What am I doing wrong? (I would love a second set of eyes!)

<snip> "starvation mode: myth or fact?" <snip> On one hand, it makes sense. Your body needs calories to operate. On the others, even people with eating disorders or who are actually starving DO lose weight.

Hmm look at it this way. Yes, your body needs CALORIES to operate. You burn more CALORIES by exercising. You have calories in bodyfat as well as in food. So by eating some food and metabolizing bodyfat as needed, your system is getting all the CALORIES it needs to operate. The number of calories you're getting is not really an issue for health.

You get NUTRIENTS (macronutrients and micronutrients) mostly from food. Don't eat enough food, risk not getting enough NUTRIENTS. Your body has minimum nutrient needs that aren't really about calories, and regardless of the amount of exercise you're getting. This is the real justification for all the talk about people eating at least 1200 calories a day: it's not because that's a magic number, it's because that number, with a proper macro ratio, tends to help people meet those minimum nutrient requirements. From the research I have seen, lots of exercise (particularly cardio) does not SUBSTANTIALLY increase your body's need for specific micronutrients except maybe electrolytes (which don't have to be attached to calories). There is a VERY MODERATE demand for increased macros (carbohydrates and protein to sustain blood sugar and muscle retention), but not on a burn 1 calorie :: 1 eat one calorie ratio.

In theory, burning more calories with cardio exercise does not create a need for a ton more food, as if there were a ratio of calories ingested / calories burned to sustain weightloss for some magical reason. While it is a VERY GOOD IDEA to eat a bit more food -- particularly more nutrient dense food -- when adding more exercise (more protein and maybe more carbs though I'm sure I'll get yelled at by a low carb zealot for saying so) there's no particular need to match your increased caloric intake 1::1 with your increased caloric burn. A lot of people just eat back about half of their estimated burn and call it a day. Some people, less than that.

That all being said, your nutrition looks okay. 1500 calories is not a lot for someone at your weight (I weigh a bit more, FWIW), nor is it dangerously too little for someone exercising a lot. It will have no effect on your progress aside from contributing to the size of your caloric deficit. If your mouth and appetite seem happy at 1500 calories, there's no reason not to stick to that. If you were eating many fewer calories I would recommend more for nutrition for someone your height and weight, but not for "starvation mode." If you're happy at that level, it's not so low that you shouldn't stick with it.

The reason you are not losing a lot is NOT related to your eating too little and entering "starvation mode." It's probably the other reasons that have been posted in this thread. Also, check out my ticker :-) When I was about 3 months in I had similar questions and issues ("OMG the math! According to the math my calorie deficit should have translated to X pounds lost but no. Am I eating too little? Am derailing my progress?"), but just staying the course was enough to break through. I think my body was reacting to all the new exercise after a previously sedentary lifestyle with some inflammation / water retention but that settled down and WHOOSH. Full disclosure: I'm about your size and I do eat more than you, at 1900 cal / day, and like you I exercise quite a lot (one hour a day low intensity i.e. walking; one hour a day varying moderate to high intensity: swimming intervals, resistance cardio, and strength training). But then I'm STILL losing at an average of about 2 lbs a week. But that's me, not you.

30 pounds in 6 weeks is going to be a lot of water, glycogen, food and waste in gut, and lean body mass. Somewhere in there, some fat, but what a shame to sacrifice all the useful stuff alongside. The idea is to lose FAT. I'm not happy if I lose more than one third of a pound a week.

I started at 292. I switched to LCHF, consume a gallon of water a day, and do strength training 3 times a week. At what point do results fly in the face of opinion? At 12 pounds lost, it was water weight. At 20? Low-fat dieters said "water weight." Now at 30, "water weight." I wonder, will still be water weight once I get down to 210? First couple of weeks I lost strength and stamina. I'm now able to lift heavier than when I started. Though I haven't had my body fat percentage tested, I can assure you that lean body mass has not gone down. When you're a 1-percenter, you simply don't posses more than 1/3 pound per week to lose.

You can assure people that your rapid weight loss didn't cost you any lean mass? Really? Is that based upon the lack of testing before starting coupled with the lack of testing now?

Please be honest with yourself and us ... you have no clue if your lean mass is down or not. You don't know what it was before you started dieting and don't know what it is now therefore there is no comparative basis.

Thanks for the tips! Is there anyway to ensure my HRM's accuracy?

And I've already ordered a food scale ... So that will be a new experience for the better!

And yes, I was completely sedentary (besides my job) before I started exercising. But to clarify, I'm not losing inches either. Well, baaaaarely. I forgot to measure my hips this morning and found that I've lost half and inch there and around my chest .... But my waist, arms, and thighs are still the same from roughly 4 weeks ago. That's really what's bothering me, more so than the lack of weight loss on the scale. The past 3 weeks I've really increased my weight and strength training (increased ... Lol ... From nothing!) and I thought I'd for sure see a difference in measurements (although I can see and feel the muscle growing and defining in both my arms and legs).

If someone is working out 2-3 hours a day and they are over 200 pounds, they need 2000+ calories. Eating more can cause fat loss. I don't care what anyone says. I've seen it with my own eyes numerous times. Just because the body might not burn that many calories during working out, the stress on the body to recover from such workouts requires energy as well. It's not always about the calorie burn.

Also, there are numerous posters here that are experts, it just takes a while to find them. You'll know who they are.

Wow, your pic doesn't look like 200+ pounds.

I have kinda turned into a myopic LCHF person, so when I look at your diary and see the fruit, rice, bread, potatoes - typically 200+g carbs per day, I assume you develop hunger between meals so you eat all those "healthy fruits and whole grains" as snacks.

It doesn't work. All the carbs count to increase blood sugar and increase insulin which crushes blood sugar and drives hunger later. All carbs increase blood sugar and can increase systemic inflammation. So cutting sugars and carbs may improve your RA.

Also your diet in the past week tends to be low-fat. You need fat and protein to satisfy appetite and suppress later hunger so you can stop snacking. I'd eat more deli-meats (no sugar cures!) and less protein-shake.

Drinking lots of water is good too. I never touch the stuff myself.

Maybe you should write to all the professional sportsmen and women in the world and tell them they are all wrong.

Perhaps you could become a coach with all your insights about how their diets are unhealthy for them with all those awful carbs.

OP is probably burning 1500-1800 a day on those three hour sessions. She could easily inhale 400g on top of her 1500 calories and still lose fat.

She is probably on a plateau with her fat cells and muscles holding on to water. I always get them on a cut for the first few weeks, I trust my numbers and eventually it whooshes off.

If you are going to do that much exercise you MUST be accurate with your measuring and burn numbers. Weight gain can happen if one overestimates exercise calories and is sloppy with food weighing and injury and lean body catabolism (muscle get burned for fuel) can happen if you do the opposite.

Also, hunger is normal. Get over it.

I don't think it matters one bit whether the calorie burn is too much or not. With 1500 calories a day, she wouldn't even need to exercise to lose weight.

OP, please eat more. And slow down the exercise... stick to one thing a day, just rotate between what you like. All you're going to do is burn your muscle mass. I'd say one of your classes and 2000 calories a day and you'd still lose weight nicely.

I'm a little late to the party, but yes, 600 calories an hour seems greatly overestimated. That's 10 calories a minute, which is what you burn running (not a slow jog, but actual running) or jumping rope. There is no way you could keep up that intensity for 2 hours. So I'm guessing that you're way overestimating your calorie burns, along with some water retention.