Stall and Stress, your take?

DanaDark
DanaDark Posts: 2,187 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I will try to keep this short and simple.

Basically, I started MFP wanting to lose about 20 pounds. Lost 11 pounds smoothly 1.0 to 2.4 pounds a week, every week (high numbers I am assuming included more water weight).

With no change in my calorie intake, protein intake, or exercise, I stopped suddenly. I have bounced between the same 2 pounds for 8 weeks now. I am assuming this variation is from water.

Things I tried:
1. Eating less
2. Eating more
3. Exercising more
4. Exercising less

These have had absolutely ZERO effect on my weight.

This that changed starting the same time I stopped losing weight:
1. Going out more in the evening
2. More alcohol

My alcohol intake has been within my calorie limit though.

My theory, and the thing I want feedback on...

It is my theory that my increased alcohol intake in the evenings has messed up my sleeping patterns. Under the influence of alcohol, your ability to enter REM sleep is compromised, meaning while you may be asleep, your body does not become rested. This has resulted in a steady increase of stress. With elevated stress, cortisol and other hormones become imbalanced, which have made it difficult for me to fall asleep at night, need an hour or more simply to fall asleep.

The lack of sleep, leads to more stress and thus more lack of sleep. Combined with a calorie deficit, which also adds some bodily stress, my hormones are out of whack. Currently I fall asleep around midnight/12:30, and am forced awake at 5am (cat, loud family members).

Does anyone have insight on this aspect of weight management? Would like to hear that someone with some sort of experience/qualification can say yes. Or even say no. Some sort of feed back I guess. Sort of needing some reassurance.

If this is not my problem, I am unsure what it is. I do not think 1345 calories a day is my TDEE... (Calculated TDEE is 1810, BMR is 1550, daily calories have ranged between 1345 and 1550 without exercise, more with exercise).

Currently, I plan to go to bed 2 to 3 hours early for now and reduce the number of times I go out to the same levels I had when I was losing weight, as well as reduced alcohol consumption.

Replies

  • mustgetmuscles1
    mustgetmuscles1 Posts: 3,346 Member
    Bumping for you. Wish I had some advice for you but I know nothing about this. : )
  • yarwell
    yarwell Posts: 10,477 Member
    There's little published science on stalled people - they're usually just thrown off clinical trials for cheating.

    Dr Briffa's into sleep and weight loss issues - http://www.drbriffa.com/category/sleep/

    Alcohol itself tends not to show up as a weight issue, in one trial the group feed above maintenance on chocolate gained weight while those fed extra alcohol calories to the same level did not.

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