 3x a week, but then you mentioned doing weight lifting after your jogging.

As for calories - you need to be in a deficit to lose weight, which means you need to lower them if you're not losing weight, but if you're really worried about your metabolism and since you've been dieting for a while now, it definitely would be a good idea to up calories to maintenance levels for two weeks to help normalize everything and give you a "fresh start." After that lower calories by ~500kcal and adjust from there. Once you get leaner refeeds would be beneficial as well.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Ok. Can you guys suggest how I really focus on loosing fat while maintaining my lean muscle mass? Right now I'm hitting gym 5 days a week. Two cardio days with minimum 30+ minutes on treadmill with periods of jogging and then some weight lifting. No more than an hr in the gym. The other 3 days I do splits of upper and lower body weight resistance training. At this point, my lower body is at least 2x ahead of my upper body in terms of definition.

Should I do mostly cardio now? If so, should I cut cals or go up? And I will say the MetRX powder based shakes are pretty filling, but the RTD51 canned drinks maybe not so much...

Read the fat loss sticky - http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=162171

 

[Kipper]

Ok. Can you guys suggest how I really focus on loosing fat while maintaining my lean muscle mass? Right now I'm hitting gym 5 days a week. Two cardio days with minimum 30+ minutes on treadmill with periods of jogging and then some weight lifting. No more than an hr in the gym. The other 3 days I do splits of upper and lower body weight resistance training. At this point, my lower body is at least 2x ahead of my upper body in terms of definition.

Should I do mostly cardio now? If so, should I cut cals or go up? And I will say the MetRX powder based shakes are pretty filling, but the RTD51 canned drinks maybe not so much...

Go back to the drawing board. Double-check portion sizes, measure everything out for a couple meals/days to make sure you are not OVERestimating what you're eating. For example: what exactly is in your salad that makes it 400 kcals? That is a ton of calories for a salad. Are you measuring out portions or "guesstimating" - your calories are recorded in "serving sizes," which are a bit archaic for many (assuming this uses the USDA portion sizing). Beware of semi-solid and liquid foods like oils, dressings, etc. - very difficult to determine how much is being used unless you are actually measuring.

Plateauing is generally a symptom of your body having successfully adjusted to the weight loss, usually meaning you have to cut a bit more - so cut conservatively - in 100-200 kcal increments. Replace foods with non-starchy vegetables/high-fiber foods to compensate for reduced portions. The other alternative is to increase your expenditure, possibly by being more aggressive in the gym with weights/cardio. A combination of the two should induce more weight loss.

 

[Stojakapimp]

If you weight 223 pounds, I'd estimate that you burn roughly 2500 calories a day just from being alive. Combine that with the workouts you're doing, you're probably burning somewhere around 3000 calories/day.

If you want to lose 1 pound per week, then you want a 500 calorie deficit per day, so you're actually probably pretty close to that point.

Pretty tough to say why exactly you've hit a plateau. I've heard of cases where people actually need to increase their calories consumption, so that their body knows it will be given the energy it needs and can put its metabolism into high gear.

But if you truly only have a 500 calorie/day deficit, then I wouldn't think that that would be the case.

You can also try changing up your workout routine. If you're repeating a lot of the same exercises, then your body can get used to that and you won't burn as many calories in your workout.

 

[spamsk8r]

Yeah, you really don't need as much protein as you're getting. I would get rid of most of the shakes and limit them to just post-workout, and eat meat instead for the other meals. If you reduce your protein a bit and ate fattier cuts of (good quality) meats you will find you won't be as hungry, as protein + fat are very satiating. I'm about your size (5'10", 207#) and even with intense Crossfit workouts 4-5 days/week I usually don't need more than 120-150 grams of protein a day to maintain muscle mass, and I've been doing this for about 3 years, so hopefully that gives you a general idea of what to shoot for.

 

[Stojakapimp]

I also forgot to add that only about 30% of your calories are from carbs. If you've been working out from May until now with only 30% carbs, then you probably aren't providing yourself with enough good energy. Yes if you deplete carbs in your body then you might start burning fat, but you will also burn muscle. And if you burn muscle, you won't be burning as many calories.

I would suggest increasing your carb intake to at least 40%, maybe even 50%. But 30% probably isn't enough.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

I also forgot to add that only about 30% of your calories are from carbs. If you've been working out from May until now with only 30% carbs, then you probably aren't providing yourself with enough good energy. Yes if you deplete carbs in your body then you might start burning fat, but you will also burn muscle. And if you burn muscle, you won't be burning as many calories.

I would suggest increasing your carb intake to at least 40%, maybe even 50%. But 30% probably isn't enough.

What? 30% of calories from carbs on a 2400 calorie diet is near 800 calories or 200g of carbs. That's WAY, WAY more than enough to replenish glycogen by default. 50% is completely unnecessary unless he's a high level endurance athlete. 30-40% is just fine for a carb macronutrient distribution.

 

[thatsright]

If you weight 223 pounds, I'd estimate that you burn roughly 2500 calories a day just from being alive. Combine that with the workouts you're doing, you're probably burning somewhere around 3000 calories/day.

If you want to lose 1 pound per week, then you want a 500 calorie deficit per day, so you're actually probably pretty close to that point.

Pretty tough to say why exactly you've hit a plateau. I've heard of cases where people actually need to increase their calories consumption, so that their body knows it will be given the energy it needs and can put its metabolism into high gear.

But if you truly only have a 500 calorie/day deficit, then I wouldn't think that that would be the case.

You can also try changing up your workout routine. If you're repeating a lot of the same exercises, then your body can get used to that and you won't burn as many calories in your workout.

In thinking about it, I feel maybe my body has 'adjusted' to my workout routine and that's why I've really leveled off. I haven't really changed my diet and this is the one area I've been very good about. Very disciplined.

One way I just recently decided to mix it up a bit, is during my two 'cardio day's' I do a bit of jogging. I thought I'd never like it but its great actually. Now I'm not jogging solid for 30 minutes, but do a bit of a 'steeple chase' type rapid cycling of walking at 15 degrees and then jogging. Please suggest other ways I can mix it up a bit.

This week I've eaten a bit more and will do so until the end of next week to have my body 'adjust' to somewhat of a more normal diet. (When I get my cup of oatmeal at work in the morning, I get a SMALL cup of home fired potatoes. For dinner, I eat bread...which have not really done at all in the last 4 months. I cut back a bit on the protein, but will still have my Protein shake right after gym workout. A friend told me that on the two days when I do cardio is to cut back 200 or so calories and on days when I do weights, to actually eat a bit more at diner to satisfy my carb requirements.

A week from saturday I will start really cuting the cal intake. Go back to the disciplined diet mode. I'll see how things go if I go down to 2300 cal per day. I have adjusted my goals a bit if all I can realistically hope for is 1.5lb pound loss. Right now I'm at 221lb and my holy grail is to get to 196lb. I think by the end of the year I can do this.

 

[thatsright]

I jam wrapping up the 'diet cycling' and have been eating some of my old school foods. I will end this fun this weekend and then cut back a good/great deal on the calories intake.

Can anyone suggest 'best' way to focus on fat loss. Should I do more or less cardio? More or less Weights. Thoughts?

 

[SociallyChallenged]

I jam wrapping up the 'diet cycling' and have been eating some of my old school foods. I will end this fun this weekend and then cut back a good/great deal on the calories intake.

Can anyone suggest 'best' way to focus on fat loss. Should I do more or less cardio? More or less Weights. Thoughts?

My suggestion is weights with little cardio and here is my logic. Weightlifting induces a genetic cascade that promotes muscle growth (when in a caloric surplus) or muscle maintenance (when at caloric maintenance or in a caloric deficit). Because you're in a caloric deficit while losing weight, by default your body will attempt to break down both muscle and fat to provide energy. If you are expressing genes that promote muscle growth/maintenance, then you are less likely to use the muscle for fuel.

I suggest little cardio because there has been a lot of research showing that endurance exercise really helps hone in the body's hunger response. This is a great thing if you're looking to stay at the same weight. However, if you're looking to lose weight, it means you're going to be hungry all the time. If you don't do cardio, you can trick your body into thinking it's not hungry even when you're in a caloric deficit. Results may vary among individuals, but hunger is always a problem while dieting so it's a good idea to address that within the plan.

There are people who say excluding cardio isn't healthy, especially if you're trying to get fit. However, just by losing weight, you are vastly improving your health (via decreased blood pressure, better insulin sensitivity, lesser risk of atherosclerosis, etc). If you can address that problem in its entirety first, then you ARE getting healthy. On top of that, doing popular impact exercise like running or using the elliptical may actually promote early injury due to the weight of the individual. These are just a few things I keep in mind when I promote weightliting, good diet with a caloric deficit, and little cardio during weight loss.