Still waiting for the pounds to "melt off" page

[mcbeitz]

I'm looking for some input on what I may be doing wrong....

I switched to Paleo in May. I'm not sure how exactly I found this site, but within a week of discovering it, I had read the book, purged the panty, and started trying to shoehorn in the maximum amount of meat in a day. Almost immediately, low carb flu hit, and it stayed for almost 3 weeks. It was awful. Added on top of that was the fact that I was in the middle of long distance racing season (I do outrigger canoe paddling), which created the problem of potentially running out of gas during a race, since I was already maxing out during practices. Races during that part of the season are typically 12+ miles, and practices can be up to 8 miles. However, I figured a way to keep fueled for paddling, and that first month, I lost 6 pounds. I was thrilled.

Since then, I have lost nada. Zip. Zilch. I kept going with paddling until the end of the season, which was a couple of weeks ago, and since then I have switched to a more paleo-esque workout schedule. I do crossfit or bodyweight exercises 2x a week (for my lift heavy things portion), I swim 2x a week (for sprints/ move easy), and I play soccer 1x a week for fun. I also try to take a daily 30 minute walk.

A typical day's menu looks like this:

Breakfast:
2 scrambled eggs with mushrooms & avocado, 2 slices bacon, and 2 cups coffee with half & half. Sometimes also will have a handful of berries as well.

Snack:
Handful of macadamia nuts

Lunch:
4 oz of hamburger with sliced tomatoes and avocado, side of veggies (lately it's been zucchini.)

Snack:
Cup of tea with coconut milk. Sometimes more nuts

Dinner:
Massive salad with some form of protein, usually steak or chicken, spinach, mushrooms, tomato, avocado, carrots, cucumber. One non- paleo thing I have been doing here is using regular dressing in moderation (sort of assuming that it fits in the 80/20 thing.)

Dessert:
Usually it's 1 chocolate covered mac nut. However, recently I baked a batch of primal pumpkin muffins, & those have been dessert.

I guess part of my question is also one of goals: what should I aim for? According to the weight/height tables, I should be in the 140-170 range. I would really like to be around 160. However, I always seem to stall out right where I am now, which is at 185. (I'm 5'10) I know that the number doesn't tell the whole story, so I have also been taking photos weekly & tracking my measurements, neither of which have changed significantly. Also, am I eating enough? How do I get the weight loss thing going again? Any input would be appreciated. Thanks!

[Winterbike]

I'm 163 at 5''11 right now (damn BJJ stops any unnecessary muscle gain) and I'm probably eating at least twice as much as you. It might have been ok if you were sedentary, but you seem like a pretty active guy, so my advice is to eat more!

I tried the low carb thing also, it took me three weeks before I crashed completely. It's really not made for people who are into sports that tax the glycolytic pathway.

Do you cheat much?

[Grumpycakes]

Dessert:
Usually it's ONE(1) chocolate covered mac nut.

Lies. No one can eat only one.

Try including some sweet potato. Starches are good if you're doing all that activity, especially if you're doing Crossfit. Heck, white potatoes and white rice can be okay for most people, too.

Cut out the snacking. It keeps your insulin levels elevated.

[mcbeitz]

Hi Winterbike & Grumpy Caveman-

I'm usually pretty good about not cheating. I had a piece of pizza on Saturday, but that's the first item with bread in probably a month.

Actually, the single chocolate mac nut really works. It solves the sweet tooth dilemma without causing guilt issues.

I've been trying to stay within the 50-100 carbs for now, which is why I haven't been eating sweet potatoes, etc. I'll have to do a test & see if they make a difference.

I'll also try to just increasing the size of my meals & try not to snack.

Thanks for the input!

[Fury]

I can't see anything wrong with your diet from a quality standpoint, but looks a tad small and quite light on the protein for someone your size/weight, especially with that activity level. I suspect more food and you'll start to see movement.

I mean, your breakfast/lunch/snacks look to be only 50-60g of protein, so unless that salad has like 3+ portions of meat on it you seem to be missing at least another meal worth of protein. Hell, for someone your activity level I've seen recommendations at least double that, sometimes more (IIRC Lyle McDonald suggests 1.5g/lb LBM for someone in your size range)

edit: Mark seems to recommend up to 1g per pound of LBM for active athletes here
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/defin...l-eating-plan/

[BohemianBo]

I had a perfect diet for months and had no weight loss either. Then all of a sudden I lost a bunch of weight rapidly, but now I'm back to some sort of plateau. I've tried to pick apart what I was doing during my weight loss time to figure out why it was working and the only think I could come up with was that I was really good about sprinting. Before and after I didn't sprint so much. But during the 3 months when the weight flew off, I sprinted once a week with out missing any.

[chickenbackside]

My personal experience was paltry fat loss in the 1st six months, then suddenly, 70 lbs melted away in a matter of 6 months, then another 30 lbs took a year and a half to go away.

Just do the right things and be patient.

Besides the diet and exercise (favor short but extremely intense training over any other type of workouts), the other things that I found help massively in body recomposition are, quality sleep, sunshine and being as active as possible (taking stairs, not rolling your luggage, parking far away when grocery shopping and carrying your groceries instead of using a trolley...etc).

[mcbeitz]

Question for you BohemianBo-

What kind of sprints were you doing? I haven't really been doing separate sprints, since the bodyweight workouts I do are generally 50 sec on as fast as you can, and then 10 sec off (to write your score down.) And how often were you doing these sprints?

I guess patience is not one of my virtues- results now!

Were either of you (chickenbackside & BB) tracking your calories/carbs etc? Or were you just doing the "eating until full" route?

Thanks for your thoughts! =)

[jimhensen]

I'm 163 at 5''11 right now (damn BJJ stops any unnecessary muscle gain) and I'm probably eating at least twice as much as you. It might have been ok if you were sedentary, but you seem like a pretty active guy, so my advice is to eat more!

I tried the low carb thing also, it took me three weeks before I crashed completely. It's really not made for people who are into sports that tax the glycolytic pathway.

Do you cheat much?

lol, eating more (other than in very extreme circumstances of low calorie and huge amounts of cardio) is not going to cause someone to lose weight.

[Legbiter]

You eat pretty well, no problem there that I can see. You also seem very active so maybe up the protein (more buttery steak! ) and fat. Also, snacking on nuts can sneak up on you because they pack quite a punch. Eat more instead at regular meals and axe the snacking.

Good luck.