I feel a bit like I’m going crazy and maybe it’s just weight fluctuations messing with me but it’s been very frustrating.
I’ve noticed that on full fasting days, I lose 2lbs per day, though I know it’s not all pure fat. However, once I start eating, I gain weight consistently, even if it’s only a couple days in a row. It’s only when I go back to consecutive long fasts that I lose that weight.
I weighed 212.4 on Monday and ate late that night. The next morning I weighed 215.6 and this morning weighed 216. I haven’t been able to fast and have been eating more these past three days bc my best friend is in town and I’ve been going out to eat with her and friends, but I’m not gorging myself each meal, not snacking a ton and I exercised all three days burning 450 to 800cals. I can’t possibly be exceeding my maintenance calorie limit, can I?
I would think if it were just water weight it wouldn’t continue to increase. My weight fluctuations are always increases, it does not go down at all unless I fast for a full day. Last week I hit a low of 210lbs, and gained 2lbs over the weekend which makes sense since I ate more often and water/waste weight. The jump from 212 to 215 and the steady increase from there confuses me. There’s no way I’ve gained 6lbs since then, right? It just baffles me that I’m not losing nor maintaining, just completely gaining unless I don’t eat at all. Earlier this month my weight jumped from 214 to 219 in a day, and it took days of consecutive fasting with exercise to bring it back down. I don’t see any downward trends unless I do that.
Any tips? I feel like I’m at my wits ends and with my SW being 221, going all the way up to 219 at times makes my progress feel minimal and temporary, and I already feel discouraged since it’s taken me nearly 4 months to lose 10lbs.
one thing to consider is what you eat. if you’re eating carbohydrates in the form of pastas/noodles or meals/snacks with salt, these can cause you to retain water up to 5-7lbs especially if you’ve done an extended fast. Water retention can easily cause a 3-7lb difference between weighings.
I did a little experiment a few years ago. I’m a runner and often run >8hrs fasted. I did three trials to verify this over the course of 6 months and the outcome was the same each time.
I ran three consecutive long runs over a weekend starting on friday, e.g 6mi on Friday, 11mi on Saturday and 11mi on Sunday. Long runs tend to suppress my appetite so i didn’t fuel much in between the runs, something on the order of 500-1000 calories total for the weekend. my weight would generally decrease 5-6lbs over the weekend. I then attempted runs on the following Monday and Tuesday and each time experienced the bonk within 2mi of the runs (bonk=completely depleted liver glycogen stores) to such a degree i had to stop running at 2mi. I then would typically experience a few days of completely out of control eating where i would find myself eating heavy amount of simple carbs. My weight would almost instantaneously increase 7lbs. After researching this phenomenon, I learned that when your body replaces its glycogen stores in the liver it also stores H2O along with it. Typically my weight would stabilize by the end of the following week.
So, all this to say that food plays a significant role in water retention and that you can easily see a 7lb swing day to day strictly from this. I weigh myself everyday and use the overall trend to adjust my caloric intake to maintain my weight (e.g if my weight is trending up, then i restrict my intake a little for a few days to reverse the trend and do the opposite if its trending down).
I fell into IF by accident back in 2019 before I became aware of the health benefits mainly in observance of lent (catholic) then played with extended fasts off and on as I saw these as a form of mental discipline (a game to challenge myself if you will). I shed quite a bit of weight (>20lbs) doing this which was intended as I had a medical appointment earlier in 2019 in which I popped an elevated fasted blood glucose which put me in the territory of “prediabetes”. This was not overly surprising if I’m being honest since I have a genetic predisposition for type 2 from my maternal side (age related) and I had stopped exercising regularly at the time due to work and family obligations along with a diet that included almost constant snacking, too much alcohol and almost no vegetables or fruits. The blood work up was in fact my wake up call.
Today, I intermittent fast most days, usually 16:8 or longer and do an extended fasts ~1xmonth (mostly for the mental and gut reset and typically of the 96hr variety). I run almost daily, typically fasted no matter when I run (usually first thing in morning but on weekends I may not run until afternoon) and when I do eat, I focus on high quality foods, mostly vegetables and fruits as my main course with protein (chicken, fish) included more as a side dish. I periodically track calories for a week at a time throughout the year via an app just to calibrate my visual cues since I am a stress eater (meaning I tend to grab food when I’m feeling stressed). I cut out simple carbs like breads and pastas, and I avoid snacking.
I’m not perfect but my diet is significantly improved since 2019. My BG numbers are under control and normal (picked up a CGM earlier this year after I began to see increases in my fasted baseline after a bout of covid last june which have subsequently returned to normal, 6mos later). I’m at my healthiest even though i’ve been a life long athlete - runner/cyclist. And the most important thing I’ve learned these last 4 years is that the saying that “weight loss starts in the kitchen” is 100% accurate. Even though I’ve been a high mileage runner throughout my life while weighing about 180lbs (think skinny fat as I’m 6’ but smaller framed); I was able to lose the extra weight without any exercise by fixing my diet.
Ok….looking back I see that I labored on here. My apologies for such a long post…..hopefully there’s something here for you learn from or use…best of luck.
I weigh myself monthly… And I’m thrilled to lose 2 pounds. Sometimes I lose more. I’m down 35 pounds since July of 22. Just stay the course and stop weighing yourself constantly.
I’m 20:4 by the way. With very few non-20:4 days. I worked up to that. No processed sugary foods consumption. Maybe 2 glasses of wine a month. Zero eating after 4 or5pm until past noon the next day. Just change a few things and be patient and stop the weighing. You didn’t get to your highest weight overnight. It may take years to get to healthy weight.
I’m exactly the same. The scale only really decreases when I do extended fasts of 72-96h but stays pretty stagnant (if not, slightly fluctuates) if I stick to OMADs or 48h.
On the plus side, my clothes still fit the same so that gives me some comfort knowing I’m still on track. But yeah, it’s pretty discouraging knowing I have to fight even harder compared to others whose weight melts off just from doing OMADs.
I just have to keep reminding myself that weight loss is not linear, but it’s much easier said than done.
All those day to day fluctuations are water weight. If you insist on weighing yourself everyday, put it down in an app or a spreadsheet and see what your average weight is over the last 7/15/30 days compared to the 7/15/30 days before that. You should see steady progress then.
It’s completely possible and normal to gain or lose 5 or 6lb of water weight, especially when eating habits change frequently!
I’ll give you an extreme example of water weight - my last pregnancy. I had a lot of swelling during my pregnancy but I didn’t fully understand just how much until I watched it come off. After I had my baby, I watched the scale go down a pound a day for two weeks. I was literally carrying around 15lbs of fluid. My swelling went down gradually throughout the two weeks, but the last 5lb of that was much more subtle. I didn’t look very puffy anymore, but it kept coming off.
Considering our bodies are 60% water (give or take), it’s not hard to fluctuate by what… 3%? Easy peasy 🙃
Don’t stress the daily weigh ins if you’re body is prone to doing that! Look at the weekly/monthly progress. What I do is track every new low as my progress and mostly ignore the rapid gains. They’re almost always just water and/or digestive fluctuations. You could be exceeding your maintenance, but it’s unlikely you’re exceeding it enough to truly gain a pound or more per day. The only time I would pay attention to those fluctuations is if you notice that the gains are when you feel gross or sluggish. Maybe from foods that don’t agree with you, and you can learn what makes you feel your best 🙂
And hey, 10lb is 10lb! That’s not nothing, try packing around a 10lb dog or baby all day long. 😂 It’s surprisingly hard haha. But since you want to progress faster, you’ll probably want to make changes somewhere. But when you do, give it a month to see what happens. Don’t get discouraged if you still have these fluctuations. It’s probably just how your body works. Just wait for those new lows when they pop up 🙂