breaking the barrier
polycounter lvl 18
Sorry to bring up this topic again. So, after working out for about 4 months, i'm down to 227 from 245. Been working out 3 days a week, 2-3 days of cardio. Eating better meals, healthier snacks, whey protein, etc. Yet still my body refuses to break 227. I've been overweight most of my life, and with the development schedule looking pretty nasty, i know its going to be harder to goto the gym during the crunch times.
Anyone have any tips on how they broke their barrier? Have you tried any supplements?
Lee
Anyone have any tips on how they broke their barrier? Have you tried any supplements?
Lee
Replies
It sounds like you're working out enough. I do know that fat loss becomes most effect after 20 minutes of elevated heart rate activity (the first twenty minutes take directly from the glucose/sugar in your blood).
When I decided to get healthy, I also had to implement a certain amount of eating control; I was eating until I was full, then 5-10 minutes later I felt stuffed. So I ate until I was satisfied, and then 5-10 minutes later felt full. This cut down my calorie intake about 20%, I'd wager. I also cut out all cola and try to avoid products with high fructose corn syrup (which is nearly everything.)
More or less, there's going to be a formula that works for you but you might need to do some experimenting to find it. It wouldn't be out of line to try to talk to a dietitian to see if your intake is correct for your goals.
And keep going!
On the healthier side though...
Are you eating 3 square meals a day? 2-3 snacks?
There are certain thermogenic foods you can eat, that help increase your metabolism as well.
- cayenne pepper (this can boost your metabolism by as much as 20%). I add this to everything from eggs to pasta to potatoes.
- hot peppers
- salsa
- chili sauce/hot mustard
- ice water (if it's extremely cold, it makes your body work harder to warm it up, burning more calories)
- green tea
- apple cider vinegar (1tspn w/8oz water 2x a day)
- cabbage
- celery
- brussel sprouts (ah, the childhood memories..)
- broccoli/cauliflower
- lemon or vinegar
- grapefruit/berries
- fatty fish (salmon/mackerel/tuna, etc)
What exactly do you mean by healthier meals? A good thing might be to see a dietist (sp?) and get a complete menu/meals thats good for you list that you can then follow.
When it comes to training, make sure to activate your largest musclesgroups (ie. legs) to burn fat and do cardio excercise every time your at the gym. Complement with weights but make cardio your main focus. 60mins on the bike burns a lot of calories
Uhm and maybe just try and change your lifestyle even outside the gym? Can you walk to work? Try and plan in activities good for the body instead of hanging out infront of the TV. Like a walk or something. Training is not something just done in the gym is what im trying to get at..
I really dont think there is no magic formula to loose weight. Just eat right, excercise and try n stay healthy. So it sounds like you are on the right track!
If you've been tracking your nutrition to this point, it's easier to see where you're at and make corrections. Most often, people respond to slower weight loss by doing exactly the wrong thing - cutting their calories back even more. Doing that can often slow your metabolism, which actually makes fat loss go even slower despite a reduced intake.
The trick, quite commonly, is to actually increase your calorie intake. Hard as that is to believe, giving your body a bit of a boost (say 200-300 calories a day) will prompt your body to speed up your metabolism. While your calories consumed go up slightly, the energy you body is willing to burn goes up by an even larger amount.
Beyond that, it never hurts to mix things up. The body is built to adapt and seek a least-effort solution. If you've been doing the same workouts for three straight months, on the same basic diet, your body is probably adapted to performing that routine in the most efficient method possible. Mix it up by changing your eating structure (maybe 6 times a day instead of 5), how often you work out (4 days instead of 3), the workouts you do, etc.
I have used some thermogenic supplements with good effect, but you really want to save them as a 'last resort' option. If you can make changes to your routine and continue to lose, that's ideal, so you still have the supplement boost to pick up the slack when plateau-busting techniques lose their effect later on.
Complement with weights but make cardio your main focus. 60mins on the bike burns a lot of calories
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Without starting the old arguments, I'll just say that this isn't the right way to go. 60 minutes of low intensity cardio might burn 400 calories or so, but it has no long-term metabolic effect. You'd do better spending 45 minutes on with a focused weight lifting program.
*edit*
I was going to respond to Vassago's cold water comment, but will just post a link covering a few points instead:
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/cb15.htm
As mentioned in the article, you might burn 70 calories a day from drinking cold water. that would work out to one pound every fifty days, or about seven pounds of year, and that's only if the theory is even correct.
http://www.t-nation.com/newchives.jsp?y=2007
Sweat, sweat, sweat. Give me 100 burpees!
I'm all for mixing up the workout. Every month, I change up my workout, just to give my body the variety.
Think of fat cells like an off site storage unit place. Fat comes and goes but the storage cells stay. The storage cells can expand to hold more fat but once they are full your body starts making more storage cells. If this happens, even if you lose some fat there are a bunch of open storage cells waiting to be filled at a moments notice. Being overweight in the first place makes it harder to keep weight off since your body is aching to go into storage mode. This is why keeping weight off is hard for a lot of people. you can't breath a sigh of relief once you hit your target weight, because you're body is primed and ready to fill it all back up again. It might have taken 10-15 years to put all that weight on originally and it might take that long to lose it, but it will take a fraction of that time to fill it all back up.
Your body is also used to a cycle, store fat for later, depending on how long that pattern has been built into your life, it could be hard to break. I'm not talking about mentally wanting to lose weight, but your body reacting to food. Think of your body as a cat, its really hard to train it to do anything other than what it thinks it should be doing. The longer it goes the more set in its ways it gets.
The trick now is keeping your body out of storage mode. Staying active is the main way I think you can do that. And not 30min of harsh activity followed by 23.5hrs of downtime. Because thats just 23.5hrs of empty storage making a grab at anything it can turn into fat. Which plays a big roll if your active only in small spurts through out the day.
Also if you start to eat less and your body thinks its starving it will also kick into storage mode more easily when it can, making it harder to lose weight and process food correctly. Know that being bigger and losing weight and keeping it off will be harder than someone who is smaller just trying not to get bigger.
- Eat when you know you will be active afterwards. Eating breakfast is a good idea as you have the rest of the day to be active. But not if you're going to eat it then sit in traffic. Pack it with you, eat it when you get to work and go for a walk/light jog.
- For a long time I had the same issues but I'm smaller. It was for several reasons. I would eat a big breakfast, and sit in traffic (storage mode), I would get to work and sit (storage mode complete awaiting more food to store). Lunch would roll around I would skip it or eat a light snack and hit the gym for 20-30min. My body being empty would think is under increased demand so it burns a little, hungerly awaiting the chance to absorb fat as it sees an increased need to store. I would head home sore and tired eat dinner and maybe go for a walk and then crash (storage mode all night) leaving me roughly at the same place I had started. Those 20-30min I thought where doing me a world of good but actually I found I could be in better shape if I was less intense, I just stayed more active all day long.
- If you must eat and you know you won't be active afterward eat something that your body will have a hard time turning into fat.
- I'm sure you've heard it said, avoid heavy meals late in the evening especially right before bed. hopefully that makes a little sense.
- Also look into the factors that trigger fat collection, stress, starvation, over eating, inactivity ect...
Reading:
http://www.weightlossforall.com/fat-cell-numbers.htm
Of course this discussion is just about your bodies fat content. You could be 30lbs overweight look fat and be in better shape than someone the same weight that doesn't exercise. If you don't stay active your heart (which is a muscle) will come under increased strain which you might not see or feel right away but will wreak a far greater toll on your health if you stop exercising and just try to maintain your weight.
Also keep in mind you might be holding onto water not fat. The more sodium you take in the more water you will hold. If you pound salty trail mix all day it might be healthier than other snacks but the salt content might be high enough that you retain water.
I hope that helps, and I hope you don't get obsessed with losing weight but you do become obsessed with being healthy. Having washboard abs by xmas is not realistic or healthy for some people because they go all out hardcore and burn out. But that doesn't mean you can't stay active and live longer, just be realistic about your goals and who you are
I've spiced up my workout with Boxing every Wednesday night at 8pm
My workout buddy seems to be taking a different route for getting in shape, he does an hour on the treadmill usually burns 700 calories. Seems to be working for him.
No sugar- when I do eat it I restrict it to natural sugars, fruits and stuff; and that's only about once a week.
If you are severely overwieght I would recommend Atkins diet. Just watch your sodium intake, and make sure 90% of your carbs are coming from veggies and stuff. Atkins works, but once you hit your goal wieght you have to transition to a leaner more balanced meal plan
Hell yeah...Boxing is awesome...I do heavy bag work about 3 times a week. 20 minutes punching and kick the shit out of something is an awesome workout...good luck with it
If your joints can take it, another good exercise is jogging. It burns a hell of a lot of calories for the amount of time you put in. Try varying distances and intensity to avoid burnout. It's a good cheap workout that'll give you a nice spring to your step in addition to helping you drop weight.
EDIT: And you don't have to "transition" off of weight watcher eating when you are done losing weight. It should have taught you good, balanced eating habits. All you do is find out what amount of food intake keeps you at an even weight and stay at that. No special foods. No real restrictions on WHAT you can eat (just how much of it).
How much emphasis are you actually placing on eating fewer calories? Eating "better" food doesn't ensure weight loss. And while exercise is important, you have to exercise a lot to burn off a little ... and if you are doing weight training of any kind, you're adding muscle weight back on (that's not a bad thing, but it's happening).
Try the online version of Weight-Watchers. It's relatively cheap. You don't have to attend meetings (which are mostly older women). And it provides excellent e-tools for calculating your intake of calories, guiding you to eat the right kind of food (not fad diet food) in a balanced diet, and recording the diet benefits of your exercise.
Some additional tips: cut back on the salt in your food. My weight can flucuate wildly just based on whether I ate salty or non-salty the day before.
Drink LOTS of water ... 8 cups a day minimum (not counting fluid loss during exercise, which should be replaced as you lose it).
t-nation has 10 years of free articles. Educate yourself!
http://www.t-nation.com/newchives.jsp?y=2007
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Hey, Chris - awesome that you're a T-nation reader. I am a huge proponent of Waterbury high-frequency plans, great to see someone else who goes there. It's a fantastic resource; for people who are interested in really learning about fitness, there's no better site on the web.
I'm a firm believer that different foods have different effects on your metabolism. Low calorie diets work for some people, but they always fail misrebly for me...and I always feel starved...all said and done you just have to find what works well for you
http://bodyweightculture.com/
and maybe even Boxing 4 Free:
http://boxing4free.com/
I have heard a lot of health nuts talk about putting your body into "starvation mode" from eating less; that this lowers your metabolism etc. etc. What they don't mention is that calorie restriction is the only scientifically verified form of life extension and that if you spend a lot of time in this "starvation" state that there is a good chance you will live 25%+ longer than a normal human being (by avoiding the onset of diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabites). If living longer without disease isn't healthy for you, I don't know what is.
In my personal experience, when my body is in this state I am simply less hungry. So you may lose more weight eating 1500-2000 calories, but then you may also be hungry much more of the time. In other words, you may experience more disutility/pound lost with a faster metabolism.
I have dieted a few different times, but losing weight is the easy part. Keeping it off is the real challenge. You have heard this a million times right? What it means on a fundimental level is that you need a conditional diet that you are on forever. I have a friend who is addicted to soda, so on his diet he totally cuts it out, but craves it all the time. He can't wait to get off his diet. If the idea of staying on your diet forever is too much to take, then it is the wrong diet for you.
The way my diet works is that I do some simple exercise, like walk, for at least 30 minutes a day and eat up to 1000 calories. If I want to eat more, I have exercises I can do that allow me to eat more. For example, if I burn 500 calories playing DDR then I can eat 1500, but the fundimental basis of the diet is this--
Things that are hard when you are fat and out of shape become easy when you are skinny and in shape.
Jogging, push-ups, pull-ups, even DDR are examples of things that get easier as you get skinnier. If you weigh 300 lbs, push-ups are much much harder than when you are only 200 lbs. So I could, in theory do 50 push-ups on my diet to eat an extra 500 calories, but I can't even do 20 yet.
ie, if you base your diet on how many sets you do of these self adjusting exercises, you will burn fewer calories (with 50 push-ups for example) as you get closer to your goal weight and automatically ease into a "maintanence diet" without actually doing anything different.
I'm sure some people will say, "you can't be healthy eating only 1000 calories a day". These are the words of a person who has never really been fat. In reality an overweight person may have hundreds of thousands of calories stored in their fat. They can easily cut their diet to 500 calories without any muscle loss or perminent negative health effects (unless you are one of those unlucky folks who loses fat so fast it condenses in your blood and you suffer a stroke).
It is easy to become obsessive about checking your weight. It is a shitty metric and completely besides the point. You either look like how you want or you dont. You either feel good or you don't. When you get to the point where you have to strip down and weigh yourself after you shit but before you shower, you know you have fucking lost it. Toss out your scale because it is making you crazy.
I think one of the reasons it is so hard for overweight people to lose weight and keep it off is because all the advice comes from people who have no experience whatsoever of losing lots of weight. For me it is very hard to take their highly detailed workout routines and diets seriously.
Pretty much you can do whatever works for you. This guy eats whole extra large pizzas. He also ran 50 marathons in 50 days.
Eat Right 4 Your Type Especially helpful for understanding why some diets work better for some and not for others.
go see a nutrionist.
ben
I'm sure some people will say, "you can't be healthy eating only 1000 calories a day". These are the words of a person who has never really been fat. In reality an overweight person may have hundreds of thousands of calories stored in their fat. They can easily cut their diet to 500 calories without any muscle loss or perminent negative health effects (unless you are one of those unlucky folks who loses fat so fast it condenses in your blood and you suffer a stroke).
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Find me one reference from any honest-to-God medical doctor who says you can get by on a 500 calorie diet of even just eight weeks "without any muscle loss" and I'll send you a check for $100.
"[D]rinking cold water is not going to burn any more fat off your body than drinking room temperature water."
I guess in fitness land physics doesn't work like for the rest of the universe. But that is the problem with nutritionists-- they don't have much of an education. I should know, since I went to one of the top "sports-science" schools in the country. My wife's nutrition teacher couldn't even get basic biological facts right, like the number of amino acids.
I thought bodybuilders focused on putting on weight, not losing it. But my experience is "talking out of my ass"? Huh, maybe that's how things work in fitness land too.
"There is a concept that if you exercise, you are going to lose less of your muscle," he said. But his team found no evidence this is true."
Too bad he has his doctorate in Physiology. Not suprising I suppose since medical doctors don't know shit about diet.
Article
[edit] It is also common sense that your body will break down fat, which it doesn't need, instead of muscle, which it does.
Not taking sides, particularly since the quasi-diet Im on right now is more of a stunt and not related to nutrition in any real way. I have however lost 10lbs in 20 days.
Not going to get into this. No point in arguing about it.
The goal is ultimately to live healthier. Damaging it with fad diets along the way won't help you reach that.
Ninjas, I cannot believe how shallow your interpretation of that article is. When you walk five miles and run five miles, you move the same mass over the same distance. Do you assume that the physiological effects are the same? If the total work is identical (body mass over five miles), why are you out of breath with a pounding heart when you run it but not when you walk?"
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Here's the answer from Dr. Dean Ornish, a clinical professor of
medicine at UC San Francisco:
"All things being equal, you will burn more calories by running an hour than walking an hour. It is true that walking a mile will burn more calories than running a mile -- although it takes longer to do so. When you run a mile, you're burning mostly sugar, or carbohydrates, which is how your body gives you fast energy in bursts.
When you walk a mile, it gives your metabolism time to switch from burning carbohydrates to burning fat."
According to this MD you burn more walking per mile than running. I think the only reason that could be is because you have the work of moving your body + the work of maintaining your metabolism x time. Since jogging takes less time = fewer calories
To answer your questions Verm, the reason you are out of breath is because you are spending more energy in less time.
The reason death camp survivors have low muscle mass is because they had already burned all their fat. I don't recommend a 500 calorie diet even if you are fat. The short term side effects are unpleasant. A 500 calorie diet for a person who is already skinny is suicidal for obvious reasons.
I simply don't believe what you say is true. I have gone on a 500 calorie diet for months. I never had any problem with my muscles. What you are saying makes no sense to me, and the article I posted says there is no real clinical evidence to support what you say.
[Edit] This whole thing has gotten sidetracked on details that are really not important.
I don't think you should listen to me. I don't think you should listen to any nutrition "experts" either. The fact is that every human's physiology is unique, but the basics for good health are easy to master. Don't try anything drastic, use common sense and listen to what your body is telling you.
I guess since im doing it the slow way none of the weight has returned.
before that i tried everything and i can say without any doubt starvation method is the worst and least effective over time.
I have kept the weight off though, I just try to control portions and stopped drinking soda. I'm a lightweight when it comes to beer so it only takes about 3 to get me loopy at a party.
on a side note, my weight bench has turned into a place for everyone to store their books and miscellaneous debris.
These days I eat 1000 3-4 days a week, and 1500 the rest of the time (on high activity days). Having a set amount of calories no matter what removes any incentive for physical activity, whereas like this you get to eat more if you want (and you need to, to build muscle). I feel great, and I am losing weight at a fast yet still safe rate. I imagine that I will be eating 2000 on some days in the future as I continue to increase my physical activity.
It is funny that you mention alcohol. That is the only thing I exempt from my diet. I don't drink much anyway, and being able to get buzzed on a beer or two on an empty stomach is awesome.
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I heard Weight Watchers does something like earning extra points for exercise. It actually sounds like a pretty good program, but I am too cheap to pay for even the online version.
How many calories you need per day depends on your age, sex, size, and activity level, but most people need somewhere around 2500 per day. Even a tiny 100 pound 5 foot nothing woman who does no strenuous activity needs nearly 2,000 per day, a large man over 6 feet will need nearly 4,000.
The proper way to lose weight is to eat regularly, eat often and eat properly, plus excercise. It doesn't take much, go walk or run for 30-40 minutes 3 or 4 times a week. The eating part is counter intuitive, but the way it works is by eating regularly and often you condition your body to burn fat. If your body is getting the appropriate ammount of calories at regular intervals it's not going to store fat because it is not necessary. It really is that simple. So have breakfast at about the same time every day, a light mid morning snack, lunch at the usual time, afternoon snack, and a light dinner. Get off your ass for a couple hours a week and do something. You'll see the pounds start melting pretty quickly.
[edit] And the above posts just goes to show how completely out of touch fitness people are with reality. I'm 6'4" and built like a linebacker, and I have no trouble at all putting on fat eating under 4K calories a day.
Also, don't you think you would see fat people starving to death as their bodies broke down muscle instead of fat on low calorie diets? Your heart is a muscle, and your diaphram, and since muscle is not very high in calories compared to fat you would expect to see fat people dying of starvation left and right running even a moderate calorie deficit.
But since you are a weight loss expert, I'm sure you wouldn't mind telling us how many pounds you lost on your last diet?
Nutritionist and proper Personnal trainer. kthanksREPEAT!
Where do I advise people to go on a 500 calorie diet? Oh, I see, you didn't even bother to read the thread. I guess you are so smart you don't need to read what I type to know what it means eh?
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It was the first thing you said in this thread... Here, let me repeat it for you.
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Seriously though dude, if you really want to lose weight that bad you really can starve yourself. If you cut back to 400-500 calories a day and even attempt to have a normal life (which won't be easy, due to lack of energy, chills, muddled thinking) you will lose weight.
I have heard a lot of health nuts talk about putting your body into "starvation mode" from eating less; that this lowers your metabolism etc. etc. What they don't mention is that calorie restriction is the only scientifically verified form of life extension and that if you spend a lot of time in this "starvation" state that there is a good chance you will live 25%+ longer than a normal human being (by avoiding the onset of diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabites). If living longer without disease isn't healthy for you, I don't know what is.
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This is ridiculous. You suggest a 4-500 calorie a day diet and really believe that if you starve yourself you are going to live to be 100+ years old and cancer free? If you are really worried about heart disease, cancer and diabetes, there are plenty of things you can eat that will help you more than starving yourself. If you starve yourself, you will be more prone to illness like the common cold or flu (which can kill you as easily as cancer if your body isn't healthy enough to fight it).
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[edit] And the above posts just goes to show how completely out of touch fitness people are with reality. I'm 6'4" and built like a linebacker, and I have no trouble at all putting on fat eating under 4K calories a day.
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Well I'm 6'2" 219 and if I'm active enough, I can actually loose weight eating 5,000+ calories a day. There was a time in my life when I did nothing but eat and skate. I was 40 pounds lighter than I am now and the same height. I could literally eat anything I wanted as much as I wanted because I was skating competitively and practicing up to 10 hours a day.
Controlling your weight isn't so much about counting calories and starving yourself as it is about eating regularly and being active to control your metabolism.
Currently I'm not trying too hard to lose weight. I'm eating probably around 4,000 calories a day, I'm not avoiding sugar, probably drinking 16 ounces of non-diet soda a day, pretty much eating what I want but eating regularly, running about 12-16 miles a week (about 35 minutes 3 or 4 times a week) and I'm loosing weight, somewhere between 1 and 2 pounds a week. I'm not even trying. I started running late last year and I've lost about 20 pounds. If I continue this and cut out soda, I can easily be down to 200 pounds by the end of March.
You must be one of the functionally illiterate. I say, you CAN cut your calories that low, and you will lose weight. That is simply a statement of fact. If that sentence included words like "should", "ought", or "best" then you could say I was suggesting a course of action. Let me give you an example, "AOEA really ought to practice reading since he is not very good at it".
Now, if you read what you quoted, you would see that I didn't say anything about a 500 calorie diet in the second paragraph. That paragraph is about what is commonly called "starvation mode", or in other words, a lowered metebolic rate resulting from calorie restriction. You certainly don't have to take my word on the benefits of calorie restriction. It has been an active area of research since the 30's.
Try educating yourself...
Of course YOU can burn 5000 calories a day. You are naturally skinny. That is why your advice on how to lose weight is utterly worthless, and why I can only chuckle when somebody like you comes along and tries to tell me that I am a liar, and that you know more about fat people losing weight than I do when you have never been fat and never lost any real amount of weight.
Everybody else:
I went and tried to track down where I had read about stroking out from losing too much fat. It turns out that doesn't happen. Having a stroke while dieting is associated with weight loss pills.
I also read everything I could about muscle loss from low calorie diets. The claim seems to be that when your body is switching from using mostly food to mostly body fat you will lose some muscle mass. It was hard for me to find studies that substatiated it, but the ones I did find seemed poorly controlled.
Like this one
It is not clear to me if people in this program are losing muscle because they less active since starting the diet (it is pretty natural to drop your activity level when you cut calories in my experience), or if it is really a result of weight loss. A lot of the newer Atkins oriented research seems to indicate that people on a proten diet can lose the same amount of fat on more calories a day, so maybe the protein-high group had more energy and was more active in their spare time, hence less muscle loss. Even if calorie restriction does cause muscle loss, we are talking about losing less than one pound of muscle for 22 pounds of fat.
But the logic goes that if you cut down your calories low enough your body will tend to burn muscle to keep itself running. In reality, the only part of your body that cannot run completely off of fat energy is your brain-- which is probably why people pass out, sleep, etc. on a starvation diet. I will concede that it seems possible that you could lose muscle mass on a 500 calorie diet, but in my case I didn't notice any.
Most of the "threats" from going on a starvation diet for fat people seemed to be completely blown out of proportion-- for example, that low blood sugar would send you into a coma, or that your immune system would be so compromised you would die from infection or that keytones would destroy your kidney and liver.
In fact, a 500 calorie/day (medically monitered) fast is one of the techniques doctors reccomend to lose weight if you are fat enough.
In fact, a 500 calorie/day (medically monitered) fast is one of the techniques doctors reccomend to lose weight if you are fat enough.
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In practice that's slightly different, though, isn't it? Like, special foods with all of the necessary nutrients and stuff? (Not taking sides at all, just clarifying/asking, since you guys all seem more than happy enough to google this stuff
My plan is to get strict on my self and work out three days a week and on the off days do at home work outs (sit ups and the like). Food wise i think i need to just eat an english muffin for breakfast, salad and yogurt for lunch, and vegi burger or something else light for dinner.
Does that sound like a good idea or a bad idea?
Anyway, your proposed diet sounds like way too few calories. Rather than guess at it, figure out how many calories you need to consume to lose weight at a healthy rate, and then build a diet plan to match. The problem with just arbitrarily picking something is that if it doesn't work out, you won't know why or what you need to tweak.
'Grats on the impending nuptials, by the way
It is not clear to me if people in this program are losing muscle because they less active since starting the diet (it is pretty natural to drop your activity level when you cut calories in my experience), or if it is really a result of weight loss. A lot of the newer Atkins oriented research seems to indicate that people on a proten diet can lose the same amount of fat on more calories a day, so maybe the protein-high group had more energy and was more active in their spare time, hence less muscle loss. Even if calorie restriction does cause muscle loss, we are talking about losing less than one pound of muscle for 22 pounds of fat.
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I don't understand why you say it's "natual" to drop your activity level when you cut calories. I think when most people decide to go on diets, they attempt to pair it with mroe exercise. Even if it's just walking or something, the two generally go hand-in-hand.
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But the logic goes that if you cut down your calories low enough your body will tend to burn muscle to keep itself running. In reality, the only part of your body that cannot run completely off of fat energy is your brain-- which is probably why people pass out, sleep, etc. on a starvation diet. I will concede that it seems possible that you could lose muscle mass on a 500 calorie diet, but in my case I didn't notice any.
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How did you measure your strength? Did you combine your weight loss program with a weight training program and track your progress? In many cases, newbies to physical training can show improvements in performance despite a caloric deficit as their body responds to entirely new stimulus.
Depending on your workout TGZ, you might need more protein, you might want to snack on nuts or toss some beans in the mix. you can look online for the kinds that contain the most protein and least amount of fat and bad stuff. Protein is also important to keep your immune system up, but I guess another good way to lose weight is to touch a bunch of nasty snotty gym equip. Just start licking door handles that'll get that weight off!
It kind of sucks that you have to crash diet but whatca-gunna-do. The trouble with losing X-lbs by X-Date is after that date passes people often go back to the habits that got them in trouble in the first place, and since crash dieting worked once it must be the key to staying fit, so they wait a few months till they really feel the weight and do it all over again. Wash, rinse, repeat. Don't be that schmuck.
Also don't use your scale as the only way to measure progress, there are other ways to measure your health. It does you no good to hit your target weight if you lost muscle weight. Muscle is denser than fat and you could easily put on 5lbs or lose 5lbs of muscle and not see it. You might hear people brag about being the same weight they where 10 years ago but they don't exercise, yeah welcome to losing precious muscle and replacing it with fat. They would look and feel better if they actually kept the muscle. But the one number they hold near and dear is all they care about and all they need to feel good then so be it. I just wish they would realize how much better they would feel if they took care of themselves, but not my call and not my body.
common sense about using the scale
http://www.thewalkingsite.com/scale.html
Make sure to protect and maintain the amount of muscle you have since it is your main way to burn calories. Loosing muscle and replacing it with fat takes the wood out of the fire, and makes it harder to recover from a fatty binge.
Your weight is also dependent on your height and body type. It sounds with all the exercise your are doing that you are building muscle which weighs more than fat. So loseing weight is kind of the wrong way to look at it. Just get in shape and in a healthy eating habit and don't over do things and keep at it cause this shit take years to happen. This is a lifestyle change and it won't work unless you feel good doing it. Good luck.
Alex
as for breaking barriers? i lost SO much weight while training for the marines, and when i went into training i wasn't exactly fat.
as a male, you should try to keep to around 1500 calories per day, i would suggest 700 for breakfast, 300 for lunch, and 500 for dinner. the reason for those counts, is because your breakfast should keep you going right through the day, with lunch just being a top up. and dinner giving you energy for repairing your body, and as a reserve for the following morning.
for breakfast, i would advise Musli, oats and dried banana's are amazing sources of complex carbs, which are extremely important for long term energy release, they are tough to break up, so the energy will come in a steady flow throughout the day. if you have raisins, and other fruits with your musli, they will provide natural sugars, which are easier to break down, and you'll notice after about 15 minutes, your really awake, and ready to go.
for lunch, salad, or anything green really would do, remember it's just a top up.
and for dinner, i like to eat pasta, potato, or fish. i love my red meats too, but they arent as good for what you are trying to achieve.
as for cardio, plot a 3 mile route, and run it about 30 minutes after breakfast. and again before bed, it should take you about 20 minutes at a steady pace. once you get really fit, it'll take about 14 minutes.
if you look at doing pushups and stuff too, then go for it. personally i've never seen the point in the gym, as your own body is all you need.
good luck!