At my wits end, really need some advice.

Ah yes that's true, there are free foods, fruit and most veg are' free'

You look to be mixing up the two methods.

Track your food accurately for at least 4 weeks. Keep on the calorie allowance you have now. After a few weeks, see where you are and if you have not made progress, drop your calories down by a couple hundred.

Log your fruits and veggies - you may well be eating more than you think.

Eat more, but what you add in keep it only dark leafy greens, fruits and vegetables. Cut out refined sugars and flours. Good luck!

Sounds like your body has gotten use to the routine. You need to change it up. When your body does the same workout and eats the same calories day after day, week after week it get use to it. Maybe next week change your exercise routine, then the following week go back to your regular schedule and so on. See if that does anything. Good luck!

This is probably the best answer.
I will just add, "pls dont cut down your calorie intake, just increase the intensity of ur exercise as well as the duration. Like what she said, ur body get used to the routine.

Eat less food.
The end.

Make sure your drinking enough water. This was my biggest issue. I have been told that your body will retain more water as you start to work out more to avoid becoming dehydrated. Adding more water to your diet may help your body adjust to the extra workouts and avoid dehydration.

No study has ever found a point at which anyone loses more by eating more. It becomes less efficient to reduce intake at some point (removing 10 more calories might only add 7 to the deficit as metabolism slows) but it never starts going the other way. NEVER.

Thank you for this. It is unfortunate to see all the bad advice given out by people here based on nothing but bad pseudo science.

I know how you feel! I wish you lots of luck and congratulations on how far you have come already! You are an inspiration to people out there like me who are just beginning.

There is so much information out there that it tends to get very confusing. My simple (no scientific) advice is to just keep on going. If your body feels good, and you are satisfied with your diet, just keep going!

Eat less?

Errr no. The opposite actually. Burning 4500 calories a week is 640ish calories minus'd from your daily 1800, which means you are eating less than 1200 calories a day. You don't eat anywhere near enough to provide the energy needed to fuel your workouts, therefore your body is keeping hold of everything you do consume and not letting go of excesses. NET 1800 and you'll lose weight.

This is actually a myth. Google "Starvation myth" for details. If in is less than out, you lose weight, first law of thermodynamics ensures that, your metabolism may slow (and you have to adjust the calories you eat to cater for that) but you will lose weight.

But in the long run, you really don't want your metabolism to slow down like that.

This is where a 10-14 day training break and above-TDEE refeed can be useful.

By that I mean taking a break from all training to let your body rest and recuperate, and eating at or slightly above TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) for a short period of time. The refeed should get a lot of it's extra calories from carbs (calories from fat do not have the same effect).

When in a caloric deficit the metabolism slows down to some degree as hormone levels fall. This decreases your TDEE so that you may no longer be in a caloric deficit at all. The calories that you used to lose weight at are now too many to continue to lose weight, and your fat loss plateaus. It's the body's way of trying to restore balance to the thermodynamic energy balance equation that you deliberately upset by dieting and exercising in the first place.

The influx of carb-rich calories has been demonstrated to assist in the restoration of thyroid, leptin, and testosterone levels which are naturally suppressed in response to a sustained caloric deficit. As a result, your slowed down metabolism speeds back up to some degree, and TDEE increases with it. When you recommence your diet and exercise routine at the previous level, you are once again in a caloric deficit and fat loss resumes, smiles return, etc.

The other approach is to increase training intensity (which increases the chances of injury and further upsets the hormone balance) or decrease calories taken in (which makes you frustrated, hungery, irritable, further reduces hormonal balance, etc).

As others have said if you are truly in a caloric deficit you will lose weight (though it's not guaranteed to be fat loss, it could be muscle instead). But you absolutely need to be in a confirmed deficit, and you want to do whatever you can to make that loss be fat. Keeping the hormonal balance happy is a good way to keep the body strong and healthy and the metabolism cranking, giving you the highest possible TDEE. It's also a great break mentally, your training aches and pains will go away, and you'll be ready to CRUSH your workouts with renewed vigor when you start back up. It's a great plateau busting strategy. It's also very difficult to talk someone whose weight loss has stalled into stopping their workouts and eating so much more than they have been. Most people are afraid they are going to pile the weight back on during those two weeks.

Good job on your research. Our bodies have a built in mechanism to prevent starvation. When we do not get enough calories, our thyroid will release reverse T4. This hormone goes to our cells and causes them to utilize as little energy as necessary, in order to conserve energy needed for vital organs to survive. This is shown to us as a "reduced metabolism". The whole process is actually more complicated than that but the above is the main controller.

Eat less?

Errr no. The opposite actually. Burning 4500 calories a week is 640ish calories minus'd from your daily 1800, which means you are eating less than 1200 calories a day. You don't eat anywhere near enough to provide the energy needed to fuel your workouts, therefore your body is keeping hold of everything you do consume and not letting go of excesses. NET 1800 and you'll lose weight.

This ^^^^^

DO NOT eat less. Your body CANNOT lose if there is not enough energy put back in your body to burn fat! If you do not eat enough your body will hold on to your calories and fat and you will not lose.

Eat less?

Errr no. The opposite actually. Burning 4500 calories a week is 640ish calories minus'd from your daily 1800, which means you are eating less than 1200 calories a day. You don't eat anywhere near enough to provide the energy needed to fuel your workouts, therefore your body is keeping hold of everything you do consume and not letting go of excesses. NET 1800 and you'll lose weight.

This ^^^^^

DO NOT eat less. Your body CANNOT lose if there is not enough energy put back in your body to burn fat! If you do not eat enough your body will hold on to your calories and fat and you will not lose.

Bro science backed up by nothing really. If you are burning more than 1800 and you eat 1800, you will lose weight. If you eat 1200 you will lose more but it might be too little to function well and if you have trouble with keeping on track the binge monster might visit. But don't buy into the "eat more to lose more" craziness.