Stalling with weight loss

(Mindy Rees) #1

For the last 3 weeks I have lost 5 lbs a week, this week I have not lost anything at all…why does this happen and how can I stop it from happening?

#2

You can’t, loosing 5lbs a week consistently is very unrealistic. Assuming you just started most was water. Are you tracking what you’re eating? There’s ways to get ahead of the metabolic slowdown that happens naturally when we loose weight, it’s takes cycling what you’re doing. When you hit that point depends on a few different things.

(Mindy Rees) #3

Yes for the last 3 weeks it has been 5 lbs and I keep track of what I eat everyday. It may have been water weight but I have been doing this for 2 months now.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #4

Weight loss is not linear. There will be fluctuations in the rate. This is normal. And in any case, one week does not make a stall. You are doing just fine, so keep ketoing on.

Bear in mind also that what you want to be losing is fat, not muscle or bone, and a healthy ketogenic diet can actually promote increases in lean body mass while at the same time allowing the body to shed excess stored fat. Scale weight should therefore not be your only indicator of progress.

#5

Then I’d say make sure your not eating too much for your metabolism while at the same time eating enough to keep it going. Have you set any limits or must hit macros for yourself? Are you physically active?

(Mindy Rees) #6

I do watch my Marcos. I keep it under 20 a day. I do walk and try to make sure to work out everyday as well.

#7

Then just tweak from there to find your sweet spot, it can take a while to find your groove. Are you also watching caloric intake? Also remember fats not a free for all and make sure your protein is adequate as well.

(Allie) #8

Your body is not a machine, you cannot program it to shrink by a set amount each day. Losses will be up and down, that’s just how it works.

(Mindy Rees) #9

Should I be tracking calories as well? I feel like alls I do is track what I eat

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #10

We advise eating to satisfy hunger, since that way you can be sure to be getting enough but not too much (as long as you stop eating when you stop being hungry). But people enjoy trying to outwit their bodies, so if you like calculating macros and counting calories, go for it!

(Mindy Rees) #11

So I should be counting calories?

#12

Well, if you’re tracking (assuming an app) you’d have it all either way. Without all the info at hand when something isn’t working right you have nothing to go on, no dots to connect, just guesses. I lost a lot of my weight without tracking anything, and when THE stall came (over a year) that’s all I had, the idea in my head of what I was doing/not doing. Tracking everything showed me the idea in my head and reality were two very different things! With all the info at hand it wasn’t that hard to find the problems.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #13

For me, counting calories doesn’t work. I tried that in the past, and it drove me absolutely nuts. It’s why keto works for me, because I can satisfy my hunger without worrying about it. I lost about 60 pounds with no effort at all. But you may find that calorie counting works for you. If it does, then don’t let the criticism of others bother you. If eating to satiety and not counting calories works better for you, then do that and, again, don’t let the criticism of others bother you.

Counting calories or not can be a big issue on these forums, so do what works for you.

(Mindy Rees) #14

Lol I don’t want to count anything else lol

#15

Not true at all, nobody enjoys doing more work than necessary. My body lies to me, so I have to do it’s job for it. I can go all day long without eating, and I did just that for a long time when I got into IF and extended fasting. I mean, if my body needed food it’d tell me right? WRONG! I earned a lot of muscle mass down the toilet and a slower RMR. Thanks to me having the info at hand I was able to find where it went wrong and track and reverse diet my metabolism back to a more or less good rate for what I do. Would have never resumed fat loss prior to switching sides on that. I can now eat twice the food I did a year ago and loose weight, and not be FORCED to do things like IF and extended fasting just to loose half fat half muscle. Doing those things for autophagy and maybe longevity are great, but doing them because it’s literally the only way to get fat down is terrible.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #16

I count calories, weigh food portions and eat to strict macros that includes lots of sat fat. Not because I’m trying to outsmart my body but because I’m a curious nerd. Plus, my body does not tell me when it needs fuel or when it has enough. I do not use CICO. I use overall weight maintenance as my guage. If I lose weight I eat a little more, if I gain weight I eat a little less. If I neither lose nor gain I carry on. Yes, I know the difference between lean and fat mass and have entertained pretensions of adding upper body muscle. But I’m 75 years old and that’s not going to happen. I content myself with having a full-time job that requires lots of physical output and having a healthy metabolism.

#17

Tracking and using fixed macros are too different things. I tracked a lot in the last several years, mostly since I went keto the first time as I had to. Only counted except the carbs. I don’t even have a fat limit or something. I have a vague carb limit on keto, I know my vague energy need and that’s all I have. If I eat 80g more fat and/or protein, well, so be it, what could I do? I only count and if I get huge numbers every day, I try to change. Counting and listening to the responses of my body helped me to figure out what to do to have some slight change to lose weight (hopefully in a few years I will actually do it… but that’s not the point here).
I don’t think I wasn’t healthy on HCHF (but I am the opposite of a hipochonder without any medical knowledge so I am not reliable here :D) but the signs of my body aren’t reliable all the time. I always knew what real hunger and thirst is and consider odd that it’s not the same for everyone - but my body gets satiated with extremely different amount of food if I choose different type of food items. Even on keto. Overeating is very easy without trying (or with trying to eat just enough). Even timing matters. Not everyone is able to wait for hunger (or some other good reason. it would be very unhealthy for me to eat only when hungry. I am almost never hungry, not even when I start to get weak and dizzy and KNOW my body wants fuel even if it should be just fine without for some days. but hunger, that doesn’t come so easily. sometimes does and I don’t need food. and I don’t even touched the topic of my appetite that has close to zero correlation with the others and I suspect it’s me, not my woe as being nearly a decade on low-carb almost every day didn’t change it. but it still works better on carnivore. plants are carbs and mess these signs up a bit in my case).

And if my satiation comes too quickly, I rather eat a lot even after being satiated than having an inevitable big meal after midnight, that isn’t good for me. It’s not a very frequent problem but though tracking and listening I know the more fixed rules of my body. I need my calories and I need it in very few meals per day. I am flexible to a great extent but there are rules I will regret not following. Or won’t regret, I just will gain fat and feel unwell. Regret isn’t my thing.

Tracking has its role. Just satiating hunger may work for many people but it may result in undereating, overeating (or eating at maintenance while we want to lose fat) or in my case, it was not even possible this far. Tracking may show where the problems lie. Some people don’t need it. And some people realize surprisingly strong correlations between macros and satiation. Type of food, timing and other things may matter too. My data showed what I should do. That’s why I am very careful with added fat,. Whenever I wasn’t, I overate. Tracking showed it very clearly. And the problem with vegetables and nuts too. They had to go.

(Bob M) #18

I have never tracked anything, but that’s because for years I tracked everything to keep my total fat content less than 10% by calories per day. That gave me a bad taste, similar to my disdain for chicken breast without skin. Makes me gag. And let’s not get into rice cakes.

I do not begrudge anyone if they want to count calories. Though I think there are so many errors involved with counting calories, it’s doubtful it can be that useful except as a gross measure of what you’re eating.

One quick example, 4 ounces top round steak:

image

https://www.calorieking.com/us/en/foods/f/calories-in-beef-beef-top-round-steak-lean-only-broiled/AWBOvnjmSQatqEPpFe4fkw

image

This is a simple example from two websites. Say you eat 12-16 ounces of this (easy for me to do). What calories and fat did you eat?

(KCKO, KCFO) #19

No. Eat to satiety, mostly fats, moderate protein, with a little carbs (preferably green ones.)
Check out some of these videos. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=calories+in+calories+out+dr+fung+

We often stall out while our body is repairing itself. This WOE is more about hormones, no weight loss, that is just a bonus. Some lose quickly, due to their bodies repairing themselves quickly, others lose more slowly, often in spurts with lots of stalls in between good loses.

KCKO

#20

Gross measure is good for me :slight_smile:

I agree, sometimes it’s impossible to track well. Fatty meat very seriously interferes with my tracking as I have no idea about the fat content but I still have some vague idea and I usually eat very little meat so it’s not a big problem. And if I eat much fatty meat, I eat okay, tracking or not tracking. It’s more important for the not really meaty days especially with plants. But I am very curious so I always track when I eat very low-carb and it’s possible. I can use some general data for most fatty meat and it’s grossly okay. But once I ate mutton ribs. We cut off some tallow… And a huge amount was in the oven pan too. 300g, I think. How much stayed in? Not the foggiest idea. On such days, I can tell my very vague calories according to how I feel, how many times I eat, what I ate and so on. The error is smallish on the right diet.
And if I only have such a day once in a blue moon, it can’t mess with my average much. And average matters a lot to me.

So I am aware it’s not exact. But I don’t need that, I don’t obsess about fixed macros, , I just have my fun and some infos. Living according to some chosen numbers to the point of being a slave (when we can’t even tell them exactly but even if we could, it’s silly), that’s a very different thing.

Tracking isn’t nice and can be troublesome and dangerous. I don’t think most people benefit from it. But on a simple woe with only a few items, temporal tracking to have some vague idea after a change… It can be useful. For some people. But if it works without it? Great, forget it and live :slight_smile: