Quote:
Originally Posted by Nancy LC
I'm really interested in hearing is about people who totally stalled on low carb for many, many months if not years and found something that kicked the weight loss into gear again. Especially women over 45!
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I had an acquaintance from my old low carb days who had started out at 330 pounds (she was 5'5"). I guess she was in her early 40s or so at the time. She went on the CAD diet. This was before the CAD folks started saying your carb meal had to balanced, and it was pretty much "anything goes". I'm trying to dredge up dozen year old memories here so my details may not be exact, but it's the general gist.
Her initial goal was to get to 130 pounds for a 200-pound loss. Pretty significant but I'd love (and need) to lose that myself. She stuck to LC during the day but for her carby meal she pretty much went hogwild and ate anything she wanted! Amazingly enough she managed to lose 100 pounds this way pretty effortlessly, and got down to 230. But then she stalled, and was stuck at 230 for nearly a year - doing the same thing, low carb during the day and eating whatever she wanted at dinner.
After a year she decided she needed to shake things up again, and went on strict Atkins, and began losing again. She actually got below 200 but got stuc again. For a while she had found a doctor she liked to work with. He put her on a much lower fat version of a low carb diet. She did lose some more weight but found the diet unsustainable and when she stopped his plan the weight quickly came back. She said the diet really messed with her metabolism.
She tried various things. At one point she had another long stall although she was still keeping carbs low and eating about 1300-1400 calories daily. She she bumped *up* her calories to 1700-1800 daily and began losing again. Another time she cut down on the amount of exercise she was doing to break another stall, and when she cut back on her exercise the weight began dropping again.
Eventually she got down to about 165. But then she came to a screeching halt. After that she could not lose another ounce no matter what. She tried all kinds of things and nothing worked. So eventually she just decided to declare herself "done" and accept that 165 was her goal weight - far better than 330, and she would just try to live with it. At the time I met her she had maintained her 165 weight (though never able to drop any lower) for six years. Though we have long since lost touch so I don't know her status now.
But while she did break through several very long stalls along the way she never did achieve her original goal, though clearly she had an impressive loss to reach a basically normal size, even if not the one she originally dreamed of.
Me, I would just love to get under 200 pounds. I don't have to get to 130 or whatever, but under 200 would be nice. Heck right now I'd be thrilled to think I could get under 250.