Update:

Down a few pounds but still holding body fat %. I do feel better working out at the gym - getting a lot more calories per hour - averaging between 700 - 1000 now. I've managed to reduce my workout times to just one hour including 20 minutes of cardio on a treadmill or stairmaster and 40 minutes of weight training.

Another trick I've discovered is eating right before a workout allows me to push much harder during the workout without feeling totally spent.

As of this morning I am at 215.0 lbs and 24.0% body fat. I was within this range and perhaps had a slightly lower body fat % when I started about 5 weeks ago.

I'm working out pretty hard 3 - 5 days a week but nothing seems to be happening - or at least nothing yet. My workout regiment varies a bit but it is 20 - 30 minutes of cardio - that is usually 250 - 400 calories, followed by 30 - 60 minutes of weight training burning another 300 - 600 calories.

For cardio I'm doing either treadmill or stairmaster in interval mode. Interval on treadmill is set to 3.8 for two minutes and 7.5 for 1 minute. Stairmaster which I do about 3 out of ten workouts is set to moderate so there is no metric to really quote. I"m also occasionally jogging a 3.2 mile course in 40 - 50 minutes around my neighborhood - it feel much hard to jog on the street than the treadmill.

For weight training, I had a very good personal trainer for 6 sessions who showed me some compound squat exercises that involve dumbbells (20 - 35 pounds each) that I do various things with (hammer curls, shoulder presses etc..) while doing squats and lunges. I'm doing a bunch of other stuff as well - decline bench press lat pull down, triceps, lots of variety.

I'm also doing things like planks, push ups and other body weight resistance type of things.

My diet is settling in with lots of greek yogurt, chicken, veggie burger patties etc. I'm doing well at getting at least 150 - 160 grams of protein each day and at least 30 grams of fiber. I'm usually under carbs by 20 - 30% and way under fat - usually 50% of target fat intake.

I won't lie - the diet feels a bit awkward. I find that I have to eat massive amounts of certain things to get the 160g of protein and by the end of the day, I run out of calories for other stuff. I don't mind this and I can and will maintain it as long as I need to get results.

The plus side is that I' feel I'm in much better physical shape than I've been in a long time! I feel more muscular almost everywhere especially in arms, shoulders, lower legs, back chest, abs - everywhere. Having said that - I also notice the flab sticking to certain parts of my body that just does not seem to want to go away - mainly chest, belly, love handles and upper thigh/butt. It feels like the middle part of my body - lower chest to upper thighs really wants to stay fat.

Should I be seeing results by now or am I being impatient? Do I need to adjust my calorie intake? It does feel like I'm putting in a tremendous effort and not really seeing anything. I have been overweight for a long, long time and I know that some of the fat I put on is now visceral and very difficult to lose. It seems to me that the longer the fat is on you, the harder it is to lose.

Let this be a lesson to anyone in their mid to late 20s - DON'T GET FAT AND IF YOU DO, MAKE A CONCERTED EFFORT TO LOSE IT! If keep thinking every year I gained a little weight and did nothing about it is adding a significant amount of time/effort to lose it. Do that for 10 or 15 years and you'll regret it - I do!

Sorry - don't mean to ramble...

Please let me know what you think the next steps should be and as always - Thanks very much for your insight and help!

Update:

I have changed back to 2000 cals/day per Side Steel's recommendation. As of today I am still at the same weight (215 - 220 / 23.5 - 24.5 body fat %.

From August 2012 - December of 2012, I went from 270 lbs / to 220 lbs. I did this with mostly long endurance cardio - swimming and elliptical. I also did some weight training. According to my math, most of the initial weight lost was fat and water but I suspect I may have lost some muscle as well due to the very low calorie diet I maintained for so long.

I'm 6'2" and fairly large frame so 220 is not totally out of the question for me but probably a little more than I'd expect to weigh. At this point, my primary goal is to reduce body fat % to a more healthy level. My reasons for wanting this are not so much cosmetic as long term health related. I would love to get to 15% body fat but even 18% would be a good number to maintain. 24% is way to high.

I am wondering if my exercise routine could use some changes.

I am at the gym 3-5 times a week working pretty hard at it - 700 - 1000 calories workouts in an hour or maybe a few minutes more. I am typically doing 20 - 30 minutes of cardio (treadmill or StairMaster) The cardio is done interval training style - 2 minutes 3.8 mph / 1 minute 7.7 mph). The rest of the workout consist of weight training in circuits - usually 5 sets of push-ups followed by planks follows by compound squats or single leg lunges. The compound part is dumbbells in each arm doing hammer curls and shoulder press. I repeat these doing 10 reps of squats/lunges along with 10 - 15 push-ups. Once I do this, depending on the day I'll do 3 sets (10 reps each) each of incline/level/decline bench press or 3 forms of leg weight training (calf raises / leg press / ham curl). I follow this with roman chair leg lifts and a few other abdominal exercises like crunches.

I worked with a training at the gym and he was excellent - correcting my squats and lunges so I'm doing them properly and making lots of suggestions otherwise.

Given my main goal is lowering body fat % - not necessarily losing weight (I don't care one way or the other about weight at this point), are there any suggestions?

Should I move to higher weight / lower reps?

Should I slow down my cardio and workout in general so my heart rate is not as high? I'm certainly not in fantastic shape cardio wise as well as flexibility but I do feel good working this hard at the gym every time.

Update:

I've been skyping with sidesteel and should update this thread more often than I do...

I let my diet go a bit - not huge but several days where I went overboard on carbs and had a hard time counting due to what was eating (how many calories are in a birthday cake from a small local bakery?). I started sticking closer to my diet and the weight is coming off slow and steady.

I'm at 204 and depending on what body fat calculator I use, I'm either 18.x% or 21.x%. 3 out of 4 say 21.x so that's what I'm going with. My primary goal at this point is reducing my body fat to around 15%. The problem I have now is that I seem to be losing muscle along with fat. If I could maintain 204 and 15% I'd be fine with that but it seems that I am perpetually about 20 pounds overweight now. When I weighed 215 I was at about the same body fat %.

I'm still at the gym 4 days a week averaging about 1300 calories per workout doing 45 minutes of cardio at 75% max heart rate and 30 - 60 minutes (sometimes longer) of weight training.

I'm planning on holding steady for another month or two and seeing where I'm at. I'm losing about 1-1.5 pounds a week so another 8 weeks would put me at 192 - 196.

I have always thought of bmi as bs. Throughout my weight loss, I have calculated my lean body mass vs body fat. I always calculated that if I were to be at what is considered the upper maximum of healthy bmi (189 lbs) my body fat % would be so low that it would be considered unhealthy. As I lose weight and some of it is muscle, bmi starts to make more sense for me. I'm not sure this is the best thing but like I said, my primary goal is 15% body fat regardless of overall weight. It seems that my body is perhaps telling me that if I want that percentage of body fat, I'm going to weigh a whole lot less than I originally thought. I don't mind weighing less, and now that I'm in the swing of things diet and exercise will get me there sooner or later.

Many thanks to sidesteel - his advice has really helped. I would have never upped my protein intake as much as I have without his insight.

Another thing I'll mention - TRUTEIN protein powder is fantastic - I have tried several and some aren't bad but this is the first one that I actually enjoy drinking with just water. Most of the others require you to mask the flavor by using milk or yogurt or fruit which adds calories and carbs that you may not want.