nevermind...
this post is not applicable anymore

Dean, I have been in a deliberate stall now for roughly 7 months. The first few months, I was just waffling, not exercising much and being more sedentary, traveling and eating out too much. I was reading a lot about body building and weight loss, but I wasn't really trying to do much. I am 100% confident that my metabolism had slowed down compared to what I had been doing before (WATP videos, using dumbbels and just being on the go last summer).

Over the last few months, I have deliberately tried to raise my metabolism. I've varied carbs, calories, activity, and types of food eaten. I am again 100% positive that varying these things has increased my metabolism. How can I tell? Well, I fidget more now, just naturally. I can't seem to just sit still and not move like I used to. After I eat I feel warm all of a sudden, which is a direct sign of a high metabolism. I had NEVER experienced that before. (And no it's not hot flashes. ) It's not really a feeling I can describe well, but I just feel like I'm burning more energy. And based on what I've been eating, I must be or I would have gained weight. Instead, I've maintained.

I firmly believe that exercise is the #1 thing that can increase metabolism. However, you can't just exercise and still eat low carb/low calorie and expect metabolism to increase. You have to work with your body, not against it. I liken it to a fire - you can't expect the fire to burn brightly if you only put twigs on it. You have to throw a log on it occassionally to get that underlying burn that allows the twigs to continue to burn. But if you overdo and put too many logs on, you'll cut off the oxygen and the fire will go out. It's a balancing act to keep the fire going.

Spacing out the exercise throughout the day, along with spacing out the food keeps your metabolism rev'ed up higher than if you eat fewer meals and exercise less. It's kind of like keeping a steady flame size on the fire, rather than letting it die down some and having to work harder to keep the fire going. I suspect that Linda's constant walking has kept her metabolism higher. And just as you've mentioned, you see a difference when you make lots of small walks. It's the reason bodybuilders eat 6 meals per day instead of 3, or workout twice per day rather than just once.

Whether or not an individual needs a high or low metabolism is the key question. I don't know whether that helps determine whether you are healthy or not, so at this point, I think it's up to each of us to determine if we are ok with where we are. I wasn't ok with it, primarily because I believe that being so sedentary couldn't be good for me. Our bodies were made to move and I want to be able to move without fear of getting hurt when I'm old.

Here's a link to some ways to increase metabolism.

Yes it totally make sense.
Before you really truly weren't READY to be thin. I mean you had points where you were fed up with it and would start diets but then you would become complacent and lose the desire to lose more. This is partially because the way you were doing it was probably difficult (WW) and partially because well you just really weren't ready. So even though it WAS more difficult (throwing a wrench in your way) you never really made the extra effort to try to make it EASIER since you weren't all that motivated to begin with.

I firmly believe where there is a will there is a way. If you are truly motivated you will educate yourself obsessively on the topic, learn to do what you have to do, and then DO it. You are doing that this time.
That's because things are different, you are truly motivated so you don't want to settle and give up when met with adversity. You are ready to meet the goal you set for yourself. I believe you will be successful this time, since that is EXACTLY how I felt when I started this.

Well, I actually DO have experience in this area. When I was 310 lbs, before I went on a diabetic diet to control my low blood sugar, I was slowly gaining while eating less than I did during even the most focused phase of my LC weight los.

Because of difficulty exercising due to horrible low blood sugar crashing, I had gone into a spiral of ever diminishing activity and falling food intake levels to try to keep from gaining. My body temperature was actually below normal and I had auto immune diseases starting, further limiting my abililty to be active.

This all went away like a miracle when I went from low fat, healthy carb, whole foods eating to lower carb via a diabetic diet. But until then, my body was shutting down, eating it's own connective tissue, in severe pain and experiencing distructive levels of inflamation, and GAINING weight despite my best efforts to eat less and exercise more. And my best efforts then were NO DIFFERENT than my best efforts that made me successful, but my body was balanced precariously on a low energy in/low energy out state and I was not getting adequate food intake or nutrition to prevent my body's protective mechanisms of going into near hibernation mode and eating it's own connective tissue to compensate for insufficient protein and fat in my diet.

Doing everything I could, and 3 years of tons of medical care with 6 specialists DIDN"T WORK and I kept gaining.

I still view my weight gain then as calories in & calories out, but my body was shutting down, forcing weakness and inactivity, and trying to push itself to a near coma level of activity in response to not having the right type of nutrition. My attempts to be true to healthy low fat eating made it worse. No doctor realized this despite the fact that my albumin globulin ratio indicated malnutrition - that just didn't make sense to anyone when I weighed 310 lbs.

I'm the same person, about 7 years older now, no less sensible, and no different in my ability to balance my calories than I was then. The difference is that with low carb eating, I don't have constant blood sugar crashes so I don't have that one huge body driven variable to contend with.

One more thing, before I got really ill, I was about 270 lbs and riding my bike 25 miles per day, every day. I think the thing that triiggered my 3 years of medical hell was exercising like an athlete, eating healthy whole food carbs but too little protein and fat, and accidently sending my long term chronic low blood sugar problems escalating into debilitating low blood sugar problem. I can pull my bike riding log from 1987 and see how my daily exercise suddenly changed into a couple of days of shorter rides and then none as my dizziness and weakness started to prevent me from being able to ride.

I think most weight loss stalls are generally due to the simple fact that a smaller body needs less calories and diet isn't changed enough to compensate (whether through portion size changes or needing to cut back on occasional special meals). But that is not the case for everyone. I'm sure that the feeling of being chilled to the bone or low core body temperature is an indicator sign that the body if fighting to conserve energy and preserve fat stores. I can also recognize some slumpy body posture and muscle tone signs that I'm sure mean the same thing. There's probably a bunch of other signs as well, as well as a good number of triggers that can push a body into the downward spiral of body driven fat preservation.

That article of Diane's hit home in the way it described what it took for that one women to CRAWL out of a body shut down spiral. I never want to relive those years of having days where I was so weak that I had to crawl from the bedroom to the kitchen to get an orange to raise my blood sugar. Or of 10 minutes of weeding a garden resulting in arm muscle inflamation so sever it felt like both had been slammed in car doors.

I keep forgeting that one of the best LC benefits for me was the day I woke up, and was actually WARM and not in pain. It was like a miracle. Without LC sorting out my chronic health problems, I could not have moved into a cycle of eating more, being more active, building health and losing weight. It took more than "wanting it badly enough". It took finding the right puzzle pieces as well.


Lynda

Btw, I didn't mean to imply that the article I linked to summed up all the problems people have in losing weight. I just thought it was an interesting document about someone averaging very low calories (despite her overeating of cookies, etc,at times).

If you think the consequences of pushing weight loss are greater than the consequences of staying at your weight, by all means decide that you will maintain at your weight (or if you happen to lose weight ithout trying, great ).

You said you are losing weight, slowly. That's wonderful. To be honest slow weight loss is the healthiest way. It's not as healthy to do more extreme things, even though psychologically and emotoinally it may be easier to just get to goal asap.

As far as skin is concerned... the skin is damaged by the weight gain, not the weight loss. Losing weight fast will cause the skin to temporariliy appear baggier since it didn't have the time to snap back. But eventually it will snap back to the shape it will be, it will just take longer. My skin is getting better all the time.

As for the other consequences of rapid weight loss, those are usually temporary as well and you have to decide if you want them less than you want faster loss.


The bottom line is this. Only you can decide if you think losing more or losing faster is a worthy goal. If it is, then by all means pursue it. There's nothing wrong with it. If it's not, then don't and that is a valid choice as well.

Hooray!


That is so wonderful to hear, Dianne. I've got the fidget too, and I love it.

When I first met Pat, I noticed how much more light non-purposeful motion he had compared to me. I think that sort of movement both indicates that the body is willing to burn energy, and is in itself a signifcant energy burner. Kind of like a flue vent for when your metabolism is burning like a furnace.

You are doing some great things for your health.

Lynda

Woo, I respect that you've reached goal and have shared a lot of your experiences with us. However, trivializing the effort that folks put into this by suggesting that they just haven't made up their minds about it, seems a bit harsh. Granted, that you said you were being frank.

I don't think that it's always so simple. There are things going on in people's lives that affect them being able to focus so intently on weight loss. Kids, marriage issues, job issues, etc. If it truly was just a matter of commitment, I do think a LOT more people would be at goal.

Having said that, I do think that commitment is my issue, but not a "fault." Last year when my daughter was on the verge of not being able to graduate, I was totally focused on her. This fall, when I was traveling and work was very intense, I was focused on work. This winter, when my daughter was trying to decide what she was going to do with her life, I was focused on her. Sometimes real life does take the front seat. It's not that we've given up getting to goal, it's that there are other things going on in our lives and we have to spend our time and energy accordingly.

Thanks Lynda for sharing your story. I love that, and it helps to understand better what some people have/are going through. Falling into a vicious cycle of decay like you did must really be frightening and I'm glad you found your way out.

It's certainly true that if you don't know what's wrong or if you don't know how to fix it, then all the "wanting" to fix it in the world will do you no good at all -- unless that happens to push you in a direction where you stumble across the answer. This is exactly why I would like to know what really is behind people's stalls. I would like to find the answers they are missing.

Why did CindyG (who posted above) who exercised so much and had a fairly low calorie average not lose *anything* over seven months? What was she doing differently from you? What piece of the puzzle is she missing? What could she do if anything, besides cutting her calories further, to lose weight?

To me, we need to do everything we can to figure out the various pieces of the puzzle, try different things, and in the end, just keep cutting those calories or increasing our activity until we see the weight fall off -- unless by doing so we are somehow pushing our bodies into an unhealthy state and making things worse.

Excellent Dianne! I'm so glad to hear how you've figured out how to raise your metabolism so well. That is really great! And I agree with your advice on spacing out the exercise throughout the day. I am thinking this is a bigger factor than many of have previously realized. Same with fewer small meals (though I don't care for that psychologically myself).

Here's a question though. Have you seen anything on whether it is healthy or not in the long term to maintain a higher than normal metabolism? Someone in my journal just mentioned a study of mice that showed the ones with a high metabolism didn't live as long. Would that be because your fire is burning too brightly??

I love how you’re working at this though. Keep up the great work!!

Dean, it just came to me that what we need is a flow chart. Just as in programming. Do this, do that, ask a question, make a decision, etc. Could be interesting to try to put one together...

Oh no!! Not a flowchart!!

But yes, in a way we do. It would be like the basic medical book where they diagnose your symptoms. They ask a question and depending on whether you answer yes or no, they send you to a different page for the next question.

I also like lists of ideas and things to try, especially if you provide real-life stories of people who did such-and-such thing and why it worked for them. The more clear ideas, the more a person will have a chance to try something and figure out what works for them.

Sounds like a good idea for that book we need to write.

I was thinking the title could be:

Triple-Digit Success
(How to lose 100+ pounds and keep it off)

I wish I had an answer for that.

I've always thought that CindyG and AntiM were the folks on the board who may have the most in common with some of what I went through with a downward metobolic spiral.

Woo, on the other hand, is probably one of the folks I have the least in common with since a lot of what she is working on sorting out has to do with food attitudes and behaviours. I feel like I sorted that stuff out for myself about 25 years ago - when I was close to Woo's age, actually.

Liz, Louise, Val and Dianne are all folks that I recognize as having very different and more demanding life commitments than I have. They look like they have most of the puzzle pieces they need, but they have a lot more to balance in their lives than just weight management.

Diane is a mystery. Working her diet by the book, and working out diligently has brought her a lot of weight loss and she looks unquestionably healthy and vibrant. All I can think of for her is that she's obviously been at this long enough that she's squeezed almost every ounce of weight loss out of all of the things she's known to do. And I believe that if a bright person works really hard at a problem long enough and doesn't crack it, maybe the reason is that they are working on the wrong part of the puzzle. But don't ask me what puzzle parts might be out there that are left for her to try - because it sure looks like she's gone out and tried them. Maybe not ever-lowering calories while on low carb, but given the fact that she's had plenty of experience with that on other diets there's probably a lot of reasons why that isn't the best route for her. I do know that her response to carbs doesn't seem as sensitive as mine, and that she's at a point in her life where her hormone situation is also quite different. I don't have any idea how to turn little clues like that into puzzle pieces that could actually be worked, though. Maybe the puzzle piece for her is learning how to glide into her natural best body weight and judge progress by her photos and figure rather than on a scale.

Of course, there's a lot of folks who's current biggest barrier to weight loss is that they binge out every birthday, holiday, Friday, or whenever they feel like going off plan. Most of the long timers here, though, are actually working at weight loss. Maybe not at my 100 day push rate, but in a way that nobody has any business implying that they are deluded or not commited to progressing toward their goals. With a very few exceptions, most of the long timers have lost significant weight and kept all or most of it off for a significant time and have signifcantly outperformed all of those studies you see about weight loss success. Do you realize that Liz has lost more weight than Richard Simmons ever did and those pounds sure aren't sneaking back! So why don't we have her books or TV show? Watch the next dozen or so weight loss ads on TV and see if any of the "after" people have matched Diane's success. (They rarely do.)

I am so glad I found enough of the puzzle pieces to achieve the stable and healthy weight that I desired. I think we need to be really careful not to be insensitive to people who have found 10 of their 12 puzzle pieces and assume that we are the ones who can tell them what missing piece 11 ant 12 are - no matter how much we personally believe in piece 11 and 12 or how much we want to help others we care about.

Lynda

Yeah, that book was sure a lot of help for me in 1987 (not)!

I'm going to invite myself in this thread to ask a simple question: is anyone aware of scientific studies that demonstrate the existence of this "Starvation effect?" I read the article Diane provided, and it's an example followed by scientific reasoning -- but there are no actual data or objective evidence provided to back it up.

It's an incredibly important point to lots of people. There are, after all, examples and scientific reasoning that "prove" low carb dieting will kill you, but no one here accepts that stuff. When it comes to this starvation effect, however, people accept it seemingly without reservation. In thread after thread, I see people refer to the dreaded "starvation effect," and people even base their entire food plans around it, or avoiding it, to be more exact. But is it really there? Can anyone point me to where I can read about it, review research, methodology, and so on?


Dean, I'm actually going to dig around for the research on calorie restriction and longevity. I was going to post in your journal, but figured I was monopolizing enough of your space, so I'm tacking it on here. By coincidence, it probably lends support to the whole "starvation effect" thing (I think you already figured out why), which is one of the reasons I'm going to dig it up.