What am I doing wrong?

[jakebabe]

I need some input on my eating plan. I have been following the McDougall/vegan plan for 12 weeks now. I went to my physician yesterday for a recheck of my numbers (I have high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes). My numbers have not changed since my last check up back in January. Of course, I am still on meds so I am not sure if my numbers would be the same without the meds or not. I have 2 goals - one to hopefully get off the drugs and second, to lose the 100 pounds of excess weight I am lugging around. I did initially lose 15 pounds the first 3 weeks on program but nothing since then and I think that was from going to a totally different way of eating. The scales keep going up 2 pounds, down 2 pounds with a net effect of zero!
My b/p is 140/90 and my A1C is 5.3.
Any input on how to get the pounds to start leaving me?

[JeffN]

Greetings,

If what you are doing is not working for you, in the way it is known to work, you have to look closer at what you are doing and how you are implementing it.

The human body, as is our world, is governed by the laws of physics. And, your weight is a product of energy balance. You can not violate the laws of physics and thermodynamics. The energy you consume must go somewhere and to maintain a certain level of weight, and equivalent amount of energy must be consumed and an equilibrium must be achieved.

With all due respect, unless the vegetables you are consuming are about 10 -15 lbs, I could not maintain my weight on what you are eating and I am very thin and very active The human body burns approximately 10 calories per pound of body weight, on average, not including activity levels. So, you can get a very rough but good idea of how many calories you need to just maintain your weight by multiplying your weight x 10. If you are extremely obese (BMI >40) the number may be closer to your weight x 8 but either way, as you will see, you are still burning a significant amount of calories. So, the calories to maintain your weight must be coming from somewhere and equal that

In regard to metabolism, about >70% of your base metabolism is driven by your brain and other vital organs and is not effected by food consumption and we have little impact on it.

Now, I am sure you are trying to be accurate but as I mentioned in an earlier thread, most attempts to accurately track food consumption, under report (intentionally and/or not intentionally) by about 20-50%. Professionals can be as much as 30% off or more. This is usually part of the problem.

In regard to the "starvation" mode, you are almost certainly not in any "starvation mode" where you need to 'kick start" your metabolism. You can not really "eat more" calories to force your body to "lose weight". This is a myth that comes out of the dieting/exercise world and is not accurate. We all know that, without a doubt, if you were to stop eating totally, and just live on pure water, you would start to lose weight almost instantly, which is in opposition of the recommendation of having to eat more to lose weight. If you were in this so called "starvation Mode" and you fasted, by its own rational you would lose less weight, not more. We know this is not accurate.

Now, there is a true phenomenon known as the starvation response and it is well documented in the Minnesota Starvation experiments and the Hunger Fasts that have been studies. However, it only happens in humans when they lose enough body fat that they fall below the level of essential fat. In a man, this would be below around 5% fat. Most humans will look like holocaust survivors at that time. In addition, when this point is truly reached, the body does make several metabolic shifts to preserve itself and if it is not feed more calories, can cease to exist. It is a matter of life and death. Hence the name.

This is not the same thing that happens when someone who is overweight and has a high percentage of body fat, is not losing weight.

If you have a thyroid problem, which is possible, you should get checked and if so, this can be easily fixed. But, then we are right back to where we are above and have to again, deal with the energy balance issues

My recommendation to you, as others have suggested, is to accurately record what you are consuming in either fitday or in CRON-O-Meter and track your exercise to get a better picture.

In Health
Jeff

[karin_kiwi]

Jeff, my experience with going down to 600 calories/day (purely because busy, not because intending to do so) and not losing weight until I start eating more is actually my experience, not anything I've ever come across through "diet wisdom." I've read very little in the way of diet books or women's magazines. The first "diet book" I read was A Challenging Second Opinion in the late 80's and it's pretty much been McDougall all the way. I am aware that there's lots of mythology associated with dieting - I do have friends who read all the other stuff.

This not-losing-weight has happened to me several times over the last 14 years (counting only the times I was tracking every gram of food on FitDay so am absolutely sure about caloric intake). Granted, this didn't go on for 9 weeks, the most it happened was 2 weeks before I started eating more. And it usually involved only eating once or twice a day.

And I know that there have been times I have not lost weight for 3-4 weeks in a row, even when on around 1000-1400 cal/day. From what you say, that would be impossible.

I do regard you as someone in the top 1% of 1% who knows what they're talking about in terms of nutrition so it's not that I am disagreeing with you except to say that my experience has been different from what you say and wonder why that would be. Is it that it's just been for a couple of weeks? Long term I agree it is inconceivable that people could stay fat with 600 cal/day (or even 1200). Just coincidence that the weeks I have gone down to 600 cal/day I stop losing weight (previous weeks, every week, losing weight with 1200+ calories and following week with 1200+ calories again starting to lose again)? A bizarre exception? Any other suggestion?

Guess although I know there's the real possibility the OP (and many others) aren't really monitoring every little thing going in their mouths, I know that I've had that tossed at me and been annoyed. I KNOW I record every single gram of food (when I'm in that mode) and because I make the vast majority of food from scratch there's almost no room for hidden ingredients. I don't lick cooking spoons and I don't finish off the kids' dinners, etc. I drink a fruit smoothie maybe 1-2/week as a meal or dessert and something other than water as a beverage maybe once a month (and record them all faithfully). I weigh all foods when in a real FitDay mode (just so I can record accurately, not with the intention to limit or to count calories). So partly I'm just reacting to the suggestion that if we're not losing weight it's always that we're ignoring or forgetting or not noticing other stuff we're eating and drinking.

[JeffN]

Jeff, my experience with going down to 600 calories/day (purely because busy, not because intending to do so) and not losing weight until I start eating more is actually my experience, not anything I've ever come across through "diet wisdom."

Hi Karin

I appreciate your kind words, and I am not doubting your experience and I am sure you are very careful about your efforts to document your experience.

And I know that there have been times I have not lost weight for 3-4 weeks in a row, even when on around 1000-1400 cal/day. From what you say, that would be impossible.

I said it was impossible for someone to be at a weight plateau and for them to have to consume more calories to continue losing weight.

BTW, there is a tremendous variance between 1000-1400 calories (over 40%) and so that variance alone can account for much of what is experienced

There are also several other things to consider.

1) even if you weigh and measure every single gram of food, there is still an over 20% lee way that is allowed in the caloric values you may be using. This is the normal allowance. It can be greater. And there is no standard from one sample to another and the lee way can be "up" or "down."

2) There are "within a day," "day to day", and even weekly changes in fluid volume, glycogen stores and in the contents of the digestive tract that together can account for 6-10 lbs or more change in weight in the average person. Without knowing or tracking this, people often associate this potential effect on their weight, with their calorie input and/or output yet it has nothing to do with calorie balance. I worked with one very large athlete whose weight changed 20 lbs within a day due to fluid changes. Again, this is measured in a metabolic chamber, but not at home.

2) The body can also mildly adapt/adjust its metabolism in response to a sudden increase or decrease in food intake but it only last a brief period (a day or two) and its not the actual "starvation" response. This adjustment maybe in heat, or mildly altered metabolism, and can be recorded in a metabolic chamber but can not be recorded at home.

3) People can stop losing weight during their efforts especially after a period of significant weight loss, and/or gain weight while eating the same amount of food, as someones BMR is lower due to less mass of the body. Some people call this a plateau. The solution is to increase the calorie deficit by eating less, or burning more.

So, if someone weights 200 and burns 2000 calories and exercise 500, their total caloric out is 2500. If they eat 2250, they will lose weight. If they lose 50 lbs, and now weight 150, they burn 1500 calories and if they still exercise 500, their total calorie out is 2000. If they keep eating 2250, they will no longer lose weight and may gain weight. The solution is decreasing caloric intake and/or increasing activity.

4) every single experiment done on every single animal ever tested in laboratory settings and metabolic wards/chambers in the last 70 years, have shown that as long as calories in are less than calories out, the animal tested will lose weight. Even when those tested were ones who said they needed to eat more to lose weight, till they were tested under ideal circumstances and no exception was found. I would challenge you and/or anyone else to find the experiment where an animal (with a body fat above the level of essential fat), consumed a low amount of calories and was at a weight plateau and had to consume more calories in order to lose weight.

If this other experience is so common, we should be able to document it in the lab, but it has never be done inspite of many attempts to document it

However, we have many examples where when the subjects reach that point of plateau, that if we give them less food/calories, they start losing weight.

In fact, here are several examples of the published research where the subjects consumed either no calories or a very low amount for many weeks/months and never stopped losing weight. At no time did they have to feed them "more" calories to get them to continue losing weight.

Drenick EJ, Swenseid ME, Blahd WH, Tuttle S. Prolonged starvation as a treatment for severe obesity. JAMA 1964;187:100-105.

Thompson TJ, Runcie J, Miller V. Treatment of obesity by total fast for up to 249 days. Lancet 1966;2:992-996.

Stewart WK, Fleming LW. Features of a successful therapeutic fast of 382 days' duration. Postgrad Med J 1973;49:203-209.

Same with the subjects in the Bio-Sphere who were closely monitored under a controlled situation by a medical doctor. They lived for 2 years under a form of food restriction and it took almost 18 months to see their weight begin to stabilize.

Energy metabolism after 2 y of energy restriction: the biosphere 2 experiment. Am J Clin Nutr. 2000 Oct;72(4):946-53.

The only exception known is free living human beings under free living conditions where their tools for measuring energy balance are way less than ideal.

In Health
jeff

[karin_kiwi]

Thanks Jeff for the very comprehensive and thoughtful answer. You are fantastic and my nutrition-related conversations in the last few months have become peppered just as much with "Jeff Novick says..." as "according to McDougall..." or "in the China Study..."