I’ve been working hard to lose weight for over 4 months now. I’m 6 feet tall, 36 years old and started at 270 pounds and am currently stuck at 228 (for 2 weeks) with a final goal of 180 that if all goes well I should be at by July... I eat very clean and cook my own meals, count all my calories properly every day using a tracking app (and using a food scale, measuring cups and spoons), I eat about 2000 calories a day, I drink 1 gallon (3.8L) of water a day, I drink absolutely no alcohol or soft drinks, I eat 180 grams of complete protein daily, I sleep 8 hours nightly, I do weight training 4 days a week with progressive overload, I do 75 sit ups a day 4 days a week and do over 100 flights of stairs weekly. (Never use the elevator or escalator) and I average about 11 thousand quickly paced steps per day everyday (according to my step counter) between my normal movement and faster paced inclined treadmill time. What can I do or change to help? I’ve been extremely consistent since I started with no cheat days or cheat meals (including during the holidays) and I’m pretty frustrated every time I get on the scale the last couple weeks… is this just temporary and should I just believe in the process and stay consistent or are there changes to be made?
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Plateau is a normal phase when the metabolism readjusts to the new conditions. Don't let it hit you too hard. Wait a week, maybe ten days from now, and if it doesn't change, add some additional sport once per week (running, swimming, soccer with friends, ice skating... whatever makes you smile) just to kick it off. Another way is to change your eating pattern (cut some carbs, narrow eating window)
I'm not seeing a lot of cardio there. Your steps don't really mean shite because if you're slow walking for 16 hours you're burning less fat than I am on one marathon. If you're "quickly paced" but it's in spurts, same issue. How much of that is getting your heartrate up to say 60-70% of max? The better shape you get in, the more you can take, so the harder your cardio needs to be to get your heartrate up into fat burning levels of cardio. Step counts are only relevant for short comparisons when the paces are the same. If you have a job where you are constantly active, say, working in a warehouse, then pace count matters, but the more you get used to it the less your body is getting taxed doing it. 2000 calories a day is now over the recommendation of 1800 for people living a sedentary lifestyle. Sit ups burn... well... a rounding error. I don't know what your weight routine is, but look at pro football players, you can be strong and still be fat looking. Nothing is going to shed fat but cardio. Hows your sugar? Refined and otherwise? Honestly I think it's more the lack of cardio. I was super fat as a kid. Once I added that it melted off. When I was deploying all the time I was doing 4500-6000 calories a day on "busy days." Now I do charity races every weekend in body armor. A year ago I was carrying 10-12 lbs, now it's 32-45, but my pace hasn't changed. Actually it sped up a little, but only recently. Point was, it took the increase in weight to keep my heart rate up. If I go back to 10lbs I barely get above 85bpm, which admittedly is much higher than my resting rate, so it's not worthless, but you're not going to see that leave a physiological difference like you do when I'm doing 5-10hrs per week at 130-150 bpm
Ah man that's frustrating! Sounds like you might be dealing with a plateau. A few things you could try:
- Cut calories a bit more, maybe down to 1800-1900 per day. Your metabolism may have adjusted to 2000.
- Try increasing cardio a bit more. Maybe add in a couple HIIT sessions per week. Mix up your workouts.
- Check your protein intake - 180g seems high, try lowering to 0.8g per lb of body weight. Too much can stall weight loss.
- Take measurements too, not just scale weight. You could be losing inches even if scale isn't changing.
- Give it another couple weeks, plateaus sometimes break with patience. Stay consistent.
- Refeed day - one higher calorie day (2500 cals) every 2 weeks can help metabolism.
- Check you're sleeping/stress okay. Both factors can stall fat loss.
Stick with it man, you've made awesome progress! I'm sure with some tweaks you'll break through the plateau. Don't get discouraged, weight loss isn't always linear. You got this!