Dietary Dilemma!

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JosieRSmith
JosieRSmith Posts: 3 Member
in Motivation and Support
Can anyone help? I am desperately trying to lose fat while maintaining muscle mass.

I train 5-6 times a week (3-4 days lifting and 2 days cardio - this may be a 5-7km run or sprint intervals). While I know that a FitBit Versa may not always be 100% accurate, it states that I am burning anywhere between 3000 to 3500 calories a day. I am a teacher, so am on my feet all day and average around 14,000 steps.
Food wise I am a vegan, and am eating 2430 calories split into 286g Carbs, 119g Protein and 90g Fats.

No matter how hard I seem to train or how much (or little) I eat, I am unable to loose fat, particularly around my mid section. I'm 165cm and 89KG with a pretty stocky build (broad shoulders etc). When I first started I lost 20KG over two years, taking me to where I am now. I am so disheartened being at the fittest and strongest I ever have been, but without looking the way that I would like to!

Apologies for the life story, but can anyone help?!

Replies

  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,389 Member
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    If you've remained at this weight for a while (at least 6 weeks) then it looks like you've found your maintenance calories. Have you entered your stats into mpf, delinked the fitbit and chosen an activity level that fits your day to day life without sport? How much do you get?

    Fitness trackers work for many people, but likewise they don't work for many others. Maybe they don't for you. One possibility might be if you have a higher than average maximum heartrate: depending on the device you might get crazy burns on paper, but that aren't there in reality as a high heartrate doesn't mean you burn more calories.
  • MaltedTea
    MaltedTea Posts: 6,286 Member
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    Less cardio. More protein. 🤷🏿‍♀️
  • JosieRSmith
    JosieRSmith Posts: 3 Member
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    @yirara Thank you for this advice, I will take a look. Lots of sources obviously tell you to plan your calories with exercise in mind, I haven't thought to measure my intake without this. From my previous experience, trackers have been great, my heart rate is near on ideal with regards to maximum etc. I guess that I will just have to give different things a go!
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
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    Have you been dieting two years straight without any kind of diet break? You could be due for one. Your watch may or may not be relatively accurate...but in general, they don't take into account that you are going to have some level of adaptive thermogenesis going on if you've been dieting for a prolonged period of time, decreasing your metabolic rate to something below population averages.

    Also, if you mid section is primary fat stores, as it is for most men and many women, primary fat stores are a first on, last off kind of thing. It's the very stubborn, slow part.
  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    Welcome! I'm also vegan.

    I agree that you may want to take a diet break if it's been two years and you haven't had one. Generally if you're eating a certain amount of calories and not losing weight, then it's a sign that you're not at a deficit. It's certainly possible that your tracker is over-estimating the calories you're burning.

    I personally found that my midsection was the LAST place to look the way I wanted it to. I was actually at goal weight for a few months and still losing fat from my midsection (weight wasn't changing, just my body composition). When you're at goal or close to goal and just working on losing some fat, it can be a pretty slow process.
  • JosieRSmith
    JosieRSmith Posts: 3 Member
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    @cwolfman13 @janejellyroll Thank you for your advice! I started in 2018 and took off the initial chunk of weight in the first two years. I was on a really low amount of calories at this point - somewhere between 1200-1500. When I reached the point of no more weight loss I then increased the intensity of my exercise rather than taking more calories off.

    After doing some research into what happens when you don't have enough calories, I upped them slowly, but was still, in theory, in enough of a deficit to still allow for fat loss.

    Maybe I am just in that really horrible slow and steady stage - frustrating, but it would at least explain a lot!
  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,400 Member
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    Excellent advice from both wolfman and jane. Take a diet break if you haven't had one--there are threads devoted to that. Then if you aren't losing when you resume dieting, you can take 100 calories off every week until you start losing again. Unfortunately, weight loss is a puzzle. You need to get your pieces in the right place. Good luck.
  • 88olds
    88olds Posts: 4,463 Member
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    Real training combined with weight loss requires spot on eating. And the closer you are to goal weight the tighter the margins. Do you participate on any weight training boards or FB groups? It’s kind of a different world. You’ve gotten good advice here but you may be in need of something very specific.

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