Thread: Significantly Slower Losses

Come on now, I am sure some of the pro's of the Diet and Nutrition section have some advice for a kind sir.

25 lbs is alot for only 2 months time. Post your diet

It's in my journal, which is in my sig. I was at a pretty large kcal deficit for awhile. The more weight I lost. the less I needed but I still stayed consistent. Honestly, I don't count every little thing that I eat. I eat clean, 5 times a day and the rest follows. If I had to weigh every little piece of chicken I put into my body, I would flip out. Nor do i have time for that. Anyway, if anyone has anymore info on refeeds, that would be dandy.

Originally Posted by ABCs

It's in my journal, which is in my sig. I was at a pretty large kcal deficit for awhile. The more weight I lost. the less I needed but I still stayed consistent. Honestly, I don't count every little thing that I eat. I eat clean, 5 times a day and the rest follows. If I had to weigh every little piece of chicken I put into my body, I would flip out. Nor do i have time for that. Anyway, if anyone has anymore info on refeeds, that would be dandy.

If thats the case then just use the mirror as your guide

Originally Posted by fUnc17

If thats the case then just use the mirror as your guide

Yeah, that's what I did in the beginning. Now I weigh myself once a week. Always on Sundays when I go visit my family back in Jers before I have my weekly cheat meal. I will just stick to my plan and do a refeed if I COMPLETELY come to a hault. I gotta remember to be patient.

you have been in caloric defecit for 8 weeks. Might be a good idea to take a week and eat up calories to reset the metabolism before making another run at dropping fat.

Originally Posted by P-funk

you have been in caloric defecit for 8 weeks. Might be a good idea to take a week and eat up calories to reset the metabolism before making another run at dropping fat.

An entire week? Of what? Just up my clean intake? Or should I focus on one area (I.e proties, carbs, etc).

Originally Posted by ABCs

An entire week? Of what? Just up my clean intake? Or should I focus on one area (I.e proties, carbs, etc).

calories.

do you know how many you eat now? can you estimate your maintenance level? Start with that, or even slightly above maintentance.

Well since I am an endo, gaining weight seems to be quite easy. So maintenance for me is probably somewhere around 2500. I am currently eating around the 1800 range. I am going to up my intake next week and see how it goes. Is a refeed needed or should i just up the intake and go from there?

just up your caloric intake.

Will do. Thanks for the advice Funk.

Originally Posted by ABCs

Well since I am an endo, gaining weight seems to be quite easy. So maintenance for me is probably somewhere around 2500. I am currently eating around the 1800 range. I am going to up my intake next week and see how it goes. Is a refeed needed or should i just up the intake and go from there?

At 200lbs your maintenence level should be ~3000 cals (which is 15x your bw). The lowest you should go would be ~2000 cals (10x your bw). At 1800 you are eating waaayy to few cals for your weight. This may have resulted in your metabolism comming to a standstill.

As P suggested, up your cals to maintenence level for a bit. But dont jump from 1800 to 3000 cals overnight. You would have to slowly increase ~200 cals a week, wait a week or two and then increase again. When you lower, do the same in reverse. If you are loosing weight, then stick to those cals until weight loss stops. Dont crash down to 1800 cals and start at that point.

Originally Posted by BulkMeUp

At 200lbs your maintenence level should be ~3000 cals (which is 15x your bw). The lowest you should go would be ~2000 cals (10x your bw). At 1800 you are eating waaayy to few cals for your weight. This may have resulted in your metabolism comming to a standstill.

As P suggested, up your cals to maintenence level for a bit. But dont jump from 1800 to 3000 cals overnight. You would have to slowly increase ~200 cals a week, wait a week or two and then increase again. When you lower, do the same in reverse. If you are loosing weight, then stick to those cals until weight loss stops. Dont crash down to 1800 cals and start at that point.

Yeah, I figured I was pretty under my caloric intake. I was seeing pretty damn quick results. I will slowly up them as I go along until I hit maintenance then start dipping back down slowly to get my body back in action. Thanks for the input Bulk.

When you go to up your caloric intake, do it evenly spread over all 3 areas, and do it over all 5 meals, don't just have one meal where you eat more calories, and don't just have more carbs, or more protein, etc. Your body needs to rebuild it's metabolism by having enough calories (energy) to work the way it "wants" to.

When it comes to a refeed, the sticky says, you want more carbs. This doesn't mean head for the candy bars, it just means have more clean low GI carbs in the early meals than you normally would. This only needs to be done every so often obviously, and most people like myself just make that your cheat meal for the week. I do a refeed every month, or every two weeks if I'm in training (where I burn about 4000-4500 cals per day). It's meant to be coordinated with both your training, and with your personal goals.

You don't need to weigh all your food to know what's enough, but like myself I weigh some food and just learn what size portions are 'about' at the calorie amount I'm after.

What's your workout schedule like?

Originally Posted by Plateau_Max

When you go to up your caloric intake, do it evenly spread over all 3 areas, and do it over all 5 meals, don't just have one meal where you eat more calories, and don't just have more carbs, or more protein, etc. Your body needs to rebuild it's metabolism by having enough calories (energy) to work the way it "wants" to.

When it comes to a refeed, the sticky says, you want more carbs. This doesn't mean head for the candy bars, it just means have more clean low GI carbs in the early meals than you normally would. This only needs to be done every so often obviously, and most people like myself just make that your cheat meal for the week. I do a refeed every month, or every two weeks if I'm in training (where I burn about 4000-4500 cals per day). It's meant to be coordinated with both your training, and with your personal goals.

You don't need to weigh all your food to know what's enough, but like myself I weigh some food and just learn what size portions are 'about' at the calorie amount I'm after.

What's your workout schedule like?

My training is in my journal but to sum it up in short. Weight training and cardio MWF, 20 min crossfit (push-ups, sit ups, etc etc) and small amounts of cardio TuesThursSat. Sundays completely off and usually a small cheat meal. Honestly, even on this big deficit I have seen gains in muscle. And no, it's not just muscle shining through. My body is getting leaner and firmer. Uping my calories at this point would be a good idea as now I need to start transitioning from focusing on total weight loss to muscle gain/fat loss.

Yeah, you don't want your calories so low during the rest of the week, that you're burning your muscle up as well

Originally Posted by katt

Yeah, you don't want your calories so low during the rest of the week, that you're burning your muscle up as well

Yeah, not something I want to do. Glad I asked this at the right time and got the good advice I got. Now it's back to my cheat meal. Wholewheat pasta and my grandma's home made meatballs and gravy.

This is where I'm at too. I ate anything and everything 9 weeks ago, then started eating cleaner for 7 weeks and lost 20lb. I've been working on the diet and trying to get things more balanced and I've seen 10lb come back. So now after 10 weeks I'm only 11lb down from where I started.

I burn 4500 kcal a day when I work out and 3800kcal when I don't. I'm 240lb and eat roughly 2000-2300kcal a day. Which I'm told isn't enough. What I don't understand is how I lost in the begining so quickly.

At any rate I have the training down I just need to get the diet handled but I'm having a bitch of time getting it balanced. Just when I think I have it own, I'm further off than I started.

At any rate I feel your pain, and see the scale once a week that says 246lb and seems to just be hanging there.

a) don't focus on BW. Focus on BF. Are you taking measurements to track your progress?

b) you always lose quickly in the begining because you are doing something that is radically different than what you are (or were) used to doing. The adaptation to more exercise or activity and a change in diet is dropping lots of weight quickly. You do infact adapt, and things slow down. Then, it becomes a game of trying get your body to adapt to something else.

When you eat to little, there is a cascade of hormones that play a role in down regulating your metabolism. Basically saying..."something is wrong here. We need to save energy incase we are going to be eating this little for an extended period of time (ie starvation)." So, the goal is to walk that line between to little calories and to many calories until you get to a point where you are satisfied and then know what to do to effectively maintain what you have.

If you gained back 11lbs, you need to evaluate why that happened. Did you start trianing less? Did you make changes to your diet? Start eating more? etc...

If the scale is hanging at 246, measure yourself and chart that way.

Also, how often do you change your exercise routine? has your progress halted there? can you still do more each week....more reps, more sets, more weight, less rest interval, etc.....or, have you adapted to what you are doing and not made any progress?

Originally Posted by P-funk

Also, how often do you change your exercise routine? has your progress halted there? can you still do more each week....more reps, more sets, more weight, less rest interval, etc.....or, have you adapted to what you are doing and not made any progress?

My training schedule feels very solid. For the past 2 months it's really been more of finding an effective schedule that is not too much but more than average. Now I have settled on 3 days of solid weight lifting with cardio after and 3 days of 20min crossfit training with cardio after. Honestly, I am feeling good with this schedule. My body knows when it's time to take a rest and when I can go further, so I listen to it. It just sucks that the past 2 weeks, results have come to a bit of a hault. However, my muscles are getting more defined and finally showing through nicely. My gameplan is set though. I will do what you have all recommended and slowly up my cals to around maintanance then slowly dip them down for a second cut. I am 50lbs lighter and have more muscle than ever, so doing things right has surely paied off. Thanks again for the input guys... and gals.

Originally Posted by P-funk

a) don't focus on BW. Focus on BF. Are you taking measurements to track your progress?

b) you always lose quickly in the begining because you are doing something that is radically different than what you are (or were) used to doing. The adaptation to more exercise or activity and a change in diet is dropping lots of weight quickly. You do infact adapt, and things slow down. Then, it becomes a game of trying get your body to adapt to something else.

When you eat to little, there is a cascade of hormones that play a role in down regulating your metabolism. Basically saying..."something is wrong here. We need to save energy incase we are going to be eating this little for an extended period of time (ie starvation)." So, the goal is to walk that line between to little calories and to many calories until you get to a point where you are satisfied and then know what to do to effectively maintain what you have.

If you gained back 11lbs, you need to evaluate why that happened. Did you start trianing less? Did you make changes to your diet? Start eating more? etc...

If the scale is hanging at 246, measure yourself and chart that way.

Also, how often do you change your exercise routine? has your progress halted there? can you still do more each week....more reps, more sets, more weight, less rest interval, etc.....or, have you adapted to what you are doing and not made any progress?

I am eating more the past two weeks because I was told I wasn't eating enough. I was eating 1500kcal roughly.

I get stronger every week, and can do more weight each time I work out. Routine has stayed the same for each body part, but I move the body parts around. For example I used to train chest and tris together, now I train chest with bis, and tris with legs. I've been back less than three months so I can't think my body sensed a rhythm already.

As I say the biggest thing that changed is that I am eating more food now than I was 11lb ago, but NO I am not taking measurements. What are good locations to measure. To be honest the one that matters most to me is the gut, but depending on what I've eaten stomach size changes.

Perhaps getting some calipers and checking that way?

you aren't mazimizing your training.

body parts is a waste of time (espeically in your case) IMO.

Oh, and did you just jump from 1500 cals to 2300cals in a weeks time (or two weeks time)? That could be your problem. Always add back slowly.

be more specific too 2000-2300 calories is a 300 calorie difference (around about 15%).

Originally Posted by ABCs

Ok, I have been on a solid cut for a good 2 months now (was on diet before that but nothing solid). I have went from a fat ass 255 lbs down to 200 lbs. My losses are slowing signficantly. I am guessing it is time for a refeed. I read the stickies like 9 times and I get the idea but I was wondering, how low should I keep my fats if I decide to do a refeed on Sunday? If I do eat too many fats, will this defeat the entire purpose of a refeed? Also, should I keep my calories within my designated macros for that day or is it a carb free for all? Any info would greatly help. I need to spark the fat burning furnace I had in the beginning because the past 2 weeks have been pretty crappy.

You have two issues, first, the longer you diet, the harder your body fights to retain fat (due to, among other things, reduced leptin levels). Secondly, you lost 25% of your mass. You need less calories to sustain that mass. So the same diet that worked when you weighed 250 will not work at 200. You need to reduce your calories.

I am not a fan of a single refeed, unless that is a regular part of your planned diet. One day, after 8 weeks of dieting is not going to help you.

You should (1) plan a refeed week. That is, eat a bit above maintenance, high carbs, and low fat, for a full 7 days. Then (2) get back on your strict diet, but start eating less then you were. Cut out about 300-400 calories per day.