Weight Stalling

[CherryAA]

I keep hearing examples of people encountering a weight stall. They have often successfully lost a lot of weight, then suddenly that stops. This has happened to me.

Following on from other research I am thinking that actually this might actually be because those individuals achieved a healthy weight for them and as such many of their biomedical markers are now just fine and being in " robust" health just slightly larger than others is not bad thing i.e. they have now hit the point where there personal risk in respect of all cause mortality has reached an " optimal level"

Looking at the research that may well be well in excess of 25% BMI.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3953803/table/tbl2/

In that context, I would love to know if there are many people on here who found that they lost weight rapidly on LCHF/VLC or fasting then stalled at a point which was somewhere between say 27- 32% BMI?

 

[bulkbiker]

That'll be me...
On my third stall and reckon that my current BMI of about 28-29 is where my body is now happy..
I would love to loose some more and try to get a bit nearer to 25 but it's becoming harder so I reckon I should just hang around here for another 6 months or so and see if my body wants to go any lighter without being forced.
I can loose pounds by fasting but as soon as I start eating again it slowly comes back up to about 213 pounds and then stays there.

 

[DavidGrahamJones]

They have often successfully lost a lot of weight, then suddenly that stops. This has happened to me.

Me too. I'm trying to type this in a light hearted manner because I go cold when I start looking at formula. LOL

First the theory, the good old Harris Benedict Formula, been around since 1918 has been tweaked in 1984 and 1990 and there are other formulas very similar in nature i.e. plug in weight/height/gender and age and out comes your Basic Metabolic Rate or in other words, calories required to keep you alive if you were in a coma in bed. There are then multipliers depending on your activity.

BMR calculation for men (imperial) BMR = 66 + ( 6.2 × weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 × height in inches ) – ( 6.76 × age in years )
BMR calculation for women (imperial) BMR = 655.1 + ( 4.35 × weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 × height in inches ) - ( 4.7 × age in years )

I've heard several reasons which don't necessarily make too much sense.

Your body gets used to less food. I'd like to put a little faith in the Harris Benedict formula for calculating how much one should eat, and if your body is going to alter the way it handles the same amount of food from one day to the next, how do I know what sort of day it is when using the formula, if you know what I mean. I think there's another variable that should go in the formula, metabolism and we'll never know that number.

You should eat less and less as you lose weight. That sort of ties up with the Harris Benedict Formula except if you were to do a spreadsheet you would see that as weight changes, BMR doesn't really change by very much.

The third one I like, your body is programmed to weigh a certain weight, sounds like rubbish but explains an awful lot.

I can cope with being told that I gained weight because I ate too much, except my too much will be someone else's too little or just enough, even if they were the same age/gender/height/weight. How can I tell except for seeing pounds go on.

Losing weight has the same problem. The dieticians tell me that I should calculate my BMR using something like the Harris Benedict formula, hope it's accurate and deduct 500 calories from my daily amount and because it is said that 3500 calories is equivalent to a pound, eating 3500 calories less in a week means I should lose at least a pound.

That's never worked for me except for when I was taken off Rosiglitazone, which actually caused most of my problems in the first place. That stopped abruptly when I was prescribed Gliclazide, in fact I gained 10 kgs. I didn't then lose until I went on LC?F and that stopped eventually.

It's a pain in the backside really because the medics haven't got a clue although with my Nutritional Therapists we have identified a few problems with the way my innards work. I'm still trying the Newcastle that was partially successful but avoiding all meat/chicken/fish is very tricky.

 

[MikeTurin]

There is the fact if you get slimmer you have to use less work to move at the same speed, as physics are saying. Calories are a form of energy so if you get a 10% weight decrease you shoul eat al least a 10% less calories

,
Not to mention that the metabolism is a complex thing so the efficiency on trasform the calories in food to the power available to the muscle changes, so the basal energy expenditure...

 

[ickihun]

This is what I find weird.
I just started losing weight out of the blue. My thyroid tsh level returned to normal which prompted my endocrologist to say now I'm not on a faddy diet I'm losing weight.
My body started to find its pathway without r-ala supplement intervention.
Like when I did ivf. Only once my body knew how to ovulate at the correct time did I start ovulating, at the correct time. R-ala supplement might be showing my body its correct pathway, even thou i stopped it sometime ago?
No metformin in sight so I cannot give it credit then. Although before ivf I had been taking metformin. On pcos trials and thereafter.
Metformin may help the body use insulin in it's correct pathway.
Without your body working correctly, weight gain or loss is its only way of showing us something is wrong?

 

[CherryAA]

Me too. I'm trying to type this in a light hearted manner because I go cold when I start looking at formula. LOL

First the theory, the good old Harris Benedict Formula, been around since 1918 has been tweaked in 1984 and 1990 and there are other formulas very similar in nature i.e. plug in weight/height/gender and age and out comes your Basic Metabolic Rate or in other words, calories required to keep you alive if you were in a coma in bed. There are then multipliers depending on your activity.

BMR calculation for men (imperial) BMR = 66 + ( 6.2 × weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 × height in inches ) – ( 6.76 × age in years )
BMR calculation for women (imperial) BMR = 655.1 + ( 4.35 × weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 × height in inches ) - ( 4.7 × age in years )

I've heard several reasons which don't necessarily make too much sense.

Your body gets used to less food. I'd like to put a little faith in the Harris Benedict formula for calculating how much one should eat, and if your body is going to alter the way it handles the same amount of food from one day to the next, how do I know what sort of day it is when using the formula, if you know what I mean. I think there's another variable that should go in the formula, metabolism and we'll never know that number.

You should eat less and less as you lose weight. That sort of ties up with the Harris Benedict Formula except if you were to do a spreadsheet you would see that as weight changes, BMR doesn't really change by very much.

The third one I like, your body is programmed to weigh a certain weight, sounds like rubbish but explains an awful lot.

I can cope with being told that I gained weight because I ate too much, except my too much will be someone else's too little or just enough, even if they were the same age/gender/height/weight. How can I tell except for seeing pounds go on.

Losing weight has the same problem. The dieticians tell me that I should calculate my BMR using something like the Harris Benedict formula, hope it's accurate and deduct 500 calories from my daily amount and because it is said that 3500 calories is equivalent to a pound, eating 3500 calories less in a week means I should lose at least a pound.

That's never worked for me except for when I was taken off Rosiglitazone, which actually caused most of my problems in the first place. That stopped abruptly when I was prescribed Gliclazide, in fact I gained 10 kgs. I didn't then lose until I went on LC?F and that stopped eventually.

It's a pain in the backside really because the medics haven't got a clue although with my Nutritional Therapists we have identified a few problems with the way my innards work. I'm still trying the Newcastle that was partially successful but avoiding all meat/chicken/fish is very tricky.

4

would you mind telling me what was your BMI when you started and what is it now ?

 

[CherryAA]

There is the fact if you get slimmer you have to use less work to move at the same speed, as physics are saying. Calories are a form of energy so if you get a 10% weight decrease you shoul eat al least a 10% less calories

,
Not to mention that the metabolism is a complex thing so the efficiency on trasform the calories in food to the power available to the muscle changes, so the basal energy expenditure...

I'm ware of all this, it doesn't really explain weight stalls though. For those of us that experience it - we seem to find that one week our diet is working fine and our weight is reducing on a weekly basis, usually around 1- 2 lbs per week, then without much or even any change in diet that stops and its the devils own job to restart it and then hold onto any actual further losses.

 

[DavidGrahamJones]

Without your body working correctly, weight gain or loss is its only way of showing us something is wrong?

The trick is to find which bit isn't working correctly. I've looked at the Kreb cycle and understand what's going on at a very high level. The fact that there are 500 chemical processes going on in the body is pretty amazing. Just thinking of all the years taking statins and how it messed with just my cholesterol and CoQ10 pathways makes me to shudder to think what else has it messed with.

 

[ickihun]

The trick is to find out which bit isn't working correctly. I've looked at the Kreb cycle and understand what's going on at a very high level. The fact that there are 500 chemical processes going on in the body is pretty amazing. Just thinking of all the years taking statins and how it messed with just my cholesterol and CoQ10 pathways makes me to shudder to think what else has it messed with.

Can you eliminate one at a time like filtering out a food allergy?
I know I haven't the time at the moment but I find it fasinating.

 

[DavidGrahamJones]

Can you eliminate one at a time like filtering out a food allergy?

With the help of my nutritional therapist I have discovered a lot and as soon as she's finished her 900 miles in 9 days bike ride (Lands End to John o'Groats - 874 miles actually LOL), we'll be moving forward on some food allergy testing. There's no visible indication of food allergies, so it will be interesting.

I'm not going to pretend to understand the intricacies of the detail but I do understand things at a high level, a very high level. Way back when I first saw her and went LC?F some tests had shown that ATP (chemical energy for muscles) wasn't going to the muscles which explained a lot, like muscle pain since taking statins? Also constant fatigue, so easily just put down to the diabetes? Who knows but I wouldn't be the first person who has experienced ongoing muscle pain after stopping statins.

As I say, I don't fully understand, it makes my brain hurt, literally. I'll get there eventually. 12 1/2 stone here I come! LOL At least I know eating food isn't the problem, it's what happens afterwards, in the body.

 

[bobrobert]

Google for leptin. It controls your metabolism.

 

[MikeTurin]

then without much or even any change in diet that stops and its the devils own job to restart it and then hold onto any actual further losses.

My explanation of course is a really rough explanation of the weight loss stalling.

Other factors are present, especially because the human body is a complex feedback machine and adapts on calories depletion.

 

[Robbity]

For the first 30 odd years of my life I was very definitely on the skinny/underweight side, but began to get heavier as I got older. My husband's high carb cooking finally got the better of me... And when I was diagnosed with T2, and first started LCHF I was definitely obese, but lost a lot of weight very quickly without really trying, then stalled having lost about half what my GP would have liked me to. Since then my glucose levels continued to improve but my weight's stayed fairly static within a kilo or two up or down for over 3 years. I've just assumed that the amount I'm currently eating is what keeps me at this weight, and I'd need to cut down if want to start losing again. But since I consider my nice stable glucose levels more important, and they're down to just on normal/bottom of pre diabetic levels, I'd prefer not to upset matters...

(And I've never ever thought of myself as a fat person having spent all my formative years being at the opposite end of the scale, so I actually find it hard to take the idea of weight loss seriously!!)

Robbity

ETA I don't have any idea of what my BMI is or has been...

 

[CherryAA]

With the help of my nutritional therapist I have discovered a lot and as soon as she's finished her 900 miles in 9 days bike ride (Lands End to John o'Groats - 874 miles actually LOL), we'll be moving forward on some food allergy testing. There's no visible indication of food allergies, so it will be interesting.

I'm not going to pretend to understand the intricacies of the detail but I do understand things at a high level, a very high level. Way back when I first saw her and went LC?F some tests had shown that ATP (chemical energy for muscles) wasn't going to the muscles which explained a lot, like muscle pain since taking statins? Also constant fatigue, so easily just put down to the diabetes? Who knows but I wouldn't be the first person who has experienced ongoing muscle pain after stopping statins.

As I say, I don't fully understand, it makes my brain hurt, literally. I'll get there eventually. 12 1/2 stone here I come! LOL At least I know eating food isn't the problem, it's what happens afterwards, in the body.

You , might be interested in the paper I just posted autoimmune diseases which presumably applies to the rest of us as well in some fashion - these diseases often seem to be a question of degree - i.e. the human body can take so much of the abuse, but not more at which point it manifests as something.

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/cause-of-autoimmune-diseases.126675/

 

[CherryAA]

For the first 30 odd years of my life I was very definitely on the skinny/underweight side, but began to get heavier as I got older. My husband's high carb cooking finally got the better of me... And when I was diagnosed with T2, and first started LCHF I was definitely obese, but lost a lot of weight very quickly without really trying, then stalled having lost about half what my GP would have liked me to. Since then my glucose levels continued to improve but my weight's stayed fairly static within a kilo or two up or down for over 3 years. I've just assumed that the amount I'm currently eating is what keeps me at this weight, and I'd need to cut down if want to start losing again. But since I consider my nice stable glucose levels more important, and they're down to just on normal/bottom of pre diabetic levels, I'd prefer not to upset matters...

(And I've never ever thought of myself as a fat person having spent all my formative years being at the opposite end of the scale, so I actually find it hard to take the idea of weight loss seriously!!)

Robbity

ETA I don't have any idea of what my BMI is or has been...

Its very easy to find out
http://www.smartbmicalculator.com/?ru=0

At a guess your number now is something like 28%

 

[Sam50]

The human body like to keep in a state of balance so when you lose weight all your body systems have to adjust to the new regime and adapt. My understanding of Jason Fung's theory over stalling weight loss is all to do with overcoming insulin resistance which has to be done in stages. Fasting helps to break insulin resistance and re-set your body set-weight.

If you return to eating more then you may re-gain the weight or simply not lose any further weight. Hubby has recently begun fasting-( plans to do 2 days a week) in an attempt to kick start further weight loss. I believe that our body will settle at the weight it feels comfortable with and sometimes you just have to accept that.

 

[derry60]

I have heard people say that when their weight stalls they go off Keto for 2 days and eat some carbs, then go back onto Keto..They find it kick starts the weight loss off again. Got this from people on YouTube who have been doing Keto for quite a while....I also should have added that I am not sure whether some of these people are diabetic or not, or just on a weight loss journey. There are many on YouTube though who follow the keto diet including diabetics. I learn more from here though.

 

[DavidGrahamJones]

If you return to eating more then you may re-gain the weight or simply not lose any further weight.

Unfortunately more is a relative term, more than . . . . before? one should? That's meant in a nice way, although may not sound it.

I believe that our body will settle at the weight it feels comfortable with and sometimes you just have to accept that.

Not at 8 stone overweight though. I agree our bodies are happy within a stone or two, that will relate quite happily to when we fed well and starved in the bad old days of hunter gathering and so on.

an attempt to kick start further weight loss.

I have heard people say that when their weight stalls they go off Keto for 2 days and eat some carbs, then go back onto Keto.

I feel that the answer is in giving the system a bit of a shock or kick start. I can't help feeling I need 40,000 volts though.

 

[Resurgam]

I have lost weight suddenly after a stall by changing the timing of medication - I always took my Thyroxine in the morning, then I added ALA in the evenings as they are antagonistic - now I have swapped them around and my weight is going down again.
It does seem to indicate that a quite small change could make a difference - at least, what seems to be quite a small change from the outside. I am also sleeping much better than I was, though that could be the reason for the weightloss - or not - far too many variables to know, for certain - but I am enjoying seeing the scales showing lower numbers each morning.
I know I should not weigh myself so often, but after a long interval of ever increasing weight - I want to undulge in a bit of smugging.

 

[dipsydo]

I have had two stalls and currently in my third stall - I was in excess of 16 stone - dropped weight steadily until 13 stone- was then 6 weeks at 13 stone then dropped 7lbs in a week - stalled again for 8 weeks and again lost 7lbs in a week - so now 12 stone - been there for a couple of months and am thinking this is where I will now stick ( BMI frustratingly 25% ) . I feel less concerned as Blood sugar seems to be OK . I am not sure what helped me move off each stall I keep a food diary and it was nothing obvious I tootle along on about 60 carbs a day and try and keep protein to 0.8 of the weight I want to be and finish eating before 6pm and exercise is gentle walking as 2 new hips . I would like another 7lbs off but may have to be satisfied if I cannot lose anymore. I have just started on tai chi to see if this helps - or may be makes me calmer about my fate ! I will let the forum know if it works.