Need help with breaking my weight loss plateau!

cormac705

In the summer of 2010 I decided to lose some weight and increase my general fitness. I'm a male, 20 years old and about 5 foot 8/9 in height and at the time I weighed about 12 and a half stone.
I gave my diet a complete overhaul cutting out white carbs completely(haven't eaten them since), cheese, mayo, oils, fatty meats chocolate, sweets basically everything bad for you. I started eating breakfast again which I had never done along with introducing brown carbs, lots more vegetables, tons of fish, nuts etc into my diet and stopped eating in the evenings.
As far as exercise went I started doing alot of cardio (running, cycling, soccer etc) combined with strength training to build up some lean muscle.

Everything was going great and by Christmas I was down to nearly 11 stone and shortly after that I reached my current weight which ranges from 10 stone 7 to 10 stone 10. That is the point where everything stopped and I could no longer lose weight or seem to put on muscle. I increased my cardio to very high levels(i've burnt in excess of 900 calories on a treadmill at varying times) and continued to lift weights( even doing high intensity circuit classes) but no matter how hard I try nothing changes. I have continued to exercise and eat healthy up to the present day but I still cannot break this plateau.

This is an example of my typical daily food intake and the exercise I would do at the minute during the week.

Breakfast (anytime between 7:30 to 9:00)
Portion(40g-80g) of Alpen muesli(no added sugar) with skimmed milk
Boiled egg with one slice of wholewheat toast and small amount of tomato sauce
Piece of fruit( apple, orange etc)
Water

Snack (anytime between 11:00 and 12:30)
Apple
Nutri-grain bar
water

Lunch (anytime between 2:00 and 3:00)
Brown bread sandwich/small brown roll/wrap with chicken/turkey/tuna/lean ham, any combination of vegetables(lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions etc) and for a sauce maybe relish. I never use butter and on rare occasions a tiny amount of light mayo.
Low-fat yogurt
Water

Dinner (anytime between 5:30 and 6:30)
Brown pasta/rice or oven baked potatoes with grilled/oven cooked chicken/fish etc with vegetables and maybe a light sauce that dosen't contain cream, butter lots of oils etc
Fat-free yogurt
Piece of fruit

This is not what I eat everyday I play around with the combinations and vary what I have for dinner( red meat, beans etc) but all my meals tend to center around high protein combined with low-fat and low-calorie.

I am no saint by any means and I do indulge on occasion but this would be my base plan of a diet that I aim to follow. It is much easier to follow during the week as I am in college and on a budget which deters me from indulging in anything but at the weekends I am at home where I am exposed to more of my vices :P.

My typical weekly exercise is made up of cycling to college 5 days a week( about 7km round trip), cycling to visit friends(varying distances from 2-4km), 5 a side soccer for an hour and a half at least once a week and running 4 to 5 times a week usually about 10km each time. Since i've started back in college I havent had much time for strength exercising but I try to get to the gym maybe 1-2 times a week for that.

Following this rough outline has given me initial results but now I seem to have hit a plateau that has stopped my progress when I was so close to my goal.

If anyone could give me any tips, advice or even criticism on trying to break this plateau I would be very much appreciative.

Bottle_of_Smoke

to gain muscle you need to eat more not less.

fatty meats and oils are not bad for you. nutri grain bars are not good for you. they're the same as eating cake so if you're gonna have one might as well go to the bakery and get something nicer.

breakfast i'd have 2 or three eggs and some vegetables. don't be afraid of adding butter. don't have the toast or muesli.

lunch instead of the wrap or sandwich eat salad. as many veg as you want and plenty of meat.

dinner seems fine given your activity level but I'd vary your meat and have some lamb and beef as well on occasion.

nuts and fruit fine for snacks. nuts high calorie remember.

on a side note 66kg is pretty bloody light for an athletic 5'8 male. how much more you looking to lose?

cormac705

In terms of losing weight I'm not interested in reaching a particular number on the weighing scales it's more about getting my body fat percentage down. Essentially I'm looking to gain some weight in muscle while losing that small bit of fat that is covering it at the minute.

To look at I'm quite slim but the problem I'm having is getting that toned look to my body. I seem to have this final thin layer of fat that I cant shift and as a result I have more of a 'skinny-fat' type of look to my body rather than the toned one I have been working towards

My arms and legs are quite slim with good muscle definition but my major problem area is around my waist and chest. It's only a small amount of fat but it seems impossible to get rid of no matter how hard I try.

In terms of my diet,
Is it healthy to eat so many eggs during the week?
The nutri-grain bars are a very occasional thing and definitely not part of my regular diet.
I'm switching from muesli to simple porridge oats at breakfast from now on(much cheaper aswell:o)
I do eat a variety of meats but chicken can often be the handiest to prepare.

Smartguy

As has been said your current weight is pretty light anyway and it is hard to see how you can lose any more weight.
You are very active but there is a strong bias towards the cardio side of things so it is no surprise you are not putting on much muscle given your current activity levels and diet.

El_Dangeroso

You didn't burn 900 cals on the treadmill, those cal counters notoriously overestimate.

Like the other's 10 st 10 is pretty light for a guy your height and those last 10lb are always a b*stard to lose.

I reckon you're not as strict as you were when you were losing the most of the weight, it's totally natural. When your not fat (even though not as lean as you'd like) you just don't have the same motivation to be meticulous as you did before.

If you REALLY want low body fat (at your height I'd mostly focus on gaining muscle though, most women don't like the ultra ripped look - I presume you're doing this to look hawt nekkid) you could try Martin Berkham's lean gains, ridiculous amount of people getting ultra lean while gaining mass on his protocol of fasted training.

http://www.leangains.com/search/label/Success%20Stories

cormac705

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

You didn't burn 900 cals on the treadmill, those cal counters notoriously overestimate.

Like the other's 10 st 10 is pretty light for a guy your height and those last 10lb are always a b*stard to lose.

I reckon you're not as strict as you were when you were losing the most of the weight, it's totally natural. When your not fat (even though not as lean as you'd like) you just don't have the same motivation to be meticulous as you did before.

If you REALLY want low body fat (at your height I'd mostly focus on gaining muscle though, most women don't like the ultra ripped look - I presume you're doing this to look hawt nekkid) you could try Martin Berkham's lean gains, ridiculous amount of people getting ultra lean while gaining mass on his protocol of fasted training.

http://www.leangains.com/search/label/Success%20Stories

I'll admit I haven't been as strict with my diet as I was when I first started but there has been a time when I was at this point weight wise and I was extremely strict with my diet but too no avail.

I'm not looking to get as ripped as those in the link. I'm aiming for an athletic toned look nothing as extreme as in the link.

What I've gathered so far is that I don't need to lose any more weight eat more to gain the muscle I'm looking for but I'm terrified that the extra calories will go towards gaining fat. I don't want to start eating more only to put on the weight I worked to get rid of.

chessguy

http://www.dietdoctor.com/about

just watch the food revolution..

goodluck
chessguy