Impaired Glucose Tolerence
 

My A1c is above normal again. I've been advised to eat under 100 carbs and do 8/16 intermittent fasting. I'm 77 years old and need to get 10 lbs. off. I've been on it for a month and only lost 2 lbs. Talk about discouraging. I've actually been staying below 50 carbs.
Is 2 lbs in a month normal or should I be losing more???

It might be sort of at the low end of normal, given your starting weight. It's sort of hard to tell what's normal. Some people retain more water than others do when eating higher carb, that can lead into some of these really impressive early weight losses that occur for some people.

We're not really into calorie counting here, but... individual metabolism makes a difference. A two pound loss could be almost no calorie loss if it's mostly water--or it could be 7000 calories if it's mostly fat, or even more if some muscle has also been put on. A 200 calorie daily deficit might be barely noticed by a 7 foot lumberjack but be a big decrease in appetite/intake for somebody a couple feet shorter.

I am only 5'1" and started at 135 so I only need a 10 lbs weight loss. I can't believe this weight isn't coming off faster on less than 50 carbs.

Have you tried less than 20 grams?

It's probably not that unreasonable. As already noted, everyone is different, but two of the significant factors are what percentage of your total body weight does a loss represent and what percentage of your excess weight does a loss represent. In your case, 2 lb represents about 1.5% of your total weight, which is probably on the low end of what you should be able to achieve, but it is also and 20% of your excess weight, which is a significant amount.

Also, carb total is NOT the only factor. Other things, particularly total calorie intake, can overwhelm a good carb number if they are too far out of balance.

On top of all this the scale can easily mask real changes since it only knows how to measure totals. You may be retaining some water and consider that a quart of water is more than two pounds all by itself. Plus, your scale has errors and variability and many consumer-grade scales can show a pound or two difference in successive weigh-ins, let alone between weigh-ins separated by a month in which the temperature of the scale might be many degrees different.

At the end of the day, be patient (and I KNOW how hard that can be). You are trying to make changes that you want to sustain for the rest of your life. If you succeed, then a couple years from now you won't be bothered a bit by the fact that it took you ten months instead of two months. But if you let it get to you and you give up, then a couple years from now you will be bothered by the fact that you are still where you were a month ago (or worse).

Thank you. I will try and be patient.