What am I doing wrong?

[Barron Fields]

but mostly the increase is from Flax Seed Oil in liquid form.

STOP WITH THE FLAX SEED OIL NOW!!!


If you need to suppliment fat, use olive oil and/or macadamia nuts.

Read Dr Barry Sears book Enter The Zone. You can pick it up used for about $10.


I think with a little fine tuning you'll really start to see more results.

Oh, add some turkey to your diet too.

[wild_wild_wes]

Iraq Ninja is right your calculations are off, and you are not turning fat into muscle that is impossible.
Cameron

That's un-possible. I log the macros and calories for EVERYTHING I eat.

Cut your calories,

Cameron

So you are recommending a starvation diet?

cut your weight training.

Cameron

?????

[wild_wild_wes]

you overestimate your caloric deficit, especially how much you burn and your RMR. Also 600 calories for 45 minute lifting workout? Come one get real... not even in an hour of intense lifting would burn 600 calories.

D'oh wrong numbers. Correct: 300 calories expended for 45 minutes weights session (The extra 300 cals came from a HIIT session, which I usually only do in winter.). But actually my sessions usually end up being 60 minutes or longer, since this time of year it's over 90 degrees in my garage where I lift, and I need more time to recover.

If I am losing fat I NEVER eat more than 1200 calories and sometimes go as low as 900.

How long do you typically stay in a fat-loss phase?

[tmckay2]

Have a testosterone level & PSA checked when you get your thyroid checked. Make sure your doc gets a Free T4 and not just a TSH.

The most common cause of inability to lose weight is, as noted above, BUFU'ing your Intake/Expended calculations. The second most common, as above, is eating too little. Get help from a dietician.

this!!!! im a 3rd year pharmacy student and this, or some variation of it, is often the problem. my wife had a thyroid problem but it caused the opposite, she was hyperthyroidic so she couldn't gain good weight and her weight was too low. got on thyroid medication and its now normal, although now she kinda wishes she was back to her old weight haha

[tmckay2]

whoops, didn't see you said your levels were normal. anyway, as previously stated, as sad as it is, 3 lbs in a month is not abnormal. usually it is healthy to lose 1-2 pounds a week. and also as stated, the more you lose the harder it gets to lose it.

ever seen biggest loser? you may think its funny but it actually has great info. those people lose pounds fast at first because they drastically cut their calories from what they used to eat and work out 100 times more than they used to. but as the show goes on they hardly lose any. also, some weeks they just, for whatever reason, don't lose any or even gain. and the people and trainers say "how can this be?" clearly more calories were burned than ingested. the reason is the body is not a simple calculator that goes calories in minus calories out equals total fat stored. its a complex thing that will adapt and change to all sorts of changes. as mentioned, your hormones may play a role, which can spike and plummet randomly, depending on stress, sleep, workout, food, etc.

by the way, how is your stress level? perhaps you need to do more shooting

id say keep at it, it sounds like youre taking it on in a decently healthy way and it all makes sense, sometimes your body just won't respond how you want it to

[Aray]

Take a look at this, as previously posted, you may be too far in the direction of caloric deficit. To be clear, I have no specific expertise in this arena.

http://www.everydayhealth.com/fitnes...ition_20090816

[wild_wild_wes]

by the way, how is your stress level? perhaps you need to do more shooting

No time for shooting! I recently bought a house, and on the weekends for the last 6 months (after working out), I've been slaving away on the landscaping (who needs a Bobcat when a shovel does the same thing, cheaper)....over 8 hours of heavy toil every saturday is typical, temps over 100 degrees or not. But, I'm almost done with the hard work....thank God.

My job is perhaps a stress level of 1 on a scale of 10. Landscaping and this weight problem are about my only stressers.

[wild_wild_wes]

In the theory that I was under-eating, I upped my calories from 2700 per day to 3400; depending on my cardio for the day, this gives deficits of 500 to 1000 calories, instead of the much higher deficits I've been running previously.

I just did my monthly weigh-in and found that I lost 2 pounds at the higher intake level.

Should I keep the higher intake for much longer?

If I think my body has "re-set" and is ready again for more intense weight loss, how long should these low intake periods be? In other words, how long is typically recommended (for instance, by bodybuilders) to stay in a "cutting" mode?

[perna]

As everyone has said before your weight loss is normal, and you seem to be doing it correctly. The faster you lose the worse off you will be, you hear the stories of people losing 20 pounds and instantly gaining 30. Anyone can not eat and lose weight, doesnt make it healthy. Figure out the most you can eat to keep your body happy, have energy to work out and still lose weight and you are doing great. Try changing the times you eat, and what you eat at those times.

You will eventually get to a point where you are happy with your weight and you will have to figure out how to maintain it.