Hi Everyone. I just had another Monday morning weigh in and I’m feeling so down. The scale only moved down 0,1kg this week. I have about 27kgs to lose in total. I have been doing IF for 7 weeks and I’ve only lost 2kgs so far. I am drinking only water during my fasting period, very low carb- I’ve even cut out high carb vegetables like potatoes. I track everything I eat to the point where it’s starting to feel a little obsessive. I only have 2 meals in my eating window. I do 18:6 but some days push to 20hrs. I am starting to wonder if this is maybe just not for me which is very sad because I like the lifestyle and has been the easiest for me to follow. I just feel like giving up.
Have you measured yourself yet? Waist, bust, thighs, shins, upper arms?? Non scale victories will be there, the IF will have been eating away at that nasty fat around your organs, so you might nor be losing weight but you will be losing fat! Keep doing what you are doing,it will happen.
Where are you in your cycle? This makes a HUGE difference for me, a week prior to my cycle no matter how strictly I follow a diet (try to be lenient in fear of obsessiveness too) I’ll have a stubborn +3/4lbs.
You don’t have calories listed. Every week you don’t see movement you like I would decrease your daily budget 50 calories. ( with a floor of 1200 calories).
If you are maintaining at 1600, drop to 1550. Then the next week if the scale doesn’t budge go to 1500.
I spent months at a budget that was just too high. Losing happily at 1250 now.
I think a lot of us struggled at first and I’ve been so grateful for this sub. Don’t give up!!!
I don’t know if this applies to you, but I had similar experiences for the first few months trying it. I had to go to all-black coffee and hydrate with water the entire first half of the day, and add cardio before I started seeing results. I agree with others who asked about calories. I try to stay under 1500 and eat on a 16:8, 18:6, or 20:4 window (can’t keep it consistent due to life interruptions). But I’ve been having some results with that.
Another thing I had to do was forget the scale 90% of the time– I would put on water weight and keep it on just because of the scale stress. I got frustrated too for a while, I didn’t get how all these folks were getting results but for me even something as tiny as a few calories in milk in the morning was enough to throw off the results. Because I’m built very densely and muscular it’s hard to lose actual weight because if I work out at all it ends up being equal exchange and I wasn’t losing ANY weight for the first several months until I started cardio instead. The scale only made me fatter quite literally. So I’m focusing on inches instead with good results.
I’ve had faster results with one meal a day but it’s hard to do that because my spouse has an eating problem and needs encouragement/meals with someone… but if one meal a day works for you I think it had better results for me. I struggled with cardio at first because I have plantar fasciitis but spouse got beatsaber for the VR and we’ve been doing that with great results.
Don’t give up!!
You can do it. If it’s been 7 weeks with minimal weight loss, have you considered cardio?
For some folks keto is a good answer? For others, maybe not. Don’t know if you’ve tried it!
Do you have food sensitivities that might be contributing to it? I have a wheat and corn sensitivity that will make my skin retain water and I didn’t know about it because it was quite mild. Eating far less of any grains makes me slim down quite a bit.
Caffeine really helps me. I stay under 1200 calories and make sure I drink some strong tea. I don’t care for black coffee so tea helps. I agree with your cycle screwing things up. Fluid retention is super common. Also, drink water when you are thirsty, the old drink tons of water thing is absolutely uncalled for. Read up on over hydration, it can cause all kinds of weird problems. Swelling and weight being 2 of them.
Please give your body a break! I took a 1 week cheat and at the end of the week my weight didn’t budge, then the following day when I hopped back on my cycle I had cut pounds literally, and still cutting pounds days later. Your body gets in trends and it becomes the norm, your body adjusts and won’t cut!
Are you in a calorie deficit every day? Could you be forgetting to track oil, butter etc? Are you weighing everything? If you are in a calorie deficit eventually your weight will go down if you stick with it
I seem to only be able to loose weight if I’m fasting for 36+hours (I usually end up around 42hrs).
Weight wouldn’t drop with even 24hrs.
Megan Ramos (works with Jason Fung) mentioned on a podcast that this isn’t unusual for women.