Intermitting fasting.Plateau fat loss

paolo85morra

Hello!

I have been practising the intermitting fasting for almost two years now! I was able to achieve all my weight loss goal through a "slow" but I think really healthy way.

At moment I have reached a fat loss plateau even if I have tried to stop fasting,eating more fat,less fat,more protein,less carbs! My belly fat doesn't go! I need the last 8/10 pounds gone to start to see the shape of my body that I am working on for so long now considering I workout 4/5times/weekly.

Suggestion?
Also it seems that on myfitnesP. you don't receive suggestion on macro nutrients intake based on you weight/goal.

Please and thank you!

mmapags

Your macros and techniques like IF, while helpful for satiety and overall health, don't drive weight loss. A calorie deficit does. You don't mention calories at all. That is the first place to look. How do your calories in compare to your calories out? If you are not losing weight over an extended period of time, you are not in a calorie deficit.

Also, those last 8/10 lbs. come off slow. How long has it been since you seen any weight reduction or change in measurements?

paolo85morra

In general During my IF I intake an average of 1700 calories during my eating window compared with an average of 2000 calories(cardio every day) so I guess that those 300cal are the calorie deficit?

To answer to your last question, I haven’t lost significant weight in the last 3months.
~171lb(170-172,it goes up and down a bit) even doing Cardio(45’-60’) 5times/week and trying to reduce my intake calories to 1500/day(especially now that I am moving less because in quarantine).

I will try to have a low-fat diet for a week and see how does it go! But willing to take tips! Thanks

lgfrie

Honestly, changing up the macros is probably not going to impact your weight loss. Reducing carbs will lead to some short-term water drainage, so you could see a couple of pounds on the scale, but that's just water. Going low fat probably won't make any difference at all.

If you haven't lost weight in three months, there's only one possible explanation: you are eating at maintenance. The calories you're taking in are how many your body needs to not gain or lose weight. Otherwise, you'd be gaining or losing weight. The most likely culprit is slippage in how many calories you're eating, i.e. after two years you're not being as careful with measuring things out and hitting a calorie target these days. Maybe that isn't the precise reason you're eating at maintenance, but it's always best to start with physics and chemistry: if you're not losing weight, you are eating at maintenance, not in a calorie deficit, by definition.

It might be time to drill down on the caloric numbers a bit. Go to TDEEcalculator.net, bang in your stats, and see what your maintenance level of calories is. If you wanna lose 1 lb / week, subtract 500 from that number and eat that many calories. This usually works, for most people. So, if TDEE calculator tells you your maintenance is 2200, eat 1700 to lose 1 lb/week. As for the cardio, eat some of that back, I do an hr of cardio like you and usually eat 200-250 cals to cover that each day, but you'll find the right number for yourself. Or, just go to the MFP Goals tab, bang in your stats, tell it you wanna lose 1 lb / week, and it'll spit out a # of calories to eat. Just eat that and you should lose the weight you set as your goal.

Give that 2-3 weeks to unfold and see where you're at. Chances are good you'll get the weight loss train moving again. If not, you can always fine tune things.

Tightening up the caloric intake is a better use of time than messing around with macros, which have never been demonstrated to impact fat loss. Carb restriction helps dump water, beyond that the macro thing is kind of a mirage.

On a separate note, if you were getting good results on IF and then stopped doing IF and now aren't getting the results you want ... why not reengage with IF? I'm a bit biased not only because I do IF, but also because every time I stop doing IF I immediately stop losing weight. IF gives me the structure I need to really hit my calorie target and I start slipping as soon as I don't have the IF crutch to lean on. Maybe something similar has happened with you. Maybe get back with IF for a few weeks and see if that gets things moving in the right direction.

Good luck.

cmriverside

Yeah, it's really not about fat in your diet. You need fat. It's about creating a small calorie deficit. How are you tracking your food intake and your exercise calorie output? 1700 is awfully low if you only have 8-10 pounds to lose.

Here's the macro thread:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/819055/setting-your-calorie-and-macro-targets/p1

You don't mention doing any resistance (weights) training? Are you only doing cardio? With just 8-10 pounds to lose, now is the perfect time to recomp:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10177803/recomposition-maintaining-weight-while-losing-fat/p1