Lost as to how to continue

AndrewEve
AndrewEve Posts: 2 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hello guys, got a question as to what I might be doing wrong.
I'm a 23 year old male, 6ft tall and weigh roughly 165 lbs. I consume on average 1800 calories per day [All tracked & accounted for] and still hold a fair amount of body fat; I try my best to exercise at home on the daily but am mostly sedentary due to working from home/office job. The issue is, I can't seem to grow any stronger or recompose my body, I've been stuck at a ''skinny fat'' physique for many months now. I'm worried about increasing my calories, as it seems the body fat just does not want to subside regardless of what I do, nor do I grow any muscle from the home exercises. Every calculator states that my maintenance should be around 2300 calories, but I am barely maintaining at 1800. Any advice would be much appreciated, as I don't feel I can sustain this way of eating much longer, as I find myself to be ravenous even with consuming over 150g protein and a large amount of vegetables each day. My goal is to simply recompose and rather than being soft/flabby I'd like to build some muscle and look somewhat lean, but I'm not too sure as to where I am going wrong.

Thank you!

Replies

  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,439 Member
    edited February 2021
    Do you use a food scale to weigh everything, to be sure you are eating (and drinking) the amount of calories you think you are? If you aren’t, start! Weigh and log everything, no skipping, cheating, or forgetting!

    Also, there are body weight programs you can use to help on the fitness side, Convict Conditioning and You Are Your Own Gym are popular. Hang on, I’ll go find the link.

    ETA: Here it is!

    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10332083/which-lifting-program-is-the-best-for-you
  • chocolate_owl
    chocolate_owl Posts: 1,695 Member
    It sounds like you need a structured workout program that involves progressive overload. This, of course, would be better if you can get some weights to work with, but if you're stuck with bodyweight exercises, there's options out there like You Are Your Own Gym or a multi-week, progression-based program like this: https://www.muscleandstrength.com/workouts/9-week-progressive-bodyweight-workout

    In conjunction with a structured program, it's probably not a bad idea to raise your calories a bit. You don't mention how long you've been maintaining on 1800 calories for, but many of us have experienced some short-term, mild adaptive thermogenesis after cutting calories where our maintenance TDEE was below expected. After a few months this starts to bounce back. You can start by bumping up to 1900 calories, which should promote muscle growth and help with the hunger. Hopefully you find that your weight stays stable enough and recomping starts to work for you.

    Also, have you talked to a doctor recently to make sure there's not any medical issues going on?
  • AndrewEve
    AndrewEve Posts: 2 Member
    Thank you so much for your responses.

    I've been averaging 1800 for around 6 months now. It's been a while...

    I do weigh and measure everything on a food scale and track using the app.

    Whilst I haven't got an access to any weights, I've ordered some resistance bands to assist me. I currently find myself to have very little energy & can't even do any pull ups at all, so it's highly demotivating to push myself each day to do any exercise, yet I continue [seemingly pointlessly..]

    Would adding the 100 calories result into fat gain, or would it be just to help me bump myself back to a relatively decent maintenance?

    Thanks again
  • Poobah1972
    Poobah1972 Posts: 943 Member
    edited February 2021
    My advise...

    I would think at your weight, if you really want to gain muscle mass and change your body composition. Your going to need more food and it helps to have them at the right time to avoid fat gain. And your work out routine would need to be looked at carefully as well. Are you stressing your muscles out to the point you hurt the next day (this is a good thing).

    It all really depends on what your trying to accomplish. For instance 30-60 minutes before your workout a whole grain bagel could be eaten, this will sustain you through your work out help your muscles draw in Energy and water. This allows your muscles to better leverage against themselves improving flexing capabilities of said muscle. And the calories will be mostly completely burned off by the workout.

    Are you truly lifting enough weight where by rep 10 (3 sets total) you can't possibly complete another rep? This is a good place to be to actually damage the muscle at a cellular level which signals your body to rebuild and make it stronger. High rep counts is good for endurance and general fitness but not for building muscle mass. IF your working high rep to the point of burning sensation (that's not working to failure), that's actually lactic acid building up in your muscles, which is actually a catabolic state and not helpful to muscle growth.

    Immediately after your work out, you could drink a large tall glass of Orange juice or other high sugar content beverage, and follow that up with a very lean Proteins such chicken breast or tune. The initial high sugar drink will cause your body to dump a nice dose of insulin into your blood stream, which will signal to cells to intake all nutrients currently entering your body. Since you are eating extremely high protein food with extremely low fat, your cells and particularly the cells that you just worked out will now suck up all that nutrients which it required to rebuild and overbuild thus creating muscles.

    Timing and what you eat when, do play a large role in how successful you are at changing body composition. You will definitely need to eat more at the right times to see a major body composition change. I think 150 grams of protein is quite a bit at your level of weight training I suspect. I wouldn't supplement to much whey protein to get to that number though, sure a whey isolate shake after the work out won't hurt, but most of your protein should come from real food.

  • chocolate_owl
    chocolate_owl Posts: 1,695 Member
    AndrewEve wrote: »
    Would adding the 100 calories result into fat gain, or would it be just to help me bump myself back to a relatively decent maintenance?

    I can't predict exactly what will happen with your body, but you're really hungry and have no energy. Even if you gain 5 lbs of pure fat, I think it would be worth it to feel a little better and give you the energy to get quality workouts in. Like... you can always cut again if you have to. I know that's a depressing thought, but what you're doing right now isn't working, and there's a pretty good chance that more calories will help you out. There's general principles, but most of us figure out how our bodies respond through trial and error.

    Also, there's some pretty knowledgeable people in the Maintaining and Gaining sections of the forums who don't necessarily see everything that goes through General. If you haven't gone through the threads over there, it could be helpful.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    Dear @AndrewEve,

    Lighten up. Your mood that is. You are young and at a very healthy weight. Throw out what you think you "should" look like and enjoy what you do look like.

    Now, I apologize on behalf of the universe that you have been shut in by the quarantine. It is not fair, particularly to someone your age. Its cosmicly depressing. But, we live in a time of unprecedented connectivity, and I hope you can reach out to friends, far and near, and have real conversations with them, not just brief exchanges by text, tweet, insta, or tictoc (all of which are contrived to make people look like they're having fun and which often contain nothing very interesting). Many of them are suffering from the same feelings your are and would love to talk.

    As for your food: Focus on making healthy food choices and eating at a reasonable level. If your calorie estimate is accurate, you are eating too little. But, It doesn't sound like you need particularly to log what you are eating (unless you have a history of gaining weight). As for exercise, it really pays to find activities that you find really fun. Even better if they are social but socially distanced. (Tennis comes to mind. Also group jogging, cycling, kayaking, hiking, volleyball, etc.)

    It won't be much longer now. Best of luck!
  • youngmomtaz
    youngmomtaz Posts: 1,075 Member
    I am a 40yo(almost) woman. I weigh 165lbs at 5’7”. Trust me, as a young, low weight man, you are not going to put on muscle eating 1800cal. That is what I eat to lose. Properly use mfp, set up to maintain at the very least(preferably gain at a slow rate), weigh and input your food, work hard at muscle building with a good plan(I know covid, you may have no access to the gym, but you can plan for it and work hard at home). You will probably find your energy is way better with a few more calories, and your workouts improve drastically!
  • shahpriti1232
    shahpriti1232 Posts: 6 Member
    This review explores the role of physical activity (PA) and exercise training (ET) in the prevention of weight gain, initial weight loss, weight maintenance, and the obesity paradox. In particular, we will focus the discussion on the expected initial weight loss from different ET programs, and explore intensity/volume relationships.

    m1al08gvkkj2.png
    National Institutes of Health

    While you are staying indoors during the lockdown, you can start chalking out a practical plan for losing weight. While you follow these home exercises for weight loss, remember to opt for a healthy diet as well:

    Push-Ups
    Squats
    Lunges
    Yoga
    Include Other Asanas
    Pilates

    Studies have pointed to a correlation between high cortisol (stress hormone) levels and weight gain. Kolkata-based yoga Soham Bose suggests the following asanas that can reduce stress:

    Yoga Nidra
    Pawanmuktasana Series

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