Former skinny-fat people, help please

Here's the problem:

I'm 17, male, 5'8" and 148 pounds. I started dieting in August, lost 40 pounds by January, but because I had restricted my calories to only a 1,000 - 1,100 or so for so long I lost mostly muscle and now I've hit a rut I just can't seem to get out of.

Now, I understand that when you're at an ideal weight, your weight loss stalls like crazy. I may be at an ideal weight, but I've got more a lot more fat on me than someone else my weight and height (I can see my ribs easily, but still have huge lovehandles. What the hell is up with that?) For the past 3 months, I've been upping my intake, and just recently I've started cycling my calories and doing HIIT (which, I am pleased to report, has kicked my ass like nothing else in my life).

I've been doing both cardio and weight lifting, and working with a 300-500 calorie deficit everyday. I've been gaining some good muscle, which I thought for a time was responsible for my weight not budging. My muscle gains cancelling out the fat loss would make sense if I'd actually been losing fat. I honestly cannot tell you what the hell is going on. The fat is the same everywhere and I've gained muscle, but my weight has been hovering around 146 - 150 for 3 months. I've even compared pictures, and as far as I can tell, there's no visual difference. I just took an entire week off to shock my body into fat loss by incorporating HIIT and calorie cycling but so far, these past 2 weeks have been more of the same.

I've heard that building muscle and losing fat at the same time is not as efficient if you focused on or the other. At this point, I'm fully willing to let my muscle building wait a while I let the last pockets of fat burn away, except I don't understand how to even go pure "fat loss" anymore because weight lifting is so beneficial for fat loss.

I'm stuck at an ideal weight, but with more fat than you can shake a stick at. Ugh.

Workout routine:

HIIT days:
40 minutes weights, 10 minutes or so of HIIT, then the last 5 or so are low intensity

Low intensity days:
30 minutes weights, 30 minutes cardio.

I visit the gym 4 days a week.

Diet:

My BMR is ~1750. 4 days a week I eat around 1700-1800 calories, the other 3 I eat around 2100-2200.


I'll post my exact diet outline if anyone's interested.

if u wanna lose weight all around, try doing a 500 cal deficit 5 days a week either by burning it off at the gym or eating less. Take 1-2 days off and up ur cals to ur maintenance, i've even eaten more on those days. This tricks ur metabolism and u end up losing weight. I've lost 25 lbs doin this.  If u want more info, check up the cheater's diet. It really helps beating diet ruts. It's a simpler version of zig zagging. You still eat less the majority of the time but up it considerably on ur 2 days off.
Consider it. :)

Hm, I will consider it.

I'm operating on a decent 2,500 - 3,200 calorie deficit, but I have no idea what it is I'm losing.

I know big posts are intimidating, but I'm nearly at the end of my wits here.

It sounds like you just need to muscle tone... Fat takes a long time to burn off.  Make sure that you keep doing your exercise routine, and take your measurements NOW.  Or better yet, get your gym to take them, so that they are done professionally and with less error.  Good Luck

 

That may be true.

And I've taken my measurements, and I'm still hovering around the same inch or two.

Could carbs be screwing me up? I've been eating 230 - 250 a day, with a decent number of those being after my workout while I sit on my ass and do nothing. Are those carbs getting stored as fat?

Your at a 3000 calorie deficit, a day, a week? Please god say a week :/

Hahahah whoops, a week of course.

Why did I write day the first time?

You can't even HAVE a 3000 calorie deficit a day, because most people shouldn't really be eating 3000 calories or more... It's obviously a week.

You probably should not be restricting at this stage in your life. Your brain and muscles are still growing.  Bones and organs, too.  Men's brains don't fully mature until about age 25 (later, if you ask my wife).  So you should probably be eating 500 calories more than most estimates like the one below.

That said, here's what the calculator says about you.  It'll be more accurate if you can find a BF% measurement.  These numbers may already be artificially high if you have a high BF%.

Your Estimated BMR (calculated at http://phord.com/cc):
BMR=1673 :: Sedentary Burn=2008

Your customized recommendation:
EAT 1853 calories :: BURN 2593 calories :: LOSE 1.48 lb per week

 

I've been wondering if my deficit is actually larger than I think it is. Hm. People say that HIIT is so good for weight loss that I think even at ideal weight I'd see something by now. Maybe the calories are the problem.