A little background for me. I’m 6’1", and last summer I went from 265 to 230 lbs in just a few months by cutting my calories to around 2200 a day on average, but after that loss I couldn’t lose any more. I assumed that was because my metabolism was fried. So for a week while I was on vacation in December I basically ate whatever and gained a good five pounds. Foolishly I wasn’t being careful about what I was eating, however.
I got back home, continued weight training, and went back on a reduced-calorie diet. It did nothing. I did a lot of research on this board and others, got my diet in order, still nothing. I followed the advice in Thib’s Refined Physique article and started to go low-carb, and that helped me drop 5 pounds, but then I couldn’t lose any more. So I went back to a very low-calorie diet, but that too didn’t help too much. In June I took in around 1500 calories on most days of the week, yet I barely lost any weight. For someone as big as I am, I should be shredding off the fat, shouldn’t I? So I assume that my metabolism has been fried again, so thanks to some advice from a board member, for the past week and a half I’ve been going 2-3 days at 1500 calories, then on the 3rd or fourth day I go all the way up to 4000-5000 calories. I thought this would help jump-start my metabolism, but my weight has remained the same.
So now I don’t know what to do. I’ve been eating right, I’ve been on low calorie diets and just-below-maintenance diets, I’m doing full workouts, and I’m just stuck. I have the discipline to restrict my diet and work as hard as I can, but nothing is working for me. My current plan is to eat at or just above maintenance for the time being, to help bring back that metabolism. Still stay low carb. But after that, I don’t know how to proceed. It seems impossible for me to get below 220 lbs, which is insane.
Any advice?