13 Weeks: Week 4 — In Which We Plateau
The continuing saga of my experiment with a Taubes-inspired change in diet, and high intensity training. Follow me here on PJ Lifestyle, and follow it day to day by liking my 13 Weeks Facebook page.
Okay, last week was on Thanksgiving survival; this week is the aftermath, and then I’ll talk about high intensity training. But first the aftermath.
Basically, I gained about 6 pounds directly after Thanksgiving. Now, as I said last week, there was no way that was “real” weight gain — that would have implied I’d eaten 21,000 kcals over what I need to keep my weight level in the span of a couple of days, when in fact by my food diary I’d eaten 7,700 kcals under. And as I’ve said all along, this is an experiment to see what happens, especially to my blood sugar, not about weight.
Well, I talk a big game, but the fact is that with 50 years of baggage, I can’t help but pay attention to the weight loss, and I was pretty unhappy about the whole thing. Not unhappy enough that I was tempted off my eating plan, mind you. I was really uncomfortable the weekend after Thanksgiving. If I ever ramp up the carbs, it’ll be very carefully.
The first 4 pounds came back off in a couple of days, and then I plateaued — I hit 281 or thereabouts and bounced along for five days. Five freaking days. Now, 280 has been a hard level for me for several years — I could lose down to there but hard to break through. (To end the suspense, yes I did finally — I’m back to 279.)
Here’s what the weights would have looked like if I only weighed on Sunday, just as I only do measurements on Sunday:
Matching the scale etc, the Thanksgiving weight gain is a very small alteration; the trend line is still down. In fact, since the long plateau isn’t included, the slope of the trend line is rather greater — 0.27 pounds a day versus 0.21. Once again, I think the lesson is that normally, maybe weighing yourself every week is enough, if you can stand it. (I couldn’t: I’d have to throw away my scale or hire someone to bring it over once a week.) Now, let’s get to what I’ve promised for a couple weeks, and talk about the training routines I’ve followed. That will start right below the fold, so follow this on to the next page.
The 13 week experiment has been to adopt a low-carb eating plan — I’m banning the word “d*et” from now on — and to add what my review of the literature suggests are the most efficient exercise approaches for fat loss and improved endurance. Now, as my professors repeated in grad school (and I now repeat all the time myself) if you want to say something is “efficient” you need to say what you’re optimizing for. In my case, what I want to optimize for is time: if I enjoyed exercise as exercise and didn’t have a day job plus writing, I could run an hour a day or lift weights four hours a week. But our understanding of the physiology of exercise has changed radically in the last few years. Summarized, you could basically say there are two rules:
- You get the most incremental benefit from the first 15 to 20 minutes of exercise.
- You get the greatest gains from intense effort.
Put those two rules together and it looks like hours of jogging may not be the best choice for efficiency; instead, go for short times and intense exercises.
In pure endurance exercise, a Japanese researcher named Izumi Tabata invented a training protocol that was very effective: train by doing something (practically anything) really really hard for 20 seconds, with a 10 second rest, repeating that 4 to 8 times. That is, 2 to 4 minutes of exercise. I could go into more details, but an internet friend, Everett Mickey, pointed out these YouTube videos from a company called TabataSongs. Here is an example of Tabata training, set to music.
Simple as that.
There are a number of weight training routines that follow similar short, high-intensity schemes. I’ve used one from the book Power of 10. The basics are right in the book blurb:
The Power of 10 seems to contradict nearly everything we’re accustomed to hearing about exercise. Forget hours on the treadmill, and forget daily visits to the gym. This new program offers 20 minute workout sessions, once or twice per week, with an alluring emphasis on rest and recovery on your days off. The principle behind The Power of 10 is simple: by lifting weights in slow motion, making each rep last 20 seconds (10 seconds lifting and 10 seconds lowering) instead of the typical 7 seconds, you can maximize muscle transformation. The short workouts are so effective that your body will need days to recover and repair properly. Studies have shown that such routines can increase lean body mass, help burn calories more efficiently, and prevent cardio–vascular disease more effectively than aerobic exercise alone.
Now, the studies mentioned have some methodological problems, but the basic approach has been very effective — and there are lots of different versions, each claiming to be the real thing. As with most of these schemes, the exact details vary, and everyone wants to have the Best Routine so they can Sell More Books. It’s still the same basics: a short, extremely intense workout.
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So there’s my routine: each exercise done with heavy enough weight, taking 20 seconds per repetition, that you can’t do more than 6-8 repetitions. The Power of Ten program is the first five exercises — seated row, chest press, narrow-grip pulldowns, overhead press, and leg press, but I added curls and triceps pulldowns because I like them.
If you aren’t familiar with these or need help with form, any trainer can help. (Glenn Reynolds is a fan of Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength; personally, I think you’re far better off with the help of an expert.)
So that’s this week. So far, in terms of results, my weight is down about 23 pounds from my original start on 19 October, and about 9 pounds since I officially started the experiment, which is 2 pounds a week even with the plateau; my average morning, fasting, blood glucose down from about 150 to about 130.
Make that 277 as of this morning.
Same weight I hit this morning, despite cheating over my aniversary weekend by eating a slice of New York cheesecake and a 20 Oz Coke with my prime rib & broccoli dinner. 18 pounds down Since I started and you’ve been a big inspiration. Thanks!
Congratulations! And thanks for saying I’ve been an inspiration, but you’re the one doing it. Having people following this is a big inspiration to me.
Remember once you get beyond the CICO (calories in, calories out) paradigm of incomplete if not just bad science, you can build a sustainable model of fitness and health.
I did a hormone assisted very low calorie diet for 45 days to kick off moving to a paleo-like eating plan (along with a healthy dose of Chris Kresser and Chris Masterjohn podcasts and blogs).
I ate less than 1000 calories a day. It’s not sustainable or healthy over the long haul I know. The point is I plateaued at 195 lbs. for 10 days. If you only look at CICO it defies logic. However, once you understand many other factors are involved, it becomes easier to outlast the frustration.
The body can be a stubborn conservative organism. On day 11, the weight loss slowly started again. I now eat when I’m hungry. I just dont eat simple sugars, grains, processed foods, soy, or fructose. I keep my ‘good’ carbohydrate intake to 50-60 grams a day. It’s sustainable;It’s healthy;It works.
Keep up the good work. And as a final thought. I noticed that when I do go off my eating plan (like Thanksgiving), the effects tend to have a few days to a week lag time before the unhealthy eating effects are felt, and the same is true for feeling better once I’m back on the eating healthy. So understanding that I can deal with the immediate frustration, knowing my body will respond and feel better in a few days if I just stick to eating healthy.
Yeah. It’s one of those places where emotional response and reasoned respond diverge. I’m entirely aware that the body has some very significant homeostatic mechanisms for maintaining weight; what’s more, 280 is one place where I’ve repeatedly plateaued, both going up and going down. I know that.
Emotionally, however, it’s rather distressing.
you science guy, you. okay, so how does vitamin D and vitamin K plus the cal/mag/zinc combo work? and why is the vitamin K so important?
glad you are writing all this out, emotional stuff, research, weight, everything.
What is this, midterms? okay — there are some studies that suggest Vitamin D deficiency correlates with obesity. It also correlates with higher incidences of cancer and other immune system insufficiency, and of course severe Vitamin D deficiency causes rickets. I had my Vitamin D tested a couple years ago, I was sho’nuff deficient, and I started taking 5000IU daily; at the same time I started taking 10mg melatonin daily before bed. I don’t know that I noticed any weight effects, but the combination has been suggested as helping seasonal affective disorder, and indeed I didn’t have a period of depression over what was a very hard Christmas season last year, so anecdotally I think it helped.
I don’t know of anything about Vitamin K relating to weight loss; I do know that if you have healthy gut bacteria, they make most all the K you need. (I presume you mean actual Vitamin K, and not “Vitamin K” ketamine.)
Mg/Ca/Zn supplements are important because this sort of diet leads to lots of urination; this can throw your electrolites in general out of whack. Ca is needed for muscles and boen density; I forget what Mg and Zn do metabolically.
So what are you thinking about here?
Oh, and thanks — I’m *not* of the opinion that emotional or psychological issues are a major part of obesity per se — I don’t buy the “food addiction” model in most people, because most obese people I know actually strenuously resist food in general, and “fattening” foods in particular. I might buy a notion of carbohydrate addiction, but I think the basis for that is physiological.
I also know, however, that I’ve worried about my weight since I was six, and over that 51 years, I’ve suffered a whole lot of hazing, harassment, abuse and out and out bullying about it (although the bullying cut back a lot in late high school, as I grew to 6’3″ and was getting close to a brown belt.) I’m sure other fat people have had the same experience, at least people who have been fat since childhood.
I don’t think anyone looks at a diet plan with a wholly calm, collected, simple decision; I think we all feel the social pressures.
As I say, you can accumulate a lot of baggage in 50 years, from the time I was six and my mother complained I was “disgustingly fat”, to the girl I had a crush on in Baptist Church Camp who called me an “obscene slug”, to the succession of doctors who told me I had to be cheating, I couldn’t possibly have stopped losing weight on their diet. And while the specifics may be different, my experience suggests everyone else who has a long-term weight problem has also suffered this kind of emotional stress, and carries it along every time they eat an M&M or put butter on their toast. So I hope being open about it will help me, as I turn over the rocks and expose these things to light by putting them into words; and by extension, maybe other people will see their own baggage in it and that will have some good effect.
> I’m sure other fat people have had the same experience, at least people who have been fat since childhood…. As I say, you can accumulate a lot of baggage in 50 years…
Amen to that. The beauty of obesity is that it is one of the few approved prejudices remaining. As a fatty, you’d have to have a psyche built like an Abrams tank to grow up without baggage.
For me, the teasing didn’t faze me until puberty, probably because it was up until then less mean-spirited, and also because up until puberty I was an enormous kid who could hold my own in a fight even with kids two to three years older.
But once puberty hit, the teasing morphed into more of a mean-spirited hazing. Disappointing enough that the other kids did it, but what was really disappointing, now that I look back on it, were the adults who joined in. In particular, there were two phys-ed coaches at my high school who enjoyed ridiculing me in front of my peers. I shouldn’t take it personally; one of them even enjoyed making fun of one of the special-ed kids in his class. Whatever lame argument a coach could put forth about trying to “motivate” me to lost the weight could not possibly apply to trying to motivate a retarded kid to become less retarded. Someone who will do that has a soul that’s in jeopardy and doesn’t need anything from me except prayers.
But it hasn’t really stopped. That’s the lesson you learn over a lifetime. I’ve had bosses who ridiculed me in front of others. I’ve had co-workers who have chided me. I’ve had erstwhile “friends” who, “for my own good”, I’m sure, rag me mercilessly about when I’m going to “do something” about how fat I am. “Wow! You’ve put on weight!” Yeah, thanks for noticing.
Once a year I have to take “training” where I work and learn how to be sensitive to the approved list of “minorities”, by which I mean women (by no means a minority where I work) and various races, religions and ethnicities. In principle, I’m all for that: nobody should have to work in a hostile environment, at least not during peacetime. But in practice, it is only the approved list that they care about. Coincidentally, the approved list happens to be the politically-powerful list. Fat people have no political clout, so we’re still fair game. With ObamaCare, that’s only going to get worse.
But that’s fine, because instead of sensitivity training, what we really need is insensitivity training. We could all go a long way in life by simply informing the jerk that he and his personal need to inflate his own ego by deflating others is his own biggest problem, and need not and should not affect us.
But once puberty hit, the teasing morphed into more of a mean-spirited hazing. Disappointing enough that the other kids did it, but what was really disappointing, now that I look back on it, were the adults who joined in. In particular, there were two phys-ed coaches at my high school who enjoyed ridiculing me in front of my peers. I shouldn’t take it personally; one of them even enjoyed making fun of one of the special-ed kids in his class. Whatever lame argument a coach could put forth about trying to “motivate” me to lost the weight could not possibly apply to trying to motivate a retarded kid to become less retarded. Someone who will do that has a soul that’s in jeopardy and doesn’t need anything from me except prayers.
Yeah, I had exactly the same experience. Not much to say beyond that.
Started the Taubes in mid-March. Lost 20# in the first two months and then went into a long term plateau. There was a week long plateau after the first month. Taubes talks about plateaus lasting weeks to months, so I am biding my time, being well into the 5th month of plateau. Still get to eat until I am not hungry and have a glass of wine or two in the evenings, which makes all the difference. Cinching up the belt is also positive reinforcement of what I have done.
I find it useful to weigh myself daily as a measure of how good the carb control was doing the previous day. As long as I am in ketosis, the weight stays steady. When I stray, there is an instant 3-5# upwards. I go back and behave myself and it comes off after a few days. So I have used this time at a plateau to find out what sorts of other foods that I can do interesting things with and how much I can poke around the margins. I am a MexTex fan, and have been experimenting with lo-carb hot dishes. Salsas also work very nicely. Costco has frozen hot wings at 1 carb apiece (same as a single large fresh cherry). Found that I can do a fruit crisp from the standard recipe and still stay on ketosis with a small bowl full. Rhubarb being more carb friendly than berries. Trying to figure out how to reintroduce fruit into the diet. Greens get boring, even with habanero on them (killed my taste buds years ago).
Interesting journey, this. First time in over 50 years that I am not frustrated with what I am eating or the lack of will power not to eat stuff that I want. If you aren’t hungry, those cravings simply don’t exist (at least for me). For the first time, this actually works and provides the foundation of self confidence and elbow room to explore a bit for lo carb solutions to things I love. Thanksgiving was the first one on this diet and worked well. Gained the instant 5# the following Monday after celebrating doing good over Thanksgiving (old habits die hard). Took the rest of the week to take it off. Next up: First Christmas on the lifestyle change.
Good luck, you are doing great -
I did the glass of red wine or 2 for a while & then discovered that this retards weight loss. At least for me this was a fact. Resumation of 1 glass [4 oz.] per evening caused plateauing at whatever weight level I had achieved. My solution: no alcohol until goal reached & then test to see if it causes gain.
Arshan,
I refer you to my Gringojay post 6 Dec.(below)& referenced alcohol for you.
Diets don’t work. The Taubes approach has to become a lifestyle change or longterm weight loss won’t be achieved.
I spent most of my life wondering why I can’t eat like other people do, why I could gain five pounds like falling off a log, still remaining hungry, when others who appeared to eat as much as I do or more could maintain so easily.
Taubes showed me that it’s because I can’t eat like others. If I do, I get fatter. He solved the mystery, for me at least: my body cannot handle carbs. That’s going to be no different whether I’m at 240, or 200, or 160 (my goal). It doesn’t do any good to complain that it’s harder for me. It is harder. But I still have to avoid the things that make it harder yet.
Just this little bit of knowledge is amazingly liberating.
And it requires putting “cheating” in its proper context. Since there is no diet, there is no cheating. It’s what we call “living”. My favorite “cheat” is ice cream. I know I can’t eat ice cream every day. Or even every month. But when I cheat, I cheat big. But you can’t simply announce to yourself that you’ll never, ever, have one of your favorite things in life ever again. It’s life, after all, and we have to make sure it’s worth living.
And there are still disappointments. Went to a Chinese buffet yesterday and gained four pounds. I know I can’t do that every day and continue to succeed. But I also know that the four-pound gain is an illusion that will get corrected over the next day or two.
And it requires putting “cheating” in its proper context. Since there is no diet, there is no cheating. It’s what we call “living”. My favorite “cheat” is ice cream. I know I can’t eat ice cream every day. Or even every month. But when I cheat, I cheat big. But you can’t simply announce to yourself that you’ll never, ever, have one of your favorite things in life ever again. It’s life, after all, and we have to make sure it’s worth living.
Wow, there’s another quote of the day.
In many cases, this is true for me, but unfortunately it won’t work with Coca-Cola. I very much have an “addictive personality” and Coke is where it shows up. I have quit many times, only to cheat once and fall immediately (and painfully) off the wagon. I can’t simply have just one. It quickly spirals completely out of control.
I plead no contest to the charge of having a weak will around that subject. Coke became the go-to comfort food in times of stress. Of which there are many. The problem became all the damage consuming such large quantities did to my body.
I finally, three months ago, decided to go cold turkey for good. I have realized, over the last couple of weeks, that I am no longer … obsessed with it anymore. In fact, I realized yesterday morning that I had not had a single thought about Coke since sometime over the weekend.
That’s a pretty big deal, as I’ve never been in that space before.
But I’m also clear that it still pops up, and my reaction is quite Pavlovian. So I’m sticking to the commitment I made.
The results are showing, too. I’ve lost 12 pounds since
Union SubservienceLabor Day weekend, and actually can feel the difference in my body. I don’t have nearly the caffeine shakes that I used to; the acid reflux, while still occurring, is significantly reduced; and the muscle fatigue has all but disappeared.Now, I just need to get through my back issues, and then I can jump into an exercise routine. I had a cortisone injection a month ago, and have another round coming tomorrow. If I can get the disc swelling to reduce in my lower back, then I’ll be able to exercise without risking re-injury and/or massive spasms.
Charlie, I’ve definitely been tracking your progress, and am absolutely going to employ some of the techniques you’ve been discussing. You have been, as many others have indicated, a great inspiration. While I don’t have nearly the ground to take that you do, even 15 more pounds for me would make an enormous difference in my life. I’m going to make it happen.
I understand addiction fairly well from my personal experience, so I feel for your problem.
I drink Diet Coke and Diet Rite by the caseload. The Atkins folks say it’s bad, but I keep doing it and have still lost a lot of weight.
I consider my entire relationship with carbs as addictive in nature. Still, so far I have been able to have the occasional “cheat” and not backslide. Maybe you’re better off not doing that, I can’t say. That is within the realm, I think, of psychology, not physiology. But I do think there is a physical component of a lot of carb addiction — the addiction to the spikes in blood sugar.
For a scientific explanation for why high intensity conditioning burns more fat than “cardio”, see the video at the link. Skip to 7:00 if you don’t have time to see the whole thing.
http://community.crossfit.com/video/metabolic-analysis-crossfits-elite-part-2
i use a variation on this as a “kick my metabolism in the butt” first-thing-in-the-morning workout.
The idea: hit every major muscle group, Tabata-style (20 seconds on/10 off) over 5 minutes. Sometimes I’ll extend for block of 5 additional minutes to 10 (rarely 20), if I know this will be the only workout of the day.
1) Body weight squat
2) Push-ups
3) “bicycles” or other core exercise that can be repeated rapidly
4) Kettle bell swings
5) Pull-ups (If you can’t do 20 seconds of uninterrupted pull-ups, then use a chair for rapid assited reps.
Repeat
all exercises are done at maximum intensity (or what passes for maximum intensity at that hour)
There. Five minutes and you’ve got an upper body push and pull, a lower body push and pull, abs, and back. You’ll hit the day with your entire body running at a higher metabolic level.
The first 30-40 pounds are the easiest, Charlie. And the quickest.
People will try to poo-poo the rapid progress that comes in the beginning by saying “Yeah, but that’s all just water.” Right, but you have to get rid of the excess water first before you can dig down to the more substantive pounds that come off afterward. And the reason you’re losing this water is because it’s bonded to excess glycogen in your system.
Back when I was in the middle of losing 95 pounds, I would actually welcome a plateau. Keeping my weight stable for a couple weeks would give me a chance to catch up on buying new clothes!
Keep up the good work!! Have you reached the point where you feel guilty if you don’t exercise? I do HIIT 3-4 times a week with a 2 min/20 sec routine on 19 stations and it leaves me like jello but I lost 50 in 24 weeks with low carb hi lean protein. There was some plateauing but 3 weeks was the longest. All my numbers except BP look great. Still on a small does of BP medicine.
Not guilty enough. I’ve been slack on the exercise since Thanksgiving. I can definitely tell, and I need the weights routine.
watch out for the trap of mistaking weight loss for fat loss. Just because your weight is not going down does not mean you are not losing fat, particularly on a high protein diet, it is possible to gain muscle while you lose fat.
You are still in the induction phase even though it doesn’t seem like it. Some people with a very stubborn metabolic syndrome take much longer to get into and stay in ketosis. It is also a tell that after the weight loss and during re-intro of higher level of carbs, extreme caution is needed for that same reason. Once the dramatic level of weight loss starts, the down elevator goes so fast that even you will wonder if there’s some disease process at work instead of your own metabolic machinery. Best of luck and keep on keepin’ on.
Here is a counterexample. In 6 months I lost 40 pounds, going from 205 -> 165. I’m 6’3, and had weighed between 205-235 for 10 years. I’m currently about 13% bodyfat.
I never exercised, and I only counted calories to get there. I eat crappy fast food, and I only avoid carbs to the degree that they don’t make me feel as full as the alternatives.
Gary Taubes is full of crap imo (I think Lyle McDonald’s analysis of Taubes was perfect — he relies on a single study which has since been refuted).
You are morbidly obese. Count calories religiously, and you will lose weight — quickly. I used an app on my phone to keep me below 1500 calories/day. Yes I was hungry sometimes. I dealt with it. You are too fat to have plateaus. You should be peeling off 2-3 pounds a week with ease. Plateaus will come much much later when you aren’t obese. We can discuss those when you get there.
I think Lyle McDonald’s analysis of Taubes was perfect — he relies on a single study which has since been refuted.
Nonsense. GCBC has 139 pages of citations.
And no, I’m not morbidly obese. Close, God knows, but not quite.
Oh, and in the mean time, look back a couple of posts — I’m losing weight rather faster than calorie deficit will account for, AND if it’s all water I’ve lost 3 GALLONS of water.
Taubes does not rely on a single study, not even close.
One of these days, it might do me good to read a decent critique of Taubes that was an honest effort and done in good faith.
Until then, I will treat the loss of forty pounds in nine months that the Taubes approach has earned me as real and, best of all, helpful.
I should add that I don’t think Taubes ever said portion control doesn’t work for some people. Weight Watchers brags, what, about a 20% long-term success rate? In other words, an 80% failure rate? I think it’s very good compared to the competition, don’t get me wrong, but that’s still a lot of people for whom portion control doesn’t work.
> Here is a counterexample. In 6 months I lost 40 pounds, going from 205 -> 165. I’m 6’3, and had weighed between 205-235 for 10 years. I’m currently about 13% bodyfat.
Also, you don’t say what your age is. As we age, we are less well able to handle carbs. I was able to control my weight for many years through portion control. Lost 80 pounds before my freshman year of college, kept it off until my mid-forties, white-knuckling it the whole way. It works for my wife even today — she lost sixty pounds with Weight Watchers and has kept it off for three years.
But I’m 58 now and portion control no longer works for me. I just got so the sensation of starvation was too much for me to handle. Whatever else the Taubes approach does or does not, it removes hunger as a variable. If you’re hungry using the Taubes/Atkins approach, it’s your own fault.
The whole claim that there’s some absolute statement that portion control doesn’t work is basically a straw man anyway. Of course portion control “works” — look at anyone coming out of a North Vietnamese prison (you youngsters can look it up) and you’ll see the rather notable effects of extreme portion control. The problem is that portion control doesn’t work as well as it’s supposed to.
First of all, very few people can maintain it long-term: Weight Watchers claims 20 percent, but medical statistics make it more like 5 percent, at least for people who start out obese.
Second, and I think more importantly, portion control doesn’t work as well as it’s supposed to: I’ve had the experience on many attempts of getting down to 1200-1400 kcal/day and having the weight loss just stop. For extended periods. At least in this plateau, I was still eating a little over 2000 kcal/day on average, and wasn’t hungry.
Now, if the thermodynamic model were really effective, there’s no way that I could live on 1200 kcal/day and have my weight loss stop: my total energy expenditure is more in the neighborhood of 3500 kcal/day. There’s no doubt that in a fast or a situation of real deprivation, living on a few hundred kcal/day, anyone would lose weight dramatically. But there’s a reason that’s considered a war crime.
There’s more to it than that. “B” and others brag about being skinny because they equate skinny with healthy, or even fit, which is false.
Being skinny and weak is not much healthier than being fat and weak.
In fact, a person who is fat and strong (an Olympic weightlifter, for example) is undoubtedly fitter, and likely healthier, than a skinny, weak person like “B”.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18595904
And it’s impossible for a 6’3″ man to maintain a healthy level of fitness on 1500 calories a day.
Well, I have no idea if I’m healthy now or not. I know that had sleep apnea, and frustration with that is what motivated me to actually try and diet (and my apnea is gone). I’m 36, and never had tried to diet before. I had actually just recently gone from 235 down to 205 (basically lost 70 lbs in 13 months), but I just did that by switching to eating sensibly.
My only exercise is walking the dog every day and mountain biking on occasional weekends. I am by no means a muscle man, and never really have been. On the other hand I can easily hang two handed from a basketball rim, and ability I had lost at 230 pounds.
Are those calorie levels low? Yes. But my strength never really seemed to diminish.
As for Lyle’s commentary, it boils down to this. Taubes begins with a refuted study from the 80′s that shows that calories don’t correlate with weight. Its been refuted in multiple ways. Calories are the most stronly thing correlated with weight. His other arguments are largely correct, but calories => weight. A bunch of statisticians with no biological training have found the same thing. Calories, in the long term, determine weight.
I am glad you are losing weight, but you are not plateauing. Trust me that happens much later and you will feel it when your metabolism shuts down. There are a variety ways of defeating it (re-feeding, etc). But the easiest and simplest is to simply stay the course. Keep counting calories and your body will re-regulate. I now eat about 2K calories a day. And that seems to work for me. And I cheat whenever I feel like it, because I know that I can easily get back on track. By counting calories.
I want to add 2 things.
One, I strongly believe in weighing every single day (at the same time of day on a decent scale). You have to recognize that these weights will be affected by hydration (weigh after you pee so you can see your urine color), so there will be a fluctuation (weighing before and after sleeping will show you how much you dehydrate over night — I used a CPAP which further exacerbates the hydration challenges).
Two, you cannot burn fat and gain muscle at the same time unless you are taking hormones (and even then its difficult). Body fat cannot be converted into muscle, and your body will not build muscle unless you are at a calorie surplus. I wish it weren’t true. But anytime anyone tells you they did this ask this simple question: where were your calories in relation to your maintenance amount? There is no logical answer that leads to losing fat and gaining muscle simultaneously. You can gain strength (which can be due to better ability to recruit the muscles by the nervous system — in fact that’s where most beginner strength gains come from), but you can’t gain muscle at a calorie deficit.
“I have no idea if I’m healthy now or not.”
Being weak is neither fit nor healthy.
“My only exercise is walking the dog every day and mountain biking on occasional weekends.”
In other words, your level of physical activity is pathetically low. Why would anyone want to limit themselves so?
“But my strength never really seemed to diminish.”
1. How would you know if you’ve never tested yourself?
2. If you were weak to begin with, what good does it do you to remain weak?
“you cannot burn fat and gain muscle at the same time unless you are taking hormones”
Bull crap. People do it all the time and prove it, not only by lifting heavier, but with body fat tests.
“you can’t gain muscle at a calorie deficit.”
THAT is true. Which is why it’s counterproductive for a 6’3″ man to limit himself to 1500 calories a day.
Charlie,
Looking at your workout, I wouldn’t be surprised if you are gaining weight by building muscle, so you are probably doing much better than what the scale is telling you.
Dude,get rid of those leg presses and do squats. Squats and deadlifts will burn calories (and build functional strength). You can then eliminate the pull downs and the curls which are a waste of time for your stated goals.
I can do 500 pound leg presses without a spot, and I *like* doing pulldowns and curls.
I am going to partially agree with Esteban – ditch the leg presses and move to squats. I bought Starting Strength based on Glenn’s recommendation (though I have been lifting for 20 years) and his explanation of the benefits of squats vs. leg presses is excellent. Basically, you get way more out of doing proper squats because you get your entire body into alignment and you use a bunch more muscles in concert with each other, which is much more important than mere weight pushed. It’s also a lot harder.
Sorry, I guess I wasn’t clear: I don’t argue that squats aren’t better, I just don’t need to find people my size to spot me when I use a leg press machine. Purely a matter of convenience.
Bless you for your courage to blog about your weight struggles. Your blog is one of the blogs I check frequently. I went from 265-270 lbs from 2005 to present., with the first 35 lbs by just starvation and exercise. This allowed me the possibility to receive a kidney transplant, which I did in May 2011 when a dead donor and I happened to have the same blood type and a zero mismatch on the six key blood markers. These are the same odds of winning the lottery. The next 45 lbs have come from a well functioning new kidney and following the low carb no grain no sugar lifestyle. I applaud your determination. I sympathize with the problem of plateau and currently struggle with the same problem. If we both persevere, we will overcome. Best regards.
The best thing you could do is forget the scale for a few weeks. First of all, your weight fluctuates 4-7 pounds a day, so these daily snapshots and short term tends are all inconclusive. Second, when you are ripping up your muscles with training, the body floods them with water to repair them, and this can easily throw off your weight loss trajectory, again especially over the short term. Finally, after years of neglect, your body is going through a lot of changes. Yes, you will drop a lot of weight early… But after 12-13 weeks is when our metabolism will finally start to rev up and then is when the weight will really melt off. Most people who do P90X, another low-card, high intensity, 13-week program see a majority of their results in the last 20 days. Hang in there and stay off the scale. It is too emotionally draining. Wait four weeks, then check. You will be happier and more motivated.
Plateaus:
High protein increases gluco-neo-genesis (make own glucose) & increases insulin resistance. A toggle up/down of 1-2 Kg. is due to unused self-made glucose stored as glycogen in liver/muscles due to a degree of insulin resistance. Less mobile weight is more of one’s own glucose getting formatted into adipose tissue from relative insulin resistance. Fish is the least insulin resistance provoking animal protein & worth a try shifting to if stuck on plateau .
High protein in conjunction with high fat intake, on the other hand, does not increase insulin resistance. People on low-carb may be differently proportioning their dietary protein & fat intake in way that interacts with their individual genetic/epigenetic insulin sensitivity (resistance).
If supplementing with whey (or liquid dairy/yogurt with it’s whey)you should consider that whey spikes human insulin & insulin is anabolic (builds up). However, a diet instigated background operational insulin resistance compounded by a regular dosed insulin spike may be directing low-carb dieters own internally made glucose into adipose tissue mass.
High fat intake increases insulin resistance catalyst by indirectly elevating internal circulating ceramide (a naturally functional form of fat molecule). Ceramide is made from palmitic acid (palmitate)& humans make their own palmitate. Simplifying the dynamics/genetics, excessive palmitate ingested from diet when added to one’s internal palmitate then the excessive ceramide made can facilitate insulin resistance. Animal flesh fat is high in palmitate so worth a try down shifting from that source of protein if plateaued.
What’s in your “wallet”?
High fat meals let some gut bacterias’ cell wall component, lipo-poly-saccharide (LPS), come in with absorbed dietary fat. We each have distinct gut bacteria & for most of us over 1 gram of shed LPS in the gut. A big intake (individual’s vary) of alcohol & strenuous exercise (among other things) lets even more LPS cross inside.
Fat, once passed inside, circulates in a form within the different VLDL phases of cholesterol (empty stomach, or fasting VLDL & then also the after meal, or post-prandial VLDL have nuanced responses to what follows). VLDL (very low density lipo-protein)has the individual’s genetic variant of functional protein Apo-E.
Apo-E is the commonest key factor (other genetic quirks exist) why some lose weight differently to eating high fat. We get 2 copies of Apo-E & 3 main variations exist (Apo-E2, Apo-E3 & Apo-E4); this give us 6 genetic Apo-E permutation of VLDL reactions as we circulate “fat” (lipid). Basically, those with any Apo-E4 get the worst luck & a dual Apo-E4 genetics make high fat diets usually less than ideal.
Natural processing of recent “fat” lipid load involved progressively breaking apart (lypo-lysis) the VLDL lipid. If you don’t have Apo-E4 variant(s) then the configuration of some byproducts of that lypo-lysis are going to protect one from a pro-inflammatory reaction that the internalized LPS can cause you inside. If you have the common & ideal Apo-E3 then VLDL lypo-lysis byproduct(s)neutralizes internalized rogue LPS from causing negative metabolic effects (inflammation).
Obesity has potential inflammation processes & LPS triggers the innate immunity reaction. Immune receptors (toll-like receptor, TLR) respond to small patterns that aren’t neutralized on a LPS molecule’s surface. Obese adipose tissue have crust like crowns of macrophage immune cells & low grade inflammation interfers with adipose cell signaling.
Apo-E4 genes doesn’t let an immune cell give up relatively enough cholesterol from that immune cell’s external membrane lipids (unlike Apo-E3, & even Apo-E2, that do give up enough), so a lot more cell signalling can go on due ” to cholesterol staging (“raft”) domains in that membrane . Then the ceramide molecular version of “fat” that carries the un-desireable signal into play; it is not ceramide fat as some slather of bad, insidious “gunk” clogging up the works.
This is the dynamic of high fat diet induced insulin resistance as a consequence of inflammation. This immunological component is why many can not keep losing weight while others do. And likewise, why only a fraction of obese individuals go on to develop insulin resistance/adult diabetes. Olive oil, it is worth mentioning, has the ability to itself down-regulate most of the adverse affect of LPS & be better source of high fat intake for genetic Apo-E4 people trying to lose weight (without plateauing so much due to high fat diet related insulin resistance) when going low-carb.
High saturated fat dietary intake, by itself as a molecule, does not cause a LPS reaction with human immune Toll-like receptor – so is not itself pro-inflammatory & presaging insulin resistance. But, those with Apo-E4 will break apart (lypo-lysis) their dietary saturated fat instigated VLDL without giving off the byproducts that would naturally neutralize any pro-inflammatory LPS that snuck in when ate all that saturated fat. (Experiments on mammals with no Toll-like 4 receptors = no inflammation provoked insulin resistance when fed high fat diet.)