Can't lose weight on 1500 calorie diet

C

crosswise

New member
I made a post in a different sub and people weren't very helpful I'll try again here.

Male, almost 34 y/o, 167.5 lbs, 5'10" height, trying to lose my fat tire/love humps. I've been working out since Nov 2022, but not dieting for a full year. I was 170lbs when I started lifting, and was still at 170lbs after a year of lifting, only my body composition changed a little.

I lift 4 days a week: 1 day chest/upper body, 1 day legs/lower body, 1 day back/mix of upper and lower body, 1 day TBW. I also go out for a 45-60 minute walk twice a week on the days I don't lift.

Every workout day, I do 5 exercises. Chest day always includes 4 sets of incline/flat bench press. Leg day always has 4 sets of squats with barbell. Back day always has 4 sets of deadlifts. Other exercises are 3 sets each. My rep and weight always varies, sometimes I'll go lighter and shoot for 15-20 reps, sometimes i'll go heavier and i'll shoot for 6-12 reps. With either approach, I go until failure on every set, I don't stop at any number, if I feel that next rep is going to be a struggle, I put the weight away.

I started my diet at almost 2200 calories late November 2023 and I maintained it like that until January 1st, 2024 and then I started cutting calories. My weight didn't budge the entire month of December so I figured that 2200 is my maintenance. Long story short, I arrived at 1400-1500 and since January, I only lost 3 pounds. That 3 pound loss happened essentially over night roughly two weeks ago (Feb 10ish) after plateauing at 170lbs since January 1st.

My current diet: 4 eggs (breakfast) and then 600g of chicken (120g protein), 125g of rice (100g of carbs), 20g of olive oil (20g of fat). Protein and carbs are spread evenly over 3 meals, fat is split over 2 meals (2x 10g) so the last meal of the day/post workout is without fat. To sum everything up, it should be 145g protein, 100g carbs, and 45g of fat, which is just under 1400 calories. I also eat green veggies throughout the day, around half a pound total by weight, so let's toss another 100 calories on top of it all.

Now.... one of the questions I asked was if it's possible to push your body into a starvation mode, or essentially if it's possible that I am eating too little, and was told very condescendingly that there is no such thing as starvation mode, that it's all about CICO, and that I'm doing something wrong like eyeballing my food portions (which clearly I'm not), and that I should seek the help of a professional because that's what they're for etc etc...

If this was the case, then I should already look like a Greek god, because I am eating roughly 500 calories below what the online calculators are telling me.

So... what's going on?

Thanks in advance.
 
@crosswise
  • 100 grams of chicken breast (this is the leaner part of the chicken, without skin, I don't know if it's the one you're using, other parts have way more calories) = 165kcal, so 600 grams is AT LEAST 990kcal
  • 100 grams of uncooked rice = 355 kcal, so 125 grams is 440kcal
  • 20 grams of olive oil = 180 kcal
  • 1 egg = 80kcal, so 4 eggs are 320kcal
Total = 1930 kcal. I'm not counting the greens.

So you're counting wrong from the start.

And read what @woody77 also said about your workout.

Good luck and stay focused!
 
@hotboi2 The weight I gave for chicken is raw as well. I only use breasts.

600g of raw chicken breast is 120g protein = 480kcal. I cut all fat away if there is any.
 
@crosswise I'm not sure where you got the idea that all the fat in a chicken breast is on the outside, but that's simply not true. Also, rice isn't pure carbohoydrate/fiber and includes some fat and protein as well. Strange that you're only counting one macro for food. Just 'cause that works for olive oil doesn't mean it works for everything.

In any case, as others have pointed out, by plugging your diet into basic calorie calculators, your daily caloric intake is between 1900-2000 calories---putting you at between a 200-300 cal deficit if your self-derived TDEE is correct. Let's just split the diff and say it's 250 caloric deficit.

So you ran a 250 cal deficit for 41 days (Jan. 1 through Feb. 10). Assuming 3500 cal=1 pound of fat, your expected weight loss would..3 pounds!

Sounds like everything is as it should be.
 
@crosswise Chicken breast has more than 20g of protein per 100g (25 to 31) -- There is fat in the tissues, even if you cut away pieces around, still got around 3-4g in it anyway
 
@crosswise Please read the fitness wiki. Your body functions no different than a bodybuilder's. If you're not losing weight on 1500 cals, you're counting your calories wrong. Your program doesn't appear to have the structure of a well design program, such as the ones listed in the wiki. You are not mentioning how you are progressively overloading. Your mixture between strength and hypertrophy appears arbitrary.
 
@crosswise I don't understand your question. You ARE loosing weight. You lost 3 pounds in 8 weeks. That's actually not that bad if you want to go for a slow and steady weight loss.

Weight loss isn't linear btw, so it's possible that you loose a lot on certain weeks and even gain on others.

Severe caloric intake can indeed lead to a decrease in metabolism, but the whole 'starvation mode' thing is not something that happens for most average people. It's just your body adapting to a low calorie intake. The decrease is small and also happens after a long time dieting. Starvation mode is a misleading term.

I personally think you would benefit from a more structured approach. You don't totally seem to know your maintenance calories. Start there. There is a good TDEE excel somewhere on reddit that does an amazing job of calculating all of this.

Also take a look at your workout regimen. It feels really chaotic and all over the place.
 
@crosswise I would say a couple of things are going on. In regards to programming I would pay money for a professional made program such as MAPs, anything from Jeff Nippard, 5–3-1, bigger leaner stronger, etc. there are a ton of out there.

In general I would say for a man ur size if you are not losing weight on 1500 calories you are logging/weighing food incorrectly. But if you are doing everything correctly those calories are way too low for a man. You should reverse diet out start increasing calories slowly and get them to a healthy level. Your maintenance should be almost 3000 give or take and cutting would be 2500 and 2000 at the lowest.

Also you said body composition changed that is a positive that’s what you want. When people say they want to lose weight what they really want is body composition change. 5”10 at 170 your not obese. I would increase calories get on a good lifting program and start lifting heavy shit and building muscle.
 
@kirbyjohn I weigh my food raw, not cooked, hence why I know my calorie count is spot on.

I had a workout/diet plan back in 2015 written by a body builder friend of mine. The diet was very much like I described above: chicken, rice, olive oil, green veggies. Yes, it's bland AF, but it worked back then. I dropped 35 pounds in 6 months (10 pounds in the first 3 months, then 25 pounds flew off in the next 3), so I went from 180 to 145. No sixpack at 145 pounds back then, so yes, I was very skinny... still am.

Difference between then and now, is I can lift a lot more weight and do a lot more reps than back then. Also, back then I only lifted 4 days a week, no cardio, no HIIT, nothing extra on the days off.
 
@crosswise Sounds like your goal is 6 pack. My suggestion remains same start reverse dieting and focus on building muscle. If you didn’t have six pack at 145 idk how much has changed. Increase cals get stronger build muscle.
 
@kirbyjohn Essentially, yes, because the fat tire/love humps/whatever we want to call them, won't go away until the body fat % gets into single digits. I wanted to drop fat first before building muscle, just like all those years ago.
 
@crosswise It’s completely up to you, but if you are at 1500 calories and not losing weight your metabolism is not in a place to lose fat right now. You have no where to go diet of metabolically
 
@kirbyjohn And this is why I came here for help. I have nothing left to cut. I don't want to go lower on fat, carbs are already low, and with protein... well, I don't think it's a good idea to start reducing that. 2g/kg of bodyweight seems like a golden rule no one breaks I don't want to do that either.
 
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