I've continued to eat low carb without any loss two in months. I know if I go back to eating a SAD diet, I will gain back the weight I lost, and I don't want to do that. But I never even made it fully to the halfway mark of my goal loss, and that's discouraging. I did try the fat fast for a few days to try and jump start things, and I was hungry all the time. I didn't lose anything anyway. I don't know if my thyroid just came to a grinding halt or what when I lost so much weight so fast, but I can't seem to progress at all. I wish someone else who has gone through this could shed some light on it for me, I don't want to give up! I've lost 38. 5 pounds, and I'd REALLY like to lose 42.5 more. Honestly, if I could lose another 20, I think my sleep apnea would go away and my quality of life would drastically improve. I've only managed to lose 10 pounds in 4 1/2 months, none of which was in the past two months, but that's awfully slow, especially for a low carb diet. Prior to that, I had lost 28 pounds in only 2 months. Help, I'm so sad and confused, and I don't understand why this worked so well for me in the beginning, and not so much now!

For some background info, this is my first time doing LC, I am on Atkin's maintenance, I eat about 25-30 carbs a day, all induction foods, plus nuts and seeds, no more than 1 diet soda a day, 1 cup of coffee. I don't exercise a lot, but I go go to the gym once or twice a week plus physical therapy once a week. I drink lots of water but I forget to take my vitamins regularly. I am in ketosis whenever I check, and I don't think I'm eating too many calories, though I don't really count either. Advice?

Stalls of this length are not uncommon, especially considering that you lost a good chunk of weight really quickly. Have you taken any short breaks to try to shake up your metabolism? I have always found that a 1-3 day break from ketosis/induction can really restart my weight loss.

Not that long, but I did have two planned cheat days where I ate sushi (a lot of it) and knocked myself out of ketosis. I was back in ketosis within a few days, but no change on the scale.

What does a typical day of eating look like for you? Are you eating enough calories and specifically protein?

am i reading that right? did you say atkins maintenance? or did you actually mean OWL? maintenance is meant to keep your weight stable, OWL is for continuing to lose.

either way, your body is probably just pausing to catch its breath. it happens, and it's a necessary thing. weight loss is not linear and it doesn't happen on demand. just because there's a number we want to see on the scale doesn't mean that our bodies are going to agree to that number. sometimes it's less, most of the time it's more. but you need to be patient and listen to your body. from what i can see, you probably aren't doing anything wrong per se, but your body just needs to take a break from losing weight steadily so it can reset.

the other thing is that it might be the nuts... sometimes they stall people. try cutting those out and see what happens.

Gosh, yes, I meant OWL. I guess I was having a brain dead moment;-) I usually only eat around 25 carbs a day, no more than 30.

I have heard that about nuts, but I don't really eat them that much anyway. I guess I could try cutting them out altogether, but I don't think it's going to make much difference.

A typical day looks like this:

Breakfast -
1 cup expresso w/ 2 tbs half and half and liquid sucralose - 2 carbs
2 egg omelet w/ 1 ounce pepper jack cheese - 2.6 carbs

Lunch -
1 cup salad greens w 2 tbs ranch dressing - 2.6 carbs
assorted raw veggies (broccoli, olives, avocado, celery, cucumber slices, tomatoes) - 4 carbs
3 ounces of tuna w/ mayo - 0 carbs (or sliced roast beef, pastrami, chicken, etc)

Snack -
flax seed muffin - 1.8
butter - 0
string cheese (or cream cheese on my muffin instead of butter) - 1

Dinner -
Beef, chicken or fish - 0
Salad greens and dressing - 2.6
steamed squash, broccoli, green beans, spinach, etc - 4 or 5 carbs
diet soda - 0

Snack -
sugar free cheesecake, or a handful or nuts or seeds - 3
deviled egg - .6

This is very typical for me. I make small variations in selections, but they are usually equivalent items. Is there something wrong with my menu, perhaps? I don't eat cheesecake or nuts everyday, but probably 3 or 4 times a week.

That really sounds ok to me. I'd just stick to it, consider it time your body is spending getting re-adjusted to your rapid loss, and just keep plugging along. I think your losses will resume in time.

The flax muffin *might* be an issue -- other people have reported stalls from those but I suspect its because of water retention in the gut, which wouldn't account of a real stall just a "hesitation". The only other thing that sticks out to me wouldn't cause a stall but isn't healthy -- if you aren't eating at least 6oz of fish or beef or fish at night then you are not getting enough protein.

Really, it looks fine -- a lot like what I eat except for the muffin -- I have about 1 a week.

I usually eat 8 - 10 ounces of meat at dinner. Maybe I'm not getting enough fiber? Or too much protein? I know excess protein is converted to glucose, but I really have no clue how much I should be getting. Todays totals look like this:

Gross Carbs 38.2
Protein 81.8
Fat 134.7
Fiber 12.6
Total Calories 1654
Net Carbs 25.6

Can someone tell me what range of protein and fiber I should be shooting for? And is my fat intake too high? My calories are only a little higher than back in the day when I did low-fat/low-cal, an they don't seem too high to me, but are they? What am I doing wrong?

I shoot for 100g protein and pretty much average that though I'll swing between 80 and 120. Fat runs about 100g. I no longer worry about fiber after reading about it.

I've been stalled since July.

I lost fifty pounds very quickly, within four months. Since then, I've just yo-yoed the same five pounds or so up and down.

I've tried lowering fat, upping fat, lowering calories, upping calories, chnaging exercise routine, taking a break from LC to try adding high carb days, etc.

Nada.

I finally had to realize that I cannot force my body to change any faster than it wants to change.

Obviously I am far healthier now than I was when I was fifty pounds heavier. And if I quit LC now, I'll just regain all the weight I lost. So, I'm just going to keep doing this. If I'm bwteen 165 and 170 at a size 12 for the rest of my life, so be it. I'd like to be smaller and have less body fat. But I can't force that to happen.

So, I just keep eating what I'm eating, working out 3x per week, drinking water by the gallon, and know that I am healthier now that any other way I've ever eaten.

I don't know if this helps, but when you stop looking at it as a diet, and look at it as a permanent way of eating for life, the frsutration level changes significantly.

Something isn't adding up for me. I don't see how, based on your above menu and your saying you eat 8-10 ounces of protein at dinner that you could only be consuming 82 g protein a day. With the cheeses, eggs and 3 ounces of tuna, plus 8-10 ounces of protein at dinner--that's roughly 112 of protein. I'm not sure that matters in and of itself, but it suggests that perhaps you're actually eating more than you think you are?

I wish I had some advice to offer. Your menu looks pretty good. I don't do snacking though. Are you snacking out of habit or out of hunger?

i know a lot of people get confused when comparing low-carb eating plans against what the media and government has indoctrinated us to believe about fat. personally, i don't limit my fat intake at all. i don't intentionally slather everything in butter, olive oil, or mayo, but i keep my focus on carbs and sugar. i tend to eat intuitively, and at the end of the day i end up with my protein and fat grams almost even... usually around 125g of each.

so to ask if your fat intake is too high is kind of irrelevant. good fats are necessary when low-carbing. same with calories. ask 5 different people whether or not calories matter and you'll get 8 different answers. most people find that they don't have to be concerned about calories until they hit maintenance. then you've got people like me that can average 1565 calories daily over the last 3 months, with a burn rate of around 2400 calories a day (BMR plus activity), and achingly slow loss.

the only thing i can say is that trying to overanalyze why your body has paused is kind of pointless. your body can't give you answers, and sometimes tweaking does more harm than good. we get frustrated, we change things, when nothing really needed to be changed in the first place other than just being patient. what keeps me going is remembering that low-carbing does more for my body than just weight loss.

Goodness - I think I coulda written that. I don't have any advice, I'm afraid, as I'm in exactly the same darn boat as Kikikitty and faduckeggs! (Who knew we were sharing a boat, eh?)

I've been on the same 5/6 pounds up and down since end of july or so... I'm not giving up. Like you folks said, my body needs to catch up. But MAN, it's frustrating!

Any more advice very welcome!

I can't tell you how encouraging this is to me. I really thought my experience was unusual, and my body just shut down. I agree that it needs to be approached as a way of life, not just a diet. I know that if I went back to the SAD diet I would gain back what I lost, because that's how I got the weight in the first place;-)



I didn't have an omelet yesterday, that threw me 20 g protein off. I usually eat one every morning. Looking at the 8 ounces of Tilapia I had for dinner, it only registered as 40 g protein. Beef seems to be higher than fish, and even a little higher than chicken, and I eat a lot of fish. Not that I don't love a good steak, it's just hard to swing on a tight budget.

I sometimes make protein shakes with Almond Breeze, whey protein, coconut oil and lecithin to get the extra protein (plus it's an easy way to get coconut oil into the diet) but I think I usually hit about 100 g protein. I haven't really paid much attention to the number because I really didn't know what I should be shooting for. I mostly just try to get my veggies in and count the carbs. It worked in the beginning, but not anymore, so I have been trying to understand my diet a little more. On days when I have shakes, for instance, I get a LOT more fat, but I don't really worry about fat because I know coconut oil is good for me. But then I thought maybe the total calories are throwing me off... I dunno, I'm really confused as to why the weight loss has gone along in this way, which is why I found myself frustrated and started to scrutinize things more closely. It's encouraging to know that others are having the exact same experience, even if there isn't a clear answer as to why.

My husband started doing ATkin's with me, and we both stalled at the same time. I lost twice the weight that he did, but I had twice as much to lose overall. It was right around the time we went on to OWL, but other than nuts and seeds, we haven't added any other foods to the induction list. Maybe, for some people, the body loses a percentage of the excess and just stops to stabilize?