I've been lurking here for a week or so, and everyone is so helpful that I thought I'd ask for some! I'm sorry this so long!

My goal is to either drop a clothing size or get to 200 by end of October.

Prior to starting Atkins in May, I was on Weight Watchers for 2 years, lost 40lbs the first year with no "exercise" but increased activity, but only managed to maintain that initial loss during the last year. Ihaven't had any great losses on Atkins - 4lbs total, but have lost 2 inches in various body parts.

Using the accepted guesstimate of 70cals per Weight Watcher point, I was taking in about 2000 cals/day. So if the right BMR calculation is 10xweight seems as though for 2 years I was eating too few calories and perhaps my body is in starvation mode. Or is that just wishful thinking?

On top of perhaps eating too few cals to feed my BMR - since March, I have been walking/running 4x week for 45 minutes with ever increasing running intervals. At this point, calculators adjusted for weight say I should be burning 500+ calories during these workouts.

I will be starting a weight lifting program this afternoon with a trainer - and expect to be lifting 3 days a week. Instead of following strict Atkins - I want to try TKD but I'm having a really hard time being able to eat all of the protein that I should be.

Current weight: 234
CKD Parameters = 2800 cals/day. 211g of protein

I usually consume about 1700 cals per day with 100g protein/20gcarb/100+ gfat - and I don't feel hungry at this level - probably because of all the fat!

Yesterday, with great effort I ended up with 2622 total (fat:196g,carb:16g,protein 190g). Protein primarily from chicken breasts and ground beef. Fat primarily from an oily tomato sauce, mascarpone cheese, and macadamias. I could not have eaten ONE MORE THING - and woke up still feeling full this morning. And the scale was 4lbs higher than yesterday am.

What do you all think of my starting out lifting with TKD?

Psychologically, I'm having a really hard time accepting that I need to be eating 1000 cals more a day - when I haven't been losing at the current level even w/ vigorous exercise. Even if your body is in starvation mode from too few calories, isn't there a point at which someone would lose weight regardless? Theoretically, based on my usual menu up until now, I COULD have been at a 1500 cal deficit 4 days a week.

Am I the only one who feels like their bodies defy the laws of phsyiology and thermodynamics?

ANY comments or suggestions would be helpful!

The best way I see for you to get your calories up without having to eat "real" food is to add flax seed oil to your diet instead of relying on whole foods. Just one tablespoon on flax has 140 calories or so........adding a few of those a day as a fat source can help cut down on the quantity of food you need to eat.

As far as your other questions go regarding your suggested calorie levels Im not really sure.....maybe your body has simply adjusted to such a low calorie level......and Im sure thats why your weight loss has stalled.

If I were you I would cut down on the whole foods and try to hit the targets that the CKD parameter gave you.......Im sure it will kick your metabolism up again.........

I hope this helps, sorry I dont have more concise answers!

I agree with KC. First of all, flax oil is very unlikely to end up stored as fat, or even burned for fuel, because it is composed of EFAs, which your body needs for other functions.

You're right about reaching starvation levels in your body. In fact, you're probably out of leptin right now, and increasing exercise without greatly increasing calories at this point will only make matters worse.

Here's a suggestion that might just kick-start some weight loss--try a low-fat carb-up or even just a pig-out (without watching the carbs) for 2-3 days. As long as you're eating massive amounts of extra calories, your leptin levels will improve and your body will be kicked out of starvation mode.

Of course, you've already said you're having trouble eating enough, but if you cut down on fat (not entirely, but to about 80g a day), you'll be able to eat more.

Then you return to Atkins and see what happens. One note: YOU WILL PUT SOME POUNDS ON DURING THE CARB-UP! Don't worry, it's all water and glucose (=glycogen), and it will all come off a few days after you re-enter ketosis. It isn't permanent weight, by any means.

As long as you're in starvation mode (and when you go back to eating way too few calories, your body will remember quickly), you aren't going to drop much weight, if any.

Sorry to be so long-winded!

Oh, and I've found that protein powders really help me get my protein grammage up there. I don't think I could eat enough meat if I tried!

Exactly......protein powder with added flax seed oil is a great way to get calories/fat/protein up without having to force down all that food since thats difficult for you given you low levels of eating recently.

Thank you both! I had been thinking about going off any and all diets for a few days(rice, pasta, bread oh my!) - I'm still battling the psychology of it now though. I wonder what the optimal length of time would be?

I started w/ a protein powder this morning and will have to look into the flaxseed oil.

Hi sl!

In terms of CKD, 48 hours is generally considered useful enough to reset leptin with minimal fat spill-over. That is, provided that you don't eat too much fat. Beyond that length of time, your body will start to switch back to storage of excess carbs and fat. If you like, you might want to do two carb-ups, with 4-5 days on Atkins in between, and see how that goes (besides, you can eat plenty of carbs in 48 hours!).

Good luck with whatever you choose to do--and keep us posted!

Is keeping fat low on the refeed really all that important? It doesn't seem to be with me--it's more a matter of getting above maintenance calories. I look forward to a guilt free Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey fix.
Personally, I don't get real anal retentive about the dieting and refeed and it still works like clockwork.
As for getting fat calories up, I use a whole half pint of heavy whipping cream mixed with a little water and protien powder, and use it as a sipping drink while at work. Tastes pretty darn close to a real shake (keep it COLD!) With 100 grams of protien, the shake is just shy of 1400 calories alone!
Bend whatever rule you need to to make the diet work for you!

Hi Westy!

Keeping fat low on the carb-up is important for reglycogenating the muscles and avoiding fat-spillover, but NOT for resetting leptin. For MOST people.

I mean, we're all different. But if you want to be sure you're not just refilling your fat stores, you probably should keep an eye on fat intake. Don't go ultra-low, or your leptin may not respond properly. But don't eat your regular LC fat amounts either.

Simply put: high-fat + high-carb = slow burning of carbs, lower insulin, but more calories to deal with (and too many to burn--something has to give)

high-carb + low(ish)-fat = quick-burning of carbs + insulin spike (and when done right, the glucose heads to the muscles, not the fat). Good over the short term for reglycogenating muscles, resetting leptin, bad over the long term, once your muscles are glycogenated.

And we all know what high-fat + low-carb does.

Does that help at all?

Of course, none of this is to say that there won't be some people who can eat whatever and get good results--there are. So you're one of the luckies.

But at some point, eating whatever isn't going to work (and if you're stopping short of fat-spillover, you'll continue to do well) because of the body's metabolic responses. I'm assuming you don't go for 4-5 days eating Ben & Jerry's.

P.S. Damn, that shake sounds good! I'm gonna have to try it!

Well...I don't know if this is just a coincidence or not, but here's what happened after my force-feeding Wednesday night.

Thursday morning I was at 236. I had another protein/yogurt mix. 6oz of chicken for lunch, 1 oz of pumpkin seeds and 1 liter of water. Thursday night before dinner or exercise I was at 229.5 - a new low! This AM I was back up to 231.5 which has been my recent sticking point.

It's unusual for me to show a lower weight in the evening - probably happened 3 times in the last two years - so it might just be a fluke - but the positive reinforcement was nice!

Also, I discovered Diet V8 Splash - 12 calories/8oz with 3 g carbs - made an excellent drink w/ my protein powder. (I have trouble with the thick milkshake type drinks - which is suprising since before going low-carb I couldn't function w/out my daily frappuccino!)

I would HIGHLY suggest not weighing in as much as you are, it sounds like at least 2 times a day? Weighing in that often is going to confuse and frustrate you.....I would suggest once a week and ALWAYS under the same conditions. Undigested food can add 7 pounds to your weight and other factors like sodium intake can easily add a few pounds.

Just my 2 cents.......

That is a topic I've discussed with a number of people at length.

I know it goes against conventional wisdom - but actually the majority of the people part of the National Weight Control Registry (40lbs lost, maintained for 2 years) weigh themselves once a day.

For me, it was not as helpful being weighed once a week as I was when beginning WW 2 years ago .... it lead to employing various "tricks" to hit the lowest number and inevitably overindulging afterwards because I had 6 days until the next one. It was really just too stressful for me.

Weighing myself 2x day has largely desensitized me to seeing the regular fluctuations in weight - and I end up averaging my weights so I think I end up with a better weekly reading than just what the scale says at one time on one particular day.

But, it is definitely a highly individualized thing - and depends alot on your state of mind - I seem to have a tendency toward compulsive behavior - part of what got me into this situation to begin with - so probably a weekly or less frequent weigh-in would work for a more sane person!

Thanks for your comments!

Well, to each their own

i only weigh myself once a week...weighing everyday u get more fluctuation with water weight involved and stuff... i know im eating right, so im really only going to see results if i do it once a week, i also do not have any scale in my house, only use the scale at the gym.

i thought weighing only once a day was for people not on much of a diet so they could know when to eat a little less or exercise a little more to keep maintenance.