Greetings - Thanks in advance for any opinions on this subject.
I have been dieting down to lose fat. Started 12 weeks ago at 206 lbs and approximately 15 percent body fat. I am 6ft 2in. My goal is to reach 9 to 10 percent body fat. After this I plan to reverse diet to a small caloric surplus and train for muscle gain.
Currently I am 196 lbs (still 6ft 2in 
) and approximately 12 percent bf.
After estimating my maintenance at ~3500-3600 calories, I began the diet at 3200 kcals per day with a macro percent breakdown of 40c/30p/30f. Halfway in I felt I was stalling and dropped down to 2900 kcals per day with a current macro percent breakdown of 31c/37p/32f (like many of us I am anal and use a spreadsheet with exact numbers).
Currently weight train 5x per week plus one day of cardio.
Advise requested: I cannot tell if I am stalling out again or not. Do you recommend simply staying the current course or do you have any recommendations for change?
Cheers,
Cpt Needa
ps - bf calculations self-administered with caliper. Take with a grain of salt. #'s seem reasonable as 10lb loss with 3% fat loss translates to 7.38 lbs bf and 2.62 lbs ‘other’ loss.
What are you using to calculate and track your calories??
I weigh 321 lb at 5’11" and my calculated calorie goal to lose two pounds a week is 2120 per day. From my experience your calorie goal seems to be on the high side and may warrent further review.
I have used both the live strong app and now currently MyFitness Pal online and on my phone and found both to be great ways of tracking and learning about the food that I eat.
A ~10 lbs loss in 12 weeks is fine. Sure you could probably do a few things to get a bit more, but I wouldn’t panic.
As to your #s being high? Not at all. I’m usually about 205 lbs and fairly lean at that, and I run most of my contest diets at about 2700-2800 calories on most days. It really has to do with how much muscle you have, and what your natural metabolic rate is. Some people can diet on more than others even if you might assume otherwise.
@RisingDragon- Your intake is very very low. Think about how much weight you have to lose. Now consider what you’re going to do once your already low caloric intake becomes insufficient to elicit the weekly progress you’re after. Possibly look at the other side of the caloric equation (exercise) instead of chopping your #s so low.
S
[quote]risingdragon145 wrote:
What are you using to calculate and track your calories??
I weigh 321 lb at 5’11" and my calculated calorie goal to lose two pounds a week is 2120 per day. From my experience your calorie goal seems to be on the high side and may warrent further review.
I have used both the live strong app and now currently MyFitness Pal online and on my phone and found both to be great ways of tracking and learning about the food that I eat. [/quote]
Hey Risingdragon -
Thanks for the feedback. For calculating calorie requirements I averaged a number of online calculators together to come up with a blended maintenance number.
To calculate my food intake I literally wrote down the macros and calories for everything that I eat on a spreadsheet. I tend to eat the same things every day so I created a list with everything and then I enter in the number of servings that I eat in a given day next to the food item and it calculates all the numbers. It took an hour or two to setup but now can be instantly updated.
Cheers -
Needa
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
A ~10 lbs loss in 12 weeks is fine. Sure you could probably do a few things to get a bit more, but I wouldn’t panic.
As to your #s being high? Not at all. I’m usually about 205 lbs and fairly lean at that, and I run most of my contest diets at about 2700-2800 calories on most days. It really has to do with how much muscle you have, and what your natural metabolic rate is. Some people can diet on more than others even if you might assume otherwise.
@RisingDragon- Your intake is very very low. Think about how much weight you have to lose. Now consider what you’re going to do once your already low caloric intake becomes insufficient to elicit the weekly progress you’re after. Possibly look at the other side of the caloric equation (exercise) instead of chopping your #s so low.
S[/quote]
Thanks for the feedback Stu. Much appreciated. I daresay that I possess less muscle than you! Since I am still losing weight and my current calorie intake has me on the cusp of crankiness all the time I think that I will stay the course for now.
I forgot to mention (as I just remembered) that I started taking creatine for the first time two weeks ago. I read that this can increase your water retention and may account for some of my slow down in weight loss. Looking at the mirror I seem to still be improving from week to week. I will continue at current levels a few weeks more to see how I progress.
Thanks again,
Needa