# Undereating? Weight loss stall



## Jasparis (May 25, 2016)

Hello guys,

Long time lurker, first time poster here.

Currently I am 129kg 6' 1" largely overweight guy whos decided to try and sort his life out.

Little background.

I used to be 79kg, and worked out fairly frequently, mainly focusing on endurance cardio. However over the last 4 years I have let myself go massively and have ended up at 137kg.

For the past 6 weeks I have been doing circuits twice a week for 30-40 mins, and strength training 3-4 times a week. But only in the last couple of weeks have I really been looking at my progress.

My daily calorie goal is 2000 kcal. An example would be yesterday.

Meal 1:
Shake - 300ml Almond Milk, 100g Frozen Smoothie mix (Kale, mango, spinach), 100g Banana, 20g rolled oats, 100g fat free greek yoghurt

Meal 2:
Ham, cheese and chutney Sandwich,

Meal 3: 
125g brown rice/quinoa, tin of tuna

Meal 4: 
220g turkey breast, 78g Avocado, Handful tomatos, lettuce and celery

Post workout: One scoop protein shake, 85g Banana,

Meal 5: 10g Almonds, tin of tuna

Totals:
Calories - 1950
Carbs - 175g
Fat - 69g
Protein - 182g

My question is, is this decent for my weight/level of activity? I noticed last week or 2 I didn't drop any weight? and have been meticulous on counting every calorie and weighing.

Should I be upping my intake?

Just for reference, here are my current 1RM's

Squat - 90kg
Dead lift - 105kg
Bench - 72.5kg
Overhead press - 40kg

Thanks in advance for any help!

Jas


----------



## 3752 (Jan 7, 2005)

it is hard in fact virtually impossible to establish if this is to little for you with any accuracy, in my opinion it is that amount of calories will result in the down regulation of hormones (T3 etc)

if fatloss is your ultimate goal then my advice would be to increase the cardio on a treadmill (to begin with) to 30min per day and give the circuits a miss they are high intensity so will be fuelled via carbohydrates, i have never liked circuits for weight/fat loss only for fitness)

3-4 sessions in the gym is fine as long as when you train you are hitting it hard.

diet wise personally i feel the calories are too low as when you stall (as you have) you really have no where to go......i would alter your diet slightly to where the carbs are placed but thats just how i create diets

at the end of the day you cannot get over the fact if you burn more calories than you use then you will lose weight/fat so the very fact your have stalled means that you are either not training hard enough or you are eating more than you are detailing.


----------



## Jasparis (May 25, 2016)

Thanks for the reply.

The reason for the circuits is its after work and is a PT group sessions paid for by work. Id struggle to fit in time for a treadmill I think at the minute. We do have a cross trainer though.

The strange thing is the week before I dropped about 4 lbs, on approx the same diet, but I wasn't working out as hard. Could it be some noobie gains meaning I might have put on a little bit of muscle thus thinking my weight has stalled for this week?

Jas


----------



## 3752 (Jan 7, 2005)

well weight should not be the determining factor for success as this can fluctuate in a day by several pounds depending on your lifestyle, yes it is good to know it but overall if it is fatloss you are after nothing beats the mirror.

the only reason i can see you not losing weight on that amount of calories at your weight and activity levels is that your either misunderstanding wha your eating or certain triggers have down regulated through lack of calories, when was the last time you raised your calories?


----------



## Jasparis (May 25, 2016)

Now you say that, 3 weeks ago I had a day with 3000+ calories in it. And it didn't seem to affect me too much.

In the last two, i've been sitting at 1900-2000 daily. On the calorie intake I am scanning and weighing everything, so I would be surprised if it was out by alot.

Possibly cycling calories might be a good idea?

Thanks for your help.


----------



## 3752 (Jan 7, 2005)

what you did on that day is you unregulated your hormones (T3, Leptin etc) anyone who lowers their calories to a very low point for to long will stall applying a higher calorie day when appropriate is a good thing


----------



## Jasparis (May 25, 2016)

OK i think I will try this, every so often.

Thanks for your help.


----------



## ohh_danielson (Oct 16, 2013)

Whenever anyone is starting some sort of weight loss or weight program, the first thing they should do in my opinion is find out their approximate maintenance levels.

Just going to a particular calorie number is not the way forward imo. I would suggest using one of the many online calculators to work out approximately your tdee /BMR, then eat around that number, and see if you gain or lose weight. Ideally you'll want the weight the stay the same, then you know your at maintenance. Then it would be a case of reducing calories and therefore losing weight.

As mentioned above though weight can fluctuate quite a lot so don't be disheartened if one week it doesn't go down, but generally the weight should be dropping if your under maintenance.

Your food intake and training sounds good, I just think you need to know a bit more about your body and maintenance levels etc.


----------



## Jasparis (May 25, 2016)

I worked out my tdee at 2881 kcal a day. So was thinking 2000 would be a fairly aggressive but not too over the top deficit?

I suppose what I should have done is eaten as you say at 2800 and worked out weather I was maintaining or not.

Should I go back up now to around 2800 and go from there?


----------



## ScottishHero22 (Nov 4, 2015)

I'm eating 2130kcal a day I'm 93kg now I was 105kg not in bad condition at 105 but bit bloated. I will be dropping my kcal to 1850 as of Monday for final 2 weeks push. I do 1 day a week where I have 3000-3500 kcal my maintenance is 2800 ish. It seems to help keep my weight loss steady and also keep my sanity, if i wanted lose more fat after that I'd up the exercise, not done any cardio hardly it's all been heavy lifts with some volume work recently. 5 weight sessions a week on individual muscle groups. Works for me but I don't get very lean like some of guys on here i haven't got the dedication I don't think


----------



## over9000 (Dec 21, 2015)

Pscarb said:


> what you did on that day is you unregulated your hormones (T3, Leptin etc) anyone who lowers their calories to a very low point for to long will stall applying a higher calorie day when appropriate is a good thing


 Paul, how many days a week would you recommend applying a higher calorie intake? And would you go back to maintenance, or higher?


----------



## Theorist (Jun 18, 2013)

Jasparis said:


> I worked out my tdee at 2881 kcal a day. So was thinking 2000 would be a fairly aggressive but not too over the top deficit?
> 
> I suppose what I should have done is eaten as you say at 2800 and worked out weather I was maintaining or not.
> 
> Should I go back up now to around 2800 and go from there?


 In that case I'd rather keep the food higher and let cardio do more of the work. I couldn't imagine eating 2000 calories for an extended period of time.

I'd probably go with 2500 calories and 200-300 calories of cardio per day


----------



## 3752 (Jan 7, 2005)

over9000 said:


> Paul, how many days a week would you recommend applying a higher calorie intake? And would you go back to maintenance, or higher?


 this really is a question that i could not answer with any accuracy as having high days would depend on your progress.......essentially if your goal is fat loss then for me 7-10 days is more than enough on low calories before a refeed or a high day.

i prefer to do carb cycling though so i cycle a client through Low/Medium/High days over a 7 day period the stage my client is at would determine how many of each of those days there would be.


----------



## mannersjay (Aug 19, 2013)

I eat at maintenance once a week. I never stay eating the same amount of calories for more than 10 days. My TDEE is 2700 so i'll eat 2300 for 10 days... then go 10 days at 2000. And like I said...I eat at maintenance once a week. I'm paranoid about stalling as I've made the cardinal error of undereating 2 or 3 times in my life. Yes you lose weight quick, but once your body adapts to it...which it will at some point, you will have little room for manoeuvre. I'm not a big eater and can do 1800 calories a day easy, but i have done that before, and after about 6 weeks...my fat loss ground to a halt. And when youre training 5 days a week and eating 1800 calories a day and fat loss stops, trust me...it's a miserable place to be because you feel like you can't give any more. I'm pretty paranoid about stalling, so I like to get upto maintenance quite often.remember the less you eat over a long period and your body will think that's all it needs and will adjust the metabolism accordingly. This is why smaller drops in calories are better in the long run, because once fat loss stalls, just drop another 2-300 calories, when it stalls again...drop cals again to keep fat loss constant. If you're 129 kg then ya protein intake is too low. They say you need a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. I'd say you're like 270 lbs which would mean 270 grams protein. Undereating and undereating protein will cause muscle to be lost before fat. I also throw in things like fasted cardio, intermittent fasting and carb cycling once or twice a week to shake things up.


----------



## Jasparis (May 25, 2016)

mannersjay said:


> I eat at maintenance once a week. I never stay eating the same amount of calories for more than 10 days. My TDEE is 2700 so i'll eat 2300 for 10 days... then go 10 days at 2000. And like I said...I eat at maintenance once a week. I'm paranoid about stalling as I've made the cardinal error of undereating 2 or 3 times in my life. Yes you lose weight quick, but once your body adapts to it...which it will at some point, you will have little room for manoeuvre. I'm not a big eater and can do 1800 calories a day easy, but i have done that before, and after about 6 weeks...my fat loss ground to a halt. And when youre training 5 days a week and eating 1800 calories a day and fat loss stops, trust me...it's a miserable place to be because you feel like you can't give any more. I'm pretty paranoid about stalling, so I like to get upto maintenance quite often.remember the less you eat over a long period and your body will think that's all it needs and will adjust the metabolism accordingly. This is why smaller drops in calories are better in the long run, because once fat loss stalls, just drop another 2-300 calories, when it stalls again...drop cals again to keep fat loss constant. If you're 129 kg then ya protein intake is too low. They say you need a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. I'd say you're like 270 lbs which would mean 270 grams protein. Undereating and undereating protein will cause muscle to be lost before fat. I also throw in things like fasted cardio, intermittent fasting and carb cycling once or twice a week to shake things up.


 Thanks,

For the last week i've been eating around 2250 calories and saw a 1-2lb loss so back on the right track.

I think ill try what you are saying and eating maintenance at least once a week.

I thought it was 1g protein per 1lb LBM so was working that at approx 180? Though recently my protein intake has been more 220g.

I think ill try and up the cardio also, I am just doing 2 pretty hard circuits a week and as I've only just restarted lifting in the last 4-5 weeks, I am still gaining strength on all my lifts. Which obviously I know will stall eventually!

Jas


----------

