jaysonelliot's Journal, 19 July 2018

How is your exercise? Maybe it's time to start lifting weights so you can build muscle to help accelerate your metabolism? I personally have figured out that I need to cut fat and add protein to get to where I want to be. Maybe substitute high volume veggies with high fiber for some of the other carbs. I would say, for two weeks, it could be water-retention caused by salt intake maybe catching up with you, so up your water intake. It's only been two weeks. Hang in there! 

That's annoying... Maybe like Abbadabba said -- your metabolism has changed and you need to ramp it up.  

Thanks, those are good thoughts. I wish I could go to the gym and lift, but I work two jobs, and one has a 50 minute commute each way, so there's literally no time that I can spend an hour getting to the gym, lifting, showering, and coming home. Eventually I need to get exercise back into my routine, but for now, I can't see any reason I should be gaining weight when I eat under 1400 calories a day. That just seems physically impossible. Really confusing. I could cut even more calories, but it seems like living on a 900 calorie a day diet would be detrimental to my health. Certainly it would leave me without enough energy to function at work. 

Change up your diet, try intermittent fasting or OMAD to shake up your body a bit and get the scale numbers moving down again.  

Maybe also parking farther away from work and getting a little walking in. Can you walk to get lunch?  

I was losing 2 pounds a day while fasting. I run 10-15 miles a week. My calories some days was below 200 so cutting more calories was not an option. I stopped losing weight and started gaining. Then I cut the carbs (you can consume a LOT of carbs through liquid sweeteners). So far the scale is moving again. 

I'm going to see a doctor. It should be physically impossible to gain weight on 1400 calories a day when you weigh over 200 pounds. 

@adefwebserver - you were eating less than 200 calories a day, running, and gaining weight? 

I had this problem also in the 200s. I took three days and ate more calories but not over 2000. I then returned to 1500 like I had been at and the weight started to move down again.  

This happens to me to. It happened for 2 weeks!!!! Left me stumped. Like how is my body surviving???? Lol 

@jaysonelliot - You can click on my name, scroll down the page and see my weight chart. Initially I was losing weight like crazy, gaining a bunch back on the weekends when I ate, but on a fasting day I was dropping the pounds. As soon as I crossed from 'obese' to just 'overweight' things changed. I could fast three days and GAIN a pound. Now, this is just water retention, but my body 'shifted' (probably because I was 30 pounds lighter and my metabolism didn't need to be so high anymore) and even while running AND lifting weights, the scale was not moving. Only cutting my carbs from <20 to <10 got things moving (this week I should do 5 pounds in 5 days). Just my story, you will find your own way. Just, don't give up. 

I’m new to all this but after about 12 weeks I stalled too. I’m on a reverse diet now where I’m raising calories to maintenance levels. I’ve slowly started losing again and I’m just barely under maintenance! Not much but some. Once I even out I’ll drop back to 1200. This time for maybe a month or two months at most before reverse dieting again. It’s working so far so I’m hoping I’ll have some bigger losses when I drop again. Google “reverse dieting” and “metabolism adaptation”. 😉 

The loss of 1 pound is a deficit of 3500 calories. Fat contains very little water while muscle is 80% water. Sooo .... losing 2 pounds/day must the result of muscle loss. If the 2 pound loss were real, you would have had to have a calorie deficit of 7000 calories. 

That's right - I've been running a deficit of about 1,000 calories a day, which is 7,000 calories a week. That's why I've lost 43 pounds so far. 

Okay, I ate about 1750 calories today, and I'm going to try eating that many for the next three days, in an intermittent fasting pattern. Then I'll go back to about 1350 a day and see what happens. 

Your metabolism is probably just slowing down adjusting to your intake is my guess.  

"I work two jobs"... stress is going to make your body not work right also. How's your sleep? If you don't have time to go to the gym, consider a home gym or even using your own neighborhood for cardio. I hope things turn around for the better. 

Plateau is such an ordeal 😯😔😓🙁☹ 

The number one thing that helped me was logging. I could then look back at the numbers. What I 'thought in my head' did not match the raw numbers in my face. I was then able to 'cut through the noise' of all the advice I was getting. My Body. My Decisions. But, I need to look at EVIDENCE, facts and figures to make sound decisions. I can only get that if I carefully record the data. I see that you are doing that. What do YOUR numbers say to YOU? 

It is my understanding that a body can go into starvation mode when not getting enough fuel. In this stage the body preserves its energy and weight. Maybe that is what happened. Maybe you could try eating a little more for a couple of days....enough not to gain any back but to jog your body out of starvation mode.