Eating 1500 calories a day, exercising and still not losing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHHzie6XRGk

I've just gone through the same pain.

5'11" and 223lb. I lost 14lb dead easy, but the second 14lb has been torture.

I tried to lose at 2lb-per-week and MFP set the target at 1460 cal-per-day. Add the exercise cals in and even after say a mile swim at speed (by chosen cadio exercise because running incurs too many injuries) and I was still at around 2000 cals-per-day limit.

Naturally I thought 'don't eat back the cals' and I would reguarly run a defit of 400-800 cals (after MFP had calculated -1000 cal-per-day to start off with). So the overall defect would be 1400-1800 cal-per-day.

I thought I'd be a dead certainty to lose the 2lb-per-week as I had before I ran into trouble. But instead my weight plateued and even some weeks increased (a physiological impossibility but plenty of others report it).

Pushing your body into thinking it is being backed into a corner and is on the cusp of going into starvation mode is the problem. There's a fine balancing act between being able to lose weight, and tripping the body into automatically preparing for a period of reduced calorie income, and when the calories do come along, the body stores them like mad as fat to alleviate the next anticipated period of starvation.

Now I've changed my profile to 1.5lb-per-week and my MFP target is much more reasonable. I eat back every calorie from exercise and it seems to be working. Avoiding starvation mode is the key element. Keeping the body pretty much 'in the dark' that you are actually aiming to lose weight seems to be the strategy, whereby your eating routine doesn't substantially change and it doesn't automatically start taking steps to batten-down-the-hatches.

Good luck!

If you don't weigh your food with a scale, get one and start doing it. You may be eating more than you think. You should be losing on 1500 since that's not nearly enough for a man of your size. I'm a 5'6" woman and at 112lbs I lost eating 1500 calories.

ETA: you don't sound overweight to me btw. I would suggest building up some muscle because that will change your body more visibly and most likely give you the results you are hoping to see :flowerforyou:

For the record, I'm a 6'-1" vegetarian at 195 lbs, and my body fat is under 20%, so 197 lbs may not be overweight at all. Have you checked your body fat level?

Your diary looks very restricted, and why only two meals a day? As a previous poster said, are you weighing your food? Rice is surprisingly high in calories, for example. Why not switch to some boiled potatoes now and again. I agree you need more calories BUT only if you are accurate about weighing and LOGGING everything you eat - that slice of birthday cake from a co-worker for example, still couonts even if you think you'e worked it off afterwards.

So at least three well-balanced meals with protein, less refined sugar/carbs, log everything and you shoud start to see a difference.

(And you're not remotely fat, just a little out of shape I'd guess:bigsmile: )

I am 5-7" and doing low carb high protein diet. This is an easy diet. No bread, no pasta, no rice.

Keeping your carbs as low as possible is the key. My doctor recommended keeping carbs no more than 50g a day. So far, I have lost 7.5 pounds in less than 28 days.

personally i think you should look at adding more protein and fat in, rather than taking carbs out.
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Good advice.

I am secretly loving the thought that I can up my calories to as much as 2400 but that seems like a feast and not a weight loss strategy.

As previously mentioned not all calories are created equally, I'm female - 5'7 - A 7 day a week exerciser and I'm eating over 2k calories most days and losing weight (annnnd I started at a healthy weight - trust me it's hard to lose weight when your already active/sensible BMI) the main point is how I take in the calories...Over a the 9 weeks I've been on here I was able to assess that I was not eating enough and not getting enough protein in my diet (i'm a veggie) and with those tweaks I feel amazing.

It's worth looking up some charts with which vegetables contain the most protein etc as you will find these more filling and a good source on a vegan diet. Plus if you like carbs (I'm a addict!) take them from sources like sweet potato - butter nut squash and grains like couscous etc as a alternative to rice

I think the 13 stone range sounds healthy for your height (my partner is 6'2 13st 3 and looks ace, just normal & healthy!)

Good Luck!