I did atkins on and off for past few years. This time I"m determined to stick with it and believe I can. I lost 13 pounds in 6 days during induction and don't remember cheating but doing what i did to lose the 13 pounds and im up 1 pound the last 8 days. Is this type of thing normal? I got really excited to drop 13 pounds so quickly but now i'm up 1 pound and only eat a combination of beef/pork and brocolli like 90% of the day with some pork rinds and diet soda.

I just bought some lunch meat which has 1 gram of carbs per serving so I hope this is okay and wont cause weight gain. I plan on making my own unwich with lettuce and just mayo. I want to eat cheese because it has almost no carbs but i eat like 12 ounces of cheddar cheese a day maybe more and i don't think thats good for weight loss regardless. Maybe in maintenance I could get away with it.

So my question is what should I do now. I doubt my carb count is above 20 or been above 20 the last 3 weeks. Yet the scale won't budge. I started induction july 5th at 283 pounds and by july 11th i was 270 pounds here it is july 19th im 271. I'm a 6'0 male btw.

Basically my question is for those that have succeeded on this diet and are in maintenance phase how did the weight loss progression go? up and down but steadily down even with induction? I plan on staying in induction for a year until im close or at my ideal weight. I just need to know if weight fluctations are normal and weight stalls are normal during this long process of weight loss? How long should I wait for the scale to go down?

We're all different here, but I know it's common to lose a lot of weight during induction because of excess water. And then the weight loss slows down to the inevitable 1/2 pound per week or less. Some people don't have that slow-down, but many of us do.

I have gone several weeks at induction levels and haven't lost a pound, so even that is possible, but I'm kind of a hard-core case that requires intermittent fasting to have any weight loss -- the low-carb/induction/ketosis level does, however, keep me from gaining weight. I'm assuming that once I lose all the weight I want to lose, I'll need to eat that way for the rest of my life in order to not gain it back.

But, as I said, we're all different and hopefully you just need to tweak what you are eating to get some steady weight loss. Lots of advice here including really tracking carbs, not including too much dairy, not too much snacking, not enough fat, eating too little, medications causing slow-downs, etc. etc.

It's a process for sure, and we really can't say what will work for you. But at some point you will find you start losing weight again. In the meantime, look for non-scale victories (there's a thread about that here). You can post meals and carbs in your journal if you want people to make observations about your intake.

Good luck.

If you eat lunch meat I would buy Boars Head brand. The corned beef has 0g carbs.
12 ounces of cheese is probably 3x what you should be eating.

You need to start cooking fresh meat which has 0g carbs and use your carbs for veggies with butter and salads/low carb dressing, to go with your meats.

Eggs, scrambled, fried, boiled etc.. with a few slices of bacon or 0g/all meat (no sugar)sausage

No alcohol if you want to continue loosing.

I'm not doing Atkins but Banting is basically the same thing expressed differently.

Everyone's rate of loss is different. For some it just continually falls off, for others it's always slow, for others it stops and then starts. So yes, such stalls are not at all unusual.

I'm somewhere in the middle, averaging just over 2 pounds a week over the last 9 months, but some weeks I'll lose 4 and other weeks I won't lose anything. The longest I've gone without losing anything has been 10 or 11 days, but then I lost 3 pounds the following weekend.

The other variable is how long it takes each of us for our bodies to adapt into a state of ketosis. I've heard numbers ranging from 4-8 weeks, during which one can feel less than 100% and their results may match. But beyond that things should settle down. So you definitely want to give it a good 2-3 months at least.

Good luck!

Hello, and welcome! Yes, what's happening now is perfectly normal and not an indication that there is anything wrong. (Although 12oz of cheese in a day is more than I could tolerate, everyone is different.)

It is not uncommon for a person to lose like crazy for the first couple of weeks, and then experience a pause while the body catches up to things, in essence. A pound up or down could be water - workout, heat, salt intake, hormones, all kinds of things can put a pound of water on ya. It's temporary and will come back off.

Just keep doing what you're doing! If you want, you can try using an online tracker to find out what you're really taking in - I use Fitday myself - but unless you think there is a problem somewhere you don't have to do that.

Congrats on your success so far!! Well done!

Hello and Welcome, IAllLike!

Huge Congrats on your progress so far!

The version of Atkins I follow only allows 3-4 oz of cheese a day b/c of the high calorie content (100 kcals/oz) and the tendency to overeat, IMHO. I have portion control issues so I've had to give up cheese...

Personally, I stick to real foods and nothing processed, but that's just me.Weight loss is not linear. And I experienced what Grav described whilst I was losing the weight.

Since I was going to be doing this LC WOE for life... I just let nature take it's course and didn't fret about what the scales did or did not do since I was and am staying 100% OP every single day.Over three years into this and I am still on Induction level carbs only b/c I am über sensitive to carbs and it helps suppress my appetite which keeps cravings and temptations at bay! Yes, the fluctuations are normal, Yes stalls are normal. You may have NSV (no scale victories) before the scale moves down... Dr. Atkins said this in his original 1972 Diet Revolution pg 144:This fact seems to holds true for any version of Atkins or LC WOE people are doing.

Wishing you much success on your journey to better HEALTH!

Welcome!

One thing that kick started my weightloss was Intermittent Fasting. I only eat between noon and 6 pm. Basically, I skip breakfast, which I am not really hungry in the morning anyways, and it has worked wonders for my weightloss.

Good luck and keep plugging along, it will be worth it in the end.

My weight loss has always been stop & go - mostly stop. Which is why I focus more on my BG, which is really improving with IF.

I know I wouldn't be able to handle 12 oz. of cheese - I can barely tolerate 1 oz! It's not the carbs, but whatever else that's in it. Someone more learned than I am might be able to explain that.

When I do lose some weight, it then goes up & down by a pound or 2 until it stabilizes. After a while - sometimes a LONG while - I lose some more.

For some people dairy triggers more insulin than the carb content would suggest. The good news is that dropping dairy for a while really kickstarts weight loss, and it doesn't have to be forever; you can ease back into it at some point to see how it goes.

Wow i'm impressed by your weight loss. Something I hope to achieve myself. A few questions I have is what is a typical meal like for you? Do you have a blog or something I could read about your progress? Would be great to know about any of the struggles you had and how you overcame them.

I was very optimistic in the beginning of induction with the huge weight loss so quickly but now i'm a little discouraged because the scale just wont go down. I ate nothing but beef/pork with brocolli and butter and also I ate a homemade unwich with chicken and mayo and some processed lunch meat which they say is 1 carb per serving with lettuce. So not much carbs there shouldn't this cause weight loss? I also drank about a liter of diet soda. Thats it. If I just eat like I did yesterday from a carb perspective could this get me some results like yours? Or do you not even drink diet soda? I also agree about cutting out the cheese. So hard to not eat the whole bag in 2 days. (Also eat a bag of pork rinds a day)


Hopefully I can continue eating the way I am currently and get some results like you. Any other tips you have would be much appreciated and thanks to everyone else who responded. I will take any advice and tips to staying on induction for life. For us carb sensitive people its the only way to go imo if you want to get in that healthy bmi level all those bmi calculators recommend.

Go to the Journals/Bootcamp forum. You'll find many detailed entries by some people who have been very successful. Just Jo has a journal there, and she's been one of the people who have inspired me along with several others who have had excellent success. They typically describe how they were able to move beyond plateaus and become consistent with the way of eating (WOE) that works for them. Good luck on your journey. It sounds like your approach is very effective. Just remember that weight loss occurs in cycles and staying consistent is key over the long haul.

Artificial sweeteners stall some people.

It's not just the carb count, like it's a spreadsheet: carbs in, weight out. This is chemistry.

These things have been stallers for various people:

• dairy
• artificial sweeteners, Atkins bars, Frankenfoods
• snacking (better to add that food to a meal)
• over-exercising
• bad sleep
• stress

And there's food sensitivities and foods which trigger cravings, which indicate they are messing with our blood sugar in some way.

My tips:

Stick to allowable, on-plan food. NO CHEATING. It is more important to eat the right foods than anything else, even if you over consume. It took a while for me to naturally want to eat less. I'm not saying to eat nothing but butter, fatty meats and cheese just because you can. Eat a good mix of low carb food. But stick to low carb food and your appetite or desire to consume more than you need should eventually subside.

Chill out about what the scale says (as best you can). It is going to go up and down from one day to the next even when you are eating right everyday. I lost all of my weight in a series of plateaus and drops. I went as long as 5 weeks without a significant drop on the scale. Sometimes I would lose a pound or two a week for a few weeks, but that was rare. I typically sat at or around the same number for at least 2 weeks before the next drop. I'd lose fat and retain water. The belt would get looser even when the scale was staying the same. I'd have a big drop in weight and the belt would be just as tight. That is how this works. This is going to take a while. Over time you will see your own weight loss pattern develop. For me, month to month was a good indicator of whether I was eating within reason or not. If you read my journal, you will find plenty of entries where I was stressed out about the scale. Eventually, I learned to relax. I weigh daily. It goes up. It goes down. Over time it has gone down more than it has up.

After you've been doing this for a while (a few months), staying on plan should become easier. It did for me. Once I was well established I ended up trying different tweaks to the diet to keep the scale moving. I added tweaks like no snacking after 8pm. Then no snacks after dinner. Eventually I eliminated snacking between meals. I cut from having 3 eggs and 3 oz of meats for breakfast to 2 and 2. I found I was still satisfied with my meal. It was little tweaks like that that helped me a lot. I had to learn the difference between what was true hunger and what was habit. But again, I didn't start working on it like this until later on.

Read the links at the bottom of my post. If you check out the MY PLAN button in the lower right you can see the kind of food that I eat (use the calendar to change days and View Meals to see the details). Consider starting your own journal and begin to log your own journey. This place will help you get and stay accountable. Stick to your plan and you will succeed.

Are you keeping a food diary? That will give you a sense of what's going on when you aren't losing. I like Joy, some people like MyFitnessPal, and other use My Plan (on this site).

While it isn't simply spreadsheet as WereBear pointed out, you can eat too much or eat things that you don't tolerate well. Eating too much is especially true for women over 50--though "too much" on low carb is a much higher number than low cal. There may be certain foods you can't eat right now, but maybe your body will heal and you can eat them again (as part of a long-term low carb way of eating), or maybe not. So you might need to be in induction for three weeks or a whole year. You do you, as the kids say.

Most people have a stall-gain-woosh cycle; you probably need to learn what your's is. It could be a few day or a few weeks.

If your cheese comes in a bag, it's probably pre-shredded - this is definitely a big no-no. Pre-shredded cheese is dusted with a food starch of some type to keep it from sticking together, and if you're eating 12 oz a day of it, you're definitely adding substantial carbs that way. Buy blocks and shred them yourself.