One year plateau?!

qyy920

Hi guys. Its good to join a family and struggle together
I've been using the app for 15 days now. Before this I was with Lose it! for another month.
My current status has made me worried. I'm after any kind of advice.

I am a 22yo male, 172cm height. I started working out on a daily basis since 2 years ago. I weighted 66kg at that time.

Through time i started reading about nuitrition, bodybuilding and weight loss.

Since last year I started controlling my diet. I ate 6 small meals a day, mostly protein, some fat and trying to avoid carbs. I tried to eat as less as possible WITHOUT felling starving. I'm not into food so it's quite easy for me to follow a strict diet plan everyday without feeling bored. I also said good bye to all kind of snack since then.

It was only one stroke before I dropped to 60kg, 9% body fat.

But since then, the weird thing occured.

After both my weight & fat rate has stalled for a few months, I decided to push myself a bit more. Before, my working out routine was the following:

Monday - Muay thai 2h
Tuesday - Badminton 2h
Wednesday - Kickboxing 2h
Thursday - Swimming 1h
Friday - Kickboxing 2h
Saturday - Badminton 2h
Sunday - anything, mostly tennis

After the change, it became:

Monday - Road Cycling (@around 33km/h) 1h; Muay thai 2h
Tuesday - Road Cycling (@around 33km/h) 1h; Rowing 1h
Wednesday - Road Cycling (@around 33km/h) 1h; Kickboxing 2h
Thursday - Road Cycling (@around 33km/h) 1h; Running 1h
Friday - Road Cycling (@around 33km/h) 1h; Kickboxing 2h
Saturday - Running or Cycling, 2h
Sunday - Anything

You might ask why I don't have weight training in my routine. Firstly we have around half hour of things like push up, side crunches etc prior to every muay thai/kickboxing sessions; secondly my ultimate target is to gain more muscle but I decide to lose below 5% of fat before I start regular weight training again. Calorie deficit for fat loss and calorie surplus for muscle gain are not good friend...

Back to the topic. Everything seems okay --- for about 2 months, until I realized my body has entered a not-so-good condition: Overtrained.

It took me a while to figure that out because I'm very used to tiredness. However I slowly realized something was going on and finally learnt that it was overtraining because I had the symptoms which I didn't have before such as:
-Muscle sore/Fitness ache took a week to go
-Sleep quality worsen, woke up in the midnight (never ever happened to me before)
-Heart rate higher after woke up (I monitor my HR everyday. During that period my HR before bed was around 45 but jumped up to 53+ in the morning)
etc.

I ate about 2000 calories per day at that time. I wasn't using apps or food scales but i'm very sure it had never exceeded my net calorie consumption. I wasn't sure whether I was at starvation mode too (Nutritionists also stated too large a calorie deficit could bring forward the overtraining symptoms) but I possibly was because I started having strange tiredness (differs from the tiredness after working out)

What's worse, I was still 60 kg & 9% fat...

So I took 2 weeks off (only do cycling cuz I cycle to work). Of course I still eat strictly, but without those extra exercise I soon felt healthy once again.

That was about a month ago. After recovered, I reduced the total load of exercise and decided to use myfitnesspal.

The app told me to keep daily net energy intake at 1630 calories. It's never more than that. Most days I have about 300 cals left.

Please find attached my typical diet. Please note that all food under "snacks" are actually the other 3 meals.
I try to log EVERYTHING GOING INTO MY MOUTH except water. And everything is measured by a food scale

Including this 2 weeks, both my weight and my fat rate haven't changed for about a year...

I'm losing patience...Any advice will be appreciated, really thank you guys

qyy920

Anyone had similar experience?

Chrisparadise579

I know exactly what the problem is and I went through the same thing about 9 months ago. As a result of your overtraining and under eating your metabolism has bottomed out. In other words you need to slowly add more calories into your diet to lose the last little bit. When I went through this I was stuck at 11% body fat for 5 months, when I increased my calories by about 600 I got to 6% body fat in 2 months. So in order to do this you are going to have to start by adding about 200 calories a day for 3 weeks and monitor your weight to see the results. Ill message you for more details

qyy920

Chrisparadise579 wrote: »

I know exactly what the problem is and I went through the same thing about 9 months ago. As a result of your overtraining and under eating your metabolism has bottomed out. In other words you need to slowly add more calories into your diet to lose the last little bit. When I went through this I was stuck at 11% body fat for 5 months, when I increased my calories by about 600 I got to 6% body fat in 2 months. So in order to do this you are going to have to start by adding about 200 calories a day for 3 weeks and monitor your weight to see the results. Ill message you for more details

Thank you so much Chris. I wasn't expecting the first reply to be so useful!!!

girlviernes

1650 is so little for a young, active male. I think you need to eat much more. Why do you want to lose more weight? You are on the low end of normal.

ana3067

Sorry but TL;DR. I mean, I read like half of it. Can you concisely say what it is your problem is? I really don't need your life story - sorry if that sounds rude, but it's true. It's like customers in retail telling me the whole story of how they came across not being able to find some random movie... does not help me in helping you.

Anyways. Looking at the image, you are not eating enough. I am a female, working out less than you, and I net (meaning calories BEFORE exercise) 1880. Men need to eat more than women, and considering how much you work out... you are not eating enough. You are also not weighing everything, which is kind of pointless when you are weighing most things but skipping others. How is it so much more difficult to weigh your dry oatmeal in the morning? Or slices of processed meat?

You are either grossly mislogging or logging with the wrong entries, or you are overestimating your burn, or your metabolism is just *kitten* from not eating enough. Consider reverse dieting up to your estimated maintenance needs, which can be calculated with or without exercise. If you calculate without exercise then log and eat back all exercise cals, that way you can reduce how much of them you eat if you slowly gain weight (e.g. move down to 75%, monitor for a while). If you calculate with exercise then just eat that number. Add 100 calories every week or two until you reach your number, and then stop and monitor for a few months. If you maintain your weight, then subtract 10-20% depending on how much weight you have to lose, and monitor results.

Average out your weekly time for these calculators (e.g. if you walk 6 hours 3x a week and only 2hrs the rest of the week, thajt's 3.7 or about 3:40hrs a day).
exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html
health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced

ana3067

Chrisparadise579 wrote: »

I know exactly what the problem is and I went through the same thing about 9 months ago. As a result of your overtraining and under eating your metabolism has bottomed out. In other words you need to slowly add more calories into your diet to lose the last little bit. When I went through this I was stuck at 11% body fat for 5 months, when I increased my calories by about 600 I got to 6% body fat in 2 months. So in order to do this you are going to have to start by adding about 200 calories a day for 3 weeks and monitor your weight to see the results. Ill message you for more details

I agree with overtraining. I mostly just strength train but I recently experienced ovetraining, which impacted my losses and my body composition. I did lose some muscle, it promoted tennis elbow, and I've had to deload on some lifts. I'm working to keep thingsg to a bare minimum and it's working out better. That being said, when it comes to reverse dieting you need to estimate an actual number that is realistic for your body, hence the calculators I mentioned above.

qyy920

girlviernes wrote: »

1650 is so little for a young, active male. I think you need to eat much more. Why do you want to lose more weight? You are on the low end of normal.

1630 is the target MFP set for me, it seems okay considering my current weight. I got 9% fat and much of them are on my tummy, shame to say. I'm in Australia and summer is coming, you know...

qyy920

ana3067 wrote: »

Sorry but TL;DR. I mean, I read like half of it. Can you concisely say what it is your problem is? I really don't need your life story - sorry if that sounds rude, but it's true. It's like customers in retail telling me the whole story of how they came across not being able to find some random movie... does not help me in helping you.

Anyways. Looking at the image, you are not eating enough. I am a female, working out less than you, and I net (meaning calories BEFORE exercise) 1880. Men need to eat more than women, and considering how much you work out... you are not eating enough. You are also not weighing everything, which is kind of pointless when you are weighing most things but skipping others. How is it so much more difficult to weigh your dry oatmeal in the morning? Or slices of processed meat?

You are either grossly mislogging or logging with the wrong entries, or you are overestimating your burn, or your metabolism is just *kitten* from not eating enough. Consider reverse dieting up to your estimated maintenance needs, which can be calculated with or without exercise. If you calculate without exercise then log and eat back all exercise cals, that way you can reduce how much of them you eat if you slowly gain weight (e.g. move down to 75%, monitor for a while). If you calculate with exercise then just eat that number. Add 100 calories every week or two until you reach your number, and then stop and monitor for a few months. If you maintain your weight, then subtract 10-20% depending on how much weight you have to lose, and monitor results.

Average out your weekly time for these calculators (e.g. if you walk 6 hours 3x a week and only 2hrs the rest of the week, thajt's 3.7 or about 3:40hrs a day).
exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html
health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced

Thank you for a very detailed reply 1630 is the number MFP set for me after I entered all my details. Not sure if its too low but I'm not feeling starving much.

I do eat back what I burn. I have gone through the wrong way before and now only deciding to take things slowly.

Regarding the logging things such as the oatmeal, I weight it too. The default quantity (serving) of this oatmeal just happens to be same as the portion I eat everyday, so I used it. For everything I'm not logging the actual weight, I'm just using the default serving because its same size as how much I eat of course I check the tag on the package and make sure they are exactly same as what I found on MFP database

ana3067

qyy920 wrote: »

ana3067 wrote: »

Sorry but TL;DR. I mean, I read like half of it. Can you concisely say what it is your problem is? I really don't need your life story - sorry if that sounds rude, but it's true. It's like customers in retail telling me the whole story of how they came across not being able to find some random movie... does not help me in helping you.

Anyways. Looking at the image, you are not eating enough. I am a female, working out less than you, and I net (meaning calories BEFORE exercise) 1880. Men need to eat more than women, and considering how much you work out... you are not eating enough. You are also not weighing everything, which is kind of pointless when you are weighing most things but skipping others. How is it so much more difficult to weigh your dry oatmeal in the morning? Or slices of processed meat?

You are either grossly mislogging or logging with the wrong entries, or you are overestimating your burn, or your metabolism is just *kitten* from not eating enough. Consider reverse dieting up to your estimated maintenance needs, which can be calculated with or without exercise. If you calculate without exercise then log and eat back all exercise cals, that way you can reduce how much of them you eat if you slowly gain weight (e.g. move down to 75%, monitor for a while). If you calculate with exercise then just eat that number. Add 100 calories every week or two until you reach your number, and then stop and monitor for a few months. If you maintain your weight, then subtract 10-20% depending on how much weight you have to lose, and monitor results.

Average out your weekly time for these calculators (e.g. if you walk 6 hours 3x a week and only 2hrs the rest of the week, thajt's 3.7 or about 3:40hrs a day).
exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html
health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced

Thank you for a very detailed reply 1630 is the number MFP set for me after I entered all my details. Not sure if its too low but I'm not feeling starving much.

I do eat back what I burn. I have gone through the wrong way before and now only deciding to take things slowly.

Regarding the logging things such as the oatmeal, I weight it too. The default quantity (serving) of this oatmeal just happens to be same as the portion I eat everyday, so I used it. For everything I'm not logging the actual weight, I'm just using the default serving because its same size as how much I eat of course I check the tag on the package and make sure they are exactly same as what I found on MFP database

What goal did you use for your weight loss rate? What activity level did you select? If it's not at 1lb/week then you are liekly going to be able to eat more. I would recommend trying out the links I posted to see how those websites estimate your caloric needs. If you've put your goal as 1lb/week then subtract 20%; if you did 2lb/week then it might be closer to 40%, but I'm not sure.

And regarding the last paragraph, that is good then! I have all my foods created as custom foods so I can enter things in as weighed measurements, so even if I'm eating the standard serving size (e.g. my oatmeal - although the weight does not match the volume for mine) I still have it shown as grams. But as long as you are weighing and making sure it's all matching up, then that's fine.

qyy920

ana3067 wrote: »

qyy920 wrote: »

ana3067 wrote: »

Sorry but TL;DR. I mean, I read like half of it. Can you concisely say what it is your problem is? I really don't need your life story - sorry if that sounds rude, but it's true. It's like customers in retail telling me the whole story of how they came across not being able to find some random movie... does not help me in helping you.

Anyways. Looking at the image, you are not eating enough. I am a female, working out less than you, and I net (meaning calories BEFORE exercise) 1880. Men need to eat more than women, and considering how much you work out... you are not eating enough. You are also not weighing everything, which is kind of pointless when you are weighing most things but skipping others. How is it so much more difficult to weigh your dry oatmeal in the morning? Or slices of processed meat?

You are either grossly mislogging or logging with the wrong entries, or you are overestimating your burn, or your metabolism is just *kitten* from not eating enough. Consider reverse dieting up to your estimated maintenance needs, which can be calculated with or without exercise. If you calculate without exercise then log and eat back all exercise cals, that way you can reduce how much of them you eat if you slowly gain weight (e.g. move down to 75%, monitor for a while). If you calculate with exercise then just eat that number. Add 100 calories every week or two until you reach your number, and then stop and monitor for a few months. If you maintain your weight, then subtract 10-20% depending on how much weight you have to lose, and monitor results.

Average out your weekly time for these calculators (e.g. if you walk 6 hours 3x a week and only 2hrs the rest of the week, thajt's 3.7 or about 3:40hrs a day).
exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html
health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced

Thank you for a very detailed reply 1630 is the number MFP set for me after I entered all my details. Not sure if its too low but I'm not feeling starving much.

I do eat back what I burn. I have gone through the wrong way before and now only deciding to take things slowly.

Regarding the logging things such as the oatmeal, I weight it too. The default quantity (serving) of this oatmeal just happens to be same as the portion I eat everyday, so I used it. For everything I'm not logging the actual weight, I'm just using the default serving because its same size as how much I eat of course I check the tag on the package and make sure they are exactly same as what I found on MFP database

What goal did you use for your weight loss rate? What activity level did you select? If it's not at 1lb/week then you are liekly going to be able to eat more. I would recommend trying out the links I posted to see how those websites estimate your caloric needs. If you've put your goal as 1lb/week then subtract 20%; if you did 2lb/week then it might be closer to 40%, but I'm not sure.

And regarding the last paragraph, that is good then! I have all my foods created as custom foods so I can enter things in as weighed measurements, so even if I'm eating the standard serving size (e.g. my oatmeal - although the weight does not match the volume for mine) I still have it shown as grams. But as long as you are weighing and making sure it's all matching up, then that's fine.

I got around 2700 cals calculated on both webpages. Looks like 1630 is too low.
I'll try to increase my daily intake to 2000 first to see

ana3067

qyy920 wrote: »

ana3067 wrote: »

qyy920 wrote: »

ana3067 wrote: »

Sorry but TL;DR. I mean, I read like half of it. Can you concisely say what it is your problem is? I really don't need your life story - sorry if that sounds rude, but it's true. It's like customers in retail telling me the whole story of how they came across not being able to find some random movie... does not help me in helping you.

Anyways. Looking at the image, you are not eating enough. I am a female, working out less than you, and I net (meaning calories BEFORE exercise) 1880. Men need to eat more than women, and considering how much you work out... you are not eating enough. You are also not weighing everything, which is kind of pointless when you are weighing most things but skipping others. How is it so much more difficult to weigh your dry oatmeal in the morning? Or slices of processed meat?

You are either grossly mislogging or logging with the wrong entries, or you are overestimating your burn, or your metabolism is just *kitten* from not eating enough. Consider reverse dieting up to your estimated maintenance needs, which can be calculated with or without exercise. If you calculate without exercise then log and eat back all exercise cals, that way you can reduce how much of them you eat if you slowly gain weight (e.g. move down to 75%, monitor for a while). If you calculate with exercise then just eat that number. Add 100 calories every week or two until you reach your number, and then stop and monitor for a few months. If you maintain your weight, then subtract 10-20% depending on how much weight you have to lose, and monitor results.

Average out your weekly time for these calculators (e.g. if you walk 6 hours 3x a week and only 2hrs the rest of the week, thajt's 3.7 or about 3:40hrs a day).
exrx.net/Calculators/CalRequire.html
health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced

Thank you for a very detailed reply 1630 is the number MFP set for me after I entered all my details. Not sure if its too low but I'm not feeling starving much.

I do eat back what I burn. I have gone through the wrong way before and now only deciding to take things slowly.

Regarding the logging things such as the oatmeal, I weight it too. The default quantity (serving) of this oatmeal just happens to be same as the portion I eat everyday, so I used it. For everything I'm not logging the actual weight, I'm just using the default serving because its same size as how much I eat of course I check the tag on the package and make sure they are exactly same as what I found on MFP database

What goal did you use for your weight loss rate? What activity level did you select? If it's not at 1lb/week then you are liekly going to be able to eat more. I would recommend trying out the links I posted to see how those websites estimate your caloric needs. If you've put your goal as 1lb/week then subtract 20%; if you did 2lb/week then it might be closer to 40%, but I'm not sure.

And regarding the last paragraph, that is good then! I have all my foods created as custom foods so I can enter things in as weighed measurements, so even if I'm eating the standard serving size (e.g. my oatmeal - although the weight does not match the volume for mine) I still have it shown as grams. But as long as you are weighing and making sure it's all matching up, then that's fine.

I got around 2700 cals calculated on both webpages. Looks like 1630 is too low.
I'll try to increase my daily intake to 2000 first to see

How did you calculate, is this a net (no exercise) or TDEE (with exercise) calculation? In either case, 2200 would probably be a better starting point. If you calculated this before exercise, then this would be net intake and you'd log and eat back exercise calories. If this is TDEE then you do not add in exercise calories because they are already included. It's just a rough estimate though - if after a few months you are not seeing results that should be achieved with this level of deficit, then increase/decrease by 50 cals every few weeks until good changes are made

qyy920

MrM27 wrote: »

Chrisparadise579 wrote: »

I know exactly what the problem is and I went through the same thing about 9 months ago. As a result of your overtraining and under eating your metabolism has bottomed out. In other words you need to slowly add more calories into your diet to lose the last little bit. When I went through this I was stuck at 11% body fat for 5 months, when I increased my calories by about 600 I got to 6% body fat in 2 months. So in order to do this you are going to have to start by adding about 200 calories a day for 3 weeks and monitor your weight to see the results. Ill message you for more details

No^^^^ He is not going to start losing more weight and get to 5% by adding 200 a day. That's just absurd. Yeah, I'm sure you went from 11% to 6% by increasing your calories. I don't expect you to come back and respond because you never do when you give bad advice.

OP, at your height and weight it might be possible that you are 9% but you'd be visibly well defined. Post a picture. Let's just say you really are 9%, do you realize what 5% is? First of there is really no reason to get that low. It comes with a lot of unpleasantness. Not to mention that 5% is not sustainable at all.

Post a picture if you can.

Also, if you don't weigh your food then you can't exactly say you 100% know how much you're eating.

Thanks for your reply, I see what you mean. First of all I do weigh everything go into my mouth. I scale every single thing, even vinegar added into salad, before eating them. The only time I don't include weight of food in my log, e.g. half cup of oatmeal, is because the half cup serving on MFP database is exactly same as the tag on the oatmeal package and I WEIGH to make sure this half cup on MFP database = half cup going into my mouth, both calories and mass. It just saved my time entering the name, carbs/proteins/fat per serving etc.

I do know how 5% looks like and I definitely want to achieve that. 5% is enough for protecting organs and other stuff. I'm very unhappy about fat on my tummy right now it has covered my abs. Please see attached pictures.

I have had people suggesting me that before but none of them had the same experience. It was always that "why do you want to lose more" talking. Some of them did research and tell me to eat more to lose but I still can't figure out the mechanism behind it. I mean, even if I forget about the starvation mode things, my net intake is , say, 1630 cals per day, and my body stalls on both weight and fat rate, which means the 1630 cal I eat = 1630 cal I consume, after taking all exercises into account. Then how can a number bigger than 1630, say 2000, turns out to be less than the new consumption? Plus, all those people haven't even tried what they said.

Chris said he had the same experience so I decide to try that...

girlviernes

Honestly, I am not sure you see yourself accurately. You are very slim. Do you think you might have some issues with weight and shape concerns? If it is very preoccupying (spend much of your day thinking about it) please consider seeking out some help. I hate throwing the ED idea out there, but some of what you've posted makes me concerned. Just some thoughts from a stranger

qyy920

girlviernes wrote: »

Honestly, I am not sure you see yourself accurately. You are very slim. Do you think you might have some issues with weight and shape concerns? If it is very preoccupying (spend much of your day thinking about it) please consider seeking out some help. I hate throwing the ED idea out there, but some of what you've posted makes me concerned. Just some thoughts from a stranger

thank you. It's not I have problem seeing myself but its just the last bit of fat irritates me. I decided to cut that off, before I start gaining more muscle. I have made my mind but just want some advice on the issue I have right now. :P

qyy920

MrM27 wrote: »

1/2 cup of oatmeal won't be completely accurate as if you weighed it out. Won't be a tremendous amount off but it's not 100% accurate.

Honestly, you're lean already. I don't see 5% in your future. You have decent muscle but not enough to have 5% look stage ready. But anyway 5% isn't a good idea but it's your choice and your body.

Thanks mate. I think you still misunderstand me.

Lets use the oatmeal as example. I scanned the barcode, found exactly the same brand and type of oatmeal on the database. All the calories, carbs, protein, fat on the MFP database of this food is same as what it says on the package nutrition fact.

So it comes to the portion. Somehow this food doesn't come with "grams" as unit!!!

However, after checking the "half cup", I see this half cup's carbs/proteins/fat is exactly same as "per serving" on the package, and this serving on package is 40g.

So I eat 40g of oatmeal every morning, and use "half cup" as unit. It just saved my time to create a custom food, thats it. I don't even use measuring cups. Everything I eat, I scale.

Thats why I'm very confused with my situation...

Can you suggest me anything? thank you so much