Did I screw up my metabolism?

Little background here..

I started my "diet" (I like to think of it as a life change) back in April. I returned from a vacation and weighed in at a staggering 310lbs. I'm a 5'11" 27 year old Male. While I believe myself to have a bigger than a average build, in high school I weighed around 215-220 and was an athlete in good shape.

Since I have been watching what I eat I have lost about 35-36lbs over the last 4 months or so. I started at first without using MFP and just adding calories other ways. MFP tells me I should be eating around 2100 calories to loose weight. I started, and continue to eat around 1300-1500 calories with a lot of lean protein and it have been working great for me. I am also lifting weights again though I just started attending the gym again this past week.

I am now plateaued at 274-275lbs and have been for the past 10 days or so. I keep reading to lower caloric intake to get over a plateau. I am just worried my caloric intake is already low for someone my size and don't think I should go any lower at this time.

What should I do?
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Replies

  • _Zardoz_
    _Zardoz_ Posts: 3,987 Member
    My guess is you've been eating far more than 1300-1500 calories. A plateau just means you've been eating at maintenance so for a male of your weight maintenance level would be a lot higher than 1500 calories a day which s why I think you've been eating more than you think. I weight 186 pounds and I'm the same height and my maintenance is around 2400 calories. Without seeing your diary it's hard to look for any inaccuracies. I would suggest looking at the link below to sort out any inaccurate logging.

    It is in fact pretty difficult to muck up your metabolism it normally takes years of disordered eating or a metabolic condition to do this. As for your calorie goal you should be eating more than 1500 calories (which I think you have been anyway) eating too low calories means you will lose far to much muscle mass which is a thing you really don't want to happen. Have a look at the links Good luck

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1234699-logging-accurately-step-by-step-guide

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1175494-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants?hl=guide+to+sexypants&page=1#posts-18361594
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
    Something else to consider is that if you have just started at the gym again, your muscles are holding some water for repair. Read through the links given, if you are confident that you are still eating in a deficit, hold on a little longer until you body is used to the extra workouts. It should start moving again.
  • AglaeaC
    AglaeaC Posts: 1,974 Member
    MFP tells me I should be eating around 2100 calories to loose weight. I started, and continue to eat around 1300-1500 calories with a lot of lean protein and it have been working great for me.
    Why do you eat 1300-1500 if the daily amount is 2100?

    ETA
    And how do you measure your food?
  • blag
    blag Posts: 6
    MFP tells me I should be eating around 2100 calories to loose weight. I started, and continue to eat around 1300-1500 calories with a lot of lean protein and it have been working great for me.
    Why do you eat 1300-1500 if the daily amount is 2100?

    ETA
    And how do you measure your food?

    I have been eating 1300-1500 because that is what I started at before using this app and it was working well. As far as me eaton more than 13-1500 I know on some days I do for sure but most I really don't think so. I scan bar codes mainly.

    Example of today's meal is:

    Breakfast - egg beaters egg whites 12tbs - 100 calories
    Mushrooms - 15 cal

    Lunch - Seared Ahi tuna 4oz - 146 calories
    50/50 spinach spring mix salad - 1.5 cups - 15 cal
    1tbs vinaigrette -35 cal

    Dinner - .5 cup steamed broccoli - 15 cal
    Grilled coho salmon 5oz - 208 cal

    Snacks - Blue diamond butter toffee almonds 1.5oz- 220 cal
    Oberto Teriyaki Jerky 1 pack - 240 cal
    Lays classic chips 1 snack pack - 160 cal

    Total - 1153 (way to low, I know)

    I know that is quite low on the calorie count but i worked weird hours today and ate the chips and jerky to just add more calories as I knew I needed them but just wasn't hungry. I also drink about 5-6 bottles of water a day as well.


    I will admit when it comes to actually measuring my food I guess mostly. For instance if I cook chicken breast and buy a 3 pack that weights 1.063lbs I'll just say one breast is about 5-6 ounces.
  • Liftng4Lis
    Liftng4Lis Posts: 15,150 Member
    I don't think that's enough calories for someone your size. I have had a plateau for the last 3.5 weeks and at the advice of members here I have raised my cals from 1300 to 1600. In the week since I've done so, I still haven't lost, but haven't gained either. I was told that due to the extreme addition in my workout program that I was indeed retaining water, and that accounts for the plateau.
    I'm a 5"3.5 135 woman.
  • AglaeaC
    AglaeaC Posts: 1,974 Member
    I'm 5'10'', woman, with nearly 30 kg to lose. My TDEE-20% is almost 2000 kcal/day. I don't think you eat enough, if you do weigh your food accurately.
  • blag
    blag Posts: 6
    Here are my weekly numbers


    7933BA33-0B45-4488-8161-EA91D14F6F1B_1.png

    9C552E0C-8012-43C7-80B3-E89620EEDA41.png
  • jonnythan
    jonnythan Posts: 10,161 Member
    I will admit when it comes to actually measuring my food I guess mostly.

    Yup.

    How's that working out for you?
  • vismal
    vismal Posts: 2,463 Member
    I will admit when it comes to actually measuring my food I guess mostly.

    Yup.

    How's that working out for you?
    Until you weigh your food and track accurately, the numbers you put into myftinesspal are meaningless. Start again fresh. Weigh and track 100% of your food. Pick a reasonable level of calories to eat for someone your weight and height. Eat those calories every single day. Don't have a cheat day/meal. After a few weeks of accurately counting, if weight doesn't move, slowly remove calories. Anytime weight stalls, before lowering calories, ask yourself if you are tracking accurately and accounting for regular cheat meals.
  • Mr_Knight
    Mr_Knight Posts: 9,532 Member
    I will admit when it comes to actually measuring my food I guess mostly.

    Good plan.

    :smokin:
  • blag
    blag Posts: 6
    When I say I guess it's not like I eat a a meal and just throw in whatever number I want...


    As I stated earlier I divide portion weights. The chicken breast is a good example, 3 breasts in one package that weight 1 pound. So in theory that's 5.33 ounces per breast which is what I will enter. In reality one may be 7 ounces, one 4 and the other 5.



    As far as measuring food on the run, how do most of you do it? I'm thinking most people don't keep a scale in their back pocket.

    If I want some almonds and there are 10 ounces in a pack. I will eat about a third of the pack (visually) and log 3-4 onces of them.

    This seems pretty accurate to me, but something isn't working so maybe not. I do log everything I put in my mouth, and I do plan to get a digital scale for my kitchen. Thanks for the advice.

    The thing I don't get is that I've changed nothing in the way I log or the food I eat. It was working great loosing a few pounds per week. The last 10 days or so the only change is lifting weights a few days and I haven't been budging on the scale.


    Thank you to the people leaving the helpful comments. Your the reason I decided to ask on these forums. The other comments, thanks for wasting space on my thread.
  • jonnythan
    jonnythan Posts: 10,161 Member
    When I say I guess it's not like I eat a a meal and just throw in whatever number I want...

    Again: how does that seem to be working for you?
  • kittytoo
    kittytoo Posts: 27
    Hard to believe, but it IS possible to eat TOO FEW calories, to wit, this article I found at the Everyday Health site:

    If you're like most people who want to lose weight, you want to lose it fast. So you may be tempted to make drastic changes in your diet to dramatically reduce the number of calories you consume. But what you may not know is that eating too few calories can actually backfire and sabotage your weight-loss efforts.

    "It would make sense to stop eating [when you are trying to lose weight], but it actually works in the opposite way," says Kimberly Lummus, MS, RD, Texas Dietetic Association media representative and public relations coordinator at the Austin Dietetic Association in Austin, Texas.

    Calories and Your Health

    The most effective way to lose weight is to consume fewer calories than you expend, creating a calorie deficit. But if your calorie intake dips too low, says Lummus, your body could go into starvation mode. "Your body will start to store fat because it thinks it is not going to get anything," says Lummus. "You will be at a point where your body is kind of at a standstill."

    Lummus says that when your body goes into starvation mode, your metabolism slows to a crawl, burning calories as slowly as possible to conserve its energy stores. This is why people who cut their calories too much may reach a plateau and stop losing weight.

    Back to me: so eat what the app tells you... from my experience, it's pretty accurate in its calculations, as long as you tell it the truth.
  • blag
    blag Posts: 6
    When I say I guess it's not like I eat a a meal and just throw in whatever number I want...

    Again: how does that seem to be working for you?

    It was working great for me for months, thanks.
  • meshashesha2012
    meshashesha2012 Posts: 8,326 Member
    OP maybe try taking a diet break. spend a week or 2 eating at maintenance .

    PS i dont weigh my food either, refuse to do so since i really dont want to be obsessing over food like that. BUT i also assume that i'm eating 200-400 more calories than i have logged.
  • alereck
    alereck Posts: 343 Member
    There could be many reasons why you have not lost weight in the last 10 days but that is a short period of time so don't freak out yet.

    You said you just started weight training so it could be water build up, there are a bunch of thread here that talk about that, when you first start to train and start losing fat water builds up in its place. So you don't see a change on the scale but your body composition is changing.

    Your numbers do sound a little low but even if they are I would not worry about your metabolism. I find that adding two cheat meals a week can do wonders. Even now at maintenance I find that if I gain a pound eating fairly well, adding a good cheat meal brings me back down a pound or two a few days later.

    Again 10 days is not long at all, don't change anything yet, give it a little more time to make sure it's not water build up. But..

    If you haven't exercised regularly and just started now I would add a meal, about 100-200 calories daily to make sure you are giving your muscles what they need to grow.

    Buy a scale and measure things acurately, you might have been losing weight without tracking but once you start to reach your goal weight measuring will become crucial. Just like now, if you plateau you cannot have a sincere look at the problem because you do not know for sure what your calories and macros are. Maybe you are eating too much fat and too little protein for example, so do start to track accurately if you want to continue to progress.

    Good luck to you :smile:
  • 10manda86
    10manda86 Posts: 229 Member
    I'm a 27yr old 5"10 female (174cm).... I weigh approx 180lb (81kg)... i work out most days... I do cardio and strength (as per my job requirements)... I eat 1800-2000 calories a day (some days 2200) and I have been losing consistently... I would starve on 1500-1600 as I need the calories for energy and recovery!
  • WalkingAlong
    WalkingAlong Posts: 4,926 Member
    When I say I guess it's not like I eat a a meal and just throw in whatever number I want...

    Again: how does that seem to be working for you?

    It was working great for me for months, thanks.
    It's not like breaking out a food scale is the answer to every plateau.

    10 days is nothing. Some say they lose like clockwork but I think those people are exceptions.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    It is in fact pretty difficult to muck up your metabolism it normally takes years of disordered eating or a metabolic condition to do this. As for your calorie goal you should be eating more than 1500 calories (which I think you have been anyway) eating too low calories means you will lose far to much muscle mass which is a thing you really don't want to happen. Have a look at the links Good luck

    How does 3 months sound to lower your total daily sedentary burn by 20% below what is expected, and by only taking a 25% deficit from a lab measured TDEE?

    Years? Hardly.

    And make it more than 25%, as OP did, and you can find the normal help resistance training can give won't be nearly as helpful.

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/heybales/view/reduced-metabolism-tdee-beyond-expected-from-weight-loss-616251

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i_cmltmQ6A

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1077746-starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss

    As to OP's issue - the above is possibility, so is poor food logging (though that would have to be just totally awful to overcome that much potential deficit), and 10 days not enough time for a real plateau.
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 8,983 Member
    I think 10 days is far too short a time to call it a plateau.

    When I was losing, I weighed myself weekly - some weeks I did not lose weight or even went up a tad - but the overall trend was downward so was all good.
    So, although I wasn't aware of it, no doubt I often had "plateaus " of non losing in 10 day period.

    OP if what you are doing has been working for months,I would just continue with it unless weight loss stalls for a longer period of time, perhaps a month, then I would just keep on keeping on.