I have not been drinking extra water to offset coffee, that may indeed be an issue. I have been eye-balling veggies, but not sure that's realy a bad thing...I'd guess I'm pretty accurate. I have been weighing my meat religiously though.

From what I've read plateau's are a normal occurance...I hpe this is just one of them.

The only change? I went from 4 packets to 3 this week...maybe my body is just rebelling :)

I have waited till I had some time to give you my $.02 and it may not be worth that.
This is a lot of information to chew on. Buried in my ADHD typing is many questions. I also know my typing can be very confusing to read. I apologize upfront for eyes bleeding.

Many things could be going on some of it may have ZERO to do with diet.

Water may or may not be part of it. Personally I never had issue losing the weight when not getting the water recommended. It helps & definitely doesn't hurt, but for me I didn't sweat it. haha i made funny. My first IP go around I calculated my weekly average weight loss @ over 8# each week all the way till I stopped after 89#. I kept my records. I have blood work over a decade old, I just kind of a nerd that way. Personally I think the water is used to keep a person busy and the stomach constantly getting a sensation of something in it. After years in military with only 2 canteens on your LBE water intake per day on long rucks for me it isn't largely relative. But get it in if possible, it will only help. On a funny note, I believe it was Arnold Schwarzenegger who made fun of gym rats who have to suck down water while working out. The body can go hours without it even during long periods of expenditure. It just uncomfortable.

In 8 weeks you most definitely had a dietary adaptation to a degree. Research shows dietary adaptation starts to happen in less than a month without an adjustment of some kind. It is a rule of thermodynamics. Yes not all calories are metabolized the same way, but physics still applies in the end. Contrary to what people think, you don't want your body to get (efficient) adapted to ketosis and low calorie. Lets think about it efficient means it runs well without wasted energy. When burning fat you want to be a ford galaxy gas guzzler not an efficient Honda Accord just replace Ketones to gasoline. See what I am saying. You want 8 miles to a gallon not 30. You still get to your destination easily, it just cost you more gas (ketones) to get there. Think about old carburated engines how you can smell free gas in the exhaust vs fuel injection. gas in the exhaust is ketone waste expenditure. Make sense?

The body wants homeostasis and will do whatever that entails to achieve. Your body will steal energy from all the systems and organs to support itself including your bones. It may even down regulate systems. Remember you are starving you body (hypo caloric) despite how you feel or people claim. Burning fat is a result of starvation. Your body will fight you to have a neutral or stored energy balance not a loss of energy. Energy being comprised of body tissues in this reference. It can even shutdown certain elements to achieve the balance it wants. Dietary systematic and planned disruptions, keep the body from adapting and stabilizing to a feast or famine (in IP case) dietary position. (AKA your metabolism) will reduce even with similar LBM.

Dropping a packet will drop roughly 100 cal + out of your day total. That is nearly a 10% reduction in total calories for a day. Based on basic averages. That should help troubleshoot and if you are in decent state of ketosis you won't even miss it after the first day or two. How much restricted foods/ packets are you getting? I use 3 packets without problem and many times I have to remind myself the get the 3rd one in. I get zero restricted IP products. Not worth it, I am knocking this baby out. Honestly if the 4th packet is what stalled you out it is no question you had a down regulation and adaptation.

Your weight hasn't dropped, but what have your measurements done? What about your LBM? How is your energy? Your cognitive function? Has your sleep improved?
Are you testing ketosis? Yeah don't get to hung up on, right? But honestly if you aren't flagging a keto stick you are AT BEST marginally in ketosis. We can do better than marginal. Especially men tend to havea higher % LBM density than women have. That is like having a gas guzzling v8 vs v6. It should be pretty easy to get into a small excess to medium excess on a keto measuring stick. Without exercise you can even get large and maintain excess keto waste. It may take some learning but it very capable. Again the car comparison, burn that gas inefficiently. If you cant getting waste ketones up that means your body is getting glucose from somewhere. Carbs, excess protein intake, or lastly muscle tissue itself. A ketone is an inefficient fuel for energy. At higher than sedentary levels of activity you should easily have them in excess. Your body can/ will feel good in ketosis but that is different than efficient energy pathways. What is your carbs gram intake total minus fibers? you may be like me and getting over 30 - 50 grams a day is enough to stop ketosis. If your LBM is holding I wouldn't add protein, add a teaspoon of coconut oil to morning coffee roughly 3 grams of fat or 30 calories. maybe work up to a tablespoon. and if your concerned about protocol just remove that measure as part of your allotted oils in the program. Dont do a TBSP off the bat. You will lose weight because it a massive diuretic if you aren't used to it.

Honestly at a starting weight of 280# your maintenance calories by normal calculators should be over 3k a day so even consuming 1200 calories or so is a huge dietary deficit.

What is your sleep like? If you aren't rocking a good deep sleep that could be a stalling effect. Here a podcast done by an ex navy seal turned doctor treating special warfare clients mostly on sleep issues. And not getting proper sleep is huge. In this podcast he talks about people losing 30# or more just by getting into proper sleep. No dietary changes. http://daily.barbellshrugged.com/1-q...y-episode-113/

Check out this handout from Gaury Taubes. It has some great information and it almost a cliff notes to his book. 'Why we get fat, and what to do about it.' https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...-Fat-Bonus.pdf

If you are that type that does well on low carb (not everybody does). IP will shed the weight like a sauna suit when you figure out the issues and learn manipulations. Hopefully you have a coach that understands the biology and mechanism that happen. Mine 1st coach wasn't but I am very read on all kinds of low carb approaches. I constantly would get the 'Its like magic" answer when I asked question.

This is a lot of information to chew on. Buried in my ADHD typing is many questions. I also know my typing can be very confusing to read.
Don't bail on IP till you learn to tweak your entire lifestyle - food, sleep, meditation, exercise. It is all connected.

Viking Jim, my first time around my numbers were very similar to yours. I started around 285 and when I rolled into the 240s it definitely got a lot tougher. You can't get down on it though. You gotta make it to close to where you want and then enter P4. Then you have to lock down and take care of the gains once you are there.

I never worried too much about an extra non-restricted pkg. The restricted ones kill me though. If I down an extra one (or two) or have a bad day I can feel it and everything kinda grinds to a halt.

Your doing great, man! Most people would kill for 40lbs gone in 8wks (ask some of the ladies on this forum!) It is a life changer...we are all big dudes lets face it!! It isn't just for fun these are years we are trying to add on!! Keep going

Thanks guys, appreciate the help.

This morning I had a huge surprise...I'm down 4 lbs from the day before. I'm now at 238, the first time I've been in the 23's in maany a moon. This is one of the biggest 24 hr weight losses I've had to date. So right now I'm down 42 lbs from my weight on 12/13.

Like you've suggested, I've cut out the restricteds completely. I have upped my water to 12 8 oz glasses a day, and make sure that both the Cal Mag and oil are taken properly. I had sometimes not taken the full 4 Cal Mags, and Saturday my coach indicated that could be a problem.

I have sleep apnea and have had it for years, but with a CPAP I do sleep through the night most nights, so little complaint there. You are exactly right that sleep-weight-energy-heart disease-diabetes are all interconnected. I'm very hopeful that before I reach goal my doctor will tell me I don't need the CPAP anymore...fingers crossed.

Funny thing when I lost my weight I stopped using my CPAP and slept crappy!! I'm used to it now and I really like it!

Cpap
 

I'm somewhat surprised to hear that Lead, for me CPAP is a bad thing. Mine is very small, a nasal pillow device. I just don't feel "normal" with it. But I am thrilled to hear you are good with yours, a good night's sleep is priceless and very relevant to our weight loss.

Diet really odd this week...I mentioned the 4 day "gain a pound, loss a pound" yo-yo...then a single day 4 lb loss. Somewhat odd to me.

I followed that up with an exact three pound loss today...so four days with no change overall, followed by 7 pounds in two days. I can see why so many recommend not weighing themselves each day :)

I was on a CPAP and oxygen concentrator in my first go around on IP. I have started to wonder how not using may be a negative effect on reboot. I own my cpap and still have it but it was getting really difficult to find someone to sell me an O2 concentrator. I don't believe in taxing the medical system by renting when purchasing long term items is necessary and in the long run take burden off businesses and end users.

So not knowing my blood oxygen levels at night I wonder how much that is going to slow me down in my new goals if they (O2 levels) aren't at a reasonable level. I though of this after listening to an interview with the Dr. Parsely who primary practice is in sleep. I dropped the 02 generator when I moved across state lines because the company was a pain in the butt and wouldn't just let me bring my unit here. I also no longer use my cpap because I don't snore anymore after losing all the weight initially on IP. I would like to experiment with just upping my O2 concentration at night without the cpap. They blow, literally and figuratively. I had to use a full face mask, full on Bane from batman look.

My understanding from research when I was using the cpap equipment. Two general types of apnea. Nervous system related and inflammation/ body mass related. I was experiences a mixture of both. Many people simply lose a bunch of weight and the sleep breathing can normalize except when you have the nervous system issue. I am curious of eating a low systemic inflammation diet and having plenty of healthy fats can improve that nerve signalling. It is well documented of certain healthy fats including saturated fats improve the nervous system and responsiveness. Healthy myelin is critical for nervous system firing. myelin is a sheath that coats the nerve system. Think like insulation on a wire but it allows signaling through it also when appropriate. That is a laymen description because the crux is if you improve the health of myelin does it improve nervous system related sleep apnea? I have to go back and re read Dr. Perlmutter and some of others to find some specifics.

http://wellnessmama.com/8464/healthy-saturated-fat/

---this is copy of some of my comments from another thread--

Recently I had a very unintentional experiment for me. But Finally was able to be home at noon Thursday from a monday 7AM wake up. I had brief periods to try and rest but the wife and I figure no period was longer 4 hours total. And only had one of those. Most of the time at home was averaging about 2 hours from walk in to walk out.

I ate protocol 100% even with the extra hours awake. I didn't feel the need for more food. Coffee yes but not food.

I had only dropped about 4# from my weigh in the previous Thursday. And it was stalled. So beyond the lack of sleep I absolutely had a stress response because it isn't typical and I work in a safety sensitive position.

Thursday afternoon I had some periods of napping and then had a good 8-9 hour period of fairly restful sleep. I say fairly restful because our caveman genetics aren't designed for an entire period of 9-10 hours 100% knocked out. For which I think many people think good sleep should be.

This morning over 4# went down overnight. So it gives at least me some scale to how much these environmental inputs effect our goals.

The sleep doctor Parsely in one of his interviews explains that insulin resistance does uptick with just one night of a couple of hours of sleep.
I think that same interview he explains the process of a sleep reset. It isn't easy and only really applicable in a clinical setting. But for regular people it gives ideas how to plug it in to regular life and get some normalized sleep patterns.

Tough weigh in today. Only down one pound. I was disappointed but not unexpected. Went out for dinner a couple of nights enjoyed 1 beer. Still committed to IP and plan on a much better week this week!

My CPAP is a "nose-cover" gel type. I find that as well as sleeping much deeper and better I also get sick with a cold much more rarely. When I lost all of my weight I went off it and didn't feel right and slept like crap so I went back on it.

The only reason I was ever tested is that my wife was complaining about my snoring. Now I complain about hers!!

Coming in for a reboot and see no one has posted here in about 10 months so hopefully it'll reboot the thread as well.

I've been extremely bad over the last year and it's showing. After Phase III I was able to stay in the mid 170's for the longest time but got complacent and stopped paying attention to anything. After eating whatever I wanted to for the last year I topped out last week at 198. I swore I'd never be over 200 again so here I am.

I haven't checked in here for a while. I check in from time to time for a little motivation. I am about 2.5 years into maintenance. I still think about what i eat every day. When i get over my goal weight, i eat healthy for a few days till i am below. I basically have to obsess about it.

Made it back to 190 after the 1st week (last Thur). Due to the short holiday week I have another weigh-in tomorrow. Not expecting much just hoping it went in the right direction. I notice I've been extremely irritable for the last 2 weeks but haven't been hungry so going to chalk it up to too much soy. Guess I'll drop the good tasting packets for those without it for a couple of weeks and see if that makes a difference.

I wouldn't call it obsessing... I'd call it caring for yourself ;). After all, we think about what we are going to wear every day, what jacket & shoes to put on for the weather, etc. It's just another way of keeping yourself healthy.
So... Good for You!!:hug:

14 down and 14 to go. I'll probably have a bad day around the 25th as that's my birthday and may just say the heck with things for at least 1 meal. I plan on being within 5 or 6lbs of goal by then anyway. If I set things back an extra 2 weeks I'll just deal with it.

One thing is I'm back in the green according to the "Waist to Height Ratio." I'm at 50.71 which is listed as "healthy/normal weight." I think this is a better indicator than BMI (especially as it has me at "normal").

Here's a link in case anyone needs it: http://www.shapefit.com/calculators/...alculator.html

one week of reboot done and lost 10lbs. been 4 months since end of phase 1 and gained 24lbs. rebooting 25lbs total. last week had couple "swigs" of red wine with my steak on two separate nights. saturday night had two shots of rum. no effect

cheers

Restarted myself again today. Let me self slowly gain it back since last June. Bought smaller clothes last June, and now they are very tight. :(

I'm on 100 percent alternatives, but still follow the protocol. Hoping to keep checking in on this thread.