Question about intake (6’3”, 325lb)

[emeline]

(Also, 45y/o) I’m down 50 pounds since February eating 1600-2200 cal per day, high protein low carbs, 5g creatine per day, with the goal of building muscle while losing fat. 5 day split weight training in the morning during the week, usually walk/run 3 miles every evening. I’d figure I’d just be shedding weight at this point, but I’ve stagnated at 325-330 for about two months. Is part of this muscle growth? Do i need to drop my calories (again)?

 

[mbennett024]

@emeline Despite the scale stagnating, do you think you have still lost fat in those 2 months? If yes, i wouldn't worry about it too much.

That being said, i have a similar input profile (6'1", 2000 high protein calories a day, multiple days weight training, 3 miles a day walking) and that basically keeps me at 170 lbs, so i am a bit surprised you haven't kept shedding. If you think fat loss and muscle gain has stagnated as well it may be worth having a conversation with your dr.

 

[emeline]

@mbennett024 Oh yeah, I’m definitely leaner and more muscular, so ai am content there.

 

[dawn16]

@emeline Throw some pics up so we can all kinda gauge where your muscle mass is at. Did you just start training? Also what are you actually eating? Any cheating if so how often and how much? These small
Details matter a lot to give you better advice on where to go from here

 

[cosimnot]

@emeline Look, there are a few ways to think about this.

If you want to be quantitative:

the (bayesian) prior probability distribution, estimated by a ton of studies, suggests with high probability you are substantially underestimating your calories. People are known to be terrible at calorie tracking and the bias goes one way -- i.e. they consistently underestimate. The likelihood function, i.e. updating estimates given that you are stalling out at 325lbs for two months while believing to be eating in the neighbhorhood of 2000 kcal/d further reinforces this.

If you want to not be quantitative:

keep doing what you are doing for another month or two. If you are still stalled out, further cut your calories. Aside from things like water retention, which can be a major short term distortion, calories in - calories out is an accounting identity that holds. So if your weight stalls over a sufficiently long time period (say 4 months, maybe 3) then you are eating at maintenance. Arguably this approach could slow the weight loss plan somewhat but if your weight training is going great in the interim, that's probably not a big deal.

 

[uzezi]

@emeline I don’t actually believe you.
The big calorie range insinuates you’re not accurate tracking

 

[emeline]

@uzezi I’m tracking, hence the range. I could have just said i eat 1800 calories a day, which seems more suspect.

Funny how some of you in this sub just assume everyone is lying.

 

[h0peful4change]

@emeline For myself, I assume people are just mistaken as a first view, or just being inaccurate, which is pretty common.

How accurate are you being with your tracking? Are you going off portion sizes etc or are you weighing and calculating?

 

[emeline]

@h0peful4change Considering 80% of my meals are just eggs, salad, asparagus, or chicken breast, i think I’m fairly accurate in my measurements.

 

[h0peful4change]

@emeline squeeze roof middle direction depend cake threatening plough psychotic ossified -- mass edited with redact.dev

 

[queen_scott]

@emeline I think we might need some details here like what your workout intensity is and whether you’re increasing your load/effort. It could very well be that your body is now used to the workouts or that your diet (that’s primarily protein) has reached its upper limit and you need to increase your protein intake to continue to build muscle and burn fat. Your deficit could very well be having your body prioritize muscle burn. Gotta calculate your BMR and figure out next steps. Congrats of losing 50!

 

[samamph]

@emeline I don't think anyone's suggesting you are a liar. But if you are tracking your cals and in a deficit, you lose weight.

Here's a couple of articles that may help you get your head around this:
https://physiqonomics.com/eating-too-much/

http://www.acaloriecounter.com/blog/why-am-i-not-losing-weight/