After an initial quick weight loss during the first few days of induction, I hit a stall.

I took Nat's and others' advice, I gave up the alcohol and caffeine, and began to take a teaspoon of psyllium in water each night. I also logged onto Fitday.com, which is helping me keep track.

Finally I've dropped a little more weight.

Thing is, I can't get myself to eat as much as 10 to 12 times my bodyweight, since it feels like so much and I'm just not hungry since I'm not eating carbs. I've been averaging about 1200-1300 calories a day with about 15-17 g of carbohydrates. Grams of fat have been about 30% more than grams of protein.

For example, for breakfast I have eggs and bacon, or cream cheese. Lunch, I usually have hardboiled eggs, leftover beef strips, etc. For dinner, I've had chicken (with skin), large salad, sugarfree gelatin, whipped cream. If perchance I want a snack, it will be ccouple of small cubes of cheese or a hard boiled egg or something, but I found that I really don't want snacks. I keep water on my desk and sip on it constantly. The last two sentences alone describe a big change in my WOE.

I have also noticed that in general, my ketostix show that I'm not in ketosis, but sometimes during random readings, I am.

I seem to be loosing very slowly. My patience is wearing away, but I am committed and don't want to give up. I MUST loose weight...for my health, self confidence, and appearance.

What do you suppose the problem is?

Why don't you keep a journal so we can help you tweak your WOE? I can't remember your history. Were you ever a yo-yo dieter?

You've only been on this WOE since the end of September. Look at overall well-being as the long term goal instead of weight loss. Days will pass no matter what, and it's probably better that they pass with you developing a new WOL, which is what you are doing by trying to figure out what's best for you.

For the time being, add olive, flax seed, Essential Balance, Udo's Oil, etc. to your diet. Splash lots of it on vegetalbes and salads, use extra virgin olive oil as a dip for meat with a squeeze of lemon.

Karen

Hi there......and congratulations on the success that you have already had.

I too have been disappointed with my weight loss, but I'm heartened by the fact that I feel good and most important of all...I'm not being driven crazy by the constant cravings that I had before starting the LC WOE. I've decided that I'm going to stick it out at least until January and re-evaluate then.

I agree with Rachel, a journal would probably help...if nothing else it will give you a place to vent with folks that understand.

Marlaine

hi tikerberi,

try to be patient with urself. the fact that u have lost , means u r responding to this woe. personally, i wouldn't quit.. losing weight is not a linear graph or proprtional with time.. it has a mind of its own. in my own situation, i've lost 20lb in ...oh about 5-6 months. i drink caffeine, and cheat now and then..sometimes not b/c i want to but b/c i didn't prepare in advance and have to eat something.
sometimes i think i'm eating a certain number of carbs but it ends up being higher.
i have increased energy, i feel better, i look better, my hair is better, my teeth are better, my family is happy for me.. i just think of the before and after, and that alone keeps me going.
be patient with ur body.

Thanks for the suggestions. I like the idea of giving oneself a future date at which to evaluate before bailing...

About a journal. Well, I began one on these forums awhile ago, but didn't keep it up. It seemed sort of redundant with logging my foods on fitday and I don't have that much time to spend on a computer. However, perhaps I'll continue the journal, writing about what I did each day, whereas on fitday, I use it to help plan the day ahead.

I could use the help, so right now I'm willing to do just about anything that those more experienced than I may suggest...

Thanks.

Karen,

I'm not sure if I'd be considered a yo-yo dieter since my weight hasn't exactly yo-yo'd, considering that I've never had any major weight loss due to diets, although I've tried lots of them.

Let me start off by saying I'm female, 51 years old, 5'7" tall.

There was a time during my younger years that I did diet pills and lost tremendous amounts of weight, but I gave that up over 25 years ago.

In my twenties I weighed about 140-145, but during pregnancy I went up to 180 with my first, and over 200 with my second child. Since then, my metabolism seems to have changed. After my children were born, I was able to get some of it off (which included injections of sheep urine or some such oddity that was the trend at the time), but never back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Since then, I seemed to gain very easily, and over the years it got harder and harder to lose.

As my weight slowly increased I adapted, thinking it was an age thing, and so I adjusted to 155 in my thirties. I have some pictures where I looked pretty good in a bathing suit at that weight. However, it wasn't easy, but the time, I was doing Overeaters Anonymous, and it seemed to help.

Still, over the years I continued to slowly increase. For many years, I stayed around 160, but had to work hard to do it. I tried fasting, macrobiotic, vegetarian, vegan, low-cal, tomato soup, and others, mostly out of desperation to lose a few pounds, but usually gave up after a short period of time without any significant weight loss. Although none of these actually helped me lose weight, they helped me keep it at a manageable level, but even that manageable level seemed to move upward all the time. I would have liked to have gotten back to the 155 at least, but just couldn't get below 160 for a long time, and came to more-or-less accept that weight too.

So, between the weight loss attempts and eating fast food and microwaved quickies (I never seemed to have the time to cook healthy meals for myself, (although I would cook when my adult children visited), I kept my weight fairly steady at about 160-165 for several years while in the US. I convinced myself that this was my normal weight due to genes, and that I was destined to always be overweight.

Then, in 1999 I went to Estonia, and it all went to hell. There were no fast foods and no microwaves. There wasn't enough produce in the stores, mostly high fat/high carb foods, sausages, smoked meats, potatoes, dark bread, and boy, did I fall in love with that Eastern European beer! Over the past two years my weight increased to where it eventually ended up at 190. I was now depressed, feeling horrible, hopeless, and directionless.

While in Estonia, some of the diets I had used (other than fasting) in the past, were out of the question, because I simply couldn't get the products. I did a seven day water fast, but it didn't help at all, since all I lost was water and gained it back immediately. I tried Weight Watchers via mail (since there were no local meetings) and lost about 5 lbs., but gained it back soon thereafter too.

In any case, I'm back in the US permanently now, and don't want to get back into my old patterns of fast food and microwave (unless it's healthy), intermingled with desperate attempts to take a few pounds off only to maintain some slowly increasing status. I went shopping for new clothes yesterday for my new job, and was discouraged because size 16 is now tight, and I am not willing to move into an 18. (I wore a 14 before I went to Estonia). I came home empty-handed.

I want to take off some significant weight, change my WOL, and feel good about myself in a way that is solid and healthy. I think of my return to the US as a fresh start and an opportunity to do it right. Since I've been involved here, I've gotten to feel more positive, particularly when I see how many people seem to have started off at a weight similar to mine, and are achieving their goals. I've gotten a bit of hope here. Even though it's taken me awhile to take off even 5.5 pounds, it is a good thing.


So...that's my history.

It looks to me as though our stories are very similar. The biggest differences are probably our ages (I'm 45, so it's not like it's a huge difference), and the yo-yo dieting thing. It seems to me (and believe me, I'm not an expert in this stuff) that all the different WOE you seem to have tried, whether or not you've lost weight, have "jerked" around your metabolism to the point that your body doesn't know what you're going to throw at it next, but, By Golly, it's going to hang onto what it has! I've done my share of "diets", but you've mentioned stuff I never heard of, let alone tried.

Seriously, though, I peaked in the 180s last winter/spring (except for pregnancy where I hit the 190s), and was feeling really down about myself. At that time, I discovered an exercise forum and started to do exercise tapes. I also found Fitday and started logging my food (and yes, it gets really tedious). Well, I lost a little weight, although not all that much (enough to keep me from moving up into size 18), stopped exercising and just kept logging the food.

At the same time, my husband decided he needed to lose weight and, between Thanksgiving and Easter, lost about 30 lbs. Although I resented all the cooking I had to do (two different dinners each night is a hardship for someone who doesn't even want to cook ONE dinner each night), I was impressed with his results. Over the summer, I didn't lose any more, but come Labor Day, I decided to give it a try, in combination with exercise. Well, the exercise is an iffy thing; I'd probably be showing better results if I got off my keister and worked out on a regular basis. However, I've stuck with the low-carb thing and have lost 10 lbs so far. Take a look at my journal (under Goodacre) to see what I've been doing.

I really think that you need to establish an eating plan for yourself and just hang in there for a while. Your body needs to "feel" that it's getting enough calories, and not feel starved. You need to eat a lot of protein and fat ("hide" some of those calories by putting full cream in your coffee or tea, or adding some to scrambled eggs, etc.). I find it interesting that I can eat all this fatty stuff and, because I fill up faster, my calorie intake is barely what I used to diet on with carbs (and starved doing it).

The best thing I can suggest is to read a lot of the journals (especially where people seem to have lost a lot of weight), and try doing what they've done.

Good luck.

When you count those 1300 calories are you including any oil or butter you use when frying up those eggs? If you arent counting them you're calories are higher, and if you're not using any then you can get your calories higher. There are ways as Karen mentioned of getting more bang for your buck. Fats are calorie dense and carbless, and a little goes a long way.

I think you just need to be more patient. You did break that stall, the weight is coming off again. And while you may not techncially qualify as a yo-yo dieter things like fasting do effect your metabolism. With LC you are trying to convince your body that it is not going to be faced once again with the posibility of starvation or further restricted calories; it might take some time for it to accept and adjust. But if you are determined to keep the weight off this time then this WOE must become a WOL.. and if it is a WOL for you then the weight coming off (albeit slowly) is icing on the cake, to use a high carb metaphore. Don't you feel better LCing? Why give up when you know this can work for you.

Hang in there, Tikiberri.
Nat

Yes, Nat, I include every last bit of butter, oil, everything I use in my logging of foods and calories, down to spoonfuls, oz's, even if I have to put in .25 or whatever. I'm trying to be really honest with this....so I'm even going back and revising if my plan changed.

So, I'll keep plugging away. I appreciate your, and everyone else's, support and encouragement. It helps a lot.