At a loss

B

BTNewGuy

0
Long time,
I am now 23 years old, weigh 216-218 lbs., and am 6 foot. I have an undesired mass of fat around my stomach, and love handles. I work long days. Normally in by 7 out by 5. Might not be terribly long but strenuous enough to make me tired, and to make going to the gym tough.

Diet, Diet, Diet....
I get into work and eat three hardboiled eggs ( no yoke ), and normally a fruit along with an omega three supplement, and a centrum mens multivivtamin.
Three hours later .... cup of green beans or peas.
Three hours later .... salad with tuna, chicken, or pork.
Three hours later .... normally another fruit such as an orange.

Then I will go to the gym where i always start off stretching then running two miles in 20 minutes because that is when my knees will start to hurt me. Meanwhile I am so tired it I am puching myself to continue but i feel like I have no energy. I then after I run i do crunches on the ball, then i normally do weight traning exercises, working ab crunches inbetween all of them.

Get home, Cheat a little. Normally an water ice (60 Cals), and possibly some chips and salsa, before I make the chicken that I eat with borccoli, or brown rice, which will become tomorrows lunch. Then I try to go to bed and normally grab another waterice. I keep a great log of what I eat. it seems to always be below 1800 calories. With my BMR 0f 2200 cals, I feel like over the past four months I should have lost the fat around my stomach and love handles. I know I cheat a little, I drink (heavily if I do), but maybe once every two weeks. I am just at a loss and am not sure what the next course of action is.

I have to be at work early so I can't get tto the gym before hand. I used to do that in college and that was the best way to boost my energy in the morning. But now being at work early and when the gym opens just doesnt jive. I contemplate taking creatine, I wouldn't necissarily mind putting on more muscle, I also have this caz thought that If I put on more muscle, then I have to burn more calories to keep that muscle, meaning that if i kept the same amount of food intake up I would be able to burn the fat a little more quicker?

I need smething to boost my energy, and not keep me up at night.
I just don't really believe in supplements.

Any suggestions are very much appreciated.

Thanks
 
Where did you work out a BMR of 2200? You need to multiply your BMR by an activity factor to get your daily requirement figure. I'm your height, weight 20lbs less and have a maintenance figure of over 3,500kcals and by the sound of it I'm not as active as you.

Maybe what you're doing is drastically undereating. Try starting your day with some oats and some people like adding some whey to that, and then having 3 or 4 more meals spread throughout the day with about 30g of protein in each meal and keep your calories closer to 2,500.

If you want to lean out then leave the cardio bunnies behind to wonder why they run on the spot like a hamster 5 days a week for years and still have a huge ass and go do some proper lifting (That means no ab crunches inbetween each exercise - you can't spot reduce fat and that amount of volume is crap for hypertrophy). Start doing your compound movements, squats, deads, snatches ect. Movements like snatches will get you sweating heavily and your heart pumping. The increase in muscle mass from the weight training will increase your resting metabolism making it easier for you to lose weight as well, even while resting
 
Last edited:
+1 for Typhons response.
You're starving yourself, not getting enough protein from the looks of it either. Weights before cardio, always, or done on completely different days or 10 hours apart.
 
Thank you very much for the input. I was using the BMR formula.
BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) - ( 6.8 x age in year )
This gives me 2196==66+(6.23*216)+(12.7*72)-(6.8*23)

It is great to hear the advice of stop running as much. I will definitly take that. am I really starving myself? Is that what is causing me to maintain the extra fat? Is it some sort of mode that my body goes into to store fat as survival or something?
Now I understand that building more muscle is to make it so that I burn more calories in resting. I don't really like the thought of taking supplements, but then in that notion it would make me think that Taing something such as creatine would help me build more muscle, and in turn I would burn more calories quicker. Would that be correct to think? Or am I way off base here?
 
That may well be a formula for your BMR but you're not in a coma so your actual daily will be far higher. An often heard suggestion for dieting is to eat 500 Kclas less than maintenance a day and your maintenance level will probably be something more like 3,000 kcals as.

The activity ratio for a fairly active person to multiply their BMR by is 1.55, that would bring your actual usage level to 3,403.

The reason I've said your level is more likely to be about 3,000 is that you've said that losing weight is hard so it's possible you have a slower metabolism than most and that 3,400 figure is just an estimate based on the average person.

I'd say that 2,500 is the most that you should cut your intake to, just make sure you're eating well and tracking the calories in everything for a while, just in case you're gaining calories from things like juices that you've not been taking into account before
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top