33 year old male. 6’6” tall and I weight 325lbs as of right now. I have high blood pressure that’s controlled well with meds (Lisinopril HCTZ, Metoprolol ER). I only eat between 11am-7pm daily and tend to do low carb. I track my food with MyFitnessPal and am always in a caloric deficit. I gave up soda and sweet tea completely back in March of this year and didn’t see much of any change. I was drinking anywhere between 3-5 Cokes or sweet teas a day every single day. I rarely drink anything other than water now honestly. If I do it’s a Body Armor Lyte or Gatorade Zero. I don’t smoke. I don’t do any drugs. I workout 3-5 days a week depending on my hectic schedule. I walk 5-10 miles a day every day at work. 3 weeks ago I had a medical issue (Menieres Disease - Vertigo). I was given a Decadron shot (Steroid) and then given a high dose steroid pack for 2 weeks. It was causing my blood sugar to run a little high, (not diabetic levels) but higher than normal but I continued taking them. In those two weeks, I ate DOUBLE or even triple what I normally do, fast food, candy, just straight trash junk food because I could NOT cure my hunger. I couldn’t fast because I would go to bed starving and wake up starving. I dropped 25lbs in those two weeks. Every single day I checked the scale I was losing weight. My clothes were literally falling off of me. Make it make sense 😔 I have always gained weight on Prednisone yet this was the complete opposite affect. My doctor has not been much help through this whole process. I have since went back to fasting and eating normally since being off of the steroids and the weight is coming back on.
Change your fasting window - right now you are starting and ending your day with food with a break in the middle - giving you a continuous insulin stream of food processing in your gut, most people generally pick one end of the day to eat when doing a fasting window - or to simplify the fasting process look into OMAD or ADF
I was in a situation similar to you. Started IF and dropped 15lbs immediately and then it stopped. I counted calories and did everything I could think of and weight still stayed on. Then I changed from a 12-8pm eating window to a 7a-3p window. Ended up losing another 40lbs after making this change.
I would seriously consider getting a second opinion and seeing another doctor.
The extreme hunger and dropping 25 lbs in 2 weeks is not a good sign. You need to get your blood sugar levels checked asap. Check out glucose goddess on Instagram. I suspect your glucose levels are going through major spikes and crashes.
Have you measured your waist? If you don’t see a scale difference, you might have a measurement difference. Often if you’re working out, you’ll be gaining muscle, so your body might look different, but your scale won’t know.
How do you know you are in a caloric deficit?
Many people have slower metabolisms than “calculated rates”, mine measures 550 cal a day below estimate, with no obvious reason for why other than genetics / epi-genetics. Similarly many “active” calorie measurements over-estimate the caloric effect. You can get your RMR tested as a starting place (although if you track your weight, activity and what you eat over a couple months you can get a decent approximation).
Might be worth checking your thyroid and cortisol levels as well. Messed up thyroid levels can definitely keep you from losing weight.
Do you have any metabolic syndrome‘s? If so, you may need a different process to lose weight. If weight loss is your only goal, look into Saxenda and Ozempic.. There are others but these are the big two.Best of luck!
Are you eating your exercise calories? If so, stop. No matter how you’re tracking exercise it’s always going to over estimate your calories burned.
I agree with everyone who said to cut down your eating window. I do mostly 20:4 (under 100g carbs/day)and some 48 hr water fasts. I have a very slow metabolism due to a lifetime of dieting and fasting is the only thing that helps me lose weight.
Side effects of prednisone last for a long while. Give it a minute.
But still see an endocrinologist to be sure. Terrible hunger/fluid cravings can be a sign of a disorder (like diabetes)–especially given your history of indulging in high sugar drinks.
So, you dropped 25 lbs in two weeks and went off the meds last week?
Give it time! You probably lost a lot of water weight or freaked your body out. You were running off sugar for a while, so your body needs to get back into fat burning mode.
Meanwhile, ditch the artificial sugars. They can cause insulin spikes and really have no nutritional value, so why ingest them?
Give yourself a couple weeks to stabilize and you should be fine. If not, talk to your doctor.
For me, it’s one meal a day that works. I have coffee and dinner.
I would think though that fat is coming off and being replaced with muscle. That’s why a before photo is important. Go another month and go check up with your doctor. Do blood work and see if any of your levels have improved.
I’m sure somewhere within all that you can find motivation to continue.
I would recommend Keto if you’re Fasting the two go hand in hand very well.
I suggested this to my family member and she has done very well. She lost weight and essentially the diabetes she had went into remission and blood pressure went back to normal.
Go listen to Dr Jason fung on you tube. His book is the obesity code. He explains fasting well. It doesn’t work if your having drinks in between meals. So your doing 16/ 8 fasting for 16 hours. That’s a start, up it to 18/6 and when that feels easy go to 20/4. During your eating window eat good food and stop when your full. During your fasting window water, plain coffee or plain tea. Your body has to heal. You may lose inches before weight. The fat in your liver has to go first. Also delay don’t deny by gin Steven’s is another good book. Omad is one meal a day. So you might break your fast with some eggs, or a salad, have your meal. Close your window.Good luck
This post right here.
Since before summer I counted posts of this type that mentioned calorie counting in some form, vs. the ones that did not. Id say 80% or more mentions counting calories. Is this representative of the people here? Because if not, then it is tempting to think that the counting is somehow tied to these cases.
I ate a very meal size restricted lowcarb before IF, and it seemed to me that the large meals on IF were a big part of why IF worked a lot better than what I had been doing previously.
Just some observations. If something works for you, dont change it, obviously.
CICO is a certainty but it can be really hard to nail down your exact CI and your exact CO.
Try doing a correction day. Maybe two in a row. This is where you eat HALF of the calories you need for maintenance. It’s easier to do as a single meal.
The weight loss in the beginning is water weight – it’s fast, but runs out. It comes back rapidly as well, especially with high salt, which is bad for blood pressure.
When you’re on a lot of medications, all sorts of things can affect your weight loss ability and response. You can either systematically test one thing at a time – which may be hectic, since you’ve gotten contrary results multiple times – or you can press on either way.
Because regardless your circumstances, you will always lose weight eventually, in a caloric deficit. In that you cannot invent energy from nowhere and live off it. You just need to keep adjusting your intake until you get results again.
Lower your daily calories, once a week or so by about a hundred calories, until you’re losing weight again.
I was you. Seven years ago. I gave up all the heroin, I had to. I was just telling my wife, if I ate any of that crap, I would be right back trapped again. For me, I had to kill the hunger & cravings. In the process I have been restoring my health. Hormones, blood glucose, insulin, blood markers across the board, all stable. Also my moods, energy, sleep everything is better. My ability to burn fat shut off entirely at the worst. I am still getting over the insulin resistance. Sorry, wrong sub but I had to chime in. By the way, if you are metabolically sick enough, calorie deficit becomes hell to pull off.
Things that can prevent weight loss or even cause weight gain:
“My doctor has not been much help…” Understatement of the month. You just haven’t found the key yet, keep searching until you do and don’t give up! I had vertigo/menieres and dr.s were no help. I took meds they gave once, and it was much worse than vertigo! I learned to anticipate the attacks, and either keep still for awhile or take a half dose of benadryl. For some reason, that stopped attacks in their tracks for me. Take charge of your own health and learn what works for you!!
This book was very helpful to me re: weight loss and health changes. The doc who wrote it runs a metabolic health clinic at Duke. It is simple, easy to follow and also covers maintenance. I combined it with IF.
https://www.amazon.com/End-Your-Carb-Confusion-Customize/dp/1628604298
Don’t only go by the scale , as others have said you may be gaining muscle also and losing fat at the same time. (Especially If you are close to maintenance calories) Take measurements also if you can.
I find that’s it’s a series of plateaus for me.I dropped from 282 to 245 over two years. With just a few weeks of IF when I was persistent.The body gets used to the new lower weight and maintains it.I do typically 3 days of IF when I can, gradually building up.I used to eat before bed so that I can get to sleep.
Now I am starting again CW 245 GW 188Figuring IF water fast 6 days a week for 1-3 months, trying 3 days than break than 3 days again.
I keep telling myself most food taste bad just to stop the eating urge only eat good food not crap