I've been thinking.......

[spatts]

Ugh...ok, just woke up, peed, weighed-in, you know the deal. 189.

I am basically eating like the cutting diet that I always post. Those numbers worked SO well for me before. In fact, last spring when I used them, I went from just over 200, to 175 6 weeks later, to 164 2 weeks after that...35 pounds in about 8 weeks. I freaked at how skinny I looked and went back to putting on size.

This time...no movement at all.

Doubt it's water. I don't look or feel like I'm retaining water. I actually look alot leaner, yet the scale isn't budging. Normally I don't give a damn about the scale, but I have to weigh-in for the comp on something...so for the next 5 weeks, I care.

 

[JJFigure]

But when you're leaner, it's harder to lose weight. It's easy when you have a lot of BF to lose, but when you're down in a lower BF percentage, it's much harder to lose additional BF.

At least that's the way my body works - once I get to a certain level of leaness, I have a heck of a time dropping additional BF. I either have to bump my cardio or reduce my kcals.

 

[spatts]

...but I'm not very lean. Like 18% at the lowest.

Maybe I need to add some cardio in, then, because I can't imgaine eating less. I'm freaking hungry all the time, and go around with a headache most of the morning.

 

[newgirl-chargeback]

Spatts -- something firstly tells me your mind's eye may not be correct...while for a bb competitor 18% may not be a contest weight, 18% is lean.

And, if the scale is not budging, are you sure you have not put on additional muscle? Since you do look leaner and do not feel spongey could this be it?

Further, perhaps your cutting diet needs more overall cals? Are you getting enough EFAs? I have done carb-depletion several times in my life as well as rotations, but after a while what used to work no longer does. The body adapts too well....we are engineered to stay alive and our bodies will fight claw and tooth to stay there.

Even though you are on a time constraint, have you thought about adding cals? Or an overall cheat day/refeed?

By way of analogy but certainly not to your degree and need of making wieght class.....after months of hard training and super clean eating the scale was NOT moving anywhere. I was at my wits end and ready to throw in the towel. I was deprived and angry. Pissed off to be more accurate. I hated food in general as it lost its luster and appeal and was not eating for pleasure only making myself eat to stay alive and retain muscle.

Well, we needed to move into our new home (actually old home) that needed A TON OF WORK.....tons. My apartment and my then fiance's needed packing. So, diet and training were NOT of a priority. While we did not miss a workout, my diet was crappy. Hot days, lots of boxes, climbing up ladders to fix things.....lots of ice cream, milkshakes, quick foods such as bagels as there were no appliances hooked up etc. YOU GET THE PICTURE.

Well needless to say, I dropped like 7 pounds in a week, did not lose strength, fit into clothes I had not fit into in months and felt re-inspired. Long story to say, you need to take a diet break.

 

[spatts]

A break? It's only been a couple week!

...lol.

I am carb rotating. About 150-200 on high days, and about 50-75 on low days. About 200-250g protein, and 30g fat, mostly udos. That about 1800 high and 1200 low. Which is actually less than my cutting diet...I just remembered that I cut my protein way back on corn and MS's suggestion. My cutting diet AVERAGES 2000 cals. Hm. ??????

I just had my hydro done about 6 weeks ago and I was 187 @ 148 pounds LBM, and 20% fat. Doubt i've added a whole lot of musclein 6 weeks. Strength is doing fine, even though I feel like my stomach's going to just start digesting itself in a few minutes.

I think one factor is that last time I tried this I wasn't powerlifting. Perhaps I still have a bad guage of how much I really burn PLing. I KNOW I burn more than I did when I was BBing. Perhaps it's more than I thought.

...or maybe the bod is just rebelling and will cave into my demands any day.

 

[MS]

In my experience the body is a lot more adaptable than we give it credit for. If you've been carb cycling etc....for too long, or dieted too many times before, then there's a good chance that your body has figured out the game and you need to make a drastic change to diet and/or exercise to kick start fat loss. I find that every time I diet, I have to diet harder and cut calories more than the previous diet to get the same fat loss. But that's just me. I have heard others say the same thing though. Of course I've also got increasing age working against me

 

[spatts]

I was carb rotating before, but it was more like 250 high and 100-150 low. Alot more cals. I just sat down and figured it up. I'm not doing anything close to what I was doing last time I cut in terms of over all cals. The ratios are the same, but the cals are like 600 lower on low days and 400 lower on high days. I completely forgot that prior to November, I had always taken in about 350g protein (give or take 50) when eating like this. Perhaps I need to go back to the increased protein...or in other words, the diet the way I originally used it. I dunno, but 1200 cals is LOW in my book.

I normally eat whatever I want on max effort days, prior to my workout. ME squat day is my day to load up.

 

[MS]

Sure. Try doing exactly what used to work for you. Problem is, if it doesn't work this time, you don't have a lot of time to sort it out. Keep in mind that regardless of how much LBM you carry, your brain will still fight to maintain X-pounds of fat that it is used to. Although muscle is very metabolically active, I don't think the brain actually registers how much of it you carry relative to fat. Basically the higher the ratio of LBM to fat, the harder your body is going to want to lose the muscle if it detects caloric restriction since it wants to retain the fat, not the muscle, and muscle is too expensive to run. But you know all this. The question is, what you gonna do about it. It might be worth a small experiment with the 'fat fast' again for 2-3 days just to see a)how much water weight you lose and b)how much strength you lose. At least you'll know where you are fluid-wise.

 

[spatts]

Good points. Funny you should mention the fat fast. It was the first thing I thought if when I got off that wretched scale this morning. If nothing else, it may be a little shocker and kick start things, assuming I come off of it in a controlled manner.

 

[spatts]

Sorry to hijack your thread, corn. I really started to wonder if the "brain actually registers how much of it [LBM] you carry relative to fat," as MS mentioned.