This will be the third day running that I have managed to get down to around 800 calories, (after weeks of general BSD) and the pounds are shifting, but today I have had to have two naps, and slept soundly both times.
Is this just because I had a bad night last night, or is it because I am losing weight too fast? (2lb in three days) Another possibility is that yesterday and the day before involved significant levels of physical activity, so maybe I should have increased my protein intake, somehow.

More than once in the past I have lost about 7 lbs in a couple of weeks, then either stalled or gone into starvation mode.
I didn’t know it at the time, but back then I wasn’t eating enough protein. This time I have already found that I need to eat around 80g protein, even on a relatively inactive day, plus I have completely ditched loose carbs for several weeks now, and don’t get the munchies any more. I am still worrying that I am going to hit the glycogen plateau or worse though.

How can I be sure that the weight lost isn’t just glycogen, or worse, muscle mass?

Some of the weight loss in the early days will be glycogen, if you are low carbing, or rather the water it binds to it. This will slow down after the first week so for the rest of the time your water mass won’t change much. Muscle mass will only decrease if you stop exercising them, as there are several stages to go before the body starts to consume healthy muscle and usually you need to be seriously underweight as well as calorie restricted to get to that point.

Hmm, thanks Mixnmatch, that’s pretty much what I reckoned, about glycogen, but I don’t want to carry one with that level of activity. ( I have a lot of things to do that are more important, and not physically strenuous.)
I don’t want to risk losing muscle mass once the glycogen is gone, so I think maybe I should switch to the 5/2 diet instead. It’s good to know that I can lose weight without going into protein deficit again though. 🙂

But if you are fat adapted your body will use your that for fuel before your muscles, once the glycogen is used up for a short period, you don’t use your glycogen for it not to return. You can also eat too much protein and excess turns into fat. There is a post on here, I think from Linda A, which I can’t attach, sorry, giving information on how to calculate the body’s needs in relation to carbs, fat, protein etc. Without wanting to sound rude (written word missing nuances etc) maybe you should be concentrating on the whole picture and not just one, protein, piece?

Hi Ancient Weaver. Unfortunately you do not have a profile posted so I don’t know how much you weigh or what you have to lose and whether you are doing this for weight loss or Blood sugar levels or both so it’s difficult to ascertain if there is anything to be worried about. My first reaction is probably no, I really wouldn’t worry. I started this way of eating 9 months ago and had about 30lbs to lose. I lost 7lbs in my first week (and many others on here have lost a lot more than that in their first week) so I don’t think it’s too unusual to lose a lot. You say you were following the ‘general BSD’ rules but from experience that only helps me to maintain my weight. The 800 calories kick start it.

As far as naps go, a bad night’s sleep will often cause one to nap beautifully – I wish I could do that at my desk every day! I think a one off is fine – if it happens really regularly then maybe have a think about it. You also say that this is only your third day. I would really give it a fortnight before making any decisions. You will not lose muscle mass in that time, especially if you are overweight – your body burns fat before muscle. Please don’t worry too much and give it a bit more time.

Just my opinion – hope it helps

AnnieW, if you mean the post that mentions using ideal body weight as the base to calculate from, I have seen it, and I think it is a much more appropriate method than using current weight. Current weight is more appropriate to calorie counting, but normal CC is BS anyway (and I don’t mean Blood Sugar), not all calories are the same. I was relieved that the amount of protein that I aim for on the 800 is only very slightly high, and am pretty sure that my fat and carbs also fall within the parameters.
(I don’t do ‘low fat’ and have cream in my coffee (no sugar), and a certain amount of carbs (and sometimes fat) is unavoidable as part of nuts, meat, veg and cheese.) I admit to letting them slide, and to being (justifiably, but I won’t go into details here) obsessed about protein.

I think I need to rephrase my question: How can I be sure I am fat adapted?

topcac,
Profile updated!
I’m not worried about the 3 lb I have just lost, (I’m sure that it’s glycogen) just that if I carry on at that rate for more than a week, that it will start to affect things other than body fat.
What happened after the first week?
I know from experience that I don’t lose weight on the general BSD, I mentioned it to show that I am used to no loose carbs, and yes the 800 kick started it for me too. Unfortunately losing weight fast in the first week is common with ALL diets.

Naps I know I am kind of lucky I can experiment with the effects of food without worrying about how it will affect my ability to do anything later, but I need to find this stuff out before I can get back to work. I have particular problems with daytime sleepiness which was (along with a lot of other things) exacerbated by not eating enough protein, but had managed to keep the worst at bay until yesterday. I had to go back to bed again already this morning, but am fine now and feel like I might be fine all day. At least while I am awake I’m feeling pretty good and getting stuff done so it’s still better than I used to be.

Hi AW

I lost only a pound in the second week then put it back on in the third then lost 4lbs in the fourth week! It does go like that with some of us so please don’t worry too much at this stage.

As for feeling a bit ‘meh’ in the first few days that is SO common. I felt like crap for a good week when I started it properly. The first day I got a migraine, threw up and wasted all those calories 🙂

This too shall pass

I don’t have my figures in front of me, but I think I lost 9 pounds in my first week and then 1 1/2 pounds in the second week, 26 pounds in total over the eight weeks so over a third of the total weight I lost was in the first week and clearly largely water/glycogen with maybe 2 pounds of fat at most. All of the weeks I lost something, with, I think, 5 consecutive days being my longest ‘stall’ followed by a ‘whoosh’ when the water finally let go of around 2 pounds.

It can be difficult to be sure you are fat adapted but generally if you can go For long periods without needing food, can do exercise without ‘carb loading’ your mood is on an even keel you may be. Check out the Diet Dr website, there’s info about it there along with ketosis – and it’s a well respected site. It can take some time to become fat adapted and able to switch between fuels. But everyone is different so we are all our own experiment.

Thanks folks, I think I’m beginning to get a handle on it now.
As my weight had been stable for some time, my glycogen stores would have been full when I finally managed to cut down to 800.
This means that the weight I have lost over the last few days is not likely to be muscle mass.

There is no way of knowing if I have lost any body fat yet, but , as I haven’t been eating significant quantities of carbohydrate for some time now, my body must be using something else for energy, and be used to it as well. Hopefully it’s been using the extra fat that I’ve been eating rather than the protein, but either is possible.

(I wrote the above on the 7/7 but didn’t finish what I wanted to write so didn’t post it. I can’t remember, now, what else I wanted to say tho’ :S )

I don’t think I am fat adjusted, despite not eating much carbs at all for a long time now.
Yesterday, I had a fruit smoothie at lunchtime, (naughty, I know, but I figured I needed some vitaminC and roughage), so lots of carbs, but I didn’t get tired in the afternoon . . . It might have been the vitC that woke me up (if I have fruit or vitC in the evenings, my sleep is more broken), but I suspect that carbs were involved too, or rather the lack of carbs caused my intense sleepiness in the days before.

The day before that I didn’t manage to get to 500, but I did manage to keep to 800, and lost a bit more weight, but yesterday’s carbs have stopped that. I haven’t gained either, so not too bad a slip over all. 🙂
I will try and have one piece of fruit or a small glass of juice for breakfast regularly after this, for the vitaminC, and keep better track of my carbs too. My spreadsheet is getting a bit big tho 😀

Back to my concerns about muscle loss and not being fat adjusted though:
For energy, in theory, everything, fats, carbs and even protein, can be used as a source of Acetyl(?) CoA, and can be built all the way back up again to glycogen, or fat, but not protein.
Not being able to remake protein/amino acids from Acetyl CoA is normal, but the rest should happen. In a lot of us though, it seems that the ability to break down fats is not nearly as good as it ought to be. Clearly we use carbs for energy before anything else, so as long as there is an excess of carbs around, fat doesn’t get broken down (not counting digestion) for energy, so we have to cut down on carbs to get our bodies to use fat instead, but even then, we use up glycogen before fat. This part also seems to happen fairly smoothly (although for me personally this time, it seems to have involved a lot of need for sleep :S ). Why though, do we so often hit a brick wall when it comes to breaking down fat?

Eating a fair amount of fat and protein ensures that we don’t start breaking down our muscles for energy, and in fact I know from years of experience that my brain will be deprived of adequate levels of neurotransmitters long before I lose any noticeable amount of muscle, so really for me at least, the loss of muscle mass is a definite myth. I guess what I am really afraid of is protein deficit, but, again, eating sufficient protein should keep my neurotransmitters from being depleted.

And now I’m getting to the root of what is really worrying me. If protein is also broken down preferentially to fat, and even protein deficit doesn’t make me switch to breaking down fat, what on earth will?

Comparison time:
Previous times: not enough protein, so feeling low anyway, cutting down on everything, generally, I lost a few pounds then hit a brick wall and it became really hard to balance still losing weight without going into starvation mode, and I never managed to keep the weight I had lost off for more than a month or so. At least once, I did manage to lose about a stone, but despite my weight having been stable for a long time previously, I still put it all back on again. ‘Normal food’ if I take my eye of the scales, makes me put on weight. Back then, I wasn’t eating enough protein.
This time: Adequate protein. Weight has been stable, with scale watching, as before. Having cut down on carbs though, and some fat along with it as I cut out cakes and biscuits (because I found that with the increased protein I didn’t need anything like as much calories as before), I noticed that when I eat a normal portion of carbs e.g. chips, whoosh goes my weight. Obviously carbs need to go. I have managed to lose it again in a couple of days each time though. Since going high protein, and finding I have to eat at least two eggs or a (tiny) scoop of inisotol to sleep through the night, I just don’t get the munchies any more, and that actually it’s REALLY easy, not to eat more than absolutely needed. I don’t really need to look at the scales to keep me from eating more, I’m just not hungry enough to eat too much. I just need to keep away from loose carbs. Even on 800 calories, I’m not missing food, and even yesterday’s carb binge, still around 800 total, hasn’t put my weight up, so there is every chance that I won’t put back on any of what I’ve lost these last few days. I’ll keep up with my spreadsheet to be sure of getting enough protein without going over 800cals, but it’s just a little mental effort, no will power needed whatsoever. It works! even without fussing over precise amounts of carbs and fat.
I just need to tinker with meal plans so as to cut out the protein shakes, and get my vitamins and roughage on a daily basis, but still be a simple daily routine.

The easiest way to tell if body fat is going is to use the good old measuring tape. Measure any areas of concern, especially the waist for the visceral fat, and track the measurements weekly. I was never organised enough to do this, but you sound as though you should be 😀 I used the simple test of fitting into smaller and smaller clothes, picked up cheaply as ‘test’ items and kept in a box in my wardrobe.

It would take. Big plate of chips to make you gain actual fat weight (if you accept the 3,500 cals = 1lb). Your weight gains is mainly down to the water retained to deal with them. Eating protein and fats are both satiating, hence the no need to snack.

Feeling tired/hitting a wall can be a sign of your body switching from carb burning to fat burning and can be separate to the carb flu. It can take some time for this to be seamless but once it happens, as long as there’s no carbs to use first, your body will use fat without any outward signs. My weekend runs are done fasted, 10 miles this morning on a glass of water. I don’t run fast so at some point I must have been burning fat as the glycogen would have been used – and I was relatively low carb yesterday. Completed the run with no problems. Eating a balance of high fat, med protein, low carb is enough to keep most people away from burning muscle – maybe your metabolism is just a bit more sensitive than most? And if , after losing your weight (in the past, or in the future) you return to old habits, then you will not keep the weight off.

Me, organised? :O
Actually now you mention it, I do seem to have recovered some ability to organise and record.
5 months ago, I could barely make a single course meal once a day, and even that would end up burnt if I didn’t have anyone around to keep me on track.
Now I am making spreadsheets again, revising HTML and learning CSS, remembering what I’ve done and eaten in the last 24 hours, and even managing to record some of it, even starting to make meal plans! I’ve even made an inroad into the bomb-site that is my house, but actually that started some weeks ago.
I doubt that I will ever be properly organised, (I have ADHD), but it’s a great feeling to think that I have effectively wound the clock back 20 years!

I don’t think I was worried about muscle loss per se, more about the general ‘What’s going to happen when I run out of glycogen?’, having had bad experiences previously.
I suspect that those that suffer muscle loss without other symptoms of protein deficiency actually had more muscle than was strictly necessary, plus not eating enough decent food. After all, muscle uses a lot of energy even when it’s not used, so if food is short and you have more muscle that you are really using, then it makes sense that the body would reduce muscle, not only for it’s calorific value, but to prevent the additional use of energy. I am not in any of those categories.

I think getting back into clothes that had gotten too tight is the best test. Tape measures can slip, and inches can go up and down with a meal or de/hydration. I have a beautiful skirt from about 20 years ago, that I stopped being able to get into shortly after I bought it. When I can wear that again, I will be on cloud nine. 🙂

I realised from the disproportionate amount of weight gained (from a portion of chips), combined with it’s easy loss that it was being turned into glycogen, not going to body fat, but I still think it’s a sign to cut down on loose carbs. I’m sure I get enough from the rest of the food I eat. Even my protein shakes have some carbs.

The tiredness may not be related to a metabolism issue at all, it is possible that my brain is working well enough now, to tell me to get the sleep that I ought to be getting, and merely responding normally to unusual levels of exertion.

Thanks, both of you, for your support and encouragement. I have stopped worrying. 🙂

Oh oh! I tried editing my post and now it’s gone! I’ve tried pasting and reposting it from the previous window and IT doesn’t like that. 😕

Me, organised? :O
Actually now you mention it, I do seem to have recovered some ability to organise and record.
5 months ago, I could barely make a single course meal once a day, and even that would end up burnt if I didn’t have anyone around to keep me on track.
Now I am making spreadsheets again, revising HTML and learning CSS, remembering what I’ve done and eaten in the last 24 hours, and even managing to record some of it, even starting to make meal plans! I’ve even made an inroad into the bomb-site that is my house, but actually that started some weeks ago.
I doubt that I will ever be properly organised, (I have ADHD), but it’s a great feeling to think that I have effectively wound the clock back 20 years!

I don’t think I was worried about muscle loss per se, more about the general ‘What’s going to happen when I run out of glycogen?’, having had bad experiences previously.
I suspect that those that suffer muscle loss without other symptoms of protein deficiency actually had more muscle than was strictly necessary, plus not eating enough decent food. After all, muscle uses a lot of energy even when it’s not used, so if food is short and you have more muscle that you are really using, then it makes sense that the body would reduce muscle, not only for it’s calorific value, but to prevent the additional use of energy. I am not in any of those categories.

I think getting back into clothes that had gotten too tight is the best test. Tape measures can slip, and inches can go up and down with a meal or de/hydration. I have a beautiful skirt from about 20 years ago, that I stopped being able to get into shortly after I bought it. When I can wear that again, I will be on cloud nine. 🙂

I realised from the disproportionate amount of weight gained (from a portion of chips), combined with it’s easy loss that it was being turned into glycogen, not going to body fat, but I still think it’s a sign to cut down on loose carbs. I’m sure I get enough from the rest of the food I eat. Even my protein shakes have some carbs.

The tiredness may not be related to a metabolism issue at all, it is possible that my brain is working well enough now, to tell me to get the sleep that I ought to be getting, and merely responding normally to unusual levels of exertion.

Thanks, both of you, for your support and encouragement. I have stopped worrying. 🙂