Last month, being the whole of August I lost a grand total of 1.5 lbs. Which for someone of my size, weight, BMI etc. and so far from target (2 years to go) is pathetic. If I was closer to my goal weight I would be delighted with a 1.5 lb loss in a month, but not when I still have over 100 lbs to lose.
So I persevered, in fact I just kept on being good for 2 or 3 days a week and ate normally for the rest of the week out of habit. I wasn't going to stop doing 5:2, because I could feel the difference in myself regarding health and vitality issues and when it comes down to it, having one meal a day isn't a great hardship in the grand scheme of things.
So 3 days ago I jumped on the scales and had lost 1.5 lbs in a week, whoop whoop, the weight was starting to come off again at a decent rate. Today I jumped on the scales again and jumped off again, checked they weren't malfunctioning, jumped on again and off again, then jumped on and had to believe the results. I had lost another 2.5 lbs, showing my weight loss since the 29 August being 4 whole pounds. Whoop, whoop! Jolly dancing all around.
What caused it, I don't know, I can speculate. I personally believe in the theory that the body has set points, that means the body holds on to a weight, until the body has acclimatised to that weight, before starting to lose again. I also believe that the body will fill empty fat cells with water, just in case they are needed in the near future, but it can only do do for a while, until the body balances, releasing the water.
The combination of these two ideas is that, to hold onto a weight for a set point to happen, the body can't magic fat out of the thin air and slap it onto a weight losing body. It can slow down your metabolism to exhausted point so you do nothing but sleep to conserve energy, but that isn't whats happened. I certainly haven't slowed down or felt excessivly tired this last month. But what the body can do is add water. It can hold onto water, by filling these empty fat cells with water to give the body a chance to re-boot at the new weight, then it drops the water. My ankles have been so swollen this last 3 weeks with water retention, I couldn't get some shoes on. Now I can admire them in their slimness (boniness and veininess, but hey, they are slim) and get my shoes on. If the water was pooling in my ankles what was it doing to those empty fat cells elsewhere?
So in conclusion, I would say that I WAS losing fat during August. But, my body needed to stabalise at the new weight, so it was adding nearly as much water back onto my body. Once stabilisation had happened, once the re-boot was done, my body didn't need the water so it dropped it, rather dramatically, over the last few days, to reveal the proper weight loss that had been hidden by the water.
Don't give up when a plateau happens. There is important internal work happening behind the scenes. Use this time to check that your TDEE is correct, double check that not too many treats have slipped in. Check that you are eating enough on normal days (combining daily calorie control and fasting doesn't work, especially long term) and wait it out. Plateaus seem to be inevitable in the way of eating (WOE), accept them and don't give up.
Edit... PS. I'm less than one BMI point from dropping out of the morbidly obese range and into the ordinarily obese range. Only a few pounds to go.
So I persevered, in fact I just kept on being good for 2 or 3 days a week and ate normally for the rest of the week out of habit. I wasn't going to stop doing 5:2, because I could feel the difference in myself regarding health and vitality issues and when it comes down to it, having one meal a day isn't a great hardship in the grand scheme of things.
So 3 days ago I jumped on the scales and had lost 1.5 lbs in a week, whoop whoop, the weight was starting to come off again at a decent rate. Today I jumped on the scales again and jumped off again, checked they weren't malfunctioning, jumped on again and off again, then jumped on and had to believe the results. I had lost another 2.5 lbs, showing my weight loss since the 29 August being 4 whole pounds. Whoop, whoop! Jolly dancing all around.
What caused it, I don't know, I can speculate. I personally believe in the theory that the body has set points, that means the body holds on to a weight, until the body has acclimatised to that weight, before starting to lose again. I also believe that the body will fill empty fat cells with water, just in case they are needed in the near future, but it can only do do for a while, until the body balances, releasing the water.
The combination of these two ideas is that, to hold onto a weight for a set point to happen, the body can't magic fat out of the thin air and slap it onto a weight losing body. It can slow down your metabolism to exhausted point so you do nothing but sleep to conserve energy, but that isn't whats happened. I certainly haven't slowed down or felt excessivly tired this last month. But what the body can do is add water. It can hold onto water, by filling these empty fat cells with water to give the body a chance to re-boot at the new weight, then it drops the water. My ankles have been so swollen this last 3 weeks with water retention, I couldn't get some shoes on. Now I can admire them in their slimness (boniness and veininess, but hey, they are slim) and get my shoes on. If the water was pooling in my ankles what was it doing to those empty fat cells elsewhere?
So in conclusion, I would say that I WAS losing fat during August. But, my body needed to stabalise at the new weight, so it was adding nearly as much water back onto my body. Once stabilisation had happened, once the re-boot was done, my body didn't need the water so it dropped it, rather dramatically, over the last few days, to reveal the proper weight loss that had been hidden by the water.
Don't give up when a plateau happens. There is important internal work happening behind the scenes. Use this time to check that your TDEE is correct, double check that not too many treats have slipped in. Check that you are eating enough on normal days (combining daily calorie control and fasting doesn't work, especially long term) and wait it out. Plateaus seem to be inevitable in the way of eating (WOE), accept them and don't give up.
Edit... PS. I'm less than one BMI point from dropping out of the morbidly obese range and into the ordinarily obese range. Only a few pounds to go.
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