Stuck at the same weight for 5 months

(Bean) #1

I’ve lost and gained the same 8 pounds over the last 4 years. All keto, then carnivore. I only lose when I run. Then I get injured and put the weight back on. I probably need to lose more like 20, but I think 10 and maintenance would be a victory.

I decided at the end of August I wasn’t going to play the outrunning my diet game. Also, I’ve had long-standing reactive hypoglycemia, it was suddenly triggered by very few carbs.

I went carnivore until Thanksgiving, then keto minimalist through the holidays (basically added avocados and seeds to make traveling easier).

January 5 I went meat only (and coffee) until this week. No cheats. No bingeing. I’m going back to regular carnivore while my youngest kiddo is home from school for the week (so basically I added dairy back in). I mostly do 18:6, but have started adding some 20:4. I eat three meals a day on Sunday (it’s my cooking day). I’ve tinkered with more or less fat. I do best if I have beef and/or lamb daily.

I’m active. Standing desk, job with lots of walking. I hike 3-7 miles 5x a week and do a little strength training. I need to move and I like hiking, so it’s not an exercise thing per se.

Thing is. My pants don’t fit. The scale won’t budge. I’m at the top of the normal range for BMI. And yes, I do have some fluffy places, so it’s not all muscle.

I’m doing zero carb, in part, to manage multiple autoimmune problems. It does help with that, but man, I want to be comfortable in my body, and I’m not right now.

Thoughts? Tweaks?

#2

Unless you eat a really big amount of fatty meat (but you wrote you tried less fat too), I have no idea. You seem to do everything so right!!!
Maybe your body wants to keep the fat and you eat at maintenance…

No idea what is going on but I wish you luck in the future!

I would do the same as you do now, smaller eating window. As I know it should work in my own case, I obviously know close to nothing about you.

(Chuck) #3

I am going to tell you my experience over the last 14 years. And then the newest experience since September of 2022. Back in 2010 I decide to lose the extra weight I needed to, I was able to lose weight by cutting back on the number of calls I ate for a while normally about 6 weeks then while eating the same amount of calories I would start gaining weight back. Now i had a desk job so not a lot of activities. So I started walking, at first I could barely walk a mile, then I got to the point I had to keep adding more and more miles to lose weight while still cutting calories. This went on in crazy cycles until September of 2022, I went on a strick keto diet and was able to lose weight without walking a crazy amount of miles. But after about 12 weeks I wasn’t losing weight but was still slimming down for about another 10 weeks. But the problem showed up where my blood lab work went crazy, and I was having lots of digestive issues going from constipation to diarrhea and severe cramps. I started adding real carbs back to my diet but continuing to stay away from processing carbs, and fast food. And also started intermittent fasting for as long as 23 hours a day. My weight started dropping and for a while I had lots of energy, but my lab work just got worse and so did my digestive issues. Now I must say something I am not a diabetic and what was wrong with my blood work was vitamin deficiency. Then this past Thanksgiving I made a decision to design my own diet. So I am now doing a modified intermediate fast of between 14-16 hours each day. My diet is any real food but no highly processed food, fast food, or artificial sweetener. I also stay away from wheat at least 90% of the time. I eat all types but f meat, seafood, whole fat diary, fruits, veggies, potatoes, and rice. I listen to my body and eat only when I am hungry, what my body needs, and I am walking about 90 minutes most days of the week. I am 76 years and old, my weight is actually what it was my 8 years in the military, my waist is the same as it was in the military. But my weight is about 15 to 20 pounds overweight by the charts.
I really don’t pay attention to the scales anymore, I use the way my clothes fit me, the way I feel, my blood pressure and blood work as my measurement of how I am doing. I no longer have digestive issues, no longer have a vitamin deficiency, and my blood pressure is well controlled by a mild diuretic and my walks.
I am not say to do it my way, what it am saying is you have to find what works for you. Like me you may have to go against all recommendations even your doctor’s and diatians. Learn to listen to your body communication with you. It will lead you to better health if you truly learn to listen to it.

(Robin) #4

This: “I’m at the top of the normal range for BMI.”
To me, this sounds like a good spot to land.

I can’t see anything that you need to improve and you’ve found a groove that works for you. And triple bonus… you are maintaining a healthy weight.
Don’t let the numbers on a scale or a chart skew your perceptions.
What matters is your health and how you feel.
Sounds like you’ve got this!

#5

Yeah, BMI is not informative in that range. But there was “fluffy places” mentioned. If they are more than minimal, I wouldn’t accept them either (I would just stay fluffy for ages as I can’t lose fat but that’s another matter, I still wouldn’t keep trying methods…). I wouldn’t feel bad with the fluff, it just would be some final touch. Still important though not nearly as much as health and feeling fine :slight_smile:

(Robin) #6

I should add… a 5 months “stall” especially when you are so very close to your goal weight is very common. I stayed 10 pounds heavier than I am today for almost a year. I slowly started losing again and I changed nothing.

(Bean) #7

This gives me hope. It’s a weird goal, but I’d like to be able to tuck my shirt in without being self-conscious.

(Chuck) #8

I have had what my grandmother called a baby belly my whole life, the only time I got anything close to a flat belly was at a time I was under weight as a early teen. I was doing track, and basketball and also working at home on our farm. My doctor told my mom that I had to slow down and eat more. Well I just ate more and never really slowed down

(Bean) #9

I carry my weight lower. When I was heaviest, I called it my troll legs and buying pants was an ordeal. Unfortunately, that’s the hardest weight to lose, I guess.

Not a pound of my weight has come off easily, but the complete stop stumped me.

(Cathy) #10

Clearly everyone is different. Personally I have been at this for 14.5 years and lost a big chunk in the first year. Stalled out hard and tried a gazillion different fixes. I went back to plain keto (with some intermittent fasting) because even if I wasn’t losing, I was better is so many ways. Fast forward to now, I have lost 20 to 25 lbs. since that first year. If I live long enough, I should reach goal!!!

(Chuck) #11

I also have very large thighs and calfs. They aren’t that fat just large muscles. And I have a small chest and arms. My build is just the opposite of what my dad’s was, he had a big barrel chest, big arms and shoulders and chicken legs. I remember my senior year in highschool, my mom taking the legs of my new jeans a part to add extra material to them. I had a 28 inch waist and I couldn’t find jeans to fit over my thighs and calfs. Yes those were the good days, and even then I had baby fat around my belly. No days I can buy relaxed fit jeans that still fit my waist but give me comfort in the legs. But even now my wife says I don’t have a butt just big thighs.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #12

For what it’s worth, Dr. Phinney stated in an interview with Richard and Carl that he has generally seen a fat loss equivalent to 25% of starting weight in the people he’s studied. At that point, it appears that the body needs to adjust to the new weight point before further fat loss occurs.

One thing to bear in mind, as well, is that while you may not be losing fat, you are not gaining any, either, right? That alone is priceless.

Dr. Phinney says in several of his lectures that if someone is feeling stuck, the first thing to do is to reduce carbohydrate intake even further. And if that doesn’t work, try increasing fat intake. But under no circumstances is increasing carbohydrate intake a good idea.

(Blyss) #14

Are you eating enough? Do you track to be certain?

(Bean) #15

I think so. I did track for a while, mostly as a learning tool. I still eat until I’m not hungry most of the time, but I have context for how much that is.

(Bean) #17

I will say my daughter (college kid home this week) commented on how healthy and energetic I am. She hasn’t seen me since I went meat only the first week of January.

The addition of dairy while she was home didn’t last long. I didn’t react or anything, I just felt less satisfied and I didn’t enjoy it. I don’t think I slept as well when eating dairy, but I’ve been keeping wonky hours, so hard to say.

#18

Cool, but were you paying attention to what was happening in real life while you were tracking? If I were to eat until I wasn’t hungry (not to be confused with completely stuffed) I’d be 50lbs overweight easy. Those signals are horribly off for many of us. I also had no clue what my metabolic rate was, in total, my calories weren’t even remotely high for my size or activity level, but my metabolism was crap, so I was still eating at basically bodybuilding bulk levels just the same. Wasn’t until I had my RMR checked that I realized I was sabotaging myself the whole time. Now I have an app that does it all for me, but I would have never guess it was that bad, or chose to go as low as I needed to get the ball rolling again.

(Bean) #19

I range between 1400 and 1800. My activity ranges from standing at work all day (I don’t have a chair), to days where I hike up to 8 miles.

My IF isn’t as tight as it could be. My hubby’s schedule changes a lot day to day and we travel a lot. I am going to flip my way of thinking and count hours eating rather than hours fasting. I know that seems weird, but knowing I can eat 5 hours today, regardless of when I finished yesterday, makes it much more sustainable.

(Blyss) #20

I wouldn’t even concern myself with IF per se. I know fasting, in some form, has been all the rage the past several years in the low carb community and then eventually became the rage in the carnivore community. But, with activity and energy needs varying almost day to day, the only constant I would be more concerned about is having a cut off time which would be a reasonable amount of time before bed. For me that looks like 4 or 5pm. But I start eating as early in the day as I need to. This has helped with cortisol the most which in turn has helped with blood glucose management which has helped with improved fasting insulin. So the days I go to the gym, I’m gonna have something at before 4am because I get up at 3. I’ll have another meal post workout, those days may look like 3-4 meals (the smallest being the first one). Other days may be 2-3 meals.

I think that we sometimes over or underestimate our needs. As we become more active, especially if we were once sedentary, our metabolism should improve. I say should because we can still thwart it with under-eating. That was an issue for me for quite sometime. And it’s very easy to under-eat on carnivore and many of us do. I had to utilize reverse dieting to up my intake, especially protein, over time to get things, overall, moving in the direction that I want.

#21

Is that weird? I count the eating hours too. Well I don’t necessarily actually count them but I have some vague idea about it. It doesn’t matter to me if I fasted for 18 hours or 25, the size of my eating window is more important (and that is the important factor when it comes to my food intake) and I get hungry according to the clock instead of fasted hours (there are other factors but the former has a waaaay bigger impact).
My eating window needs to be a bit flexible though. I must get my nutrients even if I simply can’t eat proper sized meals. (But I usually still have a small eating window even on 5MAD days. But not always.)

(Bean) #22

I don’t know. I think fasting is really what I need to do better. I work kind of a 6:30 to 4:30 most days, and hubby might not get home until 7. He doesn’t care what I do/ eat to be healthy, but we both like to eat dinner together. I really would be eating from 6am to 10pm if I don’t limit. At that point I would be counting every bite, and for me, that’s not sustainable. A limited eating window and zero carb is for me.