I just read a post that said it took 4 months to loose 5 lbs? is this person just eating more carbs then they should? I have been on 3 1/2 weeks and have lost 20+ lbs.

I think this is a war zone topic. IMO people that loose the weight this slow are cheating and dont even know it.

There are plenty of reasons for people to lose slowly that don't involve cheating.

supressed thyroid
plateau
very close to goal (or what their body thinks goal should be)
mild food allergy
unusual sensitivity to things that don't stall other people
extreme stress

and those are just the things I think of off the top of my head.

You weigh over 300lbs and have been doing this 3 weeks. Your body will give up a certain amount of water and fat easily. It will probably slow down after a while, or maybe not, as you are male.

Your situation is very, very different from, say, an older female with only 20 or 50 lbs total to lose.

There's more to weightloss than carbs...

Bat Spit gave a good list of situations that can cause slow weight loss. I'll add a few more:

Level of insulin resistance: the higher your insulin levels, the slower the loss
Age (metabolism tends to slow as we get older)
Gender (it's a known fact that men generally lose faster and more easily than women)
Hormones, especially in women going through menopause or perimenopause
Medications: some are known to cause weight gain or inhibit weight loss

Come to think of it Vince, Dr. Atkins outlines a lot of possible reasons for stalls or slow weight loss in his book. You have read it, right?

I dont buy it, if it took me a month to loose one pound I would have to try a differnt diet, or hit the gym.

Hopefully you change your attitude before it happens to you, Vince. And btw, its ATkins, not Adkins.

Vince, you were wise to put this in the War Zone. Many of us find that attitude grating and annoying, especially when we get it from our doctors for years and years.

I have three pet ferrets. They are from the same litter. They eat the same food - you free-feed ferrets because they are so small (food goes through their whole body in about 180 minutes). Female ferrets are half the size of the males; I have two females, one male. The girls constantly have their heads in the dish and they eat a ton of treats. The male, well, I have almost never seen him eating and he stays very busy and active when he's out of the cage playing. He moves stuff around and explores while the girls chow down on crunchy treats from the rolling treat dispenser and beg me for malt-flavored goo. He eats a couple of those, but the girls spend a lot of time crunching them.

Which one has the weight problem? The male. And when he puts on fat he blows out his back left knee. So I weigh all these guys regularly on my digital food scale to keep an eye on any changes (which is a great idea for most pets anyway).

So what is it you think my male ferret is doing? Is he secretly baking cookies? Ordering pizzas?

At your current weight, I'd have to agree with you. You're young, male and more than 100 pounds over your ideal weight for your height. I'd expect weight loss for at least the first month or so to be pretty rapid and so far it has. Did you check out how close to goal some of these people losing 1 pound a month are? How about their gender and age?
Average weight loss for someone on low carb is about 10% of what they need to lose during induction (in your case, about 15 pounds) and about 5% each month after that (in your case, about 7-8 pounds), so it seems you are about average in that respect.
OTOH, if you take someone who is 10 pounds or less from goal, the rate of loss is going to be much slower.
I hope you aren't expecting to continue losing 5 pounds a week until you hit goal because if those are your true expectations, I'm afraid that you're going to be disappointed.

Lots of things will affect how fast or slow we lose.

If someone is close to their ideal body fat level, they will lose very very slowly or not at all.
If someone is unhealthy, or is living an unhealthy lifestyle, this will affect loss.
If someone is eating too many carbs for their body, this will affect loss.
If someone is ignoring their bodies and stuffing themselves with food this will affect loss.

There's lots of reasons people fail to lose, carbs are just a part of it.

1 pound/month is actually very reasonable if you're a small female who has only a tiny bit of extra weight.

It would be unreasonable for you, and likely a sign that your diet/lifestyle/health was somehow unideal.

It depends on the circumstances. The rate we catabolize body fat is controlled by a lot of factors.

I agree with the posts already left here it all depends on your body and just so many factors you can't expect it to be the same for everyone. I lost about the same as you in 3 wks. Now I am in my 12th wk. I am losing about 1.5 pounds a week now so its slowed alot since my first month. I haven't changed anything. Its just the way it goes. My body has somewhat adjusted to low carb so naturally it has slowed. Everyone is different you can't just make generalizations like that. I am sure once I am within 30 pounds or less of my goal I will slow down even more because there will be less of me to loose.

KimNWI

I don't think it should make a difference if you at 100 lbs over weight or 30 lbs over. Fat is fat and it should burn as quick on you third week as it does on you 10th week. Unless you are changing how you eat. Why would fat loss slow down just because there is less fat to burn? Body builders cut carbs to look cut up and they start off with 15-10% body fat. They dont loose the fat 1lb a week. I think 1lbs a week drop in weight is from lack of exercise and or poor diet.

LOL but it does
It's a scientific fact.

A 350 pound man is burning thousands of calories a day just sitting there breathing. It takes a ton of energy and materials to feed and nourish all that tissue.
I burn maybe 1500 or 1600 if I'm sedentary, more if I'm active. I have low muscle tone, low fat stores. It is also likely my body is conserving energy slightly from being under an "ideal" weight for my body. This will affect how much energy I need, my need for materials, and how much of an energy deficit I can create.

Ironically you can probably lose faster eating low carb food than I could if I were to fast. You're probably easily making a 1300ish cal deficit just by reducing insulin levels (making lipolysis & under eating easier) and abstaining from all those empty starch & sugar calories. That's about what I could expect to burn if I ate nothing at all (the biggest way to make a calorie deficit w/o exercising). It matters that much.

Also, let's not forget how full our fat cells are - how much extra fat you're storing - greatly influences how readily our body resists weight loss (effectively "turning down" the thermostat). You are likely a good deal away from any sort of ideal weight, your fat cells are very full, plus you haven't been dieting long at all. Your leptin levels are high, your thyroid (T3) is keeping things burning effectively. This all means you can more easily create a caloric deficit and induce body fat lipolysis.
People who are closer to their "ideal" body fat levels or under them, people who've been dieting a long time, our leptin levels our lower, and our thyroid hormone expression is less... we also tend to be hungrier & more frequently want to eat...

Yes, sorry to tell you, but LOTS of factors influence how much body fat you can expect to lose.

Well most obviously, body fat is living tissue. Catabolizing body fat (or any living tissue, like muscle) reduces your body's demand for energy (to feed the tissue) and materials (to repair/maintain the tissue). This reduces the amount of food you can eat and expect to lose weight.

That's just one reason, you can reread what I wrote before for an idea of some other factors... (hormone changes that happen as one loses weight & under eats )

Body building is a complex science.
Body builders cycle between bulking phases (high insulin, highly anabolic) to put on muscle (with, hopefully, minimal fat) and then cutting phases (calorie/carb restriction, low insulin, highly catabolic) to lose fat (with, hopefully, minimal muscle).

I can tell you right now if you ask a body builder if he "cuts" by watching only carbs (as if that were the only factor) he will look at you like you're from mars. He knows about energy, leptin, thyroid, about how much fat he has in his fat cells & how long he's been restricting affect how easily he can lose fat.

To get really impressive, and rapid, results (in spite of low body fat)... he also has to watch calories and restrict them severely (for his needs). But keep in mind, competitive body builders are an extreme representation of someone who's interesting in aesthetics, not health or nutrition. Many things body builders do for their aesthetic goals are at odds with what is ideally healthy. The way you have to restrict calories to result in rapid body fat catabolism at only 15-10% body fat is hardly healthy, and your average dieter would likely find it very extreme and unsustainable.

thank you wooo for your post here

edited to add: besides when did this become a race? its a way of life not a diet.

KimNWI

Vince,
Your profile says that you have not read the Atkins book or any other book on weight loss. Your arguments do not make any sense because you do not understand the principles involved. I think that the people that have taken the time to explain all this to you are doing you a wonderful service.

I think that you should go and read at least the Atkins book and then come back and make your arguments or not when you realize that you are way off base!!