TDEE is just a estimate. It is more likely you burn closer to the 1924 calories a day. On an extremely active day you could get up to the 2982 calories, but you are going to be sweating a lot. I think you are likely overestimating your activity levels.

I don’t know what you mean by “Not including what I eat”, that amount of calories burned does change with what you eat, but not necessary the way you would think. The BMR can change as much as 40% or more up if you overeat and decrease even as much as 40% or more down if you under eat. Exactly how much varies and is highly dependent on the individual. This blog post talks a bit about that: https://idmprogram.com/the-failure-of-the-calorie-theory-of-obesity/

Still if you under eat enough you will lose weight and over eating can result in weight gain. It just isn’t always simple calorie math as the body can do a lot to fight against it.

The 5:2 diet involves two very low or even zero calorie days a week. These days tend to fight against some of the typical problems people hit with calorie restriction. Things can still go wrong, but the fasting helps a lot. From your post it doesn’t sound like you are doing 5:2.

Hi Hamlin,

What stands out to me in your post is your comment regarding underactive thyroid symptoms. Young adults do develop thyroid issues and that may well be a contributory factor to your weight gain and the cause of your memory issues and tiredness. If that is the case it can be treated with medication.

I agree that counting calories is an important exercise as it will teach you the calorific value of different foods and give you an idea of what a “normal” helping of food looks like on the plate. It is important you do it properly though and not guess, you need to weigh/measure everything.

I agree with the previous comment regarding over estimating the amount of exercise done.

One of the successful maintainers who contributes to this forum always suggests calculating TDEE by using goal weight and sedentary so that you get into the habit of eating less and don’t have to make too many adjustments when you reach your goal weight. It is worth considering.

Good luck.

Hi Hamlin1995, my advice would be:

1) Remove all added refined sugar. For example the baked beans and bread are probably loaded with processed sugars. Low-fat food is typically created by replacing fat with sugar. At 15 stones, sugar isn’t a friend and provides no nutritional value. If you want something sweet, eat whole fruit, at least then you get something for the sugar. If you do this, you will really be forcing yourself to eat healthier.

2) Replace the morning cardio with HITT. High Intensity Interval Training with be shorter workouts, more intense and actually stress the muscles. If you working on your feet all day you probably don’t benefit much from the cardio unless you are doing it for more than an hour. Better off with shorter workouts that really stress some muscle. A lot of different base exercises can be used with HIIT so you can stress upper body one day and lower body the next. Oh and if you are using machines … don’t trust the calorie counts, they are probably way high.

3) 14 hour fast is little more than what one should normally do. It isn’t a magic bullet. I don’t even consider it fasting until I’m over 24 hours. What you are actually doing is using skipping breakfast to restrict calories. If you want to fast then get a little serious about it.

4) At 22 if you aren’t losing weight than you are probably are consuming more calories than you need. Push more nutrition and lower calorie dense foods. If you skip salad dressing (good to do when cutting back on refined sugars) you can eat massive salads that are only a few hundred calories. If the nutrition is high your body will be more likely burn fat and build some muscle.

5) Educate yourself a little about nutrition. For example the eggs are pretty reasonable, the beans would be great if they weren’t baked in sugar, etc. Eating healthy is a lot more than eating a couple servings of vegetables a day. Learn about food and experiment with your diet to see what works well for you and what doesn’t. I actually ended up increasing my calories when I removed most refined sugar from my diet, but it really works for me.

6) Finally if you are doing everything correct give your body time. Weight is a range, look for other changes like you need to buy smaller clothes.

There isn’t any magic, it is just learning how your body works. Good luck.

Additional comment.

Probably the biggest problem you have is you are maturing into an adult. Your body is no longer growing and your hormone levels are adjusting for your adult life. You can no longer depend on your body responding how it did when you were still growing. Now you have to either head down the path to obesity or make the changes your body needs. That is your choice and there are many choices in how you can do it.

I think you need to take a hard look at the foods you eat. For example you mentioned low-fat mayonnaise. That is a horrible food with no redeeming value and very high calorie content. You would actually be better off with regular but better yet something different. The combination of sugar and fat is probably the most fattening thing you can consume and you are getting almost no nutrition from those wasted calories. The tuna is much better but it has problems depending how it is canned and a more fundamental problem is it likely contains high amounts of mercury and other heavy metals. So even though it is likely nutritious it isn’t something to be eaten that often. Bodybuilders often consume a lot of tuna for the protein, but then they aren’t the most health conscious group. There is a big difference between looking great for a while and living a long healthy life.

There are vast amounts of information available today online. A lot of it is confusing and even conflicting because many people have an agenda. The best advice I can give is to learn what you can and to experiment to find out what works for you. It is probably always better to eat and drink things with nutritional value for the amount of calories they provide. There isn’t anything wrong for example with eating eggs for example because you get a lot of nutrition for the calories, but if you just eat mostly oil it isn’t really so great.

Exercise is the same, it is great for the body but you should be aware of when you are just moving vs exercise. While there isn’t anything wrong with moving and it is healthy, when you are spending minutes working out you probably want to make it count.

So I’ve been pretty critical. I’m just trying to give you the advice I wish I had gotten 36 years ago. You need to learn to eat and exercise for who you want to be not for what you think will work. You are still young and have a lot of advantages if you get in front of the problem now you could have a very long and healthy life. If you don’t you will be headed for the modern problems, obesity, disease and likely a shorter and more difficult life.