Weight just won't budge

[Dave2]

Hello, I am 6'4 339 pounds, for the last 4 days I have consumed between 1,000-2,000 calories a day, counting every little thing I eat. For the most part I have been eating fish, sea foods and fruits and vegetables consuming lots of water and my weight had gone up by a pound.

I once lost weight before and got to 325 and never had this issue last time, I ate 2,000-2,500 calories a day and lost 4 pounds a week but this time my weight is stuck at 339, I get atleast 1 hour of vigerous exercise a day.

P.S sorry if the posts in the wrong area.

 

[Steve]

Hello, I am 6'4 339 pounds, for the last 4 days I have consumed between 1,000-2,000 calories a day,

1. Why such a low caloric intake?

2. 4 days isn't enough time for anything.

3. What are your goals?

counting every little thing I eat.

What do you mean by counting? How are you counting, tracking and measuring?

For the most part I have been eating fish, sea foods and fruits and vegetables consuming lots of water and my weight had gone up by a pound.

Again, too short a time period to judge. But still the above questions are important.

I once lost weight before and got to 325 and never had this issue last time, I ate 2,000-2,500 calories a day and lost 4 pounds a week but this time my weight is stuck at 339, I get atleast 1 hour of vigerous exercise a day.

People your size can generally get away with extreme approaches. However, being your size, eating 1000 calories per day, and vigorously exercising an hour each day sounds like a recipe for frustration if you ask me.

 

[Dave2]

I lost around 65 pounds a few years ago eating 1,000 calories a day, jogged 1 hour a day and lifted 2 hours a day. When I was in High school I power lifted and played sports, eating 1,000 a day I lost about 2 pounds a day and maintained muscle mass and actually improved my bench press, was hoping it would work again but I have not has the same results.

But this time around I tried 1,000, lost weight fast for a week, stopped, thought trying 2,000 may be a good idea if my body thinks its starving.
But I actually gained a pound instead of losing, I plan to maintain 2,000 and hope I see better results.
Unless anyone has a suggestion

Currently at 2,000 a day I don't feel hungry and at times even make myself eat a little more even when I'm not hungr

*edit add*

My main goal is to simply lose fat weight and get in better shape.

 

[allyphoe]

for the last 4 days
my weight had gone up by a pound.

Be patient. What you're seeing is random scale fluctuation. If you stick with what you're doing for 6 months, you'll see a significant drop on the scale long before the end.

Someone's bound to tell you that you aren't eating enough calories to lose weight, and/or that you're in "starvation mode," or somesuch other "eat more and move less in order to lose weight" advice. You've got lots of fat reserves, so are much less likely to see a significant downward adaptive shift in your metabolism due to a large caloric deficit. You've got lots of fat reserves, so are much less likely to lose significant lean mass along with the fat. You may want to bump your calories up somewhat to make your diet easier to stick with in the long term. You will probably be happier in the long term if you add some resistance exercise to your routine and make sure you get adequate protein (1g per pound of lean mass should be sufficient).

 

[Dave2]

About 40% of what I consume is protein mainly from fish, shrimp and chicken breast.
The majority of my exercise currently is hauling hay, loading, unloading and stacking 50pound bails of hay 4-5 times a week(2-3 hours a day) usually depending on weather days that I do not haul hay I usually jog for 15minuts instead.

 

[Steve]

I lost around 65 pounds a few years ago eating 1,000 calories a day, jogged 1 hour a day and lifted 2 hours a day. When I was in High school I power lifted and played sports, eating 1,000 a day I lost about 2 pounds a day and maintained muscle mass and actually improved my bench press, was hoping it would work again but I have not has the same results.

Than you have some seriously advanced genetic superiority when it comes to recoverability if you are able to starve yourself (especially i the context of your size) while running a shit ton and lifting with ridiculous parameters.

Not so sure the body will be so forgiving this time around.

If so, I wouldn't press my luck even it would.

1. As I asked above, how are you tracking your calories? This is a critical question.

2. How do you know you preserved all your muscle?

 

[Dave2]

1. I track my calories by reading labels of everything I eat then put it down on fitday.com and make sure it matches what food says.
2. Well I guess I don't know that I didn't lose muscle mass last time BUT, my bench press went up, as did my squat and curls. During the diet my bench press hit a record high of 335, my all time record, squat was 470, and my preacher curls were 140 with 5 reps.

*edit add* though during this my weight was monitored by my coaches, one being the schools health teacher.

 

[Steve]

1. I track my calories by reading labels of everything I eat then put it down on fitday.com and make sure it matches what food says.

And do you use a food scale?

Not that error would likely account of your lack of weight loss given how deep of a deficit you are currently in, but still...

2. Well I guess I don't know that I didn't lose muscle mass last time BUT, my bench press went up, as did my squat and curls. During the diet my bench press hit a record high of 335, my all time record, squat was 470, and my preacher curls were 140 with 5 reps.

Well that can be attributed to other things beyond muscle maintenance/growth. Still though, pretty damn impressive that you were able to train at that intensity given such low caloric intake, assuming said intake was accurate.

What was your training like before this? Were you new to training?

 

[Dave2]

1. I don't use a food scale.
2. During this I felt extremely well, I started at 395 pounds and the weight dropping off so fast made jogging and lifting seem even easier, though part of why I lifted better could of been due to the fact I had less of my own body weight to lift, perhaps another reason is that I was less depressed in a better mood and got excited and pumped up about lifting even more so then I had before.

Generally speaking if I'm losing weight I feel really good more energetic, I'm not sure if its due to the lack of weight or the fact I'm pumped up about losing the weight.

Basically if my weight drops I'm happy, if it don't I get discouraged.

*edit add* my doctor and coaches felt that due to my... extreme weight that losing 5+ pounds a week would be healthier than what I was at.

 

[Dave2]

What was your training like before this? Were you new to training?

This was my sophmore year and the summer after, I had started lifting as a 8th grader, as for jogging I started that during my rush to lose weight, started off with a very slow 10minut jog could do a mile in 13minuts, around 5 months later I could do a mile in between 8minuts 53 seconds and 9 and a half minuts, at this point I weighed 325. After I graduated I stopped lifting and jogging as often, just recently started jogging again.

 

[Steve]

1. I don't use a food scale.

So how do you quantify your food?

For example, if you have some meat, how do you really know how much of it you're eating in terms of calories?

Generally speaking if I'm losing weight I feel really good more energetic, I'm not sure if its due to the lack of weight or the fact I'm pumped up about losing the weight.

Basically if my weight drops I'm happy, if it don't I get discouraged.

*edit add* my doctor and coaches felt that due to my... extreme weight that losing 5+ pounds a week would be healthier than what I was at.

I don't have a problem with you losing large amounts of weight per week. I'm a fan of the old 1% of body weight per week. As Alleyphoebe noted above, the 'starvation mode' that everyone talks about really isn't likely at your size.

To boot, you are going to lose some muscle while dieting but the fact that you are carrying around an excess of it means the loss is 'okay.'

Lastly, regardless of your weight, I think you need to learn a bit about managing stress vs. fatigue in relation to exercise and recoverability.

Just b/c you can doesn't mean you should.

Assuming you're after optimal results, remaining injury free, and winding up with a good body at the end of the day.

 

[Dave2]

Well for the meat such as the chicken breasts, it has 12 servings, and there are 6 breasts about the same size, meaning 1 is 2 servings and one serving is 120 so I eat an entire breast and write it up as 2 servings, 270 ( I add a little to compensate for the very small amount of olive oil i put on the pan to keep it from sticking)

The shrimp gives an estimate to how many shrimps is one serving, one serving being between 10-12 shrimps, i eat 10 and write it up 70 calories, since thaw it in the microwave no calories are added.

The Salmon is in 1 serving chunks, 110 calories a serving, eat it with 2 thin sliced 40 calories a slice bread, add nothing to it just plain bread and salmon, 110 +80 = 190, + 40 to compensate for the tea spoon of olive oil i use to make sure it dont stick on the pan.

Basically I only eat things that are already split into servings or have a written number for a serving.

 

[Dave2]

Something just came to my mind, about 4-5 days ago when i stopped losing weight is when I started drinking diet doctor pepper, about 7-12 cans a day instead of drinking water and propel, could this be a factor? If so why?

 

[allyphoe]

even though your diet soda may not have calories, it has a TON- and I mean a TON of sodium...

12 cans of Diet Dr. Pepper have 630mg of sodium. For comparison, a serving of Special K has 224mg, and a 6" Subway oven-roasted chicken breast sandwich has 830mg.

I don't disagree that 12 cans of diet soda is excessive, but it's not tremendously high in sodium except in comparison to its complete lack of any other nutritional redeeming value.

 

[giget2000]

I belive sodium may contribute to your issue but I never drank anything but water and had a similar situation. My problem was the anti-depressant I was perscribed for 11 years. After majoring in Psychology I discovered that these medications were NOT the solution at all. Many resent conclusive clinical studies prove that exercise 3 times a week for 30 min while taking fish oil was just as or in most cases more effective than taking an anti-depressant. With careful medical attention I am completley off of SSRI's and am finally starting to loose weight. I would re-evaluate any medications you are taking because they can influence weight gain/loss.

Sat Nam,
Betsy

 

[Dave2]

I'm curious, does anyone know anything about the reports saying that diet soda inhibits weight loss?

Was looking it up a while ago after thinking about if and how my drinking diet soda may effect my weight.

Many articles claim that diet soda slows the metabolism.

Well i tried to link about 5 articles but I am not yet allowed to, just google it

 

[Dave2]

I believe I can give it up honestly, when I use to lift and play sports I removed all carbonated and Caffeinated drinks from my diet, though I really do enjoy drinking diet soda so I may have one occasionally. ^-^

 

[keelynn414]

Dave, I'm a soda junkie too.. so I'll probably never be able to truly give it up. But I'm doing okay with coke zero, so i'llldeal with that- it's no calories per can versus 120 per can, so I'd say that's progress!!! So if you really want your diet dr. pepper, then drink it. The whole point of getting healthier isn't to starve ourselves and never eat yummy food again, right? I believe if we just balance it out it's fine.

 

[allyphoe]

- They required one group of overweight people to eat or drink a certain amount of specific foods (soda, juice drinks, yogurt, marmalade, and ice cream, each sweetened either with sugar or with artificial sweetener) and told them to otherwise eat whatever they wanted. The people who ate sugar gained 1.6kg; the people who ate the artificial sweetener lost 1.0kg. 10 week study, small sample size, all women.

Women eating aspartame lost about the same amount of weight while dieting but regained less while maintaining than did women avoiding aspartame. Sample size of 163 at the beginning, and 125 at the end of the two-year followup. Note that the author's pilot study showed that women lost with aspartame, but men gained.

 

[allyphoe]

diet dr. pepper also has caffeine- a known diuretic which means it also causes water retention.

I was going to post that same thing, then I looked it up. And apparently there's no strong evidence that caffeine acts as a diuretic.



http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15467100?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=1&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed