Why Some Can't Lose Weight

**Woodson** · 11-23-2003, 09:27 PM

I've lost about 25 lbs, I went from about 223 to 199 now it seems like I've going up 1-2 pounds a week or down 1-2 pounds a weeks.

But point is ... can you list ways to bust a plateau?

**Soon2bLean** · 11-23-2003, 09:51 PM

easy enough.....

Just look at the guy that motivated me to start my fitness program in the first place:

http://www.twowiresthin.com/wl2003/index.html

and other than that, just keep eating clean, doing your cardio and lifting......it'll all come soon enough.

**BuggerOff** · 11-23-2003, 11:18 PM

Use more calories than you consume. period.

Maybe your metabolism has slowed down, but I can't imagine why it would. Exercising and dieting speeds it up (aparantly).

If you are not loosing weight it is because - for whatever reason - you are consuming more calories than you need to.

You don't "plateu" even though you're burning off more calories than you're eating, it's not possible. But of course, some of these guys are gonna shoot my "stupid logic" down and tell you that it is. Believe whatever you want...

**as0l0** · 11-23-2003, 11:40 PM

Originally posted by BuggerOff
Maybe your metabolism has slowed down, but I can't imagine why it would. *snip* dieting speeds it up

it's not possible for that to be any more wrong.

**BuggerOff** · 11-23-2003, 11:42 PM

Well I can't count the amount of times on this forum people have said you have to EAT and you have to eat every two hours. Why? Because it speeds up your metabolism. Do HIIT why? Because it speeds up your metabolism.

****, I dunno. Maybe eating meals every 2 hours slows it down. I give up.

**as0l0** · 11-24-2003, 02:09 AM

dieting slows it. eating less, which is what we are doing...that's some of the purpose of a refeed

**BuggerOff** · 11-24-2003, 02:52 AM

Right. I thought the whole idea of the little meals all spaced out every two hours was to speed it up! Looks like I'm the one reading the "gym junkie bull****" ;-)

Sorry 'bout that. I really should abstain from dishing out advice until I've acheived my goal, eh. I just got so bored studying I wanted to post all the time.

But guess what? Finished my last exam today! Woohoo. Free to become a total gym rat and do whatever I want allll summer long. Sand and surf, here I come. :-)

**Zachary** · 11-24-2003, 05:45 AM

Originally posted by BuggerOff
Right. I thought the whole idea of the little meals all spaced out every two hours was to speed it up! Looks like I'm the one reading the "gym junkie bull****" ;-)

Sorry 'bout that. I really should abstain from dishing out advice until I've acheived my goal, eh. I just got so bored studying I wanted to post all the time.

But guess what? Finished my last exam today! Woohoo. Free to become a total gym rat and do whatever I want allll summer long. Sand and surf, here I come. :-)

Little meals help to speed it up. Exercise helps to speed it up. They only add a little, while dieting takes a HUGE toll on your metabolism. If you want to know why, run a google search on T3 + Leptin, and tell me what you find. (That's only one reason it slows, by the way.)

As for plateaus...what's your BF%? It might be you need to cut calories a bit, but if you're already at a very low number of calories, you might look into refeeds (do a search with my name + refeed).

**Emma-Leigh** · 11-24-2003, 02:16 PM

Originally posted by BuggerOff
Right. I thought the whole idea of the little meals all spaced out every two hours was to speed it up! Looks like I'm the one reading the "gym junkie bull****" ;-)

Spacing meals is going to help - but it is more useful in keeping you from getting hungry and binging on ice-cream as a result.

As Zachary said - your metabolism slows from dieting. Actually, it is as fast as 24-48 hours after starting a hypocaloric diet that your metabolic processes start to slow down to compensate (about the time that your glycogen stores start to get a little 'dry') - so it does not take much time at all.

But guess what? Finished my last exam today! Woohoo. Free to become a total gym rat and do whatever I want allll summer long. Sand and surf, here I come. :-)

Congrates! Uni or HSC??

Have fun on your holidays

**theGuru** · 11-24-2003, 02:44 PM

Hormones are very important in the balance of bodyfat/muscle composition.

To bust a plateau for losing fat you somehow have to change your routine to encourage a positive hormone change. Maybe by eating more and increasing the intensity of your weight lifting or cardio.

**sma** · 11-24-2003, 02:58 PM

Take a week off and eat normal. Then hit it hard again.

**Zachary** · 11-24-2003, 04:11 PM

Originally posted by Emma-Leigh
[B]Spacing meals is going to help - but it is more useful in keeping you from getting hungry and binging on ice-cream as a result.

As Zachary said - your metabolism slows from dieting. Actually, it is as fast as 24-48 hours after starting a hypocaloric diet that your metabolic processes start to slow down to compensate (about the time that your glycogen stores start to get a little 'dry') - so it does not take much time at all.

Congrates! Uni or HSC??

Have fun on your holidays

Hmm, Emma, a question if you wouldn't mind?

I asked Lyle about how quickly muscle glycogen stores will deplete without volume training (i.e. by diet alone) and he essentially had no idea -- do you have some figures on this? That'd be really helpful -- I'm currently playing around with an insanely fun (though strange) diet which is 60 hours extremely hypocaloric/6 hours binge-style refeed...it's a hell of a lot of fun, but I'm trying to calculate just how much depletion training I need to ensure minimal de novo lipogenesis.

**Woodson** · 11-24-2003, 09:27 PM

Originally posted by sma
Take a week off and eat normal. Then hit it hard again.

You know maybe this will do the trick. I heard ppl taking taking a week off still eating clean but had few cheat days.. once they started going back .. they weighed a little bit more, but after a week they were less then when they started with the break. hmmm.. intresting.

I'm weight myself today I'm 198.4.... 9.4 lbs more to loose to reach my goal.

**BuggerOff** · 11-24-2003, 09:35 PM

I wouldn't bother taking off a week at all to be honest.

The only reason you're not loosing fat (unless you're loosing muscle instead) is that you are not creating a calorie deficit. You can't create a calorie deficit and still not loose weight.

Make sure you're eating healthy food, spaced out every 2 hours. A reasonable amount of calories - between 10X and 12X your bodyweight should be fine. And do cardio & weight training a few times a week.

Well, you're welcome to take my advice with a grain of salt if you want. But that's what I would do if it was me (On most of the websites I've seen, the "experts" say to start at 10X or 12X your bodyweight and then drop it after a few weeks. I'd actually eat less calories, but I won't go into that as nearly everyone here would disagree with me).

**Zachary** · 11-24-2003, 10:05 PM

Originally posted by BuggerOff
I wouldn't bother taking off a week at all to be honest.

The only reason you're not loosing fat (unless you're loosing muscle instead) is that you are not creating a calorie deficit. You can't create a calorie deficit and still not loose weight.

Make sure you're eating healthy food, spaced out every 2 hours. A reasonable amount of calories - between 10X and 12X your bodyweight should be fine. And do cardio & weight training a few times a week.

Well, you're welcome to take my advice with a grain of salt if you want. But that's what I would do if it was me (On most of the websites I've seen, the "experts" say to start at 10X or 12X your bodyweight and then drop it after a few weeks. I'd actually eat less calories, but I won't go into that as nearly everyone here would disagree with me).

A week off to restore leptin/T3 levels has helped many a person continue dieting -- I wouldn't be so quick to reject it.

Ultimately though, if that doesn't work (or you don't want to), indeed, you just have to drop calories or do more cardio.

**sma** · 11-24-2003, 10:07 PM

"The only reason you're not loosing fat (unless you're loosing muscle instead) is that you are not creating a calorie deficit. You can't create a calorie deficit and still not loose weight"

Trust me on this. Your body DOES adjust to lower calorie levels. So what happens when he still cant lose weight at 8xBW in cals? Should he then goto seven, six?

Take a week off, boost your metabolism, eat clean. Then come back, physically and mentally ready for a new round.

**BuggerOff** · 11-24-2003, 10:25 PM

Well if your body has adjusted to it, you're no longer making a deficit are you?

**as0l0** · 11-24-2003, 11:00 PM

that's why you have a week off.

week off is the best option. 1 vote for week off.

**Emma-Leigh** · 11-25-2003, 03:45 AM

Originally posted by Zachary
Hmm, Emma, a question if you wouldn't mind?

I asked Lyle about how quickly muscle glycogen stores will deplete without volume training (i.e. by diet alone) and he essentially had no idea -- do you have some figures on this? That'd be really helpful -- I'm currently playing around with an insanely fun (though strange) diet which is 60 hours extremely hypocaloric/6 hours binge-style refeed...it's a hell of a lot of fun, but I'm trying to calculate just how much depletion training I need to ensure minimal de novo lipogenesis.

Hmmm...

Well, in the average 75kg man liver glycogen (about 80 - 100g or 320 - 400 cal energy) lasts 12-16 hours (at the most - and that is because you start to use fatty acids for energy)... but the brain requires about 100g carbs a day - or 400 cals a day (although after about 5 days of a low carb diet it will start to decrease the amount it needs and will start to only need about 25g of carbs/day - with the rest of the needs made up from ketones/fatty acid oxidation) so - yeah - your brain and other organs basically chew away your liver glycogen over the first 12 - 16 hours.

Muscle glycogen depletion is a little more variable and depends on your movement, your bodies capacity to store glycogen, the proportion of type I or type II muscle fibres in your body etc etc - but you can usually store about 400g glycogen (in the average 75kg male with about 30 - 35kg muscle) which is about 1200 cal - so how that is how much energy you can get from it (remember that although it takes 2 ATP molecules to STORE glycogen it does not cost anything to release glycogen, so you get all the energy that is released).

So, generally speaking, the average 75kg male stores enough glycogen (in total) to last them 14 hours of relative inactivity (ie: 400 cal in the liver and 1200 in the muscles = 1600 cal overall which would be about 2/3 of the guys resting metabolic rate for a day).

BUT - that would be if you were not eating anything else at all - so, say you were eating 1500 cals a day - and your daily needs were 2500 cals - you would be deficient 1000 cals a day - so your glycogen would (theorectically) last you a little under 2 days.

That is also not taking into acount other variables like the slowing of your metabolism over those few days, the cost of any additional activity you would do etc etc...

So - ummm... If you stopped eating all together, 20 hours would probably be enough, but if you are eating then I would say that you probably need to give yourself 48 - 72 hrs to make sure you deplete completely (depending on activity and your calorie intake etc).

But that is just a guess...

(ps: Hope the experiment goes well

)

**BuggerOff** · 11-25-2003, 02:09 PM

People on this forum just love this whole starvation mode thing. Why don't you first tell us your diet, height, weight, bodyfat etc. before jumping to conclusions about gym rat theories. Nodody even knows what you're eating yet, so I can't understand how they know you're metabolic rate has slowed down too much because of "starvation" or whatever else.

Personally, I'd be more inclined to up your cardio and reduce your calorie intake. No matter what, you just cannot retain weight if you have a calorie deficit.

Now, if it turns out that your metabolic rate actually has slowed down significantly, I still couldn't recommend a week long eat-whatever-you-want binge. Instead, I'd suggest eating 12x your weight in calories and doing more cardio.

Remember, you get what you put in. Take a week off if you want. Personally, not what I would do.

**Emma-Leigh** · 11-25-2003, 02:54 PM

Originally posted by BuggerOff
People on this forum just love this whole starvation mode thing. Why don't you first tell us your diet, height, weight, bodyfat etc. before jumping to conclusions about gym rat theories. Nodody even knows what you're eating yet, so I can't understand how they know you're metabolic rate has slowed down too much because of "starvation" or whatever else.

Personally, I'd be more inclined to up your cardio and reduce your calorie intake. No matter what, you just cannot retain weight if you have a calorie deficit.

Now, if it turns out that your metabolic rate actually has slowed down significantly, I still couldn't recommend a week long eat-whatever-you-want binge. Instead, I'd suggest eating 12x your weight in calories and doing more cardio.

Remember, you get what you put in. Take a week off if you want. Personally, not what I would do.

Bugger Off - As Zachary suggested, you might want to read up on some of the info on Leptin.

The longer you are on a hypocaloric diet (as this person obviously was - as they have lost 25 pounds) then the lower their leptin levels can go, the lower thyroid hormone can go, the higher cortisol levels will go, the slower your metabolic rate will go and the less likely the body will drop body fat. But basically, leptin is the 'key' to ongoing fat loss - it is the 'signal' that regulates metabolism, appitite, body composition and much, much more.

We KNOW that he is probably suffering from a slowed metabolism because as soon as you start to diet (as I said above - even after 24 to 48 hours) your metabolism slows. There is no 'ifs' or 'maybes' about it. It happens.

As they have been dieting for a while, there is a huge probability that they would benifit from a re-feed to get their leptin levels back up and to 're-start' their body.

Try these links for a little more info - they are a good read:
http://www.theministryoffitness.com/.../article18.htm

http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/con...a633073326fc10

http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/con...65ad6d066be584

http://www.avantlabs.com/main.php (type in Leptin in the search and look for the article "leptin - the next big thing"... There are about 4 parts to the article, but they are worth the read)

**Emma-Leigh** · 11-25-2003, 03:03 PM

Originally posted by BuggerOff
Now, if it turns out that your metabolic rate actually has slowed down significantly, I still couldn't recommend a week long eat-whatever-you-want binge. Instead, I'd suggest eating 12x your weight in calories and doing more cardio.

ps: It is not about working 'harder' all the time - it is about working smarter.

Sure - if they are sitting on their butt and not doing any exercise, then getting up and doing cardio is going to work wonders. But, if they are already doing 5 or 6 days a week of cardio then adding another day is not going to help.

**as0l0** · 11-25-2003, 03:54 PM

Originally posted by Emma-Leigh
ps: It is not about working 'harder' all the time - it is about working smarter.

big *bump* on that. it's not all as simple as you think buggeroff

**BuggerOff** · 11-25-2003, 04:37 PM

Well it's working for me. I guess it might stop working soon though, or maybe I could actually be doing it more efficiently. I dunno.

I'll check those articles out, Emma. Thanks.

**as0l0** · 11-25-2003, 04:41 PM

you've only been doing it for 2 weeks

**BuggerOff** · 11-25-2003, 04:43 PM

There is no possible way you could tell his metabolism has slowed or anything. Note if he comes on here and replys and says, "I've been eating 500 calories a day" so something absurd like that, then sure. But up until this point he hasn't.

You just don't have enough information to make that claim yet. How long has he been dieting? how old his he? What's his caloric intake? What exercise does he do?

For all you know he's 16, and been dieting on 3000cals a day for 3 years to loose that 25 lbs and has been doing 2 hrs cardio a day. Nobody knows...yet. You can't just jump on to the old "starvation" theory straight away, knowing close to zip about this bloke and his diet.

That's not to say that it certainly isn't this starvation thingy, it's just to say there is no way of knowing yet.

**as0l0** · 11-25-2003, 04:53 PM

it's called intuition.

**BuggerOff** · 11-25-2003, 04:56 PM

yeah well my intuition says you can't know for sure yet so dishing out advice isn't good unless you know all the facts. Not to say the advice may not end up being right, but you can't know that yet. But that's just my intuition speaking...

**as0l0** · 11-25-2003, 05:11 PM

well my intuition says that after you've asked people to post every little detail for the (seemingly) millionth time, that you will learn to take a best guess....those that are serious will stay and learn...those that aren't are just jumping from this to that and here to there.

**Corbint** · 11-25-2003, 05:49 PM

Originally posted by Emma-Leigh
But basically, leptin is the 'key' to ongoing fat loss - it is the 'signal' that regulates metabolism, appitite, body composition and much, much more.

too bad there isnt a "leptin pill" or supplement that could make your metabolism(not your HEART RATE) stay elevated and continue to burn like a furnace!

ps. emma check your PMs, thanks!

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