my advice would be to discontinue micro managing your weight. its just your mass interacting with gravity. your mass may have went up a bit due to water, fecal matter, who knows? or maybe the scale is not sensitive enough and is giving a false number
the scale is a demotivator IMO
i would measure key areas, record them and revisit monthly or every 3 months, while being as consistent as possible diet wise.
Whilst I did cheat with ice cream last night – for the first time in over 12 months, I might add! – in general, I’ve been a very good boy, and super satisfied with my diet. No deprivation. But at this stage, my body simply doesn’t want to drop further it seems. All weekend, I didn’t eat until well after I woke up (because I wasn’t hungry) – and usually during the week I take a black coffee in the morning and don’t eat till sometime after 1pm, sometimes 2.30pm, and occasionally late afternoon is the first calorie I consume. My diet in general is super keto.
And yet. The fat mass doesn’t come down. I suspect the main reason for this is eating past satiety, but I guess the main frustration is how different this is from a year ago when all I did was cut out sugars and starches and the weight just fell off me.
I know this is a really common experience but I really do want the next 10-15 pounds to come off me so I can focus on putting on some lean body mass.
I’d love some motivation today – what are your thoughts?
Gabe, was just thinking about this. I’m largely a believer in the “set point” theory where the body has its target weight where it wants to be. For decades, I gained weight slowly, like 5 lbs. per year, even though on many days per year it should have been a pound per day or more. I don’t totally reject calories in/calories out - what I think happens is that the “calories out” side of the equation can vary so widely, sometimes beyond all reckoning.
I’d be hotter after eating a lot, definitely more energy going to heat, but that was far from enough to explain the slow weight gain. Whether it was excreting calories or some other voodoo, I don’t know, but being above my set point makes sense to me.
There are those lean people who can “eat anything” and not gain weight. Surely there is a genetic component to this, and I think there is a lot of variation in how we respond to being above or below the set point, how tight the bands are around it, i.e. how close the trigger points are where we’ll experience changed metabolism, and how fast the set point will change in response to weight, diet, exercise, etc.
The body can be frustratingly thrifty with energy when it wants to be. As one loses weight and has a lesser percentage of body fat, I’d think the “guard against starvation” impulse (just theorizing here) would get stronger and occur quicker. I’ve read that some time usually needs to pass for the set point to change, and here too - the lower we are in body fat, then the harder it will be to lower the setpoint; my opinion.
I wish I had some earth-shattering input here, but my gut feeling is that patience and “keeping calm” is the deal. I’m guessing you have 10 or so kilos of fat, maybe less? To picture it like the body is thinking, to lose even just 1 kg. Is a substantial percentage of the existing fat, and the “I better guard against starvation” feeling may arise. Yet over time, perhaps that thinking will change to “Well, things have been good here, and that last kilo we lost didn’t hurt anything, so let’s ease our set point on down a little.”
No idea if this stuff is really applicable, but it’s a fascinating subject to me. There are times where even with sustained, diligent work, no results are seen, but then something changes and down we go.
I’d love to be where you are - while probably the “n =1” deal is in force more than ever, I’d really like to try moving the set point with different exercise, aerobic, high-intensity, etc.
Totally agree with “set point”. I have done many different diets and have never been able to get below 155 pounds
I experienced a similar pattern. Unexpectedly easy early on but then increasingly hard/slow. I think as my weight fell my calories required or basal metabolic rate dropped a little and my appetite slowly grew.
The standard advice here is to be patient and give it time. The more effortless the loss supposedly the more effortless the maintenance and the better the odds for long term success.
But I’m impatient and I’ve been experimenting with many variations on fasting. I’m currently on an extended “near” fast of roughly 200-300 calories/per day with a “feast” day of up to 1500 calories every 4th day or so and have been losing 2+ lbs/week. I’m feeling highly motivated to stick it out until I hit my target and feeling pretty confident at the moment, though less confident that I’ll be able to maintain at my target once I get there. Might end up letting my weight fluctuate by 5 lbs or so and fasting to keep knocking it back.
Did you weigh more? If so then yes you can lose more easily than you can now especially when it seems you’re repeating self sabotaging (lots of dairy, fat head, now ice cream). The last few lbs have little room for error and won’t be like the initial weight loss. There comes a point at which you either decide to cut out the extra energy to get to a goal or change the goal but seems you’re just going in circles so I would truly evaluate your goals. Calories are often written off here and I think it’s misleading. People are in different places. If someone needs to lose 100 lbs then yes metabolic adjustments can result in losing weight quite efficiently, when you have less to lose, how much you energy you consume matters a lot more because you can create less of an energy deficit.
Exactly. I’ve actually been exceptionally strict in the past 3 months. I had a 2-3 kg whoosh a while back, but since then I’ve hovered around 80 kg. I’ve very rarely cheated with carbs/sugar (once every few weeks), but yes, there’s been too much cheese and eating past satiety.
As I wrote above, I think I need to consider a longer fast, as well as being super strict about calorie-dense foods.
Completely agreed.
Also, and this comes up quite a bit on the Fasting Talk podcast, variability in your routine and diet might be helpful to keep your body from saying, “Oh, OK, I see what you’re doing here. One meal a day? Got it. I’ll compensate and hold the line right here, thank you very much.” This, in turn, can perhaps de-program the set point or at least make it more “un-set.”
I don’t know any science behind this, but J. Fung/M. Ramos have mentioned this on many occasions, and I do tend to generally trust their experience.
I tend to think of “set-point theory” as being more of a kind of model of what’s happening, than what is really happening.
It’s like the idea of say, a dam, that has water flowing into it at a certain rate, and has water leaking out of it at a certain rate. If the amount of water going in and out is about the same, then the level will either not change or only change slowly. But there is nothing magic about the level. It’s a kind of accident.
If we are talking about body weight rather than water level, then two of the drivers will be insulin resistance and basal insulin level. If we can get both of those down, then body weight will likely fall, although no doubt there will be other factors.
Models can be useful up a point, but we must be careful about taking them too literally.
…Found this reddit article while googling around for set-point theory:
The most interesting comment there does use the language of set-point theory, but does back it up with apparently convincing science. I still think the name “set-point theory” is misleading and not really all that helpful. Yes, I know about homeostasis for things like blood glucose, blood pressure, body temperature, sodium levels, etc, but I think body weight is different. I don’t believe the body wants to be at a certain weight; rather, it regulates its vital systems to be at certain levels as best it can, and the resulting body weight (fat mass, lean mass, etc) is just one of the results of that regulation.
Yeah this is almost exactly the point I was going to make before I ran out of time to post it earlier. LCHF and keto diets are based on the endocrinological theory of body fat regulation. The implication of this theory is that by reducing carbs (the primary driver of insulin), we’ll prevent insulin from spiking and allow our body to burn fat. Ipso facto, if you keep eating that way for long enough, your body should reach a point of homeostasis.
I hear what you’re saying, Mike. This comment was particularly interesting: https://www.reddit.com/r/keto/comments/2tfh87/science_body_fat_set_point/cnyn5yk/ – the implication of which is, the less fat you have to lose, the less fat you CAN lose in a given week.
I guess the bottom line is, is there more I can be doing to improve my insulin sensitivity and reduce by basal insulin level? I wasn’t diabetic, but definitely had fatty liver symptoms prior to LCHF. Haven’t had insulin tested ever, but BG is fine, HbA1c is 4.8.
I’m a little skeptical of the 32kcal per lbs of fat figure. I don’t doubt the science is real, but I’m not sure how it generalizes. The amount of fat that can be mobilized depends on hormones, so high levels of insulin will inhibit lipolysis (as we know), but high levels of glucagon will increase it, as will growth hormone which increases to above baseline during fasting. This blog post by Jason Fung links to several studies that show protein sparing during fasting, which has to mean the subjects derived more than the 32kcal/lbs figure amount of energy from their fat stores. I’m not entirely convinced either way, there certainly seems to be more to it than we currently know.
Anyway, that was a bit of a digression from the topic at hand. Now it’s time for me to become long-winded.
To me set-point theory seems pretty solid. I think of it this way: On some level Calories in = Calories out, that has to be true because of thermodynamics. I should note that I’m putting calories stored as part of the “calories out” bin, and calories released from storage in the “calories in” bin. Now, if calories in becomes larger then calories out has to become larger as well.
There are a lot of things for the body to spend energy on. Some things are top priority, the brain, heart, lungs etc. all need energy for the whole body to survive, but once the minimal requirements are met we start doling out energy to secondary concerns. This could be more energy to the brain to make us smarter, more to the muscles to increase exploration and wanderlust, more to wound healing etc. or we could store it for later.
Exactly how to prioritize energy expenditure depends a lot on the state the body is in. Storing fat is considered an important energy investment, and the less fat you have the more important it becomes. At some point, when you have low body fat, it becomes important enough that energy is skimmed off of other vital processes so it can be stored and you become weak, dumb and lethargic. If you have a lot of body fat, storing it becomes very low priority to the point where the body thinks running in place is a much better investment. Likewise, how much body fat you have affects the calories in side as well, with high body fat giving the body a much larger budget even facing a modest food intake.
Other things also affect the energy prioritization, for example if you’re eating a lot of carbohydrates then the body focuses more on eating and storing energy and less on movement and thinking. I’m just speculating here, but I think this is because evolution figured out carbohydrates are plants. Edible plants spoil pretty quick so you need to square them away fast but they don’t usually try to run away or outsmart you so it’s okay to be dumb and lethargic. This is why keto works for weight loss in overweight people, because it shifts the body’s energy management priorities and under the new regime they have an overabundance of body fat.
This is where the obvious conclusion that is set-point theory comes. As your body fat drops you eventually reach a point of homeostasis where your food intake and energy expenditure is in balance. If you body fat increases your body simultaneously gets a larger energy budget and lowers fat storage causing you to quickly lose that extra fat, but conversely if you lose fat the body will decrease its energy expenditure to regain that fat pretty soon. An obvious corollary to this is that decreasing your body fat below this set point is not a trivial task.
I should preface the next part by saying I’m not at all sure how true it is. It’s something I’m looking forward to experimenting with once I get close to my own set-point.
I think this is the point where exercise has to come in. Exercise alone is not going to help you lose weight because any calories spent exercising is going to come out of the rest of your energy expenditure. Remember, calories in = calories out, you can’t spend more energy than you’re consuming. What exercise does allow you to do is eat more without putting on weight; it gives your body an energy sink other than fat storage. My hypothesis is that the increased food intake will signal energy abundance and make up for the energy deficiency signals from low body fat and the body concluding that fat storage is not a high priority. I think that if I combine this with (extended) fasting which also deprioritizes fat storage it should be possible to lower body fat below the set point. If this will eventually cause the set point itself to lower or if it will be like pulling a rubber band remains to be seen.
This is similar to the leangains protocol, so there’s some anecdotal backing there. It is also somewhat similar to what I did 5 years ago the first time I was on a keto diet, but back then I didn’t have a set protocol in mind, and extended fasting wasn’t really a thing so I only did a few 48 hour fasts. Still, my weight decreased from 95kg to 90kg over a few months even though I didn’t watch my eating at all. When I first reached 95kg I noticed my appetite skyrocket compared to before and my weight loss stalled. For a couple months I tried to cut back on my eating but I was constantly hungry and felt a decrease in energy so eventually I just gave in. I started eating as much as I wanted again and just enjoyed the extra energy I had to move around and lift heavy. A few times I didn’t feel hungry at all when it was time to eat, so that’s when I did my 48 hour fasts, kind of as a challenge to myself more than to lose weight, but that’s also when the scale moved. The whole time I was doing this I was also getting more in shape, and while I didn’t measure myself my shirts were all getting tighter around my chest and looser around my waist.
I have recently come across this “youtube doctor” (Ford Brewer). I’m not sure how on board with keto he is, but he makes a lot of interesting points. On IR, he’s very bullish about HIIT, even for “baby boomers” (of which I am one; I think you are not one. 
).
He himself is an interesting case. He says his BMI is low (21-ish), so definitely not overweight, and says he has reversed plaque and has good blood lipids. But he’s discovered he’s also diabetic. He has at least one other video about that topic. I think his conclusion was that it was genetic, and that there wasn’t all that much he could do about it (but I might be wrong about that).
But getting back to HIIT, and IR: I don’t think this is an original point of view, but it’s interesting all the same, if one has tried everything else.
Mike, I don’t think it’s a monolithic, linear thing there, i.e. it’s going to work differently when one has a lot of fat, versus when it’s “The last 10 pounds” or the like. Fat storage itself is going to be a vital system - for men it’s around 4 or 5% and 10% or a little more for women, below those points things really get messed up for the body. At some point during weight loss, the body is going to get concerned about fat stores. I don’t know what that point is (and of course it likely varies person-to-person) but I see there being a lower limit on fat percentage, and as that limit is approached, the body is less and less willing to burn fat for fuel.
Just to clarify: the title of this thread is not intended to mean the last 10 pounds of body fat I have on me. I have a LOT more than that on me. 10-15 pounds is just where I need to get to feel comfortable. At that point, the game will change completely, and I’ll be trying to really shave off percentage points of body fat and build muscle; but for now, I still have enough to lose that my body certainly shouldn’t be worried about running low on fat.
Gabe, yes, more than 10 pounds of fat, but not vastly more - what do you think - 25? Whatever the mechanisms are, the body really puts the brakes on weight loss at some point, and it’s a progressive thing - accounting for the increasing difficulty of losing weight as one nears their goal.
Reading through this thread, I’m very interested since I too am in this “last 5-10lbs” struggle.
But it also has me thinking more about what was said regarding your body wanting a somewhat higher fat mass than you(we) may prefer. What about body set weight?
And especialy, I wonder, if this is such a long and arduous struggle = pain and feeling under pressure/anxiety/demand…how hard will or would it be to then maintain this “ideal”?
If it is so hard to get there, will it be even harder still to stay at this place? And if so, do we need to relax and try these steps at reducing cheese, nuts, fat to satiety etc, just one at a time perhaps?
Just pondering. I don’t want to “hit a wall” shove and push and grind through, only to find that I become disillusioned and revert to very bad, old (not really so old!) habits.
I mentioned my last 5-10 lbs, but to clarify, I am not certain how much of me is fat! I haven’t had a Dexa scan and only know what weight I would feel best at! Maybe I have 20 lbs of fat…I would like to know the real numbers, but that isn’t possible today.
Yes, Doug, I can see the sense of that.
However, I don’t think we know the mechanism by which that might work.
Except that, apparently relatively recent (last 10-15 years or so) research seemed to show that fat cells played a much more active part in the body than previously recognised, and presumably that must come into the mechanism of the body being able to detect and try to enforce a safe lower limit for body fat. Presumably there is no upper limit on body fat, because having lots of fat won’t kill you, or at least, won’t kill you quickly, and I think the body’s survival mechanisms opt for the short-term, e.g. to get you to survive through the next breeding season at least.
Mike, yes, no doubt - we don’t know how all the pieces fit together. A lighter body will use less energy than a heavier one, so that fact already works against ease of weight loss as we go down in weight, and I could see increased ghrelin and decreased leptin secretion when the body starts thinking, “Hey we really better start eating…” That would really be a double-whammy for carb eaters with the increased insulin response and presumably greater hunger thereafter.
Edit: in looking around for information on this stuff, I read this one:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMoa1105816
Long-Term Persistence of Hormonal Adaptations to Weight Loss
Quite an array of hormones are affected by weight loss, and the effects continue for a long time:
"One year after initial weight reduction, levels of the circulating mediators of appetite
that encourage weight regain after diet-induced weight loss do not revert to the levels
recorded before weight loss. Long-term strategies to counteract this change may be
needed to prevent obesity relapse."
I do agree with this, but in my case ad-lib keto put the brakes on my fat loss waaay above 5% body fat. Getting rid of dairy and plants has kickstarted the fat loss and I have been steadily losing since, without having to micromanage any more than I was on ad-lib keto, which is to say none. From a purely fat loss point of view, not taking T2D or any other disease into consideration, I don’t think ad-lib keto is the most effective diet and seems to stall many people. It will certainly start the weight loss process, though. People need to experiment with dietary composition before thinking their body has reached some lower limit where it’s comfortable at and won’t go down any more. This may mean getting rid of dairy, upping protein and decreasing fat, etc.