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Hello,
My name is Craig Garber and I'm new to this forum. I stumbled across it while researching "eating too few calories."
Just a brief background, related to my "weight history."
I'm 44 years old, and by all accounts, in pretty decent shape. For the last 20 years, I've been working out with weights regularly, and I've done cardio on-and-off during this time.
I was definitely a fat kid, wore husky, had big love-handles... the whole 9 yards, so I've always struggled with my weight. What I'm trying to do is lose about 20 pounds, and this will get me where I want to be.
Right now I weigh 200 and I'd like to be 180. At 5'9" and with a fair amount of muscle, I'd look pretty darned good at 180. Right now, my waistline is 36", which is probably 3 inches more than it needs to be.
Here's my dilemma. I'm VERY disciplined with my diet -- have been for years. Eat 5 or 6 small meals daily, drink water, don't eat any fast food or anything that comes from a can. I rarely eat sugar or processed foods.
And yet... the scale doesn't budge and neither does my waistline, no matter what I do. I've never been as disciplined with my cardio as I've been with my diet or my weight-training, so about 6 weeks ago, I decided to get serious with cardio and finally knock these 20 pounds off, thinking the extra cardio would do it.
I bought a heart-monitor, and every single day, I've been doing 30 to 45 minutes of intense cardio at an average or 85 to 90% of my max heart rate, which is significantly higher than I've ever done before. (It's amazing how much more productive you'll be when you're measuring whatever it is you're doing.) I'm drenched when I get off the machines or my road bike, and this is an intensity I've never matched before.
Anyway, with no change in diet... literally nothing has changed over the last 6 weeks. I've been tested for slow metabolism and for thyroid problems, and thankfully I'm completely fine.
Also, I am extremely energetic, but I do have a very sedentary desk job (I'm a writer and publisher.). Sleep has been an issue with me, but since I dropped my caffeine intake to only 2 cups of coffee a day, I'm now sleeping better and more. Say 6 to 7 hours a day, most days, which is great for me.
Here's what I'm having a hard time handling, and it's because of years of programming telling me "cut your calories": I checked out my BMR using the calculator at LINK DELETED
According to this, I'm burning close to 3,000 calories daily, between my base BMR, 8 hours of "light work", 30 minutes of medium training (weight training), and 35 minutes of heavy cardio.
Somewhere on this board (which is why I registered), I found an article about eating too few calories. Over the last 6 weeks, I've tried eating 2,100 calories... and recently I've been down to 1,800 calories. And as I said, nothing's budged, either on the scale or around my waist.
I've also tinkered with consumption percentages, and I tend to feel best at around 35%-40% carbs, 40% protein, 20-25% fat.
Is it possible I need to up my calories to around 2,500 daily in order to create the deficit I need to start going into fat-burning mode? I'm having a tough time getting my head around the "eating more will create less" concept.
I'd love to know if anyone has actually experienced this, and if so, how things worked out for you. Thanks very much for your time and I sincerely appreciate your help and your valued input.
I'm also going to post this in the "Weight Loss Program" forum, in case this isn't the right place for this question. Thanks.
Regards, Craig (confused in Tampa!)
My name is Craig Garber and I'm new to this forum. I stumbled across it while researching "eating too few calories."
Just a brief background, related to my "weight history."
I'm 44 years old, and by all accounts, in pretty decent shape. For the last 20 years, I've been working out with weights regularly, and I've done cardio on-and-off during this time.
I was definitely a fat kid, wore husky, had big love-handles... the whole 9 yards, so I've always struggled with my weight. What I'm trying to do is lose about 20 pounds, and this will get me where I want to be.
Right now I weigh 200 and I'd like to be 180. At 5'9" and with a fair amount of muscle, I'd look pretty darned good at 180. Right now, my waistline is 36", which is probably 3 inches more than it needs to be.
Here's my dilemma. I'm VERY disciplined with my diet -- have been for years. Eat 5 or 6 small meals daily, drink water, don't eat any fast food or anything that comes from a can. I rarely eat sugar or processed foods.
And yet... the scale doesn't budge and neither does my waistline, no matter what I do. I've never been as disciplined with my cardio as I've been with my diet or my weight-training, so about 6 weeks ago, I decided to get serious with cardio and finally knock these 20 pounds off, thinking the extra cardio would do it.
I bought a heart-monitor, and every single day, I've been doing 30 to 45 minutes of intense cardio at an average or 85 to 90% of my max heart rate, which is significantly higher than I've ever done before. (It's amazing how much more productive you'll be when you're measuring whatever it is you're doing.) I'm drenched when I get off the machines or my road bike, and this is an intensity I've never matched before.
Anyway, with no change in diet... literally nothing has changed over the last 6 weeks. I've been tested for slow metabolism and for thyroid problems, and thankfully I'm completely fine.
Also, I am extremely energetic, but I do have a very sedentary desk job (I'm a writer and publisher.). Sleep has been an issue with me, but since I dropped my caffeine intake to only 2 cups of coffee a day, I'm now sleeping better and more. Say 6 to 7 hours a day, most days, which is great for me.
Here's what I'm having a hard time handling, and it's because of years of programming telling me "cut your calories": I checked out my BMR using the calculator at LINK DELETED
According to this, I'm burning close to 3,000 calories daily, between my base BMR, 8 hours of "light work", 30 minutes of medium training (weight training), and 35 minutes of heavy cardio.
Somewhere on this board (which is why I registered), I found an article about eating too few calories. Over the last 6 weeks, I've tried eating 2,100 calories... and recently I've been down to 1,800 calories. And as I said, nothing's budged, either on the scale or around my waist.
I've also tinkered with consumption percentages, and I tend to feel best at around 35%-40% carbs, 40% protein, 20-25% fat.
Is it possible I need to up my calories to around 2,500 daily in order to create the deficit I need to start going into fat-burning mode? I'm having a tough time getting my head around the "eating more will create less" concept.
I'd love to know if anyone has actually experienced this, and if so, how things worked out for you. Thanks very much for your time and I sincerely appreciate your help and your valued input.
I'm also going to post this in the "Weight Loss Program" forum, in case this isn't the right place for this question. Thanks.
Regards, Craig (confused in Tampa!)
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