Start: 201 lbs
Today: 191 lbs
After dramatic weight loss in the first few days, I’ve been at a weight plateau for 4 days. Uh oh…
Well, I’m supposed to be following the book, so I went back to the book. In particular the “You’ve Plateaued” section.
There he describes common mistakes:
- not eating within a 1/2 of waking. I do that.
- not eating enough protein. I’m not sure. I’ll add more and see.
- Not drinking enough water. I’m definitely fine on this.
- Not strictly adhering to the diet. I’m fine on this.
- Women stuff…. Not applicable.
- Domino foods…. nope. You’ve seen pictures of what I’m eating.
– Artificial sweeteners…. hmmm… hmmm….. I have been letting diet coke creep into my diet. And Splenda in my green tea.
- Over excercising… twice a week for 5 minutes must not be too much. But then again, my weight loss slowed once I started
working out. It could be that I’m losing fat, but gaining muscle. This could be very likely.
So I have a candidate thing to test… cutting out artificial sweeteners. I’ll do that and report back.
Other candidates…. my endocrinologist changed some of my chemical cocktail. That might have caused a change but is untestable since I can’t change it.
Breakfast:
I had a breakfast meeting today. So in order to eat within a 1/2 hour of waking I had some cold ham and brazil nuts. I then went to my breakfast meeting and had this:
Salmon and Veggie Quiche with hollandaise sauce.
The sauce concerned me, but it contains egg yolk, tabasco, and butter, and meets the 4 Hour Body 5 rules test.
Lunch
About noon we went over to Ruby Tuesday and I had steak and lobster + a salad bar.
Spinach, soy beans, ham, sun-dried tomatoes, baco bits. The croutons are for another person to snag.
Steak, Lobster, green beans, asparagus. Butter, which while “legal”, I didn’t use much of.
And… I drank WATER not Caffeine Free Diet coke.
January 4th, 2011 at 3:37 pm
It’s your book and your diet, but it seems to have some strange underlying chemistry.
Exercise burns calories, period. More exercise, more calories. Eating more calories than you burn adds weight as the body stores reserves. You need ten calories per pound of weight per day just to sit still.
Artificial sweeteners have few if any calories.
When you eat should have no effect on weight, although it may have a temporary effect on appetite.
Eating more of anything is not a recipe for weight loss, especially protein which has substantial nutrition.
Butter as a taste enhancer has lots of calories.
Changing hormones could change metabolism which affects uptake and burning of food calories. It might also change water retention.
Dramatic weight loss requires hunger. Since hunger depends on blood sugar level and mental attitude, squelching every hunger with food just adds calories.
Re-calculate your calorie intake and try eating less meat.
January 4th, 2011 at 3:50 pm
I just finished another book “Why We Get Fat, And What to Do About it” that puts this “energy in, energy out” myth to bed.
“Taubes reveals the bad nutritional science of the last century, none more damaging or misguided than the “calories-in, calories-out” model of why we get fat, and the good science that has been ignored, especially regarding insulin’s regulation of our fat tissue. He also answers the most persistent questions: Why are some people thin and others fat? What roles do exercise and genetics play in our weight? What foods should we eat, and what foods should we avoid? ”
I lost 11 pounds eating all I wanted, of the right mix. That small experiment should put in question the basic “calorie in, burn” argument. The book mentioned above goes into a few hundred pages of details about why that “calorie-in/out” model just doesn’t work, why the food pyramid is basically a great way to get fat, and how the body processes food in reality, not a guess.
I found it interesting and very on target, in a Malcom Gladwell, Blink, counter-intuitive way.
January 4th, 2011 at 3:51 pm
Oh… and he’s a NY Times Science writer that lives in Berkeley, so you must believe him.
January 4th, 2011 at 4:19 pm
On artificial… Yes, no calories. But the premise is that it is the glycemic / insulin response that is controlling what nutrition is used for current energy, building muscle, and storing fat. The author maintains that although they carry no calories, they believe much like sugar in insulin response for the purposes of affecting fat creation.
January 5th, 2011 at 1:27 am
I really don’t consider 4 days to be a plateau. 4 weeks, probably. 4 months, definitely. But 4 days… I wouldn’t get too alarmed on that one. Keep measuring % body fat, too. Otherwise, the actual fat lost / gained can be lost in just water variability. Or muscle mass increase.
January 5th, 2011 at 9:08 am
I’m hunting up a better body fat % test. No luck yet.
I do think this particularly plateau has been more of a shift to muscle. I’ll blog that this morning.
March 23rd, 2011 at 10:52 am
Curious what has happened. My son and I have been on the diet since 2/21 – and we have been following the diet very closely. The first week, we both lost about 5 pounds, (prior to the cheat day) – and since then for me maybe a total of 9 pounds. I have definitely lost some inches in my waist and clothes are fitting different -but now that we are in the 5th week – a little frustrated that we aren’t closer to the 15-20 pound weight loss range. Did you get past the plateau and how?
March 23rd, 2011 at 1:27 pm
I got well past that plateau and got down to 182. For the last couple months I’ve been holding steady in the 182 to 184 range. I’m doing the diet, but not as strict. I have a binge day on Saturday, but I may, for instance, have popcorn at a movie on Monday.
I like the diet still, because it is so easy for me to stay on it.
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