I've hit a wall…can someone advise?

This topic contains 10 replies, has 4 voices, and was last updated by fitnfast 8 years, 10 months ago.

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Lfp

2:53 pm
6 Jun 15
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I am a 46 year old woman, and have now been doing this 5:2 diet for about a year. I wanted to loose about 8-10kg after 3 years on an exclusion diet for ibs which made me put on weight (though cured my IBS!). I lost about 5kg in the first three months which was great and weighed around 50kg (I’m pretty short, ok). I bought an expensive body stat monitor and was able to establish my weight, bmi, body fat percentage and muscle mass. I watched as my weight went down, my body fat percentage went up and my muscle mass dropped. I already went to the gym 3 times a week, and had done for 15 years. So at that point with my trainer’s input I began weight training and reduced my cv, I also started fasting 3 days per week because I could see that week by week I was sticking around the same weight and loosing the same 1-2kg of body fat one week, muscle mass the next. I admit, in all this time I have been eating fairly normally on non fast days, though I have now cut out booze during the week though I do still eat out at least 1-2 days per week (as I did at the beginning). What has surprised me also, is the few times I have been in holiday and eaten and drunk whatever I fancied, and ignored fasting, I came back lighter and with greater percentage of muscle mass…is this just to do with the constant, yet low level exercise of sight-seeing?

I now seem to be stuck loosing muscle mass and gaining weight slowly but surely. I’m baffled and quite frustrated, but I can bear going back on a full time diet! Has anyone got any useful thoughts?

fitnfast

9:30 am
7 Jun 15
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HI! I don’t know how your tracker is measuring muscle loss. Fasting, I believe, does affect muscle loss but fat loss is the bigger percentage.

I have lost 16 lbs so far (in 9 weeks), and the only visible difference in me is that I can now SEE my muscles, which were buried under a layer of fat!

I have a physical job where I spend a lot of time lifting, plus I do weights once a week, and I haven’t noticed any change in my strength.

Could stressing about those numbers be throwing you off? I doubt you will just waste away to nothing (ie:complete muscle waste). Check out Martin Berkham on the Lean Gains site….he fasts every day and it obviously hasn’t hurt his muscles!

Lfp

5:45 am
9 Jun 15
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Thanks fitnfast. I appreciate your thoughts. The body stat monitor works through electrical Imoedence to measure fat and muscle proportion. As far as I understand, the body prefers to store fat and burn muscle which contains more energy than fat and is easier to convert in to energy. I’m not worrying about wasting away! There’s far too much of me for that. Simple evidence:1 year down, and clothes are getting tighter again, scale won’t budge despite 3 days per week fasting. I also lost weight quickly in my first 3 months. My husband continues to loose weight and has lost 22lbs in 1 year. He’s now on 1 day per week fasting to maintain his losses.

fitnfast

8:02 am
9 Jun 15
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That device sounds very interesting! A part of me would like to know all that but right now it is more important to me that the numbers both on the scale and my clothes are both dropping.

I am currently reading a book called ” Good calories, Bad calories”. It is even more eye-opening than the Fast Diet book!

When you read and understand how the body uses carbs, proteins, and fats, and how it affects our weight, it just becomes so clear. And then to put that into practice and watch it work, you feel in control of your body for the FIRST TIME in your life.

So I am dropping ALL carbs except 1 apple a day, increasing protein to the majority of my intake, with a bit of fat to complete it (though I am still learning about fats…they can be misleading). So I will see what kind of changes this makes.

The human body has NO NEED for carbs. Period. It only needs protein and fats, and the vitamins and nutrients that come naturally with them. So testing this theory will be interesting also.

I am recording everything and will post results. Maybe that can help others if it works. I see ( and have been) so many people doing 5:2 and plateauing quite frequently.

simcoeluv

6:50 pm
9 Jun 15
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Hi fitnfast:

As you don’t seem to have concluded your research, I would just suggest you study a high protein diet more thoroughly. You might get ‘protein poisoning’. “High protein” means anything over 35% for any length of time – the actual long time recommendation of 25% is pretty much right on. “Symptoms from a high protein diet include diarrhea, headache, fatigue, low blood pressure and slow heart rate, and a vague discomfort and hunger (very similar to a food craving) that can only be satisfied by consumption of fat or carbohydrates. “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation

The current breakdown of food types for an “ideal” human diet is 60-70% fat, 15-25% protein, and 10-15% carbs. The fats should be animal fat or other natural fats like olive oil (if you squeeze it and oil comes out, its OK oil) Transfats are proven dangerous as the body cannot handle them (like it can’t handle sugar and fructose).

LFP – the body does not prefer to burn muscle, it prefers to use fat as its energy source. Muscle consists of protein, and has less than half the energy fat has (fat=9 calories per gram, protein=4 calories per gram). In addition, muscles in the body include the heart, and the body has no interest in eating the heart before it eats some fat. That is why the body goes into starvation mode (usually about a 40% drop in metabolic rate) when the body reaches 5% body fat or less – it is trying to prevent muscle loss. Most people that die of starvation die from a heart attack after the heart becomes weakened from being ‘eaten’.

Just some basic information.

Good Luck!

simcoeluv

6:58 pm
9 Jun 15
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Hi:

The link above didn’t take so here it is again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation

fitnfast

8:28 pm
9 Jun 15
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Thanks, Sim. I actually read that exact link when I first read about the people who did this higher protein diet. I did figure my carbs at around 10% ( although I just blew that out of the water…fired a long time trouble maker at work so we had a pizza party!)

Fats are what confuse me. I fried my steaks in vegetable oil last night (1 T.). Cheese and yogurt bloat me and pack weight on, peanut butter I love but can’t stop once I start….what other sources are there besides what is on meat?

I’ll be rereading the section in this book about that plan. They didn’t get sick, even though they were warned about the rabbit starvation, and the weight loss and healthy number results are fantastic.

I do have a refers day also. For my sanity more than anything. So it won’t be a 100% no carb plan. The more I read about carbs, I really want as little as possible in my body! After eating the 12 oz of steak last night, I didn’t get hungry til 2am, an It passed really quickly. I went 17 hours until breakfast, very comfortably.

Thanks for the tips!

simcoeluv

9:27 pm
9 Jun 15
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Hi fitnfast:

I assume you are aware of Dr. Fung’s take on fats – if I remember right he is not a fan of vegetable oils. I think it is in here somewhere: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QetsIU-3k7Y

You have hit why a high fat, moderate protein diet allows one to lose and maintain weight – you don’t get hungry. People on the old Atkins diet ate around 12-1500 cal. per day, ‘even though’ they were eating a lot of fat and protein.

The human body can process unlimited amounts of carb and fat calories, but it cannot over time do that with a high protein diet. A long established fact. It depends on how good your kidneys are how long you can go. People with kidney problems must closely watch their protein intake because it is very taxing on the kidneys and can cause total kidney failure if the kidney is not healthy but still functioning. I would never recommend a high protein diet for anyone, for any reason. There is no need.

Canadiangoddess

9:50 pm
9 Jun 15
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I have to wonder if you are being counter productive by increasing the number of “fast” days. It seems from what I’ve read that the idea is to avoid having the body get used to “fasting” and rather give it short sharp shocks.
I use the parenthesis because consuming 500kcal or so doesn’t quite count as fasting in my mind. It is also easier to look forward to if I don’t consider it as true fasting, which it isn’t.
I have been on this lifestyle change for 5 months and have lost 14kg with another 6-11 to go. It has been pretty easy. I still go out and enjoy food and drink with my friends. I have made a real effort to keep the normal days very normal while avoiding obvious gluttony.
One thing I have noticed over the past two weeks is a tendency to get very tired quite early and be lacking in energy. I’m hoping that will pass and that it is just a bug.

Lfp

5:52 am
10 Jun 15
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Thanks for all your comments. To add, for about 8 months I have been following the fast diet on a high protein regime consuming around 90g protein per day (based on the formula of 0.8g protein x weight – body fat), this = 300 calls, so no more than 15% on a good day 🙂 obviously, this is hard to do on fast days, but I manage about 50gs on those days. One issue is that for convenience and cal control I use pea and soya isolate powders as I am sensitive to lactose – does anyone have any experience of a fast diet lifestyle supplemented with these (my main diet is normal otherwise). Also I’m interested in your comment, Canadiangoddess, that it could be my 3 day fasting model. This is certainly something that the fast lit suggests for people who stagnate, has anyone else stagnated in this way on a 3;4 model? I have wondered about this for a while.

Look forward to hearing from you all.

fitnfast

8:26 am
10 Jun 15
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LPF, never heard of those supplements. I assume they are protein?

3 fast days a week, which I have also been doing for about 7-8 weeks, is the Fast Beach Diet, and is usually recommended when you hit a plateau. I started it because of all the information I read about alternate day fasting, and then with all the info about carbs, I went high protein.

But it’s never 100% doable, plus I have one “refeed” day, where I eat anything I want. Since starting and really getting into it, though, every refeed day is getting lower in junk and lower in quantity.

It is likely that your weight training is putting on the weight. According to what I read yesterday, your muscles can “ask”for the energy from fat stored to be released into the bloodstream for energy. Then you work out, so the muscle gets larger with inflammation and stress, then accumulates water, then sends the fat back into storage. I know I gained when I was doing Cathe Friedrich s STS weight program. I now do three 15 minute hiit cv sessions a week, and only 1 weight day, again about 15 minutes (I have a very physical job so that helps).

If you can, get the book (Good Calories, Bad calories by Gary Raines). It goes into so much more detail about all this in the last chapter. It is very comprehensive. I find that the more I read and study it, the easier it is to understand exactly what happens to the food I eat, and how the energy is expended.