Burning 4200 + Calories a day, eating ~2000-2500 and not losing weight

[jclookey]

Hi All,

I'm 36/m/5'11"/295lbs ... I started my journey in Dec 2015 at 425lbs. I slimmed down to as low as 275 and hit a plateau, gained about 20lbs due to holidays and vacation (first real vaca of my life, went to the DR... all inclusive so too much booze and sweets mostly here). I do carry a pretty high level of stress so I'm thinking a portion of things could be cortisol, but I burn over 30,000 calories a week every week and I eat around 2200 a day, high side on "cheat day" being 3000 maybe 3500 at the most but no where near 4k and yes I've logged in the past when I started and more recently to confirm (I'm a software guy so analytics is something I'm pretty good at). I cannot seem to figure out the issue here so I'm beginning to wonder if something is up with my thyroid or if there is something else to blame. I know muscle memory and my body adjusting for it plays a part but I have a hard time believing that it plays enough of a part to cut the calories burned in a day by half. I'm open to any thoughts. For the record I walk over 12k steps a day and a few times a week do some lifting/situps/inclined pushups (bad shoulder so I can't do regular ones 😞 ). Any thoughts/expertise would help, especially if its from someone who has walked this path with a long hard plateau

Cheers and Thanks in Advance,

Jay C.

[almost_where]

I plugged what you put in your post and according to this site you should be losing if your eating 2,200 calories. How accurate would you say you are on your food logging? How many cheat meals/days do you do a week?  Are you keeping your water consumption up? consistent weigh in procedures?

http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html?ctype=standard&cage=36&csex=m&cheightfeet=5&cheigh...

My suggestion would be to do a two week period of  absolute food logging (everything cheat included) leaving nothing to guess/rounding and see if you notice a difference. Im 6-4 and started in the 360s(mar-2016) and am now in 250s. I am eating 2,500 6 days a week and about 3k to 3.5k on my cheat day, 10 to 12k steps a day with about 3 days a week  average lifiting. Ive def bounced around a bit but am averaging maybe 1.25 to 1.5 lbs per week.

[jclookey]

I have logged absolutely and thats the average is about 2200 a day, completely accurate, one cheat meal a week, at most 2 (but a bowl of cereal on sunday morning counts as a cheat meal by my standards), drink at least 4 liters of water a day and weigh in every morning wearing my birthday suit. I'm logging again to see if there is something I missed , again I don't do it all of the time because I am accurate enough for most of the time, but I have done several periods in the past and pretty consistent between 1800 and 2500 with 2200 being about average... cheat days aren't a big deal for me usually as for the most part I eat the same breakfast and lunch calorie wise daily and just have a different supper but nothing crazy, in the past those have been around 3k sometimes spiking up to 4k if my wife and I both go out for dinner and a movie (popcorn no butter haha). I'm considering trying to lift more but I have always in the past up until this plateau hit about 5 lbs a week but that was when i was heavier and doing easily 5-6k cals burned a day

Cheers,

JC

[elderwanda]

Are you accurately counting what you eat?  I've found that I need to be pretty obsessive about weighing my food to the gram and logging it in correctly, because it all adds up very quickly.   Cheese was a big one for me.  I'd be making a snack for one of my kids, slicing up some cheese, and I'd eat a few pieces without giving it any thought.  And then I'd go, "Hmm, maybe I should log that."  Once I started weighing it, I realized that ONE BITE of cheese is like 100 calories.  You can eat 300 calories worth of cheese before you even realize that you've been putting it in your mouth.  

And then there's beer.  It turns out that if you go to the local craft beer place and have a pint of Joe's Creamy Coffee Stout, you can't just go to the database and click "Budweiser", because you've actually just consumed about six times as many calories as a Bud.  And I don't know about you, but once I've had one fancy craft beer, a second fancy craft beer sounds like the best idea in the world.  And then I log it in and see that I'm a million calories over my goal.  (I've learned to stay away from beer while I'm losing weight).  

🙂

[AndyDandyPandy]

Don't put on anymore weight. Losing the weight that you've worked hard to lose is a pain. Plateau will hit anyone who have lost a lot of weight. Just ignore the plateau and scale in fact don't weight yourself anymore. Just continue to do your exercises and eat at a deficit. In the long run you'll see the change even if the scale is not showing progress. Weight on the scale doesn't prove much.

The only way people can success is be consistent for a long time. Perhaps a lifetime.

[jclookey]

Yes accurately tracking, any foods like cheese I have prepackaged servings, no beer at all and very few (maybe one a week) mixed drinks.

[Robynne]

It sounds as if it's time to change up some of the workout routine. You mentioned a bad shoulder, but there are many types of exercise that you can isolate the shoulder from. I have a torn rotator, so I get it. Yoga, stair training, circuit training, etc, can all be done at home if you dont have a gym (there are some great Youtube instructors) , and if you do, spin, elliptical, weight circuits, etc, are great ways to get your heart rate up for a sustained 30 - 45 minute period, which I suspect is the issue. Your body may be telling you that it's time to move into a different activity mode. 

[emili]

Hey @jclookey my two cents for what its worth. The weight you gained on vacation- you should have lost half of it with no trouble once you got back into your routine. Most of it would have been water and salt gain, not actual fat gain. the rest may have taken a few weeks. If you are still carrying it around then I think its time to step away and reset. Rule out a medical condition first. If all checks out, start over as if you have never been any other weight but the one you are now. And do the math again. And log every single thing. And introduce new food into your diet. Stop all cheat days at least for a few weeks and try a more robust cardio workout to lose the fat. See if that makes a difference. I am wondering if the plateau is more your mind than your body. In your mind you are doing all good things, your body is showing you that maybe not..