I think when two people have shared nearly every meal for twenty-some years, you get similar plateaus, not the same weight, but the same era of what-you-weighed-when, and ergo—when you diet together, you’re going to have sticking-spots near the same time. Jane and I don’t weigh the same, but we sure have been battling this one.
Now granted we made two trips out to eat; but we stayed within guidelines. Granted we had one bottle of Champagne, but we had no weight bobble after that.
But my 192 and Jane’s–whatever-it-is—have been stuck in place for at least two weeks and nearly 3. We’ve gotten back on our vitamins, which had lapsed in the chaos, and we’re being careful to drink water. But try as we would, I’d go up to 193, down to 192.5, down to 192, up to 193 for no earthly reason, and often after I’d worked like a dog, physical labor, and endured being really, really hungry. Then…last few days, with the tension of the tank delivery off, 191.5. Now 190.5. I think we’re starting to move past it. No difference in the diet. Nothing new. Same 5 meals, over and over and over. No snacks. No alcohol. It just decided to budge, finally.
If I can break 189, I’ll be really, really happy. Jane has her own target, but we’ve resolved to eat these same friggin’ five frozen meals every day for a year, if it gets us down into territory we want to see again.
So there’s a reason that weight graph hasn’t budged. It’s because it hasn’t budged. But it’s starting to show signs of movement.
Yay us!
I truly sympathise. I’m stuck here on a small plateau myself. The good news is I can get into my Dockers, zip them up and sit in them, which I couldn’t do last summer. Onward and downward! 😀
Still can’t get my Levi’s & Lee’s to zip up comfortably though. 🙁
Well, we just had our Cinco de Mayo supper…I took Atkins regular meatloaf with mushrooms and vegetable, one of the routine 5, heated it up, diced up a mini bell pepper, tossed that on the meatloaf with jalapeno slices, tossed on some Mexican blend shredded Jack/Cheddar, and dusted it well with Ortega Taco spice. It actually tasted Mexican-ish. And had some pepper heat, one thing lacking on this diet, except the chipotle sauce on my morning eggs. Jane won’t touch that sauce. But we agreed the meatloaf tasted more southerly than usual.
And we didn’t break our diet.
And —re the tank— our rock and sand, once stark white, are acquiring a golden (putting it optimistically) cast, which means bacteria are multiplying like mad.
We caught two of our crabs, venerable fellows, dating from 2007, and put them in, along with some shells. The larger one has been hopefully shopping those shells, in hopes of a perfect one. I’ve got more crabs and shells arriving Tuesday or Wednesday, so he’ll have a wider choice, and perhaps find another of his species. Little ingrate *pinched* Jane when she picked him up. He’s a feisty fellow with bigger claws than we usually allow into a reef, but though the claws are larger, the pincers are small, and he’s our favorite crab.
OT: I see Harper Lee is suing her agent to get her copyright back.
Getting her to sign it away? Now, that took more cojones than brains.
Good. Let’s just hope the court has brains.
I’m glad the tank is doing well, and you two are feeling better and have gotten off the plateau. Three weeks doesn’t seem that long to me – I finally gave up dieting for good after being stuck on the same 20 kilo’s overweight for three years, on a 1100-1200 Kcal daily diet.
I used to gain weight, diet, lose five kilo’s, stop dieting, gain seven, stay put for a while; start dieting, lose 5, stop, gain 7-9, stay awhile, etc. – the Dutch term for that is to jojo, like the game with the small diabolo on a string, that you throw away while holding on to the string, and it rewinds itself into your hand (if you do it right). I can’t find an English word for it, but perhaps you know what I’m getting at?
I’d become almost 25 kg overweight that way, and decided to finally and forever get it all off, so put myself on a max.1200 a day diet intending to keep it up ’till I was back to normal. I’ve got a lot of food intolerances and allergies, so any kind of regular diet plan didn’t work for me, but this way I could eat things my insides would tolerate and still diet. In the first 6 months I lost 5 kilo’s, then the weight stuck at that plateau for the next two-and-a-half years. This was so discouraging I finally gave up, and of course bounced back the usual few kilo’s more than I lost.
The funny thing is, after that my weight stayed stable, without ever trying to diet again: I eat what I feel like eating, including things like a piece of cake at a party, and don’t gain any more weight: I just get hot if I eat more calories than I use – instead of being cold, and constantly having cold feet, as I’d had almost all my adult (dieting and jojoing) life.
I wish you well on your diet, especially as it seems to be working for you, but for myself I wish I’d discovered this before I’d jojo’d up to almost 30 kilo’s overweight.
I know there’s research (from Scandinavia, I think; it was reported in New Scientist more than a year ago) that seems to indicate people’s bodies react in several different ways to an excess of calories: some will continue to gain weight (they had to stop the experiment for them because it became dangerous), some will not gain weight but increase their metabolism, and some gain weight to the level their body considers appropriate and then increase their metabolism. Apparently I’m one of the latter, and all my jojoing has been resetting the weight my body deems appropriate upwards, every time I’ve dieted.
There’s also some indication that a period of starvation, like my mother endured as a child in the second world war, can cause epigenetic changes that predispose toward gaining weight, so that may influence those inherent bodily mechanisms regarding using or storing the excess. For a female that tendency was seen even in the offspring, but I’m unclear on if the starvation had to be in the womb, or if it also gets handed on in the germline if it happens at another time in a person’s life. For my mom at least it seems to work that way: she doesn’t calorie-count but eats soberly, I’d say about 1500 Kcal a day, for at least the last 40 years, and stays stable at 5-7 kilo’s overweight on that.
So for whoever reads this who is also on a diet, please don’t starve yourself or you may be stuck with doing so for life; and please be very careful of the jojoing effect, and of trying to force your body below what it considers a reasonable weight, less it raise your baseline even higher.
Sorry for all the warnings, but when people are busy dieting others are inspired to do the same. I think sometimes it’s good to think about what you’re starting when you do that – that there might be more long-term consequences than the short-term weight loss everyone focuses on. I know being overweight is bad for one’s health, but if it’s only a little overweight, it might be wiser to tolerate it and just be careful instead of starting on the jojoing climb to more. I didn’t think about that when I was in my (late) teens, and just stopped eating for a weekend whenever I got 2 kilo’s overweight, and now I have to live with the results.
Hanneke, we call them “yo-yo’s”, so the pronounciation is the same.
Ellen and I have done Atkins and a few others. All of them seem to work for us to the extent that we stay with the program. That is the hard part as we both are big sweet addicts and our lives are a bit chaotic.
Speaking of plateaus, recently my boss remarked that he couldn’t understand why I don’t gain weight since I usually have one or more snack containers in my cube. I am at the opposite plateau – as long as I don’t seriously overeat I don’t gain weight. The difference between what I can get away with eating and how far I have to cut back to lose weight seems to me painfully large.
Absolutely, Hanneke. You are very right. Metabolisms differ. And the body has its own memory. What we’re trying to get back to is a weight at which we spent most of our lives: we’re just carrying more than is good for our bones and joints, not to mention hearts. And ironically enough, though we were staying to the eating part of the diet, there was one thing that had fallen by the wayside in the chaos around here—taking the vitamins.
I’ve never been a yo-yo dieter. It’s not such a long story, but I’m “borderline” Type 2 diabetic. The main thing I do is monitor weight daily, into a spreadsheet, and try to keep it down. 221 this AM on arising in my skivvies, low. I’m trying Michael Mosley’s 2/5 plan. Two days a week on 500-600 calories. I don’t make them consecutive, and I can’t conveniently get to 600, but I can do ~700–close enough. Mostly it hasn’t seemed to be a problem in the 3-4 weeks I’ve been trying it, except for feeling a little bit hypoglycemic one day. I’ll see how it goes when I go for my annual physical and H1AC soon.
I was just reading something about weight loss (I am pre-diabetic so trying to change my eating & exercise habits) which stated that it’s normal to hit a plateau, as the body is adjusting to the new state of things; and it can last anywhere from 6 to 8 months, BUT it will pass, and the pounds will begin to drop again. So something to keep in mind, and hope that it will take less time than 6-8 mos. 🙂
Do hope so. Weight didn’t get on overnight, and it’s not going overnight, for sure!
I’ve been weedling my way down from 280 in March of last year…and I’ve hit a plateau around 250 that stuck for about 6 months – I think I may be dropping again, finally, but as you both have said, I didn’t get fat overnight, why should I expect to get thin overnight?
i’ve been doing the weight watcher’s point system and activity level – have finally gotten down to where i was almost 9 yrs ago and seem to be a bit stuck so now it’s time to motivate my butt into doing consistent exercise – always my problem. i used to have a fairly high metabolism but it’s gotten as sluggish as i can be ;P now if i can start walking the dogs w/o getting pulled over one when the 2nd lunges and smacking my knee hard on the pavement ;P but at least i am now eating more veggies and fruit than i have in many a year 😉
I am now lighter than I have been in years. I’m at 188, having started at 207, and we’re still going. Jane is shedding off her midriff. I can get into skinny jeans I could not have zipped two months ago.
I can walk the basement stairs without wheezing…hardly noticing them. The lightness of being is worth all the missed treats.
We’re to the stage now where it can take us a week to shed a pound, but we’re going to do it.
If any of you are also doing the Atkins dinners, now, I can offer some mods that jazz them up without defeating the diet.
For the meatloaf…heat, then to the meatloaf add jalapenos (pickled) to taste, or if that’s too hot for you, sub diced bell pepper, a fistful of shredded cheddar or cheddar and jack, and a liberal shake of Ortega’s Taco spice, and microwave without the top for 2 minutes. Turns it into a Mexican dinner.
For the chicken dishes, esp the crustless pot pie, add a couple of shakes of powdered dill.
For the chicken broccoli, try some Frank’s Wings Sauce, if you have a yen for the spice of hot wings.
For the Italian sausage, add a fistful of mozzarella, some bell pepper, a tablespoon of Classico spaghetti sauce, some basil and oregano or Italian spice mix.
For the chili, add a tablespoon of jalapenos or diced peppers, and some cheddar, and heat.
You can also get some frozen breaded halibut pieces (Costco), and instead of the two suggested, have just one, plus some legal tartar sauce: a tablespoon of real mayo, juice of lime, and a dash of powdered dill. Broil. Serve with 1/4 a steamer pack of broccoli. Save the rest in the box.
This is how we do it.
We’re also at the stage where if we want a handful of salted mixed nuts (Costco) for dessert, we can have that.
Yep, slow—but worth it. So worth it.