Ok, so I'm stuck at a plateau of the 270s, and yesterday after much concerted effort I got down to 273. My dad's uncle is down visiting, so basically I had a class I was taking yesterday and so didn't eat until dinner. Had spaghetti, no seconds, a tiny piece of garlic bread, no condiments, water, and one deviled egg. At the very most, this meal should have been 1500 calories, max..max, for the whole day.

This morning the scale read - 275.2, up 2.2 lbs from yesterday. WTF WTF I know spaghetti is bad, but I also know I didn't go over my calories. I know I maintaining was likely, but a GAIN of two lbs on 1500 calories at 275 lbs is really p**sing me off. I've heard of plateaus like this with people who are like 160, but 275?

Is spaghetti just death no matter now small a portion you have? This really makes me angry. And, my uncle will be here two weeks and likes to eat like this. I feel very pressured to eat with him every day, but I can't be gaining weight like this, argh. I feel like my metabolism is just dead, and I have no means to get it checked out, and even if I did, doctors don't take me seriously. It was helping matters my uncle was making comments about how "unphysically fit" I am. He didn't even noticed I have dropped 45 lbs since I last saw him.

Can't you eat something else? cant you have a salad? something different from what hes eating? i doubt he will be offended if you say your dieting

I know how you feel about pasta! and im living in the land of pasta and pizza so i know how hard it is

Lots of questions here, but let's start with this one. Pasta is not death, if you can manage to make it whole grain pasta it's actually great and I eat it at least once a week. If you gained there are likely a couple things that happened - the sauce and galic bread likely had a ton of salt and you are retaining water and second the portion of the spaghetti you had, how big was it? A portion of pasta is 1/2c to 1c, probably closer to 1c for your stats.

So regarding your plateau, it's hard to say what's going on without more info. How many cals are you eating, how much are you working out, how much are you sleeping, are you under stress, is your body just taking a break - you've lost a tremendous amount of weight!

Find ways to eat with your uncle where you are in control of what is served. Have him over for dinner and you do the cooking and make alterations to your dish so it is weight friendly. There are things you can do, you just have to get creative sometimes and sometimes say who cares what others think! When I was losing weight I used to take my lunch to fast food restaurants so I could eat with my co-workers.

Good luck!

Your problem is you are not eating a balanced diet. Spaghetti is not the cuprit, your choices are. All you ate for the day was carbs. Where are the protein, vegetables, dairy, fruit? You can't expect to lose weight eating junk.

The problem is not the spaghetti. The problem is with portion size.
You will have to reconfigure the portion of spaghetti you are eating.
A 1500 calorie portion of spaghetti, sauce, and a 100 calorie piece of garlic bread is a very large amount of food to eat at one time.

I eat spaghetti on a regular basis.
But my serving portion figures out to 300 calories. That includes the pasta and the meat sauce. And it almost fills my soup bowl.
If I add a small piece of garlic bread it will bring the meal up to 400 calories.

But I had to cut bread out of my diet completely. It causes water weight gain in me, and my feet will swell. The pasta doesn't cause swelling. It's the bread.
Try not eating any bread, coffee cake, and danish rolls for a month.

I suggest that you find out what the calories are just in the pasta. Then figure out the calories in the sauce.

Then cut the portion down to 300 to 500 calories total for the whole meal.

I eat 3 meals a day, plus a couple of beverages. I take in around 1580 calories every day. And I am losing 1 pound per week.

Best of luck on your dieting. You have lost a lot of weight so far. You must be feeling a lot better.

I know that stuff like garlic bread are usually really salty, so be aware of the fact that ''official gain weight'' is frequently more like ''water retention''

personnaly, I make my own spaghetti sauce : no added salt, a lot of veggies and lean meat for proteins. And I don't feel bad about eating spaghetti anymore

TD, it's not the choice of food. Bodies are just weird! Sometimes you can be doing absolutely everything right, and the scale will still make faces at you.

Here's an example... this morning I got up and weighed... scale said a weight I was expecting. An hour later, having had only a cup of coffee and gone to the loo, I stepped back on for a grin and got one: Scale said 1.4 pounds more. It's a good scale, too. Who knows why? I hadn't even had breakfast yet!

I do agree about the portion size. Carbs are definitely the time to measure, measure, measure. I also agree whole grain pasta is the best choice, not much of it, and s-t-r-e-t-c-h that sauce portion with the addition of tons of veggies: Onions, peppers, spinach, mushrooms, anything you like. Re the pasta, I've successfully switched from traditional white pasta to whole grain pasta with various family members and no one even noticed.

It's not about the daily fluctuations -- it's about the general trend downward. Always, always keep this in mind!

Hang in there and best to you!

Just my experience here....I agree with everyone I don't think it's the spaghetti, itself. You didn't eat all day!!! EVERY.SINGLE.TIME I got through a period where I get off track (intentionally or not), I notice my weight stalls or even a gain. What you ate in the days leading UP to this fast all day and then only a plate of spaghetti to me is what you may want to look at.

If you spent the last several days eating low calorie, and then basically starved yourself all day, THAT could be the culprit.

I calorie cycle, but like I said, sometimes I get off track. I have such a control issue that I intentionally will eat low calorie for way more days than I am supposed to. Then I wonder why I am starving and almost can't seem to control what goes in my mouth at times. It is after THOSE days that I "re-feed" myself as some call it, that I notice the largest dips in my weight. Those days are definitely fewer and far between since I have been on this journey, but every now and then, it comes creeping back and I have to stop and scold myself and jump back in there.

Other culprits to your problem may be salt (the sauce AND the garlic bread) or you may just be experiencing plain old hard to explain water retention.

I vote for you try and eat ON PLAN today, even up your cals by just a little, relax and see what the scale reads tomorrow.

I had a cup of cooked pasta this week also with it i had 1 boiled potato, green beans and a bit of pesto and it was lovely! i didnt still feel hungry afterwards because of the veggies so it might be an idea like someone else said to have a little pasta and lots of veggies with it!

Just one thing to keep in mind...spaghetti sauce is typically quite high in sodium (unexpectedly). I think 1/2 cup contains about 20% of your daily recommended sodium intake. That could account some for the rise in the scale.

I believe there are several possible reasons your scale showed a higher weight. It is extremely unlikely that the higher weight has anything to do with fat.

#1) Increased glycogen stores - not eating all day will increase insulin sensativity for your first meal. Thus, a good portion of those carbs could have been stored as muscle glycogen.

#2) If you're not used to short term fasting your cortisol levels were likely elevated causing water retention. Being so busy yesterday likely contributed here as well.

#3) Sodium content of meal higher than your body is used to causing water retention.

There is always a scientific way to explain what happened. Maybe none of these are accurate but I'm certain you didn't gain two pounds of fat from a single meal after fasting all day.

I think it's a mistake to evaluate your eating and your weight on a day-to-day basis. Carby, salty meals are notorious for causing fluid-retention that can make you see a short-term bounce on the scale. So what? It's not the short-term changes that matter.

Look at your weight today versus your weight a month or two ago. Is there a downward trend? If not, then evaluate your eating habits over that whole period of a month or two and make decisions about which of those habits you can change to see better results over the next month or two.

No one meal is going to derail your overall progress - and no one meal is going to make your overall progress either. Try to take a longer-term view.

Oh hey, one thing I started doing, as well, is when my family has Spaghetti, I bake up some spaghetti squash, and have my sauce on that. Now I don't feel like I am missing out at all, but I am not eating 300 calories in pasta either! I also, ALWAYS take into account that spaghetti sauce is high in sodium, so I don't eat spaghetti before weigh in day.

The weight on the scale has been addressed and I've only skimmed the other posts. I'd like to ask why you feel pressured to eat with your uncle? That's just plain silly in my opinion. If he is offended by you not eating what he eats, then that's HIS issue. You don't owe anyone anything when it comes to nourishing your body. I definitely have relatives who try to pressure me into eating, but I don't allow it. I tell them that my BMI is not in the normal range and that's that.

You are doing an INCREDIBLE job with our weight loss, so obviously, you're doing something right. If anything, others should feel pressured to eat like you do!

I eat pasta all the time. But I eat it whole wheat and with veggies and I don't have any huge problems losing weight.. And my portions are not minimal or anything.. But I still can't imagine eating 1500 calories worth of pasta.. Not even with meat sauce.. Lets say a normal persons portion is about 100g of pasta (metric system here I'm sorry), that is about 300calories.. One piece of bread.. Deviled egg.. I don't know.. I guess it depends on the sauce alot.. Anyway I still think it's not fat you gained. Just water weight.. Don't panic