2.5 month stall after losing 74 lb - getting depressed

douglerner

Well, this isn't going well.

As mentioned in another post, after losing 74 lb on the Ornish heart-disease reversal diet I went into a plateau starting the beginning of February. I'm stuck between 95 and 96 kg and still have to lose another 20 kg. Technically I'm still in the "obese" range of BMI, though I think I now look more "overweight" than "obese."

Some people say I'm not eating enough, so my metabolism is slowing down. Some people say I should reduce what I'm eating. Some people (including my 2 doctors and nutritionist) say I shouldn't change anything, but just stick it out and the plateau will break. But it's been 2.5 months now!

I'm a 56 year old male. 174 cm tall. Mostly sedentary, though I do go out cycling or walking almost every day, and have even increased the distances/times by 50% recently. That means about 45 minutes of exercise most days. I also do resistance training.

My BMR (according to calculators) is about 1800 calories/day. And my doctor and nutritionist at the hospital recommended the 1800 cal/day diet, which worked fine until February.

The nutritionist at the Ornish site recommended I reduce this to 1600 a day and ignore exercise calories unless my net calories fall below 1000. But I checked and my average daily eaten calories since February were really only 1508 - and that's without taking into account exercise.

She didn't respond after I pointed that out, so I decided to set a new goal myself of 1400 calories a day and eliminated brown rice which I had been eating 2 or 3 times a day. I did that mostly to save calories. She did write a comment saying she disagreed with me doing that, but didn't say why or offer an alternative.

Since doing that starting 4/7 my daily average calories have been just 1318, and that's without taking into account exercise, which I've been increasing.

At first I thought it was working. My weight started dropping from 96.6 down to 95.2. But then started going up again and this morning I'm at 96.2 kg.

How low can I go on calories and still make it a sustainable diet?

And I don't have thyroid problems.

I don't have any other nutritionist to talk to except for the one at the hospital. She is not familiar with this program and also just says stick with under 1800 calories/day.

I can't imagine what's wrong and I'm afraid this is throwing me into a serious depression.

Emilie04444

You can't let this throw you into a deep depression. 74 is a lot. Weight loss is not a science it's trial and error so you have to keep on trialing. I believe the Ornish plan is similar to Eat to live, which doesn't even require calorie counting. Just eat a whole lot of veggies to fill you up, with lots of other whole foods. You can't go too low especially with exercise and resistance training

They say that a man shouldn't go below 1500, a woman 1200. You need to put the scale away for a while and focus on exercise, strength training and eating as healthy as possible, whole foods. Set different goals. I think once you stop watching the scale you will start to see other improvements. You should also on building muscle. Not sure what type of resistance training you are doing but everyone could probably stand to do more. Good luck!

douglerner

You are right that the Ornish plan itself doesn't require calorie counting, because it is aiming for heart health rather than weight loss per se.

But my doctor said to limit calories, and I really must lose more weight. Even after losing 74 lb I'm still technically "obese." It's really impossible to ignore the scale. I'm not sure what to do.

Thanks for your note though. It was definitely supportive.

doug

douglerner

Well, believe it or not, the Ornish nutritionist is now thinking I really am eating too few calories and is suggesting I eat more. So maybe I'll have some brown rice again today. I've missed eating that the last couple of weeks.

doug