Low carb not helping me lose on the scale
 

hi! I have been doing low carb for about 2 weeks now. I eat pretty much the same thing everyday with variations at dinner and I am not loosing the weight as fast as I hoped. I drink 8-10 glasses of water a day and I exercise twice a week with a trainer and run 2 miles 3 days a week. I have not cheated one time on this diet and have only dropped 4 pounds. What am I doing wrong? I also feel very bloated and can't seem to shake that?

Breakfast- scrambled egg beaters and 1 slice of bacon
I drink 2 cups of coffee with Splenda and creamer
Snack- beef jerky or cucumber slices
Lunch- turkey and Swiss lettuce wraps with ranch, pickle spear and celery
Dinner- grilled fish, salad and green beans
*** grilled chicken or beef alternating at dinner

Your menu made me hungry! Looks good to me. I recommend that you repost this in the Low Carb section and you will get a lot of helpful replies. Here's a link.

http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/carb-counters-117/

Four pounds in two weeks is absolutely goshdarn impressive. You don't mention your starting weight, but even if you weigh over 400 lbs, 2 lbs a week is still pretty flippin' amazing.

Sometimes switching to low-carb will result in insanely bigger initial losses, but that's almost completely water retention weight. If your body wasn't holding a lot of excess water, you're not going to see that kind of crazy first month losses.

The main advantage to low-carb for most people isn't bigger losses, it's better hunger control, which is a long range benefit not a short term one.

For some, hunger control isn't even better. The benefit to low-carb, for some might only be that they get to eat foods that normally avoided on other low calorie plans. Their hunger and weight loss might no different.

But no matter how you slice it, four pounds in two weeks is ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, AMAZING!!!!!

Jerky, pickles, lunch meat, and bacon are packed with sodium which makes you bloat. I would try switching your lunch to a lower sodium option. Canned tuna is better, but still has some sodium.

Not that you can't ever eat those things, but just keep in mind that your daily sodium intake should be 2300 mg or less, daily.

PS. Dropping 4 lbs is awesome, and that is about what you should be loosing. 2 lbs per week is a very good loss.

Thanks! I just feel like I should be dropping it faster. I can eat just about anything but will not touch canned tuna or mayonnaise. I'll keep at it and watch the sodium!!!

Please do some research on low carb & sodium. I've seen threads on low carb boards with links to research showing that you need more sodium when on the low carb diet.

I think when you lose a massive amount on low carb, you also must eat a lot of fat. Protien only will kill you. Eating a small amount of fat and veggies slows down the weight loss. Since you are also exersising, you are getting bigger, not smaller. Bloat? Are you eliminating the water you drink?

Tell me what you mean about more fat. What kind of fat. Since I was diagnosed with Insulin resistance and cut out carbs (yes I have cheated in the last year) I have gained 10 lbs. I never lost a single pound and I don't know what to do. I use to eat carbs like crazy. Cereal was my go to for every meal. I have cut back so much and still can't lose anything.

I'd say it's the sodium content you're eating, especially in the jerky. Try low sodium foods :)
-4lbs is great, just remember that it took a while to gain it, it will take a while to lose. And one day you'll wake up and WHOOSH!

When you drastically reduce one macronutrient (protein or carbs or fat) you have to increase another, stands to reason.

If you reduce carbs and increase protein, combined with a reduction in calories, your body is going to turn the protein you've consumed above what your body requires into glucose, which gives you the same insulin spikes as though you're still consuming carbs.

When you have insulin resistance you've got metabolic problems (so do I, so does my husband, and so do many obese people). The only way to fight the insulin resistance is with very low carb eating and by maintaining as steady and stable insulin levels as possible. Obviously, you can't do that by lowering carbs and raising protein, so you have to lower carbs, keep protein moderate and raise fats . This style of eating is called ketogenic or Low Carb/High Fat.

How can you say you aren't losing when you have lost 4 pounds in 2 weeks? I do agree you could have some water retention. Also I don't know if you have been doing your exercise program for a long time. If you suddenly increase exercise intensity you can temporarily have some water retention.

As Kaplods mentions, low carb can help with hunger pangs and reduce your getting hungry. If you have blood sugar spikes from carbs the sudden decrease in blood sugar after the spike can cause you to be hungry which can cause overeating.

If you don't have the spikes, then you may reduce the hunger. The two main reasons to eat low carb are (1) to reduce hunger pangs due to that process and (2) to improve blood sugar control. If you don't need to control your blood sugar and you don't have hunger pangs then a low carb diet is not some magic way of weight loss.

Even if you do need to control blood sugar and it does help with hunger how much you lose depends on your calorie deficit. TO have a big enough calorie deficit to lose 2 pounds a week you have to eat an average of 1000 calories less a day that you burn. That is hard to do! For some people (particularly those who are short, have sedentary jobs, or who older), it may be absolutely impossible.

Losing 2 pounds a week is great but for most people won't last forever. For me, at my age and weight and my closeness to my goal I am not about to lose 2 pounds a week. But, it doesn't matter. What matters is to have weight consistently go down eating in a way that you can sustain over time.