Fat Loss Plateau Calculator

Step 1: Enter Your Gender	Male Female	Highly recommended     book, read my review
Step 2: Enter Your Weight
Pounds:
Kilograms:
Stones:
Step 3: Enter Your Height
Centimeters:
Inches:
Step 4: Enter Your Age
Step 5: Enter Activity Level	Desk job with little exercise 1-3 hrs/wk of light exercise 3-5 hrs/wk of moderate exercise 5-6 hrs/wk of strenuous exercise 7-21 hrs/wk of strenuous exercise/work
Step 6: Select Your Goal	Clean bulk Gain muscle, lose fat Lose fat – 5% calorie reduction Lose fat – 10% calorie reduction Lose fat – 15% calorie reduction Lose fat – 20% calorie reduction Lose fat – 25% calorie reduction

Your Fat Loss Chart

Your Caloric Requirements

Why isnt the weight loss a straight line?

Why isnt the weight loss a straight line? They are on the same diet eating the same amount of calories! This is a really important question and its at the core of this weight loss plateau problem. Lets look at a chart for a hypothetical 300 pound person trying to lose weight by using a 20% caloric deficit:

The above chart shows the importance of re-calculating your caloric requirements on a regular basis. The calorie calculators say if this 300 pound person were to start a very slight caloric deficit (20%) they would be consuming 2484 calories a day. In the first year, their weight drops about 50 pounds from 300 to 250 pounds. What you see though is that after the first year, the fat loss really slows. In the second year, they only lose about 15 pounds instead of 50 pounds. Why? Because at the start of year 2 they only weigh 250 pounds, not 300 pounds and to continue a 20% caloric deficit, they would have to cut their calories to 2183 calories!

NOTE: Same thing applies to bulking, except in reverse! Each year your caloric intake has to go up or else you stop adding mass.

Does that make sense?

I STILL cant lose weight!

If your weight does not follow the above chart, one of four things is happening:

1. You are eating more calories than you realize (75% of you)
2. You are over-reporting your exercise (15% of you)
3. You are not weighing your self accurately (9.9% of you)
4. You have a rare disease (0.1% of you)

By far, the most common cause is that people are not counting their calories correctly. They are either not weighing/measuring them accurately or they are leaving out ‘small’ things that add up quickly like cream in coffee, mints, and condiments. When it comes to reporting exercise in step 5, only hours with intense exercise that makes you sweat, huff and puff counts. Walking is great, but dont include it in your hours exercise for purposes of calculating caloric needs.

If you are sure its number 4 and you have a rare disease, certainly go to the doctor, but while you are waiting for your appointment I strongly suggest you do a little experiment that will help your doctor diagnose the problem and help eliminate #1 as a possibility – its my 30 day slow metabolism check.