I really enjoyed watching the Biggest Loser 2 last season. It inspired me a lot, and taught me that you can lose more than 2 pounds per week if you exercise and eat properly. Since September, I have lost 51 pounds at a rate of a little over 3 pounds per week.

What the show doesn't reveal is what happens after people leave the ranch. Do they keep losing weight at a rate of 5-6 pounds per week, or do they slow down when they are making the final cut down to low body fat?

I'm somewhere between 11% and 12% Body Fat right now. I've been stuck here between 170-172 pounds for the last 3 weeks. My calorie intake has been about 2,000 average, but my calories burned has been about 3,700. At that rate, I should have been at my goal weight by last week, but I'm still stuck.


Finally yesterday somebody told me that you need to eat at least 2/3 of maintenance calories when you get down to low body fat, or your body goes into starvation mode.

Quotes from 2 different bodybuilders:

"You can get away with rapid weight loss at high %bf's....you can't do that as you get leaner....the body is too smart for that."

"You should probably stay above 2/3 of your maintainance calories now that you are in a normal bodyfat range to avoid triggering 'starvation mode'."

I looked up a list of symptoms of starvation mode, and I have a few. So now I am increasing my calories up to 2/3 of maintenance (2500 calories per day) in hopes of losing the last 5-7 pounds and getting to my goal weight.

Just curious, did I miss an episode or did they never reveal this important fact on the show?

Hi Clyde. I just checked out your blog. Great job with the transformation!! Congratulations!!!

Have you tried carb/calorie cycling? Basically higher carbs/calories on heavy training days; medium carbs/calories on cardio only days; low carbs /calories on days off. Refer to page 61 in Jillian's book. Make certain your baseline caloric intake is not too low, and cycle your carb/calories accordingly.

Also, add fish oil to your diet (6 to 10 grams per day EPA and DHA). There is research that indicates that fish oil supplementation increases lean body mass (during non-dieting conditions), increases BMR (by up to 400kcal/day), decreases inflammation, and improves the ratio of fat/carb oxidized (sparing carbs, burning fat).

Best of luck buddy!

I don't have the book, but I think I know what you mean. I am using Fitday to track my calories.

On days when I run for 2 hours, I should be eating more calories than on days when I am only running for 1 hour. Basically I should be targetting a daily deficit number instead of targetting an intake number. For instance, one day I burn 4200 calories and eat 3200 calories. Another day I burn 3200 calories and eat 2200 calories. Focus on the 1000 calorie spread, not the calories eaten.

I was actually doing that for the first 3 months of my diet, and I stopped at the beggining of December and started focussing on intake calories. Maybe I should go back to watching my deficit. You're probably right.

Clyde,

According to your blog you're taking in a total of 18,000 calories/week. I really don't know if that's the right caloric intake for you or not -- you'd know best. I'm assuming you're correct.

You're breakdown is 2,500 calories for 6 of those days, and 3,000 calories for one day.

You've selected Saturday as your 3,000 calorie day, but that's the one day of the week you're not training. That could be a problem.

While the cycle I present below doesn't work perfectly (you should try to cycle evenly -- 1 high day/1 med day/1 slow day) I couldn't match it up with the training schedule you posted on your blog. Based on the training schedule you posted, here's what I'd try:

1/23: 2,250 calories
1/24: 2,500 calories
1/25: 3,000 calories
1/26: 2,250 calories
1/27: 3,000 calories
1/28: 2,000 calories
1/29: 3,000 calories

This assumes that Wed, Friday and Sunday are your toughest training days.

Make sense?

Definitely add the fish oil supplementation! Doesn't matter what brand - it's all pretty much the same. I keep mind in the freezer so I don't have any stomach problems (fish burps).

p.s., I should really note that I am NOT a certified personal trainer nor a nutritionist. I have an acute interest in both and who knows ... maybe some day. For now, I read everything I can get my hands on and just try to learn.

Let me know how things go for you Clyde!!

I see. Wednesday and Friday aren't necessarily the days I burn the most calories, but those are my hardest days. So my body needs more calories for recovery on those days. On Tuesday I might be running 13km, but its an easy pace so I eat less because I need less recovery.

Exactly. And you don't want to be taking in the most calories (3,000) on an "off" day. You also just don't want to stay flat at 2,500 calories per day as your metabolism will get used to that. Therefore, you want to mix things up.

Ultimately, you'll need to find the combination of days/calories/carbs that work best for you. Try the above schedule for a week and see how you feel. If you find that you do actually do need more calories on Tuesday, then take in 3,000 calories that day and 2,500 on Wednesday.

I think if you start to mix up your calorie intake by day, you'll reach your final goal. Right now you've simply hit a plateau.

Hey there Don't know if you've had a chance to puruse through the rest of 3FC but there have been some good threads elsewhere on the topics you referred to!

Basically, the less weight you have to lose, the slower it's going to come off. NO ONE should expect to lose at a rate of 6 pounds a week for very long.

In particular, you might want to search thru our Maintainers Forum and Ladies Who Lift weight-training forum - some good stuff there.

On the topic of Starvation Mode - here's a link to a VERY interesting thread in Maintainers.

I'm pretty sure my body has gone into the dreaded 'starvation mode', so I'm going to take at least 2 weeks off from the diet and try to go back up to maintenance calories while still monitoring my weight and tracking everything in Fitday (I need a half-way house, you can't just let the lunatics out of the assylum into the public).

After the 2 weeks I'll probably cut back by 500 calories per day (or less), and try to lose the last 5 pounds really slowly. I'll be eating about 3,200-3,500 calories per day and still losing weight -- nice! I think I can still make it to 165 by the marathon on May 7th, and maybe even add on some lean body mass in the process through weight training. But I'm just hurting my training by trying to force it so quickly.

I had a hydrostatic weighing done today. It was my 2nd one in 6 weeks.

I have lost 0.8 pounds of lean body mass, and 10.0 pounds of fat since December 6th. Body fat has gone from 18.4% to 13.6%.