Plateau City - where is the exit ramp?

[MyDestiny]

.. so my body decided about a week ago that it's had enough. No more weight loss, no more inches gone...

I think it's on strike?

Any ideas on whats going on here? Or any way to kick start my body back into fat burning mode? I am currently kind of in phase 1 (should be phase 2, but money is really tight right now trying to play catch up after Christmas) I am not eating anything bad.. (nothing that I wasnt eating before!)

Here - here was yesterday for example.

Breakfast - 1 poached egg, bottle of water (ran out of V8 juice!)
Snack - 1 cheese stick
Lunch - salad with left over chicken pieces in it from the dinner the night before. 1 tbsp light ff dressing
snack - 13 almonds
dinner - ground beef & mushroom stir fry, garden salad, and green beans.
????: South Beach Diet Forums http://www.southbeachdietbulletinboard.com/south-beach-diet-forums-phase-1/2349-plateau-city-where-exit-ramp.html
no dessert (I don't care for the desserts!)

.. I drink water throughtout the day, sometimes with Crystal Light, sometimes just plain.

Anyone have any ideas on whats going on?

~MD

[makkat]

Hey MD! You exercising at all? That should jump start your loss again. You lost 12 lbs though already, so it is normal (not what you want to hear) for your body to plateau for 1 week or even months really. Then out of the blue....a big loss!! Stick with it, the scale is the freakin' devil and he is tempting you to give up!!! DONT DO IT!!!

Good Luck!!

[MyDestiny]

I get some excercise - not like a regular gym scheudle or anything (it's hard with a little one at home and no babysitter) but regular cardio a couple times a week.

:OMG: Plateau for a MONTH!? or MONTHS?! *faints*

Well I won't give up, but if I go to phase 2 with these extra carbs thrown in there occasionally won't that make my body want to gain more weight again?

Now what if I drink 1000 more bottles of water a day .. will that kick my body back into moving mode? Or will it just take good ol' fashioned time?

*shakes fist at Devil - you stay away or I'll throw you right out of that bathroom window!!!!!!!*

lol

~MD

[makkat]

May sound weird, but maybe you need to eat more. This is something I have never, ever understood...and that is WHY in the WORLD you need to consume more calories to lose weight if you are exercising. Losing weight is all about burning more calories than you take in...so why eat more?? PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE explain!! I WANT to understand this. I think I have an idea of why, but not a firm one!

So, maybe MD you are not eating enough. Sometimes I feel like I am not eating enough. I have logged my cals on the SB diet before on Fitday and it comes up very low. But, I am eating regularly and am not hungry. So, I don't know. I am just as clueless as you.

Another thing that baffles me (while I am ranting) is how I can not watch what I eat. Eat whenever, whatever I want. Not exercise and my scale NEVER goes above 153. I am stable there. WEIRD!! Not complaining...not a bad number to SOME people, but just curious!
????: South Beach Diet Forums http://www.southbeachdietbulletinboard.com/showthread.php?t=2349

So, sorry about all that. I am hyped up now. Your scale has me PO'd! I am gonna go have a snack now!!

[MyDestiny]

When I first started the SB way I never did feel hungry, but now, well look, its 10:39 and I am STARVING! So I will rush home at 12:30 and eat a salad, by 3:00 I am starving again, so I will eat my snack, and by dinnertime I will be hungry again, and so I will eat a huge portion of dinner (which I think at dinner I eat too MUCH!) So why when I started did it work wonders, and now I am always hungry. What changed?

Well if my scale stayed at my ideal weight and never moved I'd marry it!! So I can relate on being PO'd at the stupid thing.

You can eat whatever you want and never go ABOVE a certain weight? *envious here* I wish! I would live at restaurants and never cook again! Pasta city here I come!! lol

~MD

[MyDestiny]

OH!!! OH!! And to make things even more complicated .. I have ketones in my urine!! (my level was way higher a few days ago, but its coming down but staying steady mainly b ecause the last couple days my eating hasnt been perfect due to finances, but I have not gone out what acceptbale foods are!)

So figure that one out! My body is getting rid of sugars - but not losing anything! Bah!!!

~MD

[Jilly_Bean]

Sounds like you girls are having fun ranting about your lover, the old scale... Personally, I can't tolerate too much of that thing. 'Course it's probably my body that I should be frustrated with more than the scale, because the scale stays the same moment to moment (though it can change in an hour...); but the scale is what I've used to judge my body (which means judge ME), and it's usually very unpredictable. I, therefor, only weigh myself every two weeks. Much less frustrating for me that way.
????: South Beach Diet Forums http://www.southbeachdietbulletinboard.com/showthread.php?t=2349

As for why we need to eat more to lose weight, it's again about the body. If we start eating too little, our body thinks it's in starvation mode and hangs on to every single calorie for all its worth! Your body is trying to protect itself from dying of starvation. It has no idea that you have a fridge full of food you could feed it. It just knows it ain't gettin' enough. So, when we give it a little more, it relaxes and lets some of it go. Who says science has all the answers!? They don't know all there is to know, that's for sure. Calories in and calories out? It's just not that simple...

As for being hungry an hour later... Are you getting enough fat in your meals? Our bodies require a little fat each day too. Healthy fat and lots of veggies are your best bets to keep the hunger away.

Exercise is a good thing for us all to be doing too...

[MyDestiny]

Well I suppose I should blame it on my body - but its much easier to blame it on something that I can throw in the garbage, or blame it on dying batteries or something. Self-blame is no fun! *lol*
????: South Beach Diet Forums http://www.southbeachdietbulletinboard.com/showthread.php?t=2349

I don't know how much fat I am or am not getting. I stick to the acceptable foods list, (and they are usually the same foods over and over again because I love certain foods!!) But as for calorie counting, or not counting I would have no idea where to even start.

Todays food - 1 poached egg for breakfast w/bottle water.
Snack - (I forgot it at home, so I had some waffle thing that was here, it was VERY thin, and small - but I have NOTHING else in the office to eat and i was starving!) and then 2 bottles of water (had to flush out any carbs in that waffle thing! lol)
Lunch - romain lettuce w/ 1 tbsp FF ceasar dressing.
Snack - 1 cheese stick
Dinner - (it will be 1 salmon fillet, with a stir fry veggies, beanspouts, mushrooms and broccoli)

..?

~md

[RedRox]

I'll go with the not eating enough and not moving to P2 on schedule rationale.

A single egg is barely a snack, never mind an entire meal and one as important as the first meal of the day to start your body after fasting from the previous night's dinner without any kind of night time snack. you need a 1/2 cup of veggies and some additional carbs in the form of dairy or beans would be good as well as some more protein like a couple slices of canadian bacon. Here is what the meal model for P1 (in the sticky thread by the same name in this forum) has for breakfast:

BREAKFAST:
Protein: Quantity is not limited. Start with a 2 oz. portion, eat slowly, go back for seconds if still hungry.
Vegetables:Minimum 1/2 cup or 6-8 oz. tomato or vegetable juice.
Milk/Dairy:2 cups allowed daily (including yogurt)
Fat:1 tsp mayonnaise, transfat-free margarine, or oil (optional)

Here is what it says about Snacks:
MID-MORNING SNACK:
Snacks are required. Choose a protein, vegetable, fat-free plain yogurt, or nuts/seeds. A snack that combines protein (1 oz.) and vegetables is encouraged.

If there is nothing in the office, then pack something that works. Keep things in your desk that stay there for emergencies. And you can't flush out carbs by drinking water. And why do you have such an unearthly fear of carbohydrates anyway? They are one of the three foundational macronutrients for proper nutrition along with fats and proteins. Our bodies need ALL THREE components in reasonable amounts to be properly supported and nourished. We just have to choose the right kinds of each and include them in reasonable quantities.
????: South Beach Diet Forums http://www.southbeachdietbulletinboard.com/showthread.php?t=2349

Where are the proteins in your lunch? And you should be using a full fat dressing made with good fats/oils like olive or canola oil. All fat free dressings are pretty much on the "Avoid" list on this program. Again here is the lunch model for P1:

LUNCH:
Protein:
Quantity is not limited. Start with a 3 oz. portion, eat slowly, go back for seconds if still hungry.
Vegetables:Minimum 2 cups.
We encourage you to include a serving of beans (1/3-1/2 cup) as part of your vegetables.
Milk/Dairy: 2 cups allowed daily (including yogurt)
Fat: 1 Tbsp mayonnaise, transfat-free margarine or oil, or 2 Tbsp salad dressing

Afternoon snack. OK but something that combines a protein (the cheese) with veggies or some nuts would be better.

Dinner. This sounds like the only meal of the day that really meets P1 requirements provided that there are at least 2 cups minimum of veggies when you start out cooking them. Adding some beans/legumes and/or dairy would help with getting more carbs in as well.

DINNER:
Protein:
Quantity is not limited. Start with a 3 oz. portion, eat slowly, go back for seconds if still hungry.
Vegetables: Minimum 2 cups.
We encourage you to include a serving of beans (1/3-1/2 cup) as part of your vegetables.
Milk/Dairy: 2 cups allowed daily (including yogurt)
Fat: 1 Tbsp mayonnaise, trans-free margarine or oil, or 2 Tbsp salad dressing

Honestly I think you have a very distorted view of what this program is really all about. You are trying to do some kind of very low calorie, very low carb program and that is not SB at all. I'm not surprised you are in ketosis because you aren't really following the meal plans and making use of all your sources of good carbs in P1.

And I think Jilly did a great job of explaining why you need to eat more to lose weight. BUT if you want to read it somewhere, try this page: Calorie Calculator - Daily Caloric Needs It starts out with a calorie calculator to figure out calories for weight loss which is really not why I posted it, but if you read the text under the calorie calculator it has a good discussion of why you need to eat an optimal amount of calories and eat sufficient foods throughout the day to keep your metabolism running on all cylinders to facilitate weight loss and not just eat a minimum amount of calories as that simply won't work and is not sustainable or healthy.

And FWIW I think good habits result from practicing good habits! Not sure what resisting temptation has to do with it. That sounds like a pressure cooker with the valve stuck to closed and waiting to explode!

[MyDestiny]

*putting hands up and backing away slowly*

Ok - this board is for support, and to crack some laughs with other members, not to login and have someone jump down your throat!! I have followed the daily logs to a T with the exception of the last week because money was tight and I'm right now just using up what I have left until I get paid. That is not a sin.

As I mentioned before, normally the morning would be a poached egg, and 8 oz of Tomato juice, but I ran out of it a week ago, hence why the water was my morning drink.

No you can't chase carbs with water - it was a joke. ha. ha. Hence the smiley faces that are always in my messages!!!!! And me missing ONE snack because I had a hectic morning with the little one and the ice storm that we had doesn't make me an idiot!! I always bring snacks to work (usually celery with Laughing Cow Cheese!!! .. which is specifically STATED in Phase 1!)
????: South Beach Diet Forums http://www.southbeachdietbulletinboard.com/showthread.php?t=2349

Proteins in my lunch. I put chicken in my salads, or ham, or whatever meat I happen to have left over, unless I am at the end of my grocery week without a paycheck in hand!!

I came on here for support and to talk to people, and have a little fun. (I'm obviously not going to marry my scale, nor am I going to toss it out the window.) If for whatever reason I am offending you with my messages or making you angry, don't take offense to it - because I don't feel I should have to come on here and defend myself for posting anything.

~MD