plateaued. Need some Advice, Here's situation...

[Mokman]

Hi all, I'm really in need of help - here's story.

I'm an 18-yr old guy, studying, am a thrower on school's shot-put team and have always been either slightly overweight or downright obese. I've always had quite a lot of muscle mass, but with that also a lot of fat.

So December last year, at 105kg, I decided to man up and stop deluding myself. I began to diet and do cardio exercises like mad. Crazily enough, in the first week, I pretty much lost all appetite and shrunk a total of 6kg. Then, I hit the plateau.

So fast forward five months, I've dropped another 10kg. I've been keeping up with the diet, slacked off a little thanks to exams during March and April, but on a whole have been pretty consistent.

Right now, diet is kind of crazy, and everyone's telling me its probably unhealthy. I pretty much eat half a ham sandwich (wholegrain) in the morning, one ham sandwich (wholegrain) with lettuce at noon for lunch and a salad (lettuce, balsamic vinegar, chicken breast strips) for dinner. It's not always the same thing but most of the time its the equivalent, with one day a week to slack off a little, eating normal meals.

I run pretty much 2km everyday, do boxing with punching bag hooked up at home for approx 20mins, and skip rope for approx 20mins. Oh and gym 3/4 times a week for an hour each, strength training.

So right now, I'm 89kg. Dropped from 105kg. But thing is, country forces army enlistment, and in order not to be sent to "fat camp", i've gotta lose another 10 and reach 79kg. By September.

And trouble is, with this crazy diet body has kind of entered survival mode, and i've been stuck at 89kg for the past week or so. In fact, most of the time I lose weight its all focused in a single week or so. I suspect that weight loss works by eating normally to raise metabolism, then dieting heavily to lose weight while still having the high metabolism.

Right now, I approximate calorie intake each day to be approx 700-800, people tell me I need 2000+ If I start eating normally again, intake would go back to approx 1400

I don't wish to lose too much muscle mass, although I do understand some muscle loss is inevitable, and I'm willing to sacrifice that in order to stop being fat. I'm pretty happy with the progress I've made so far, but this issue of plateauing is annoying me. Right now I'm wondering if the best course of action would be to eat normally for say, a week, then diet heavily for a week - and go on like that.

Problem is, appetite has shrunk like mad, especially when I'm dieting heavily. So right now, if I would eat, it'll almost feeling like I'm forcing myself to eat. Don't get me wrong, I love food. It was hella painful at the start. But eating now feels like giving up.

So a couple of questions -

1. Should I eat, stop, eat?

2. Should I stop gyming and trying to maintain muscle mass altogether?

3. Why is weight loss so erratic, losing 4-5kg in a week then maintaining for a month?

Any advice, help or similiar experiences would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time spent reading this super-long post =)

[Boss Man]

Yes you're not eating anywhere near enough, certainly not enough to maintain your activity levels which are pretty intense.

Triple your calories and you'd be good to go on that weights, daily 2k and boxing.

You may well be losing muscle, especially if your Protein intake isn't good enough to preserve some of it.

I'd aim for just over 1g protein per lb bodyweight per meal per day, so if you have 35g, (140 calories a meal), that's 210g, based on 6 meals, with 840 calories of Protein a day.

You could do that with your Fats too, which is 840 calories Fats, 140 calories per meal, (15g approximately), then have around 840 calories Carbs, which is 140 calories per meal, (35g approximately).

You'll be consuming around 2,520 calories a day approximately, working on a 33% ratio of calories for all 3.

This should help give you a guide to work with.

Keep meals spaced every 2.5-3 hours and you should be fine.

There's a basic template to adapt your eating to.

[Mokman]

Alright, thanks for the help =)

Any advice on what to eat? I've been surviving on wholemeal bread and fresh meat and lettuce. Oh and eggs.

[Boss Man]

Can you list that for me in regards of meal times and what you eat at those times? Thanks .