Mechanism for not losing weight

[Alchemist]

Hi Robert,

I have been working on losing 15-20 lb. I'm 5'10" 49 and had crept up to a little over 220 lb. I've been on around 1600-1700 kcal for going on 6 weeks. I lift three days a week (stats upon request) and bike 2-3 /week about 45 minutes. Other than that I'm on my feet 80% of the day. For ease, I've been doing a 50g protein shake and banana for breakfast and lunch and then a dinner to hit targets. Fat is <50 protein around 200.

For 5 weeks my weight has not budged at ALL. I can't tell you how horribly frustrating that has been. I'd seriously thought about reaching out to you or others for one on one (which I'd still be open to).

Finally the end of last week I watched the scale start to come down. 216 give or take. Today a little under 215.

My main question is why/how this can be? Is there some body mechanism to resist modest fat loss for over a month? It is like my body is giving me a big FU. "oh, you are going to give me less fuel, well, FU, I'm going to burn even less". Perversely a little extra is like "WHOA, STORE IT NOW" instead of burning it.

As I write this I think, oh, another snowflake syndrome, but damn it. I'm doing all I can think of, pulling every trick out I know and I'm fighting (and fail a bit) for every pound off. I keep thinking I'm missing something obvious.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Also, I really like your heading of this forum area.

[Robert Santana]

Hi Robert,

I have been working on losing 15-20 lb. I'm 5'10" 49 and had crept up to a little over 220 lb. I've been on around 1600-1700 kcal for going on 6 weeks. I lift three days a week (stats upon request) and bike 2-3 /week about 45 minutes. Other than that I'm on my feet 80% of the day. For ease, I've been doing a 50g protein shake and banana for breakfast and lunch and then a dinner to hit targets. Fat is <50 protein around 200.

For 5 weeks my weight has not budged at ALL. I can't tell you how horribly frustrating that has been. I'd seriously thought about reaching out to you or others for one on one (which I'd still be open to).

Finally the end of last week I watched the scale start to come down. 216 give or take. Today a little under 215.

My main question is why/how this can be? Is there some body mechanism to resist modest fat loss for over a month? It is like my body is giving me a big FU. "oh, you are going to give me less fuel, well, FU, I'm going to burn even less". Perversely a little extra is like "WHOA, STORE IT NOW" instead of burning it.

As I write this I think, oh, another snowflake syndrome, but damn it. I'm doing all I can think of, pulling every trick out I know and I'm fighting (and fail a bit) for every pound off. I keep thinking I'm missing something obvious.

Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Also, I really like your heading of this forum area.

Thanks for the kind words! So one of two things is happening. A) you are not measuring everything properly or B) You need fewer calories. B is always obvious and while your calories seem low, humans are notoriously awful at self report so chances are you are probably actually eating 2000. But if you just eat less than what you are currently eating and get the weight to come down, does it really matter what the actual number is?

[Alchemist]

I'm going to say A) is not happening to any major degree. Too many years a chemist. I am weighing meticulously. If by chance EVERYTHING is 10% low, then I would only be 1850 at most. Regardless, cutting back on the calories further just leads to more not loosing weight AND energy crashing. So I agree the number doesn't matter but less calories doesn't seem to be the solution either. Having lost weight in the past (240 -> 190 a few years ago) I hit a plateau at 190 lb @ 1200 cal and nothing further was coming off and I utterly felt horrible. This "feels" like the plateau is just kicking in almost immediately.

All that aside, I just realized I was responding to your answer, but you didn't really answer my question. I did note the weight is coming off a bit. My question really was why would it take a month to kick in?

[Robert Santana]

I'm going to say A) is not happening to any major degree. Too many years a chemist. I am weighing meticulously. If by chance EVERYTHING is 10% low, then I would only be 1850 at most. Regardless, cutting back on the calories further just leads to more not loosing weight AND energy crashing. So I agree the number doesn't matter but less calories doesn't seem to be the solution either. Having lost weight in the past (240 -> 190 a few years ago) I hit a plateau at 190 lb @ 1200 cal and nothing further was coming off and I utterly felt horrible. This "feels" like the plateau is just kicking in almost immediately.

All that aside, I just realized I was responding to your answer, but you didn't really answer my question. I did note the weight is coming off a bit. My question really was why would it take a month to kick in?

Your answer to my answer pretty much answers your question lol #inception. So it sounds like you tend to run heavier and that is probably genetically influenced (ie. Greater number of fat cells). If you have to eat 1200 kcals to get down to 190 lb then it wouldn't surprise me that your rate of weight loss is slow and your body is stubborn to initiate the process. The "3500 calorie rule" simply doesn't hold up especially if you've lost weight before and moreso if you are hitting genetic ceilings (or floors in this case). My suggestion is find that sweet spot where you can eat 2000-3000 calories and maintain and focus on healthy habits from there. It sounds like the amount of effort required to get lean is not sustainable int he long haul and adds little value in this case.

[Alchemist]

Your answer to my answer pretty much answers your question lol #inception.

I tried the G oracle but don't understand what you mean by inception nor that my answer answers my question. Not trying to be dense here but it seems I am.

[thras]

The 3500 calorie rule has worked startlingly well for me during different very long-term weight loss events, spaced years apart. However, I've had periods of low or zero weight just like yours, despite the same calorie counting practices working for me at other times.

The body's two main mechanisms for stopping tissue loss from calorie limitation are decreased activity and increased hunger. You are not bedridden and you are staying consistent in what eat, so these are not your problem. Thermic effects, metabolic changes, etc., are minimal compared to any real caloric restriction. If you were trying to eat exactly 50 calories below maintenance, then they might matter. Nobody does this.

It could be that you are wrong or lying about calories. Most people are. Calorie counting is tough. Two studies into food mislabelling have found that some foods differ from what they are labelled with. However, the main offenders were bakery or restaurant goods that tended to differ from the stated serving size. There was one case I read of a few years ago of a low-calorie ice cream label being a typo/lie. The two studies both found that packaged foods from a grocery store generally have pretty accurate nutrition labels. However, many people don't have the measurement or math skills to count calories properly. Even more people lie about what they eat. But it seems unlikely that any of this applies in your case. In fact, if you're getting a lot of your calories from protein, there's likely a 40% inefficiency built into many of those calories, as they are getting converted to glucose by your liver. At 200g protein intake, you may be overestimating calories.

Where does the 3500 calorie rule come from, and why is it more than just a "rule of thumb"? The high (chemical) energy-to-mass tissue in the body is fat. Lipids contain 4500 calories of energy that simply has to be burned in order to lose it. Lipids are always burned, never excreted. However, humans and almost all mammals (the single experimental exception is hibernating bears) lose and gain fat to lean mass in a ratio expressed by the Forbes equation. FFM = 10.4 * ln(FM/const). FFM = fat-free mass. FM = Fat mass. In normal diet situations this tends to work out to 75% FM loss and 25% FFM loss. The lost FFM is still broken down for energy, but it's about a 1/8th of the FM (basically a mix of muscle and water). In practice, this works out to about 3500 calories.

But violations of the Forbes equation certainly exist. Otherwise you wouldn't have both incredibly lean bodybuilders and skinny-fat guys both sitting at 240lbs. And I think that these violations of Forbes generally explain weight plateaus like yours and mine. Hibernating bears, for example, lose fat perfectly, and lose a pound for every 4500 calories of deficit during the winter. However they have adaptations on the cellular level that you and I do not. The violations of Forbes that we are more likely to see are gains in FFM during a loss in FM.

For example, the FFM gain can be water, which takes zero calories to gain. This is obviously the opposite of an athlete dehydrating himself before a weigh-in. Increased sodium intake, or a recent dehydration event, could both lead to "water weight" balancing out a few pounds of fat loss.

The FFM could be muscle tissue, which takes perhaps 700 calories/lb to gain. This is kind of likely in someone doing a novice progression, and 2-4lbs/month of muscle is possible, but not much more than that, and not for very long in a calorie deficit. Growth hormone or anabolic steroids might also cause a growth event here.

The FFM could also be muscle glycogen stores. This can be about 2-4lbs max for a person of average muscle composition. It's more likely to have this sort of gain from carb loading after a glycogen depletion event of some kind (a long run or low-carb dieting of some sort).

Undigested food and waste also matter, depending on what you have in your gullet on your weigh-ins, compared to the first weigh-in.

Other tissues don't matter so much. Hair/nails don't weigh enough. A large-growing cyst could do it, I suppose. I don't actually know what those are made up of, but I imagine that they are not primarily lipid-based. 49 is old, but have you ruled out pregnancy?

And the TLDR is that body recomposition is probably the answer. Given your height, your likely maintenance isn't far from 2700-2800, and your biking drives this up. This is at least a 42,000 calorie deficit for the 6 week period. You've lost lost at least 9lbs of fat, and probably very little muscle, assuming your lifts are going up. Increased hydration and muscle glycogen probably completely explains the scale not moving. You can rest assured that this imbalance can't keep up for another 6 weeks. You may not ever see these 9lbs on the scale, absent dehydrating yourself again. But at some point your weight-loss/calorie deficit, if you continue it long enough, will start obeying the 3500cal/lb rule.

[Alchemist]

49 is old, but have you ruled out pregnancy?

OMG - LMAO. Being male, yeah, I've pretty much ruled that out.

I'll respond more later, but that needed a response now.

[Eric Schexnayder]

Being male, yeah, I've pretty much ruled that out.

These days, you never can be sure.

[Robert Santana]

The 3500 calorie rule has worked startlingly well for me during different very long-term weight loss events, spaced years apart. However, I've had periods of low or zero weight just like yours, despite the same calorie counting practices working for me at other times.

The body's two main mechanisms for stopping tissue loss from calorie limitation are decreased activity and increased hunger. You are not bedridden and you are staying consistent in what eat, so these are not your problem. Thermic effects, metabolic changes, etc., are minimal compared to any real caloric restriction. If you were trying to eat exactly 50 calories below maintenance, then they might matter. Nobody does this.

It could be that you are wrong or lying about calories. Most people are. Calorie counting is tough. Two studies into food mislabelling have found that some foods differ from what they are labelled with. However, the main offenders were bakery or restaurant goods that tended to differ from the stated serving size. There was one case I read of a few years ago of a low-calorie ice cream label being a typo/lie. The two studies both found that packaged foods from a grocery store generally have pretty accurate nutrition labels. However, many people don't have the measurement or math skills to count calories properly. Even more people lie about what they eat. But it seems unlikely that any of this applies in your case. In fact, if you're getting a lot of your calories from protein, there's likely a 40% inefficiency built into many of those calories, as they are getting converted to glucose by your liver. At 200g protein intake, you may be overestimating calories.

Where does the 3500 calorie rule come from, and why is it more than just a "rule of thumb"? The high (chemical) energy-to-mass tissue in the body is fat. Lipids contain 4500 calories of energy that simply has to be burned in order to lose it. Lipids are always burned, never excreted. However, humans and almost all mammals (the single experimental exception is hibernating bears) lose and gain fat to lean mass in a ratio expressed by the Forbes equation. FFM = 10.4 * ln(FM/const). FFM = fat-free mass. FM = Fat mass. In normal diet situations this tends to work out to 75% FM loss and 25% FFM loss. The lost FFM is still broken down for energy, but it's about a 1/8th of the FM (basically a mix of muscle and water). In practice, this works out to about 3500 calories.

But violations of the Forbes equation certainly exist. Otherwise you wouldn't have both incredibly lean bodybuilders and skinny-fat guys both sitting at 240lbs. And I think that these violations of Forbes generally explain weight plateaus like yours and mine. Hibernating bears, for example, lose fat perfectly, and lose a pound for every 4500 calories of deficit during the winter. However they have adaptations on the cellular level that you and I do not. The violations of Forbes that we are more likely to see are gains in FFM during a loss in FM.

For example, the FFM gain can be water, which takes zero calories to gain. This is obviously the opposite of an athlete dehydrating himself before a weigh-in. Increased sodium intake, or a recent dehydration event, could both lead to "water weight" balancing out a few pounds of fat loss.

The FFM could be muscle tissue, which takes perhaps 700 calories/lb to gain. This is kind of likely in someone doing a novice progression, and 2-4lbs/month of muscle is possible, but not much more than that, and not for very long in a calorie deficit. Growth hormone or anabolic steroids might also cause a growth event here.

The FFM could also be muscle glycogen stores. This can be about 2-4lbs max for a person of average muscle composition. It's more likely to have this sort of gain from carb loading after a glycogen depletion event of some kind (a long run or low-carb dieting of some sort).

Undigested food and waste also matter, depending on what you have in your gullet on your weigh-ins, compared to the first weigh-in.

Other tissues don't matter so much. Hair/nails don't weigh enough. A large-growing cyst could do it, I suppose. I don't actually know what those are made up of, but I imagine that they are not primarily lipid-based. 49 is old, but have you ruled out pregnancy?

And the TLDR is that body recomposition is probably the answer. Given your height, your likely maintenance isn't far from 2700-2800, and your biking drives this up. This is at least a 42,000 calorie deficit for the 6 week period. You've lost lost at least 9lbs of fat, and probably very little muscle, assuming your lifts are going up. Increased hydration and muscle glycogen probably completely explains the scale not moving. You can rest assured that this imbalance can't keep up for another 6 weeks. You may not ever see these 9lbs on the scale, absent dehydrating yourself again. But at some point your weight-loss/calorie deficit, if you continue it long enough, will start obeying the 3500cal/lb rule.

The short of this is that there is biological variability. What works for one may not work for all. There is also adaptive thermogenesis to consider.

[Robert Santana]

I tried the G oracle but don't understand what you mean by inception nor that my answer answers my question. Not trying to be dense here but it seems I am.

Christopher Nolan film. Good one. It takes you longer to start losing weight because your body is probably resistant to weight loss for various reasons, the most obvious to me being the history of weight loss attempts. In general, the more weight loss attempts you have the more difficult it is to lose weight due to adaptive thermogenesis.