Stuck weight...your body wont let go

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crackon20
crackon20 Posts: 20 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I've always had a set point weight. What i call stuck weight. No matter what i did, calories, exercise...my body wanted to be at that weight.
I have found that with me, the only way to get past the set point weight is: 1) low to no bread, pasta, rice, white potatoes, flour items, etc and 2) intermittent fasting.
How did you break through?
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Replies

  • roseym10
    roseym10 Posts: 104 Member
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    This is the same for me. This is probably contrary to this site but intermittent fasting and calorie counting didn't work for me. I lost 10 lbs on the Fast Metabolism Diet which is only certain kinds of bread, pasta, and rice. No potatoes, dairy or sugar. It focuses more on vegetables and healthy fats. It forced me to add those things to my diet. Once I started calorie counting again and trying to fit all sorts of things into my calorie count, I gained again. I honestly thing it has to do with my age (58) and medication I'm on that causes you to be hungry more and impacts your metabolism.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,127 Member
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    I don't have a set point, or at least I've never found one within a range that's sometimes gone down to within a 5 pounds of officially underweight, and up to class 1 obese, over my lifetime.

    If I eat the right number of calories, I lose weight, in the long run. The right number of calories is:
    (1) Not so many calories that I'm eating more than I burn, and
    (2) Not so few calories that I get fatigued, move less, and persuade my body to slow down less life-vital autonomic processes (hair growth, body temp, etc.) because it thinks we're in a famine.

    Over a day or few, I can manipulate water retention to cause my scale weight to drop: For example, eating fewer carbs will trigger water-weight decreases (body needs water to metabolize carboHYDRATES), so the scale drops.

    Routinely, the magnitude of water weight changes (and digestive contents changes) easily outpaces the smaller magnitude of any sensible rate of fat loss, hides the fat loss on the scale . . . sometimes for days or a small number of weeks, even. (A month was roughly the longest, but I was losing fat really slowly at the time.)

    Over the past week, my AM weigh-in has varied across a range of 4.6 pounds - not all up or all down, but up and down in that range, because I'm in year 5+ of maintenance. Fast fat loss for a week would be 2 pounds (too fast, at my current weight!). If I lost 2 pounds of fat, and had that same 4.6 pounds of water/digestive contents fluctuating, I could think I hadn't lost weight at all, and I'd be wrong.

    So far, patience and careful calorie counting has always worked. When averaged over a month or so and beyond, my weight does what I expect it to do, when calorie counting carefully. Given that, I don't bother changing what I eat or when I eat it, in ways that don't make me happier in some other way.

    I'm not saying that my weight behaves as some calculator estimates, because it doesn't. MFP and some other so-called calculators are literally hundreds of calories off, for me, in their sound, statistically-based estimates. IMU, that's rare, but it's obviously possible. For some reason, I'm not statistically average.

    When I calorie count to lose weight, I use calorie needs estimates based on my own experiential data, because after almost 6 years of logging through fast loss, slow loss and maintenance, I have a boatload of experience-based data. My weight behaves as expected, averaged over multi-weeks, based on that baseline data.

    I'm not trying to tell you how your body works, in the above. You asked about our own personal experiences and strategies. What's above is my answer to that.
  • patriciafoley1
    patriciafoley1 Posts: 137 Member
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    To Crackon:
    Certainly people engaged in cutting calories and exercising to lose weight would like to see a reasonable response on the scale. If your measured and weighed food and exercising should generate a 2 pound a week loss, that's what you'd like to see and anything less is discouraging. Though I haven't been on MFP long there seems to be an invariable set and rather hostile response to these posts,
    1. Accusing the poster of not properly measuring their food and taking in too many calories
    2. Accusing the poster of taking in too little calories and causing the "stall" and urging them to break their diet to reverse the stall
    3. Telling the poster they are not "stuck" at all, because to be stuck requires by their definition so many weeks of no weight loss and they haven't waited that long.

    Don't be discouraged by these responses. If you have been honestly counting your calories (and I believe you have) and you haven't seen the proper response from the scale in a proper period of time, then that is disconcerting. You have a right to be frustrated. For all those that lambast people for over eating, or not exercising, when you are honestly logging a calorie deficit and exercising, doing the right things, it is very frustrating not to get the calories in, calories burned response of weight loss that the simple solution of dieting is supposed to return. And dieting becomes something more than a simple mechanism, something less than accountable. And there are no easy answers. But it is easy for others to lambast the poster for one fault or another. I have been there, and I sympathize. Sometimes I've tried going more keto, but I'm pretty low carb anyway, and when you go off keto you'll probably pick that water weight back up again. Breaking your diet for a day or two, may help, or may not. I think if you are at a serious plateau, I'd seek professional advice. Have a doctor or nutritionist look over your diet and exercise plan, and see if they have any suggestions. There's no sense spinning your wheels on something that isn't working, and you deserve better than to be frustrated and thwarted if you are trying your best and not getting the results you want.
  • patriciafoley1
    patriciafoley1 Posts: 137 Member
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    I suggested that he see a doctor or a nutritionist if he or she isn't losing weight to check his weight loss plan. That's not denial, that's seeking professional advice.
  • crackon20
    crackon20 Posts: 20 Member
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    Thanks. Interesting debate. I use MFP, eat 1200 to 1400 perday, and no weight loss. I have talked to 2 doctors, and 1 nutritionist. Nutritionist was not helpful, she was following an out dated pyramid. Both doctors told me i can't just use CICO...because its not working for ME. i will stick to the low refined carb track and fasting, because it works. Every body. Everybody is not the same. I appreciate all feedback and i hope everyone has a good summer. Thanks Patricia.
  • iam4scuba
    iam4scuba Posts: 39 Member
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    I disagree with the posts here saying there's no such thing as your body adjusting your metabolism to maintain a certain level of "internal numbers", i.e. hormones.

    There is scientific evidence and peer reviewed studies that suggest this occurs. I haven't seen anything scientific indicating it doesn't, though admittedly that'd be hard to prove and I'm not sure you could ethically do an experimental study. Regardless, I don't think you can dismiss the claim just because you think it's incorrect.

    Further, people are suggesting eating a bit more for a couple days to start the body going again on weight loss and numerous people have said that works. If it does work, and your metabolism doesn't change, what could the explanation be? And it can't *just* be that your body is holding onto water.

    In fact, I think people on here contradict themselves when they say you shouldn't have too large of a deficit. The explanation many give for that is because your metabolism will slow down. But if your body can't change your metabolism, how would a deficit too large reduce your metabolism?
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
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    Every method that works is a good method. But, every method that works is a reduction in calories below consumption and discharge. Except for a diet of that special candy brought by the Easter Bunny.
  • wunderkindking
    wunderkindking Posts: 1,615 Member
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    iam4scuba wrote: »
    I disagree with the posts here saying there's no such thing as your body adjusting your metabolism to maintain a certain level of "internal numbers", i.e. hormones.

    There is scientific evidence and peer reviewed studies that suggest this occurs. I haven't seen anything scientific indicating it doesn't, though admittedly that'd be hard to prove and I'm not sure you could ethically do an experimental study. Regardless, I don't think you can dismiss the claim just because you think it's incorrect.

    Further, people are suggesting eating a bit more for a couple days to start the body going again on weight loss and numerous people have said that works. If it does work, and your metabolism doesn't change, what could the explanation be? And it can't *just* be that your body is holding onto water.

    In fact, I think people on here contradict themselves when they say you shouldn't have too large of a deficit. The explanation many give for that is because your metabolism will slow down. But if your body can't change your metabolism, how would a deficit too large reduce your metabolism?

    Yeah, the person who quoted my earlier post really did explain what my theory was. Which was posted before your question: I increase my NEAT because I have an energy boost, or I unstress my body, lower cortisol and as a result drop a bunch of water weight.

    In fact I'd wager for me it's usually a matter of water weight, since the predictable result *for me* is dropping something like 3 pounds overnight. Fat doesn't do that. That I continue to lose in line with my deficit or a little higher for quite a while after probably DOES have some elements of increased energy boosting my NEAT back up though.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,127 Member
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    iam4scuba wrote: »
    I disagree with the posts here saying there's no such thing as your body adjusting your metabolism to maintain a certain level of "internal numbers", i.e. hormones.

    There is scientific evidence and peer reviewed studies that suggest this occurs.     I haven't seen anything scientific indicating it doesn't, though admittedly that'd be hard to prove and I'm not sure you could ethically do an experimental study. Regardless, I don't think you can dismiss the claim just because you think it's incorrect.

    Further, people are suggesting eating a bit more for a couple days to start the body going again on weight loss and numerous people have said that works. If it does work, and your metabolism doesn't change, what could the explanation be? And it can't *just* be that your body is holding onto water.

    In fact, I think people on here contradict themselves when they say you shouldn't have too large of a deficit. The explanation many give for that is because your metabolism will slow down. But if your body can't change your metabolism, how would a deficit too large reduce your metabolism?

    I don't see the contradiction.

    Your metabolism (if we're talking about basal metabolic rate) is the sum of your cellular processes, and your cellular processes (in one sense) *are* your body. (I can't parse "if your body can't change your metabolism" in that frame of reference.) And I really don't understand what you're trying to say in the bolded. Of course your eating and other behaviors affect various hormone levels which then dynamically affect your behaviors and your "metabolism" in complex, interactive ways.

    Your metabolism can change, but not usually in the sense that you can manipulate it intentionally or bend it to your will, especially not over short time-spans. Some strategies are sort of nudges, but without a guaranteed result.

    So, yes, if you undereat, some body processes will be underfueled and slow down. Natural selection has favored genetics that slow down less vital processes before slowing down more essential ones. IMU, that's what's usually meant by casual statements about "metabolic slowdown". If you build muscle, your metabolism will increase (by a truly tiny amount) because muscle tissue is metabolically active, more so than fat tissue. Further, if you lose weight, you'll have a lower metabolic activity, just from having a lighter body so (all other things equal) a smaller body will burn fewer calories than a larger one. (Usually, in real life, all other things are *not* equal.)

    More simply, if you seriously undereat/underfuel, you'll have less energy, you'll be more fatigued, and you'll move less, in ways that range from subtle to obvious. When that happens, you burn fewer calories than normal by moving less. That's not exactly metabolism, it's NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis).

    Over long time spans, that reduction in activity affects body composition (and habits), so you can get into a negative spiral of reduced activity causing reduced capability for activity, which further reduces activity . . . etc. To put it baldly, when I was fat and inactive, I was on a course that would tend to lead me to become even more fat and inactive, unless I made serious changes in my behavior.

    As an aside, the Minnesota Starvation Experiment did provide quite a lot of information about what happens to people who severely underfuel. It's not good.

    There's good information in these threads, maybe would help resolve what you're perceiving as contradictory:

    http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10604863/of-refeeds-and-diet-breaks/p1
    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1077746/starvation-mode-adaptive-thermogenesis-and-weight-loss/p1
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,127 Member
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    penguinmama87 wrote: »
    I often think that the idea behind "set points" is really more psychological than anything else - we become very used to eating a certain number of calories or amount of food and that becomes normal to us. Deviating from that is uncomfortable and weird, and so we feel tempted to go back to what we used to do because it's familiar, even if not ideal.

    I believe similarly: I think I tend to have comfortable sets of habits that I revert to, that are easy to sustain, and a certain body weight and body composition tend to result from those habits. Trying to do something that's difficult, alien, and unpleasant usually doesn't have good long-term results. Success is more about finding a new, different set of reasonably-comfortable habits (so ones that are sustainable under life stresses) that lead to a different bodily outcome.
  • iam4scuba
    iam4scuba Posts: 39 Member
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    paperpudding wrote: »
    Further, people are suggesting eating a bit more for a couple days to start the body going again on weight loss and numerous people have said that works. If it does work, and your metabolism doesn't change, what could the explanation be? And it can't *just* be that your body is holding onto water.


    I really don't think anybody is suggesting have a short diet break - as in eat at maintenance calories for a couple of days - to change your metabolism.
    Surely nobody thinks one's metabolism would change in a couple of days??

    as far as I can see, one person on the thread said that works for them and theorised "Either because my energy level goes back up and my NEAT increases, or because I unstress my body and it drops water weight all in a go."

    Furthermore if this set point theory applied - how come all the people in famines, POW camps etc - people eating way under maintenance calories for long periods of time - none of them stay at their over weight set point???

    Fair, I've seen other people mention it in other threads though, not just this one.

    This "set point" is not static right. So, it certainly can change over time. The research does not indicate or suggest that it cannot change. Which is why people who are overweight, lose weight, and are able to hold onto their weight loss for a certain period of time aren't forever fighting against this. Probably one of the only things we know for sure about our bodies is that they are highly adaptable (and that there's still a lot about how our bodies work that we don't know about).

    As for people who have been subjected to true lack of food, I can't tell if that comment was meant seriously, but if so, someone's body still needs to be able to operate. I think you're thinking of this theory as a "this is your minimum weight and your body will never let you go below it" which is not what the studies suggest. Of course if it requires 600 calories per day to keep your heart beating, and you only eat 500 calories per day, your brain isn't going to decide to turn off your heart. You will lose weight.

    I'm a scientist. I look at these studies with skepticism. I'm not sure of the effect of this "set point" for someone's body. But I am sure that other people can't be sure (unless I've missed some research out there).

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