Frustrated and not sure what to do??

silver9051

So after my reset I gained back a considerable amount of the weight that I had lost last year. And I was okay with that for the most part because I figured that once I started cutting I'd start losing again. However that was about 2 months ago and I've gotten pretty much nowhere. I at first cut my calories by about 300 from TDEE, but when that didn't work I cut down by another 150 or so. Now I haven't been super super strict and would occasionally eat more but not more than TDEE. I'm pretty okay at hitting my macros, protein is the hardest one, but I still don't feel like I'm doing anything that would cause me to NOT lose weight. I'm lifting HEAVY 3x week and doing 20 min of HIIT 3x week and I'm still sitting in the same place I was after my reset which ended at the beginning of June. What do I do now? My first instinct is to cut my calories again and do more cardio, I should know better than that by now but I desperately need SOMETHING to give because if not I'm going to be stuck wearing my previously "fat" clothes and my psyche just cannot have that happen. Anyone have any help for me, please??

Kristendcampbell

Did you recheck your activity ?? HITT three times and Lifting 3X seems like it would be Moderate activity. Is that how you got your TDEE? I wonder if you need to get a new TDEE and do the cut from there? I am sure Heybales will give you more particulars on using the spreadsheet and there will be moderators with suggestions. Have you measured?? sometimes your clothes fit different or there is a physical difference if your buring fat and building muscle at the same time so the scale wont reflect the loss.

Besides suggesting drinking more water, that is all I can suggest. It has to do with your TDEE or macros would be my best guess.

silver9051

I'm pretty sure my TDEE was calculated with the same specifications that I'm using now - I'm not doing any more/less than I was doing before I started EM2WL so I think that would be the same. And honestly all I'm going by is how my clothes fit - I haven' t been on the scale in months. I have only have a guesstimation about my weight based on what fits (or really what doesn't fit) me at the moment. I have my macros set to be 35/35/30 PRO/CHO/FAT.

itstimetoeat

You're not alone silver9051! I struggled a lot too and pretty much can't do too much about it. It's frustrating.

Maybe try new workouts like insanity or p90X or crossfit? I can't even help myself. bleh.

heybales

So how much did you gain through the reset, and fast or slowly during the entire time?
Like last 2-3 weeks, still gaining?

You may have been eating in surplus to actual TDEE, and now with cut you are eating at actual TDEE.

Now, even doing that, should see inches move.

Has lifting the last 2 months while supposedly on a cut gotten more difficult compared to supposedly eating at TDEE?

How much time with the lifting weekly, you said 60 min weekly HIIT?

Is the HIIT using the same muscles you are lifting with, right after the workout, or day after?

HIIT, if even being done really, was the answer to those that only liked to do cardio, to get some lifting type improvement in their workout.

Now it's taken on fad scope as great fat burner, which indeed, lifting is, and HIIT being like lifting, is too.
But would you lift with the same muscles day after day? Why not?

silver9051

Thanks itstimetoeat - glad to know I'm not alone even though it sucks. I actually did P90X to lose the 30# I lost last year. I would love to do it again but I can't really work it into my schedule these days - not all 6 days/week, I guess I could probably do 4.

haybales - I guessed I gained pretty steadily all along through the reset although at the beginning I was following a different protocol (it's called eat to perform) but then I gained the most there at the end. Has the lifting gotten more difficult in a cut? I'm not sure, I only lifted while at TDEE for those 8 weeks of reset and I wasn't really tracking that at the time - I was more concerned with tweaking my diet. I've pretty much always lifted and pretty much always in a deficit so I guess I'm used to that. I spend about 45-50 min 3x/week lifting in addition to my HIITs. My HIITs are usually on the elliptical - I typically LOVE to run spring intervals but my SI joint hates me for it and it is very painful for me to try and sleep at night afterwards so I avoid that. So my elliptical HIITs are 1:1 ratios for 20 min of sprinting:slow pace. And as far as my lifts, I rotate them. I rotate squats/deadlifts with bench/overhead press, and then I'll do additional lifting on a typical split routine - one that I actually found on EM2WL website. So my workouts are a various combination of the same things - does that make sense?

For instance Sunday I lifted bench and overhead press for my major lifts, then I did legs and biceps. Now when I lift again on wednesday I'll do squats and deadlifts, and then chest and tris. Then Friday I'll do bench and over head press again, and back and shoulders. Then next week I'll start the week with squats and deadlifts, so I'll end up doing those 2 major lifts twice in a week. But the supplemental stuff stays the same on the given day of the week.

heybales

Ok, good to know on the intervals, which they are, those aren't HIIT. Too long for the hard part, not enough time for recovery. Intervals are still useful though, those should help improve the lactate threshold and storing glucose for the effort.

So does your non-exercise activity include a lot of movement with that little guy?
Was that increased daily activity factored in to your selection of Activity level?

Because exercise by itself, with sedentary desk job and lifestyle otherwise, would be BMR x 1.39.
But I doubt that is true with the little guy, got a dog with walking too?

If you have 6 hrs on your feet daily moving around rather than a sedentary desk job sitting, that would be BMR x 1.5.

Do you know what level you picked?

In addition, if you started with BMR based on age, weight, height and you have less than expected LBM, then your BMR was actually lower. Then again, could be higher.

silver9051

So should I shorten my the faster part of the intervals but increase intensity and then increase the recovery part? I mostly just do 1:1 because it's the easiest to keep track of time wise.

We don't have a dog but I do have 2 little boys - the oldest just started kindergarten today lol anyway, they keep me being more than sedentary but I wouldn't say I'm super active. Just a lot of up and down and back and forth kind of thing. Not a lot of time to sit around but not doing a lot of really hard physical stuff either. Which is the same with my job - I work at a hospital doing diagnostic testing, so I'm not moving patients a lot but I'm not sitting all day either. Again, up and down and back and forth. I picked moderate exercise on the Scooby calculator. I've been lifting weights for quite awhile, albeit not super heavy, so I wouldn't say I have less than expected lean body mass.

I guess I'd help myself out a lot if I got a fitbit or something similar to track myself throughout the whole day so I have a more accurate idea instead of basing everything on the calculator?

Thanks for all your help by the way!

heybales

Do you do the intervals the day after lifting? When your muscles are trying to recovery and repair from that lifting session?
Intervals with those same muscles is not a good idea.

Exercise if done right tears the body down.
Rest for repair and recovery is what actually builds it up, if eating right. There is no actual improvement during the workout.

Since repair from lifting can take 24-36 hrs (how long have you been sore for sometimes), are you killing that repair process by putting a new hard load on the same muscles?

Probably are it sounds like, you aren't getting nearly out of that lifting workout what you could get, some if not all is wasted effort if the body can't repair and be made stronger.

And trying to do real HIIT, which again is like lifting for cardio-only activity (all out anaerobic push followed by rest, do it again, sound like lifting?) means you can't frankly do it right with tired muscles.
Oh, it'll feel the same since you are pushing to failure, but until you compare it with fresh muscles, you'd never know.
Your lifting too means the body is trying to recovery from this interval session the day before, and trying to lift with tired muscles means you aren't getting full benefit from your lifting time then.

If lifting, skip the HIIT.
There is rarely a good place to put it in a schedule, unless you skip lifting with those muscles and do the HIIT instead.

Are you wanting to do the HIIT for fat burn during the repair later (which you aren't giving it anyway), or because you want to train your anaerobic carb burning system to higher levels for a race or event?

So it sounds like your daily activity, job and family, is easily Lightly Active already, probably more.
Exercise just adds on top of that.

Many reported after they got FitBit, it matched up with the TDEE from spreadsheet if they were honest with the activity calculator.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/961054-spreadsheet-for-bodyfat-bmr-tdee-progress-tracker

You are for sure underestimating your daily burn with that much activity.

And super heavy is relative to you. if you are lifting in maintenance mode, finish a set and you could have done more easily, yes, not heavy. If whatever weight you do is almost failure on the last reps of last set, that's heavy for you. That's what is required for the body to feel the need to improve.

And it's that improvement that burns a lot of fat during the repair process. If you don't kill it by overloading the same muscles again.

silver9051

I do the intervals immediately after lifting. Mostly because of time issues - I can only make it to the gym on MWF because of my son's martial arts class.

I'm wanting to do the HIIT because I want to burn excess body fat - which is what I thought you were supposed to do during a cut phase? Add in more cardio? I'm not training for anything.

I definitely lift to failure every time. If it's not within the set amount of reps I have scheduled to do, I continue to rep until I get to failure on the last set.

So I guess I'm still wondering, what do I do to make sure I start making progress towards loss of body fat, and don't end up stagnant? Just drop the intervals and I'll be okay? Or only do them on the chance that I'm not working lower body that day? That probably won't play out very often, maybe once a week if that, depending on how my lifting schedule falls.

heybales

If you are doing the lifting to almost failure, there is not a way in the world you could do proper HIIT afterwards.

Again, HIIT is for those that only want to do cardio, no lifting. But they want the great effects of lifting, like improvement in strength for their cardio event, and burning fat later.

You are doing lifting, skip the attempt to do a bad HIIT routine.

The lifting is doing exactly whatever you have read about HIIT being a benefit to doing, but much better at it - because it's the real thing.

Stick with your intervals of 1:1, having tired muscles already you aren't getting the same benefit from them as you would otherwise, but for many it feels good, and that's totally valid reason. But at that point you aren't going anaerobic, and it's not going to have the same post workout effect. But at least the lifting is already doing that.

And if you don't need the feeling of intervals, 20 min straight cardio would help clear out the muscles better anyway, getting recovery going on the right foot.

If you want real HIIT on the lifting days where you did not use those muscles already, then do the following after 5 min warmup.
30 seconds all out, so jump that resistance way up and punch it. HR should easily get up in to the anaerobic HR zone. If not then the muscles were too tired to cause it to happen.
90 seconds almost walking speed and recovery back to fat-burning HR zone, better called for ages Active Recovery HR zone.
Repeat 5 times.
5 min cooldown.

If you want to see the difference between doing them after workout without using same muscle, compared to having lifted already, try it. Especially if you have HR monitor. It should feel the same, pushing as hard as you can, but the HR shows you can't push as hard with already tired muscles.
If you can't push as hard, the response for improvement is different, it's endurance now, not strength.
And it's repair for the strength that causes fat burn during repair. Endurance is just store more glucose in the required muscles so you aren't as tired next time.

Progress of loss of body fat - eat at reasonable deficit, that's it. Too much and muscle will go with it. The lifting is to help retain muscle mass, and during start recomp the body if you've lost muscle mass from prior diets.

silver9051

Okay - I can try that HIIT today because I'm not training legs at all. I don't really feel the NEED for it, I was just doing it.because I thought it would help my fat loss. But anyway I just recalculated all my data:

I selected moderate activity level and it comes out to
TDEE 2542 and I selected -20% which takes me to 2034 This is around what I had been eating at and still my body fat seems to be going no where. I'm within reason on my macros usually. Probably +/- 10-20g on any given day for any macro. Usually under on PRO but I'm really making the effort to get at least 150g. This is what I've been trying to do since June and just really not getting anywhere. I'm not compliant 100% but I think still enough to make a difference. I guess I'm just not sure where I'm going wrong, why I'd be at a stand still for 3 months after a reset.

heybales

You weigh all food that goes in to your mouth, except measuring liquids?

Because I'm pretty sure your activity level is underestimated, except you did keep gaining weight through reset, so perhaps not.

That leaves getting your TDEE based on Katch BMR using bodyfat%, just in case there is a difference.

Now, even if you were eating at maintenance literally right now because of using inflated figures in the math, you'd still be losing inches with weight lifting.

So while that is likely the reason the numbers don't line up right, the end result is the same.

You'll need to actually cut more.

If it's been a whole month at this routine and eating level with deficit with no changes, then take 100 more off your eating goal.

Still use the spreadsheet for some good info and to track progress.

silver9051

Sorry for asking so many questions. But how much more should I cut? I spent all of last year @ 1750 and I stalled out after about. months. I have 1950 as my goal right now (before I recalculated) but if I was over by 100-150 I didn't think twice about it. So how low should I go? Should I adjust my ratio of macros? I'm really trying to do this on my own without having to pay for a fitness/nutrition plan. I weigh pretty much everything or give a good guesstimate based on having done this for awhile.

heybales

Sorry for asking so many questions. But how much more should I cut? I spent all of last year @ 1750 and I stalled out after about. months. I have 1950 as my goal right now (before I recalculated) but if I was over by 100-150 I didn't think twice about it. So how low should I go? Should I adjust my ratio of macros? I'm really trying to do this on my own without having to pay for a fitness/nutrition plan. I weigh pretty much everything or give a good guesstimate based on having done this for awhile.

What is your actual average eating amount, from the stats, since reset?

You said 2000 was about what you were already doing since reset. I mentioned dropping 100.

While at 1750, were you doing exact same routine and amount of daily activity as now? No measurement changes during that time?

I don't have enough stats to confirm you have protein macro set to 1 g per lb of LBM, or at most 0.82 g per lb of weight.
But need to meet that goal.

Any health issues, food sensitivities/allergies, thyroid symptoms.

Use the spreadsheet please to get some other stats, and those recommendations are based on studies it gives.

silver9051

No that is a good point, I was not doing what I'm doing now as far as the workouts,everything else would be the same though. . Towards the end of the year I started lifting heavier, but not the squats, deadlifts, etc. Since reset I'm probably averaging about 2100-2200/calories/day. I've been trying to do 1g pro/1# of total body weight, not just lean body mass. Which for me is about 185-190. Honestly though I can't hit that everyday but I do try to get at least 150g. I don't have any dietary allergies or sensitivities. I will look again at the spreadsheet when I have access to a computer. It's so difficult from my phone! Thanks again for all your help!!

decblessings

Just wanted to thank you and Heybales for this thread. Much of it relates to me, so it's been helpful!

silver9051

No problem! It's awful to go through this but even worse to do it alone! So any help is great