Fat loss struggle! I need some helpful guidance :)

florent_ven

Hey everyone,

I need a little bit of advice.

In Setember 2020, I decided it was time to lose weight again (fat specifically). I had previously lost 20kg in 2018 from 115kg to 95kg. However, after I saw 98kg on the scale in September 2020, I knew I had to change.

From 22 September - 12 December, I managed to get my weight to 85kg by being in a calorie defecit and exercising and being active. My activity varied. In October, I wasn’t exercising a lot as I was working. However, in November, I was exercising at home as we were placed back in a lockdown in the UK. The first 2 weeks in December, I wasn’t exercising as I was back at work. And then from 15th December to now, I’ve been exercising at home due to the lockdown again.

**When I say exercise, I mean 3-5x strength training for minimum of 30 min a week, 3-5x HIIT treadmill or inclined walking a week and minimum of 5x walks (5-10km each) a week.

However, since then, my weight hasn’t gone below 83kg and I think I know what the problem is.

I believe that my calorie intake is very low so my body has gone into starvation mode. I was consuming about 1500-1700kcal a day when I was doing 5x strength training sessions for a minimum 30min a week, 3-5 HIIT sessions on the treadmill a week and walking 5-10km almost everyday.

I decided to make a change and consume more calories, about 1,900kcal a day to start with. My goal is to lose fat and gain muscle so I’m trying to eat my weight in protein (about 183g since I weight about 183lbs) to maintain and build my muscle. The reason why I am worried to go higher with my calorie intake is because for the rest of the day, I am not active at all so don’t want to not burn fat.

I’m still continuing to exercise the same way, in fact, I am slowly increasing the intensity of my walks and strength training with a weighted vest. According to my electronic scale from Renpho, my bmr is 1690 which seems low. I can also see that I have been losing muscle weight as well as body fat so I know I’m definitely not eating enough.

Can someone estimate what my calorie intake should be in order to lose fat (about 0.5-1kg a week or just to see my body fat % go down) and gain muscle? Below, I will list my height, weight, activity, etc.

Gender: male
Age: 21 (22 in April)
Height: 174cm
Weight: 83-84kg
Activity: relaxing at home for the majority of the time, shopping on some days, cooking, showering, 3-5 strength training sessions a week for a minimum of 30min, 3-5 HIIT treadmill sessions a week, walking 5+km almost everyday at 3-4mph.

I want to eat enough calories so that I lose weight and gain muscle, not so much that I don’t lose fat at all.

Would appreciate your help a lot!

cmriverside

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1080242/a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants/p1

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

I'm linking the two above threads because they're excellent threads.

As far as your calorie needs, plug in your stats and then log accurately. USE A FOOD SCALE.

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1234699/logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide/p1


Do that for six weeks. Adjust at the end of that time.

cmriverside

https://support.myfitnesspal.com/hc/en-us/articles/360032625391-How-does-MyFitnessPal-calculate-my-initial-goals-

^^This will give you all the info you need to use this site's Goal section.

FitAgainBy55

Based on your stats, here's you calorie breakdown:


Given those stats, you should have been able to easily lose weight if you were averaging 1700 calories per day, even without working out. While there are both mental and physical adaptations meant to conserve energy (starvation mode) there are limits to those adaptations -- it's been a while since I've studied this but what I remember it's on the order of 200 - 300 calories per day.

If you are working out 30 minutes ever day and walking some each day you should be able to lose 1 lb per week while eating around 2000 calories per day. I'm much older than you but we are roughly the same size (I'm 54, 5'7", 175 lbs) and I lose 1.5 lbs per week eating 2000 calories but my activity is probably a little higher than yours.

There are 2 avenues to pursue here, one is making sure your calorie intake is actually correct. If you are REALLY serious about understanding this, there is a very simple experiment to know for sure ... eat only prepackaged food for 1 or 2 weeks. This takes ALL of the guess work out of calorie counting.

The second avenue is increasing your calorie intake. You can increase it slowly over time and also try calorie cycling. Stick to a weekly budget but eat over budget for 2 or 3 days while eating under budget the other days. Calorie cycling has been shown to mitigate some of the adaptations that occur during long periods of calorie restriction.

csplatt

How do you estimate calories burned in your workouts?