Hello, all you strugglers,

I'm guessing you're strugglers. Why else would you be reading in a sub-forum named "Tips and Stalls?" What I'm proposing to do will probably be more for entertainment than anything else. If it's useful for weight loss, it will be so for those with really stubborn metabolisms.

I am very metabolically resistent. My doctor concurs that this is so. He also points out that I am nearing the threshold for adult-onset diabetes. Except for that (!), all the other blood work looks really great. My lipid panel, especially the cholesterol, has improved with the adoption of the Atkins diet.

Here's the problem: after an initial 10 pound drop within a week of going on Atkins (not unusual, to read others' accounts around here), and after staying on induction for the next eight weeks, I did not lose an ounce. So, I tried a fat fast. Bang, I dropped eight pounds.

The short version of the rest of the story is this: today I finished my most recent fat fast (done four of them so far), and every pound I've lost has been lost on a fat fast (excepting that initial chunk). Staying on induction after a fat fast keeps my weight loss stable -- i.e. I don't regain the weight. And, I don't mind living the rest of my life on an induction diet. I enjoy what I eat and the range of things I can eat.

The problem (for me) is that I seem to get the biggest bang for my buck out of a fat fast if it lasts at least 5 days. The longest I've gone is 7 days, the least 4 days. On day 4, my ketostix begin to turn almost black! But, something undesirable kicks in -- I begin to wonder how the dog will smell turning on a spit over low-burning charcoal. No, I'm not talking about hunger pangs; this is far more metaphysical than that. Not a craving, exactly. More like a soulish obsession with chewing something -- something greasy, and cheesey, and (yes) carby. Think of a double pepperoni and jalapeño pizza, washed down with a big bowl of triple vanilla ice cream topped with Hershey's chocolate syrup. Yeah, that sounds ever so much better than roast dog, right? But, roast dog (at that point) doesn't sound so bad either. Hence my problem ...

The fat fast has been such a help, I don't want to abandon it as a technique, but I'm wondering how if I might gain some things (perseverance and, [crossing fingers hopefully] additional weight loss) by adding yet another technique to the mix -- the refeeding. What I propose to experiment with is this -- to cycle through a fat fast, a 36 hour refeeding, and a few days of induction; then back to a fat fast, then a refeeding, then induction again, and so on.

What I don't have a clue about is how long to run the induction period. In one sense, it may not matter. I know I want to FF for five days, and I want to follow that (initially) with a 36 hour refeeding. After that, I'll do induction for whatever number of days is convenient (at least until my weight stabilizes for several days in a row), and then (if convenient), I'll start over again with the fat fast.

If any of you have tried anything similar, I'd really like to hear what you observed. Meanwhile, I'm keeping a good record -- weights and blood glucose numbers included, and I'll be reporting in from time to time with what I'm observing.

One more note -- I have been exercising five times a week since beginning Atkins. I get my pulse up to 130 (usually w/in 8 minutes of fast walking), and I keep it between 130 and 160 until an hour has passed, jogging lightly when necessary to keep the pulse somewhere in that range. I notice that it's taking more jogging lately, which is what I'd expect if I'm accomplishing some cardio conditioning.

Also, I'm 56, I had a heart attack seven years ago, and as of today, I'm one-third the way toward my goal of losing 85 pounds. My lipid panel is great, except for the blood glucose which is bumping the upper ranges of normal. But, there's a history of diabetes in my family, so this is no surprise either. Doc says if I lose another 20 pounds, the blood glucose will take care of itself. For now, he's decided to let me go for it. We can always add drugs in 3 months if more weight doesn't come off.

If I've left anything out you're curious about, ask.

Homesar