Struggling with diet burnout

Hello, i am a 21 year old male, who is currently on week 3 of the powerbuilding template (did the beginner template before this after a layoff). I started training again about 104 days ago. I started at 204, 35.6% bodyfat (according to scale, i know probably isn’t super accurate), with a 39" waist. I have weighed at my lowest on a specific day at 193, but most days weighing 195 in the morning (days this week that is). My waist is now about 37" or 37.5".

The reason i am writing is because i am finding it very difficult to get to where i want to be. I ate 2500 calories a day for the first 85 days, and have been eating 2250 for the past 19 days as i felt progress has been slow.

Going to 2500 was hard enough, i basically had to stop eating almost everything i typically ate, unless i wanted to not eat for the remaining half of the day. (That happens often). Now i am barely seeing the results i want bodyfat wise as you can see my small amount of weightloss in almost 4 months. I feel tired/fatigued constantly and my lifts are pretty much stuck or going down like 5lbs per 2 weeks, besides my deadlift going up once every 1-2 weeks.

my question is, based on the data above am i eating too much still? Is there any way i can make things a bit easier besides upping protein and fiber intake? Should i do more gpp than the prescribed amount in the powerbuilding template? Any tips or advice, thanks so much kindly for reading the long post.

Thanks for the post and hope you had a great weekend. A few thoughts:

  1. I do not think that your dietary intake has anything to do with your fatigue given that you’re not hemorrhaging weight and you’re able to still train normally. I’d be investigating sleep habits and mood first, then possible medical causes, if warranted.

  2. I think that if you’re not losing weight, your waist is still 37"+, and you’re wanting to be leaner, then yes you’re energy intake probably needs to decrease again. I would do this over doing more exercise, particularly if strength is a primary goal.

  3. Speaking of strength, I think this is more of a programming issue, if any. What have you squatted the last 3 weeks for your top sets and do you have any video?