Do I Need More Calories?

I've basically been working my *kitten* off and haven't lost more than a pound in the last month. I really can't see myself eating any less calories based on the amount of time that I spend working out. I'm going to focus on hitting my protein numbers which should help the other two macros fall into place. Pretty much everybody and their mom recommends 1.0 - 1.5g of protein per pound of body weight - for strength training.

I know this may sound crazy to some people but I'm going to substantially increase my calories to see if it makes a difference in inches lost around the waist. Please keep in mind that I'm not all that concerned about weight loss on the scale at this point. My goal is to simply replace my fat with muscle. With that said, I believe that I will also lose weight. I’d probably be considered pretty big in Asia but I’m not genetically gifted like a typical NFL 1st round line backer (or any linebacker). I'm 6ft tall, ~220lbs, and I have a comfortable 36" waist.

My TDEE is about 2500 calories (5 workouts a week) and I'm just going to stick with this number throughout the week. I plan on recording my activities but I obviously won't be eating those calories back since they've already been taken into consideration with the TDEE number. Please feel free to comment and verbally abuse me if I'm way off point. I'd appreciate some constructive criticism or ideas.

I did some looking around for protein levels a couple of weeks ago and found that academics and government researchers said that you didn't need that much protein but sites that were selling protein supplements were recommending those levels. Not judging one way or the other, just a data point.

If you're trying to lose weight, you need a calorie deficit. If you're not losing weight, you're eating too much. It's that simple. Calorie expenditure estimates are just different levels of inaccuracy once you step out of the laboratory. I use good equipment (hardware and software) and my numbers, for exercise, are probably 5-10%. Once you get away from an HRM with R-R recording, you're at least 10%. If you're going with formulas, you're doing well to be only 20% off.

Calories in? Again, it's how inaccurate, not how accurate. Even if you're taking data off the food wrapper, you can make mistakes like weighing post-cooking instead of pre.

The best indicator? The nasty scale. It may be inaccurate but should be consistent. If you're not losing for a prolonged period, that's called "maintenance"

My stats are here:

http://cbeinfo.net/weight.htm

If you look at the top part of the graph, you'll see that I would drop a lot of weight and then lose nothing for about a week or so and then I'd plummet again. I was eating similar calorie amounts and exercising similarly but I still hit a "pause" after dropping weight even though I was running a deficit of about 1000 calls/day (or something like that).

If you consistently run a calorie deficit, you simply have to lose weight (over the long run). Your body will digest fat and muscle, then go after essential fat, and then the lights go out. Until we, as a species, invent perpetual motion, we will lose weight running a calorie deficit.

Replace fat with muscle? You cannot change fat cells into muscle cells but you can lose fat cells and make your muscle cells longer and thicker.

I was 295 when I started losing weight (I was 54 years old). I used that miracle diet approach - sit there, don't eat that. I rarely got hungry and lost tons of weight, no loose skin, and am in scary good healthy (resting pulse is 44, BP is in 112/76, etc., etc.)

Here's a challenge - pop open my diary from April or May of 2011 and eat what I ate for a month. Add a little for weight lifting, (even though lifting weights doesn't burn many calories) and see how it goes. I mean…what have you got to lose? :-)