Is a drastic calorie cut the right way to go?
 

I've been trying to lose weight for a year.
I've done intense cardio, light cardio, weight lifting (stronglifts), etc.
I've eaten at a 1000 calorie daily deficit, 750, 500, and 250 when people tell me I'm simply not eating enough.

I eat healthy foods about 80-90% of the time, with generally at least 150-200g of protein in the mix.

Nothing has contributed to fitness, body shape change, fat%, or any other change at all. I am exactly the same as when I started.

Fitday puts me at 2400 estimated calories to eat. I'm thinking of dieting at 1200 calories a day for a few months. NOTHING will get me under 240. (31 year old male.)

How are you sleeping? It's an easily overlooked factor, but considering that you're already doing everything you say you are, if you're not adequately resting, you're body is soaked through with cortisol (stress hormone) and it's going to cause you to hang on to that fat, or worse, eat up muscle. Shoot for minimum 8 hours, ideally 9, of sleep a night and try to keep stress down throughout the day by periodically stretching, focusing on breathing, etc.

How tall are you? Are you sure you are overweight?

Are you exercising daily or sporadically?

Are you drinking enough fluids?

Are you eating enough carbs?

Is there a medical reason for the huge amount of protein you are eating?

I'm 6'7. Yes. I'm quite fat around the middle. My arms and legs look OK.

I do weight lifting 3 times a week, cardio 3 times a week on the off days.

I drink loads of water.

I get about 35-40% of my calories from carbs. (Carb cutting has never gone over well for me, in many respects.)

I'm trying to get 1.5-2g of protein per kilo of lean bodymass, as suggested as a minimum for weight lifting.

My sleep is kind of sporadic. 6-8 hours.

Wow, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you have inherited a really slow metabolism. Do you have time in your schedule to add some "fun" lifestyle exercise - walking, dancing, swimming, yoga, etc.?

For a person your size, 1200 calories would be really low and might actually slow your calorie burning further; some researchers think the slow down of metabolic rate may be, in part, a factor in longer life for those on calorie restriction.

I usually walk 2-3 miles every day, and cycle about 40-50 miles a week, as well as boxing twice a week. Should I exercise more?

You could be overtraining. It looks like some rest is in order. You'll think I'm crazy, but seriously take a week off of any kind of exercise, stretch, sleep, eat well (by which I don't mean eat a lot, necessarily), meditate, then start adding it back gradually. Remember, exercise is a stimulus. You need to give your body a chance to respond to that stimulus, and it can't do it if you're exercising all the time.

Which carbs?
 

Are you eating starchy carbs or fibrous carbs?

Please don't take this the wrong way, but I don't believe you--not that you're lying, but I think you were not at these deficit levels; you didn't track properly. I do think you're a human being, and thus despite variances in human physiology we all share essential absolutes. One of those is that if you're at a real calorie deficit you will lose real mass.

How did you measure this deficit? Was it by a militant journaling of all the food you take? Do you really believe that if your maintenance level is 2400/day that at 1400/day you would lose no weight? Of course you would.

Weigh yourself tomorrow morning, then track every darn morsel of energy that enters your body and weigh yourself in a week. Estimates are not any good.

Even a highly sedentary (which you're not) 31 year old male weighing 240 lbs will absolutely lose weight--and fast--at the 1400 calories/day you say you've tried.

Absolutely not.

Trust me: there's no way you've engaged in the level of activity you engage in and have truly eaten 1400 calories/day and not lost weight. No way in the world.If I'm wrong I urge you to contact the World Health Organization, because whatever technique you've stumbled upon to not lose weight even at high activity levels while on a major calorie deficit is one they could use to stop millions of people starving to death each year.

100% of people who are unable to lose weight are eating too much.

2400 was the weight loss level... Most calculators put (sedentary) maintenance at about 3000.

net calories tried was something like... 1900, 2300, 2500, 2700...

Everything I cook is tracked with a food scale. Variables would be portion sizes at restaurants, and potentially my heart rate monitor (or other exercise calculators) being drastically off.


2100-2300 calories worked fantastically for the first 40lbs of weight loss. Literally flew right off; didn't even exercise.



I agree that if I'm eating at a deficit - I should be losing weight. Even if it's primarily lean mass. That's why I'm thinking about dropping way down to 1200. Something is screwed up in the math.