Day 18 - 6lb down - is this good?

[Chinders]

Can't decide whether this is a good weight loss or not. I used to lose about 2.5lbs on weight watchers if good. I thought Atkins would be a lot faster...? I weight 10 stone 8.5lbs in the beginning and now 10 stone 2.5lbs. I want to be 8 stone 8lbs.

[Chinders]

P.S. I lost 4lbs in the first week... now it has slowed right down.

[C P]

Hi Chinders - Well done on your loss so far.

The accepted wisdom seems to be that the average loss on induction is around 10% of the total you want to lose. As your target is 28.5 lbs (2 stone and half a pound) it looks like you are well on track with your loss so far! Keep it up!

CP

Edited to say - Have you moved onto OWL at the end of your induction? Once you hit 20 lbs left to lose you should be adding foods/carbs back as per the OWL rules (if not sooner) so if you haven't changed to OWL yet start swotting up on how it works, as it looks like you will soon be down to that 20 lbs to go mark!

I am quite a newbie here - I'm sure some of the longer term members will be along later to add more.

[Elizellen]

As CP said, that is a great loss so far

Are you measuring as well? Many times eating Atkins-style we see that people lose inches while not losing much in the way of pounds, as they lose fat. Use your measurements or seeing how your clothes fit as another way of seeing your progress.

I agree with CP's suggestion of moving to OWL instead of hanging around on induction so you will have time to conduct the great OWL scientific experiment and discover your CCLL as well as how the different foods affect you before reaching your goal size.

[Ryan.Stoeppel]

Hey Chinders, I am kind of in the same boat you are right now. I started Atkins 21 days ago, and the first week I lost over 8 lbs! By the end of induction I was down 11 lbs and I was so excited. Here it is, 3 weeks into Atkins and my weight loss has slowed significantly, for a total of 12.2 lbs, meaning I lost only 1.2 lbs in my third week.

The thing that I have learned, in spite of it being all over this message board, is the truth in the fact that weight loss is not linear. 12.2 lbs over 3 weeks is, averaged out, above the "average" weight loss for 3 weeks, so I have to keep reminding myself that. I was thinking maybe I had something in my diet that was holding me back, maybe the new exercise I was doing wasn't as helpful as before...yada yada yada. I checked my inches and I've lost an inch in my waist and an inch in my man boobies even though the scale hasn't moved.

If you are anything like me you read these amazing success stories on here where people are losing insane amounts of weight in a short period of time (40 lbs in 2 months!!!) but you have to keep in mind that everyone has different body chemistry. Stick with it, cause you have seen it work so far, and based on all those success stories, you know it does work. Period. It might be a little disheartening right now to not see that bloody scale moving, but it will. Give it time. I believe in you, and I have to otherwise I don't believe in myself.

[msanjelpie]

Although YOU want to lose faster... your BODY wants to lose slower now... You are forcing your body's metabolism to change and for right now it needs a break before starting on another downward trend... so let your body be the boss... Just keep at it, you are doing awesome!

[Ryan.Stoeppel]

Just in case you are still interested Chinders, here is another very interesting article I came across in my quest to find out what was up with the lack of movement in the scale lately...(just fyi BDK stands for benign dietary ketosis...or more simply what we know as ketosis/lipolysis)

"The Atkin's 2 Week induction phase:- heady stuff, weight loss nearly every day, usually enormous and unbelievable amounts!

This is very often followed by complaints of "a stall" or only losses of "just 1 lb per week".

Many people don't know that weight loss is rate limited, in other words the body has factors preventing more than a certain amount to be released from storage and even more factors that prevent these released fatty acids from being used up instead of stored back in the cells.

This is called the set point principle. The priority of the human body is survival, anything that threatens that results in a cascade of events to maintain the previous status quo.

Water fluctuations are one way the body protects itself.z During induction you may have lost 10lbs during 2 weeks, possibly 7lbs 1st week and 3lbs 2nd, then weeks 3& 4 - no loss! & weeks 5&6 only 1/2lbs each- so what's happening?

Initially the body jettisons your carb-burning enzymes whilst building fat-buring ones(around 3lbs), and the water attatched to the glycogen stores that we diligently deplete to get into BDK. This amounts to 3-5 lbs water. In addition muscle stores of glycogen are not being replaced when used, which will account for most of the rest of your losses. All in all maybe 0.5lbs fat metabolised during 1st week & maybe same 2nd, so only 1lb fat lost, but 9lbs water and enzymes.

The body senses this diuretic effect, and the sirens go off, 'WARNING! Water loss occuring... New thing! get back to status quo!!"

The Brain tells body to produce vasosupression antidiuretic hormone - more water is retained and so, no weight loss is registered on the scale.

Fat loss is still occurring however- maybe 2lbs per week- because BDK is firmly established and appetite surpresssion is in effect- but water is hiding that weight loss.

The body is preventing dehydration and that is a Good Thing. However, from the perspective of the scale this can be very discouraging, and why we all say "Get the tape measure out!"

Which is why the mantra 'Water retention hides weight loss' is helpful!! Water retention will mask ongoing weight loss for as long as the body retains the water.

We can combat this by drinking more water but we can't overcome this natural mechanism during the initial water loss phase of Atkins.

By week 5 & 6 things start to get back into balance and the scale will begin to reflect true weight loss - which is still rate limited.

THE TAKE HOME MESSAGE: EVEN WHEN SCALE IS IN STALL- FAT LOSS CAN BE OCCURING. DONT USE SCALE AS AN EXCUSE TO UNDERMINE YOU PROGRESS!! GET THAT TAPE MEASURE OUT!"

[Chinders]

Thanks - I lost 2 lbs this morning - am so pleased!!! I added more fat to my diet... cooking with butter and oil...