[peachcake]

I've been stuck at 192 for awhile now, I think at least 6 weeks but I'd have to check my journal at home to be sure. I will admit, I took about a week off when I went to Vegas for my 21st birthday and I have REALLY hit the diet hard since being back (that was 2 weeks ago). I'm sure that week didn't help but my weight has been all over the place, 192, 197, 195, 194... bleh. I even changed up instead of my morning walks I have added jogging into it. I walk a block, jog a block, walk a block, jog a block (you get it). I am slowly trying to make it to jogging the entire time. I have been careful about my salt intake and my weight is still ALL over the place. TOM should start in about 2 weeks so it's not that either. I have changed up my food intake, I have made my large meal lunch and then have a salad with some chicken, pork or fish on it for dinner instead of having dinner as my big meal. None of this seems to be helping. Oh, and I've also been walking 2x per day instead of once. Yesterday I did my walk/jog in the am, walk in the pm, then I vacuumed my entire house and mopped the whole thing (I only have carpet in the bedrooms, so it's a lot of mopping), I also mowed my lawn and raked out my bark dust. So I didn't do a weight workout because I did all the other stuff. I do weights if I don't have an evening of physical chores to do. I drink plenty of water and limit my soda to about a can or glass a day )sometimes two). I am eating 1400 calories a day, more on the weekends, 1600-1800 usually. Any suggestions?

[CandyKisses0204]

Maybe on the weekends try to stay closer to 1600? Have you changed your calories up since you hit the plateau?

[ReadytoRun]

Here are my $.02, I would:

1. Cut out ALL soda (or stick to NON-diet soda since diet soda actually has been shown to correlate to weight GAIN). Some suggestions are home brewed iced tea with lemon or fill a pitcher with ice water and drop in some cucumber slices. It is SO refreshing in the summer time. If you prefer store bought try HINT water -- no artificial sweetners, no preservatives, it's pure water with a hint of natural fruit flavor. The watermelon is great!

2. Eat more calories!! Try 1500/day for about a week and see what happens!

Good luck, and let us know what happens!

[peachcake]

Actually diet soda doesn't make you gain weight according to several studies I've read, it just makes you crave sugar. Sweets aren't a problem for me. I dislike iced tea and any kind of flavored water. I drink water straight, and I drink LOTS of it.

I use to be at 1200 when I stopped losing as quickly I went up to 1400 and have been there for about 4 months. I checked and as of yesterday my plateau is at 8 weeks.

[ReadytoRun]

Ouchie! I can understand your frustration with the situation but sometimes things typed in forums come off sounding defensive and dismissive when they don't intentionally mean to be so I will assume that is the case here. Afterall, I am just trying to offer healthful & helpful suggestions for your continued success!

We will have to agree to disagree on the diet soda topic but I thought you might enjoy reading these:
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Psychologists at Purdue University's Ingestive Behavior Research Center reported that relative to rats that ate yogurt sweetened with glucose (a simple sugar with 15 calories/teaspoon, the same as table sugar), rats given yogurt sweetened with zero-calorie saccharin later consumed more calories, gained more weight, put on more body fat, and didn't make up for it by cutting back later, all at levels of statistical significance.

Authors Susan Swithers, PhD, and Terry Davidson, PhD, surmised that by breaking the connection between a sweet sensation and high-calorie food, the use of saccharin changes the body's ability to regulate intake. That change depends on experience. Problems with self-regulation might explain in part why obesity has risen in parallel with the use of artificial sweeteners. It also might explain why, says Swithers, scientific consensus on human use of artificial sweeteners is inconclusive, with various studies finding evidence of weight loss, weight gain or little effect. Because people may have different experiences with artificial and natural sweeteners, human studies that don't take into account prior consumption may produce a variety of outcomes.

Three different experiments explored whether saccharin changed lab animals' ability to regulate their intake, using different assessments --the most obvious being caloric intake, weight gain, and compensating by cutting back.

The experimenters also measured changes in core body temperature, a physiological assessment. Normally when we prepare to eat, the metabolic engine revs up. However, rats that had been trained to respond using saccharin (which broke the link between sweetness and calories), relative to rats trained on glucose, showed a smaller rise in core body temperate after eating a novel, sweet-tasting, high-calorie meal. The authors think this blunted response both led to overeating and made it harder to burn off sweet-tasting calories.

"The data clearly indicate that consuming a food sweetened with no-calorie saccharin can lead to greater body-weight gain and adiposity than would consuming the same food sweetened with a higher-calorie sugar," the authors wrote.

The authors acknowledge that this outcome may seem counterintuitive and might not come as welcome news to human clinical researchers and health-care practitioners, who have long recommended low- or no-calorie sweeteners. What's more, the data come from rats, not humans. However, they noted that their findings match emerging evidence that people who drink more diet drinks are at higher risk for obesity and metabolic syndrome, a collection of medical problems such as abdominal fat, high blood pressure and insulin resistance that put people at risk for heart disease and diabetes.

Why would a sugar substitute backfire" Swithers and Davidson wrote that sweet foods provide a "salient orosensory stimulus" that strongly predicts someone is about to take in a lot of calories. Ingestive and digestive reflexes gear up for that intake but when false sweetness isn't followed by lots of calories, the system gets confused. Thus, people may eat more or expend less energy than they otherwise would.

The good news, Swithers says, is that people can still count calories to regulate intake and body weight. However, she sympathizes with the dieter's lament that counting calories requires more conscious effort than consuming low-calorie foods.

Swithers adds that based on the lab's hypothesis, other artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose and acesulfame K, which also taste sweet but do not predict the delivery of calories, could have similar effects. Finally, although the results are consistent with the idea that humans would show similar effects, human study is required for further demonstration.

Journal article: "A Role for Sweet Taste: Calorie Predictive Relations in Energy Regulation by Rats," Susan E. Swithers, PhD and Terry L. Davidson, PhD, Purdue University; Behavioral Neuroscience, Vol. 122, No. 1.


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Circulation. 2008 Feb 12;117(6):754-61.
Dietary intake and the development of the metabolic syndrome: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study.Lutsey PL, Steffen LM, Stevens J.
Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota, School of Public Health, Minneapolis, USA.

BACKGROUND: The role of diet in the origin of metabolic syndrome (MetSyn) is not well understood; thus, we sought to evaluate the relationship between incident MetSyn and dietary intake using prospective data from 9514 participants (age, 45 to 64 years) enrolled in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study. METHODS AND RESULTS: Dietary intake was assessed at baseline via a 66-item food frequency questionnaire. We used principal-components analysis to derive "Western" and "prudent" dietary patterns from 32 food groups and evaluated 10 food groups used in previous studies of the ARIC cohort. MetSyn was defined by American Heart Association guidelines. Proportional-hazards regression was used. Over 9 years of follow-up, 3782 incident cases of MetSyn were identified. After adjustment for demographic factors, smoking, physical activity, and energy intake, consumption of a Western dietary pattern (P(trend)=0.03) was adversely associated with incident MetSyn. After further adjustment for intake of meat, dairy, fruits and vegetables, refined grains, and whole grains, analysis of individual food groups revealed that meat (P(trend)<0.001), fried foods (P(trend)=0.02), and diet soda (P(trend)=< 0.001) also were adversely associated with incident MetSyn, whereas dairy consumption (P(trend)=0.006) was beneficial. No associations were observed between incident MetSyn and a prudent dietary pattern or intakes of whole grains, refined grains, fruits and vegetables, nuts, coffee, or sweetened beverages. CONCLUSIONS: These prospective findings suggest that consumption of a Western dietary pattern, meat, and fried foods promotes the incidence of MetSyn, whereas dairy consumption provides some protection. The diet soda association was not hypothesized and deserves further study.
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As for other suggestions,are you writing everything down? Are a lot of your daily calories from sweets, alcohol, or other less nutritional sources?

It seems as though you are getting a lot of exercise which is great! How far are you walking? Maybe consider changing up your exercises -- one day jog/walk, another day swim, another day do the bike at the gym, and one day for lifting weights. As for caloric intake, how about sticking to 1500/day, even on weekends?

Good Luck!

[jamsk8r]

Peach, I'm no expert, but if you've been at 1400 for 4 months, and holding this weight for 2 months, maybe dropping it back to 1300 might show some results? (keeping everything else the same)

[peachcake]

The diet soda thing tends to be quite a topic of discussion/disagreement on 3FC. Personally, I've lost 25lbs and all the while have been drinking soda and am not about to stop now, so I think the studies that suggest it makes you "GAIN" weight are bogus, but that's just from my personal experience. I may try upping my calories during the weekdays, I just tend to be scared to do that and am afraid I will start to gain... I know this is likely not the case I just get paranoid. I will try upping it starting next Monday maybe as I don't try to start new things on weekends because I forget about them. I am going to be helping at a horse show all weekend so I am going to do my best and stay on plan sometimes you just eat when/where/what you can if it's super busy.

[peachcake]

Cheryl,

I think I will try upping first and if I see no change (or gain YIKES) I will try dropping. I'm still at 192 and 5'5 some people say that 1400 calorie intake is considered low. I wonder if changing up my calories isn't just what I need to do. It's a good place to start anyway.

[rockinrobin]

I think whatever it is that you do try, you must be CONSISTIENT with, if you want to see steady progress. One can't really expect to see a loss if you've had a week off. One week off can surely wreak havoc with your weight. So it kinda sounds to me like your plateau may have been self induced, perhaps???

Really, the key is consistiency. Weekends too. Nevermind one week off, even one DAY off can cause ones weight to be all over the place. So pick something and stick to it like glue. Best of luck.

[FB]

How long has it been since you changed the exercise?

How about dropping the higher calorie weekends and see if that makes a difference? I'd start with that rather than drop calories lower throughout the week.

I'm with you on the diet pop! I drink it, lots more than you, and have lost all of my weight this year, drinking diet the entire time.

[rockinrobin]

Originally Posted by FB

I'm with you on the diet pop! I drink it, lots more than you, and have lost all of my weight this year, drinking diet the entire time.

Yes, I forgot to mention this as well. I also drink diet soda. Zero affect on my weight loss. Zero.

[peachcake]

I had been at 192 for about 5 weeks prior to my vacation, but no the vacation didn't help it at all. Although the vacation made me really motivated once I got back. My Mom brought over her treadmill last week so I am going to start running in the evening on it. I still walk a ton. I also want to add in more weight/resistance training. I was doing good but cancelled my gym membership because they changed owners and now I can't stand going. I am going to try sticking to my diet on the weekend, I was letting the "slipping" get out of hand on the weekend.

[peachcake]

Oh, and I decided to stay at 1400 for now but stay there on the weekends as well and change up my exercise. I am pretty comfortable on the amount of food 1400 cals allows me.

[ReadytoRun]

I think 1400 calories/day for the entire 7-day week will do the trick! Good luck & keep up posted!

R2R

[ShrinkingShrink]

R2R - that is a very interesting study, and a perspective I've never considered. Thank you for posting that! I can't say I'm going to cut out all my diet sodas, but I will be thinking about it more!