New warrior to the cause with some questions

[Sabek]

New to the rebel cause, and had some questions I hope folks here could help me with.

Background

Age 41

Male

Height 6'0"

Weight 295 (down from 320 at my worst)

Went to the dr for a physical for the first time in a good number of years. Found out that cholesterol and glucose were out of wack. Neither were in the emergency get me on drugs immediately range, but gave me enough of a sense of urgency that it was time to retake my life. I have a wonderful wife, and 5 kids to be healthy for, including my 18 month old son.

I started small with soda, simple carbs, and portion control. I also started walking every day on my lunch hour for ~45 minutes at 3.5/mph pace. I also walk at the same pace for another 30-40 minutes every night with my wife almost every day. I was consistently losing about 2 pounds a week, and have been keeping around that pace mostly. I then decided "feeling like I was eating better" wasn't structured enough so I decided to start counting calories on MFP. MFP took my numbers and gave me a calorie count of 1890/day to have a 1000 calorie deficit. This should enable me to get the 2lbs/week I want, and I have been hitting or under that number consistently when I track my walking etc.

I then decided to get into some strength training and started SS 3 weeks ago. It has been going well, and I am seeing my lift numbers go up every time as expected.

My problem is that it seems my weight loss is starting to slow, and I wouldn't expect that with so much left to lose.

I have done some reading on a number of that eating below your BMR can actually cause your weight loss to level off. I did a BMR calculator that shows my BMR as 2539. Is it possible that I am stalling progress by not eating enough?

For instance Monday was a "pig-out" day for me and I ate 2,245 calories, and burned ~338 by their estimates for my walking. I also did my Monday sets for SS, but they dont give calorie burn for strength training.

I am not super unhappy because over the long haul I am still heading down, but don't want to make this harder on myself if I don't have to.

[Flatsnap]

If you have a lot of body fat, you shouldn't expect to see your weight change a lot when you're beginning a strength program, because you're building muscle as you lose fat.

As long as you're still seeing positive changes, seriously don't worry about it. Getting healthy is about way more than the scale number.

[shadowmeldfs]

Don't rely on the scale either. Get body measurements and watch those. You may not see weight loss, but you may see inches go away.

[Kewilson]

Hi Sabek,

First, congrats on deciding to make some positive changes in your life, fitness wise. It's definitely a big adjustment.

Your starting measurements are actually pretty close to what mine were over a year ago, except that I'm a bit younger. You're approaching weight-loss with a calorie counting strategy, so if you're not getting the results you expect, it's pretty straightforward to check the assumptions. The underlying assumption of calorie counting is that if you eat fewer calories than you burn, you will lose weight (some proponents of this even suggest that the content of your diet doesn't matter). So the questions you should ask yourself are:

1) Is my measurement of the number of calories I'm eating accurate (e.g., "how many calories were really in that bag of chips")?. It's possible you're taking in more calories than you believe (and hence not losing as much as you expect based on the 3500 calories = 1 pound equation).

2) Is my measurement of the number of calories I'm burning accurate (e.g, "how many calories did I really burn on the walk")? Maybe you're just not burning as much as you think.

3) How much does the content of my diet matter (e.g., "are 500 calories worth of cupcakes and 500 calories worth of roasted chicken functionally the same for weight loss")?

For the first two questions, I would suggest just being 20% more pessimistic about the accuracy of your counts (read the rest of his post too, it's all about going from obese to fit by counting calories). Think you just ate 100 calories of whatever food? Count it like you just ate 120. Think you just burned 100 calories doing whatever activity? Count it like it was 80.

The third question is one I don't have a definitive answer for. There are people (see Tyler at 344pounds.com) who basically say that weight loss is all calories-in/calories-out, what you eat matters not at all (or hardly at all). Others (see The Bulletproof Executive) seem to take the completely opposite position: it only matters what you eat, not how much.

Which is true? When I first started getting in shape, I did an extensive review of the empirical literature on weight loss and concluded that nobody knows for sure (or, at least, I certainly don't). Each side has a pile of counter-examples they can point to...

Calorie counter: "if you're right, then how did I lose weight while counting calories and eating cookies!?! Also, study X shows blah blah blah..."

Paleo/Primal/Other: "If you're right, then how did I lose weight while eating 5000 calories a day of healthy food and hardly exercising!?! Also, study Y shows blah blah blah..."

It's an interesting debate and one day I want to do some definitive studies on this kind of thing; but for the purposes of losing weight, I mostly don't care. For most people just trying to lose some weight, these two approaches have a lot of overlap. If you eat healthy foods most of the time (I think Paleo/Primal has a sound underpinning, personally), it's really, really hard to over-eat, making maintenance of a large calorie deficit childishly simple and comfortable.

So my main advice would be:

1) Double check your calorie intake/burn estimates - maybe just assume your counts aren't as accurate as they seem an add a 20% fudge factor to it.

2) Go Paleo/Primal - not even 100%, but just make processed food the rare, exception to the rule of eating caveman food.

3) Count things other than calories - if you're up for it, try to keep track of your sugar intake too (I aim for a 30g/day running average).

4) Measure outcomes other than weight - it's possible for weight loss to stall, even as you shrink.

As a last note: maybe you've just hit a plateau. In which case the only advice I can give is to try not to get frustrated. We all, weight-losers and strength-builders alike, hit plateaus. I even managed to statistically plot mine (see lack of progress through early May). You can play without your diet and exercise plans, but the most important thing is to stick with it.

[Ruth2301]

You may also be experiencing a weight loss plateau. It's hard to diagnose, but it happens to everyone. Myself, I lost 70 pounds or so and then got stuck there for several months. It seemed like no matter what I did, my body refused to cooperate.

There are all kinds of articles out there about the phenomenon, and there are some standard things to try if you think you might be stuck in (or entering) one. Here is a link to an article that helped me in the past. In particular, I appreciated the explanatory stuff at the beginning of the article, and the last 5 or so "plateau buster" suggestions.

You won't know for sure what will work for you until you try it, but the general idea is that you need to trick your body out of its resting state.

What finally worked for me was raising my calorie intake to its maintenance level and eating 6-8 (healthy) meals a day for 2 weeks before returning to the calorie deficit approach. I called it "Operation Trick-My-Body". It was a lot of work because I wasn't used to eating either that much or that often, but it was worth it because I managed to knock my body out of its comfort zone, and the weight loss started again. Also, I learned about a new way to eat, and still return to it sometimes.