At the end of the day I'm fairly sure that no one in their right mind would argue against eating whole unprocessed organic foods (what people 100 years ago simply called "food") most of the time. Having a nearly pathological aversion to junk food is counterproductive IMHO...
Given the results I got from working out less and being more relaxed about what I put in my mouth (contrasted to running 2-3x/week, HIIT 2x/week, weights 5-6 days a week, rigid macronutrient ratios with every bit of food weighed, no cheat meals for 2-3 months at a time and still not being able to get under 15%) I respectfully disagree with the part about nutrient partitioning. I didn't eat Big Macs and pancakes every day, but I definitely indulged every week. I actually gained over 5 lbs of muscle...in a month, which in my mind (again YMMV) is more than enough evidence that what I did works. I'm also going to go aheah and say that I'm not unique in this respect as I got the dietary methodology from Mike T. Nelson, he has had similar results with other clients.
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This is the frustrating fact about metabolism. Every single person has different efficiencies and for different reasons. The number of dimensions involved in someone's success or failure is endless.
Again, I'm not saying you are wrong either and we'll have to respectfully disagree, but it sounds to me like your issue is that you do not have a high enough metabolism to approach anything below 15% BF.
In that case, you probably need to eat ALOT more calories than you think, because increased consumption and increased frequency will eventually increase the metabolism. This is probably why you've noticed success with more junk food, as they are usually carb and fat dense, and typically are higher calories than "clean" food. Another thought is to keep HIIT cardio in your routine as often as you can without overtraining/draining yourself. After reading your post once more, I am certain this was this case. You didn't have enough food. A man that weights 230lbs @ 6'3" and 40 yrs old (I'm not sure how old you are) would need almost 2200 kcals per day for maintenance
if he were to lay in bed all day. As active as you were, we'd have to apply a multiplier of
at least 1.5 to that, which would put you at a need of 3270 kcals just to maintain a healthy metabolism. In fact, the Harris Benedict formula claims you'd be closer to a 1.725 multiplier, which would put you at 3700+ kcals. That's a hard amount to reach in clean calories considering that 1 uncooked cup of brown rice is 300 kcals and every 4oz of chicken is 100 kcals...
The worst thing that can happen when cutting is a metabolism that slows down. Not eating enough calories is generally the main culprit of such, from what I have seen in the gym and with helping/training others.
Just the other day I easily put down 1200 calories at McDonald's and wasn't totally satisfied either. However, in my mind, it isn't just about the calories consumed and nutrient partitioning, but also the nutritional value associated with the food. Comparing a 1200 calorie McD's meal to 8oz chicken breast, 1 cup of brown rice, 1 cup of green beans and an apple are vastly different in value to the body. Micronutrients, if not there, will cause the body to degrade and eventually become dysfunctional. This in turn leads to halted gains in muscle mass and less fat burning. I think every one would agree to some degree with that. If not, then I'm wasting my time.
When it comes to clean eating, you must intake ample amount of calories to keep the metabolism moving forward. Again, all of this is my opinion which is based on around 150 hours of metabolic studies.
