I've been submerging myself in a lot of fitness stuff the past few months, trying to eat, drink, shit fitness knowledge. I've still got a ways to go to get down to a healthy bodyfat percentage, but here's my thing:
Weight loss is supposedly 99.9% about calories in vs calories out correct? There's a bagillion ways to split hairs over it, but ultimately this is the final verdict.
However, I see a lot of people who complain and can't get rid of "that last bit of fat" or whatever, especially when they're trying to get abs.
Are these people just having trouble controlling their diet? Is that literally it? Or is there ACTUALLY some kind of other facts that come into play once you've hit 10% bodyfat or whatever that actually makes the situation more complex than calories in vs calories out?
I see this situation all the time with other people's experiences, but it seems hard to imagine that they are not practicing calories in vs calories out, especially considering that many of them have been into fitness for a little while by that point.
bumping this, also interested
>>37234540
>Are these people just having trouble controlling their diet?
In 9/10 scenarios this is the case, referring to everyone not already ~-8% or so. Even at 10% you should be able to continue to drop BF through basic TDEE deficit. Those that fall in this bracket and are saying the deficit stopped working is usually because they haven't re-calculated their TDEE and created a new target deficit from that. Ex: If a guy has a TDEE of 2500 at 14% BF, he decides to -500cals a day, or 2,000cals. Problem arrives 4 weeks later because his TDEE is no longer 2500 - it's 2350or so. If he doesn't drop his daily goal to 1,850 from the previous target of 2000/day, the weight loss will slow or stop.
Below 6 or 7% still follows the same logic, but how it effects your appearance matters less - water retention, sodium, carb timing, etc, will have a more visible impact than dropping 1% more BF, seeing as the floor for essential BF% is 4-5%.
Coming from someone who knows from experience.
>>37234691
thank you bro, this is helpful
>>37234737
NP. tl:dr - You need to re-calculate your tdee as well as new maintenance taking into account your new lower weight every two weeks while cutting in order for the rate of weight loss to remain the same. Then shift your new cutting calories target based on that.
People misunderstand the correlation, they think that because they "upped their deficit to -650 from -500" that's what caused the weight loss to continue or "break through a plateau". They didn't up their deficit in relation to their actual new maintenance. It's still -500 from what they need to maintain. They are are still psychologically attached to their old TDEE, telling themselves their further and further from the amount of food that felt normal to them. The process is simultaneously complex yet dead simple once you "get it".
>>37235029
Alright. Well tell me this: What's the best TDEE calculator? The one in the sticky says my TDEE is 2857 a day, yet I have been eating 1700 give or take 100 each day for 4 months and have only dropped 25 pounds. I'm not necessarily complaining because I've accepted the fact that this will just be my life from now on, and if it takes forever to lose it, so be it.
However, it just seems so slow and other TDEE calculators clock me in at much lower calories per day.
I am currently dropping down to 1300 a day for a little while to see if I can speed up the process a bit. I still feel fine, but if I start to feel weak, I'll go back up.
>>37235029
What would you say your BF% is in this picture?
>>37234540
Losing weight doesn't always mean losing fat.
If you reach 10 % and want to go lower, your body's hormones go apeshit and losing fat takes long. That's why people take dnp, do intermediate fasting etc. All those things to prevent muscle loss and lose fat instead.
>>37235029
>>37235236
I hover around 8%. Going lower isn't worth it psychologically, and near impossible to maintain for months on end. It starts messing with your head in ways beyond /fit/'s run of the mill body dysmorphia. This is why even fitness models stay in the 7-10% range. Only pro BB'ers on the week of their stage competition have a legitimate reason to hit 5% or 6%, afterward even they immediately fill back up to around 8% or a little higher.
Any online TDEE calculator is 90% accurate at best, thus why you see them vary as much as 200 calories or more in either direction depending on which you use. That said, I just experimented with several until I found one I felt consistently worked best for me - http://www.iifym.com/tdee-calculator/
Pic related is an example of stage-ready (including intentional water manipulation/dehydration and pre-show carb load to re-fill depleted muscles) at 5%BF. Not attractive in every day life, and definitely not healthy.
>>37235709
The chosen undead has arrived
>>37235709
>them glutes
>them quads
>them tris
holy fug
>>37234540
