What is going on with my body

16nsandstrom

Hi, I’m new here. I started a diet on March 31st eating on average 1700 calories/day and very high protein. I started at 325 pounds and I very quickly dropped 30 pounds, like in 7 weeks. I have also been playing sports with friends 2-3 days a week plus I work a busy job and chase around my toddlers full time. But since that initial weight loss, my weight has remained exactly the same. I have not changed anything about the way I was dieting. If anything, I have been eating healthier and tracking even better. I did have one day that my appetite was very low and I only ate like 800 calories, I’m worried maybe I sent my body into some kind of cortisol fit. It doesn’t make sense to me that someone at my high body weight of 295 pounds, moderately active and eating 1700 clean high protein calories per day could not be losing any weight. I will say, my sleep duration is not the best. But quality is good. Please help. I’m feeling frustrated and discouraged.

briscogun

First of all, congrats on the 30 lb loss! That’s awesome!

I will tell you that weight stalls are very normal. The body is weird. You can do all the same things and eat all the same foods every day, and one week you’ll lose 3 lbs and the next week nothing. No rhyme or reason.

I will say there’s no such thing as cortisol fit from one day of eating low calories. That’s not a thing.

First, how long has this plateau been going on for?

Second, try taking the batteries out of your scale and reinstalling them. My old scale would seem to “remember” my weight and I’d have to do that every so often.

if it’s only been a few days of non-movement on the scales just give it time. If it’s been weeks and weeks then it might be something else?

yirara

Patience. I don't think your body is in any way broken. You lost 30lbs in 7 weeks. On the scale of fast weightloss that's a calorie deficit of 2200 calories per every single day. Or over 4lbs per week. The maximum weightloss goal MFP uses is 2lbs per week. You're at more than twice this. Yes, you are very heavy, and if your gp is on board then losing weight so quickly is maybe not a bad idea (but keep muscle loss in mind), but you're so ahead that it's crazy. It's not unusual for human bodies to kind of take a break, catch up with the massive loss, maybe store a bit more water due to stress. Thus please don't stress is. It's a marathon, not a sprint for health sake.

16nsandstrom

the plateau has been 13 days now. I have been rollercoastering up and down two pounds over the last 13 days but haven’t lost anything. I know that plateaus can be normal but the math just isn’t making sense and leaves me scratching my head. I will definitely try resetting my scale! I didn’t even think of that. I know this weight loss is incredibly fast, but now that I’m eating whole, healthy, high protein and high fiber foods I feel very full at 1700 and I don’t feel any need to push myself to eat more than that. My energy and body feel better than ever. I think my main issue that lead me to getting to over 300 pounds was eating very calorie dense food and not paying any attention to what I was eating. I also now realize in my initial post I wrote March, I meant May 31st.

yirara

Do you weigh every day or every now and then? If you've changed your diet drastically it's also possible that you just are a bit more constipated, and this of course also has a certain weight.

16nsandstrom

I weigh every day. My gut motility has definitely slowed down since I started this, but I also think it’s because I’m just eating less overall. I also struggled with some lymphedema in my right leg when I was 325. That has completely cleared up now that I’ve lost some weight but I’m wondering if there’s still some big fluid shifts internally that aren’t so visible. I’m really just looking for any advice for what to do here? I don’t think I should lower my calories at this point, but I did read that if you are at a plateau for more than 2 weeks to try reducing by 100. I’m not sure if this applies to me. Or if I should just keep waiting. I’m trying to be patient but it is quite frustrating and it makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong.

Lietchi

Patience, patience... 2 weeks is nowhere near a real plateau and way too soon to make changes. Wait at least 4 weeks (or one menstrual cycle if applicable) before making changes.

Are you using a weight trend app like Libra or Happyscale? Sometimes it can help give some perspective beyond the individual daily fluctuations.

tulips_and_tea

I wouldn't lower your calories just yet. You've had a large weight loss in a short period of time. Yes, two weeks without change is frustrating, but keep in mind your body is making massive changes you just can't see right now. Give your physical and mental self some time to catch up to that initial weight loss and just keep being consistent. Your hard work will pay off!

16nsandstrom

Thanks for the encouragement. I’ve been at a high weight for such a long time I guess it’s hard to believe it really can come off, and being stuck feels like it’s confirming that fear. I need to tune that noise out and keep moving forward. Thank you all for confirming that I just need to keep on going and remind myself my body isn’t broken.

elisa123gal

there is always that fear that .. "I'm stuck forever at this weight, I'm broken." But nah.. you are not.. we are not.. those of us who think that too. You lost a good amount and your body is adjusting. No one loses consistently.. stick with it. It is our insecurity whispering negative thoughts. Keep making your real changes..and your body will change too.

PAV8888

It's a long haul.... beyond just the excitement and the extra sports which at a higher weight potentially bring even more water retention to the party... you really do need to think about food/calories in and how you can regulate them (and not just how to maximize deficits). You're learning new things. Not just how to to lose but also how to maintain later.

30lbs in 7 weeks is not just fast, it's very fast. 30lbs in 10 weeks even is at 150% of max. Max is ok!😜

You actually WANT a time period of loss and adjustment and exploration and of inventing and embedding new habits!

You're doing good.... keep at it! 😎

cateye1991

the body is incredibly adaptable and it wants to always minimize energy expenditure. Usually when there is a significant stall, your body has figured out its new balance point. Yes tweaking your diet and or exercise may induce another change but you may want to be careful in reducing calories (that will eventually deadend). Some people actually increase calories for a short period of time. Subtle shifts will usually be enough to throw your body off its balance. Replace a cardio session with something completely different. Train for some kind of event. I would only change one thing at a time and take stock after at least a couple weeks. Also patience, trust the process.

16nsandstrom

Well. I skipped a day of weighing and suddenly this morning I am 5 pounds lighter than 2 days ago 😱 I’m shocked. Clearly I was holding onto some water. These last two weeks have been a good learning experience for me, to say the least. And made me push through despite disappointment, which has been a roadblock in the past. I’m proud of myself, and now I know…when this happens in the future to stay calm and trust the process.

AnnPT77

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48711402#Comment_48711402

I agree with some of this - that under-eating will tend to cause more than minimal adaptive thermogenesis and even obvious fatigue, so all-day calorie burn may become lower than expected.

But it is not the case that a stall means the body has found a new balance point and will stick there unless we "throw our body off its balance". (That idea is a near cousin to the "body confusion" nonsense outfits like the now-renamed Beach Body used to use to sell people new exercise programs. That pitch was a marketer's dream for outfits that want to keep customers confused and buying, but not all that helpful to actual humans who want long-term success.) I've had pretty much the same exercise routine for over 20 years. Its calorie-burning effectiveness has not noticeably dropped over that time.

If someone is losing weight, and loss gradually slows over a period of weeks, then stalls, it's generally probable that they've found their new maintenance calories. (Not the only possibility in that scenario, though.)

If someone is losing weight at a good pace, hasn't noticeably changed calorie intake or calorie expenditure via exercise/activity load, and weight loss stalls more suddenly - maybe even stalls for several weeks - the more probable explanation is some water retention or digestive waste effect. Water/waste weight masking fat loss is common, common, common. Here again, there are other possible explanations - including some rare (so unlikely) but dire health conditions.

That second scenario sounds a lot more like what OP was experiencing: Fast loss, sudden stall. And - voila - the most recent update tells us that OP's weight suddenly dropped by 5 pounds in only two days . . . just what we'd expect if the cause were mostly water retention.

I also agree with "trust the process". What I don't agree with is that people need to switch up something in their routine to cause weight to drop again. Unless they're doing something pretty silly in the first place, in many cases patience alone with no other change will still result in that drop. "Switch your routine" helps people feel like they're doing something, and it may create a false sense of causation when weight drops in pretty much the same way and on the same timeline it would've dropped if they'd simply stuck with the routine that had been working well previously.

There's research evidence that in a subset of those cases, a non-trivial refeed - primarily a carb refeed - may help trigger a hormone-related water weight drop, yeah.

Possibly, but with less weight of evidence behind it, reducing the physical stress of one's total exercise routine might also reduce water retention. Simply changing the exercise routine, at similar or higher total stress from the exercise load? If you have a solid research cite for that, I'd enjoy seeing it.

Elcustardo

My advice is stick with what you are doing. During my main weight loss journey I 'stalled' for 3 months.

Your body has dropped a chunk of weight in 7 weeks, whilst you are restricting calories and asking it to exert itself.

PAV8888

However I will re-echo my previous for many reasons.

Don't just make this a race where you just ratchet eating less together, moving more to the max, drop drop drop, fast fast fast.

Yes feeling good is awesome. Yes you can (and should) do more. But use your time wisely to find long term "do-able" things not just short term shortcuts... if you give up mayo, as an example, give up mayo because you don't think it's worth it. Provisionally forevermore -- not just till you get to goal.

Take advantage of this time when things move faster but really, truly, realize that things can move even slower still and still be a win. The next time you say "this is not a good enough reward for the effort I put in", realize that the issue is the excees effort, the effort that is actually getting overdone, and not the reward that ended up looking comparatively small

16nsandstrom

PAV888 that is a very good point and I hear you clearly. Believe me, I have yo-yo dieted my entire life, so I do know exactly what you mean. However, this is the first time that I am making real changes in the way that I think about food: how it fuels my body, how it makes me feel, listening to my body queues. Things I’ve never done in the past. I’m not crash dieting. The weight is falling off very quickly because I’ve made real changes to the way that I eat and think about food entirely. I’ve also taken tons and tons of time to educate myself on nutrition and how it works and how it affects the body. I’m learning how to cook (for real) not just like hamburger helper or hot dogs, but real food. These changes are things that I have never done and things that have been insanely eye opening for me. Never once during this stall did I feel like quitting because I wasn’t seeing the results I wanted. But I was definitely getting frustrated and thinking about changing something about what I have been doing (like maybe lowering calories). There is so much information on the internet it’s hard to know what to follow. Thanks to this community, I had some clarity. I do appreciate your concern, but quitting just isn’t in the cards for me.