I just don’t understand! I haven’t lost any weight in 3 weeks. I’ve been really good, upped my water intake, no snacking between meals, no cheating… why won’t anymore weight go away?? Anyone else experiences this for this long? I was thinking of giving it up a while back and this morning on the scales I feel was the last straw. This diet is very very expensive for me and I’m not losing any weight so why am I bothering?! I can’t do exercise because I work at least 10 hours a day and I bring stuff home with me so there is no time and even if there was I’d have no energy left at all! So I’m at a complete loss. I had such high hopes for this diet and I’m so disappointed 🙁 beginning to think there must be something wrong with me to not be losing anything still!!!

Hi Lauryloo
I had a plateau over the whole of August and was quite puzzled by it – no not puzzled more frustrated and upset, especially when I read about the fantastic losses that people were achieving. I realised (only by reading posts on this forum – so thank goodness for the expertise on this forum) that some people have to restrict their carbs more than others.

Most people do absolutely fine on 50g or even more good carbs but I have to restrict the good carbs to below 30g and 20g is even better for weight loss. This is net carbs so if you are in the US you will need to subtract the fibre from the total carbs.

I found that I had to weigh all my good carbs to ensure that I stayed in that range – but it was worth it as I have now lost 2stone 8lbs, diabetes is in remission (I no longer inject insulin) and I have reversed the diabetic retinopathy and macular oedema.

At my Annual Review the Consultant said that I would always have to restrict even the BSD friendly fruit – basically forever.

Because of the carb restriction I have added Inulin for fibre and am waiting for a delivery of oat fibre (not oat bran) just to up my fibre intake. I also add a vitamin C tablet. Once I am at target weight (probably only 4 more lbs) I will have to experiment a bit to find out what carbs level will keep my blood sugars ok.

Even if you don’t have diabetes it is worth trying the carb restriction. Having a stressful job and not being able to exercise will affect how many good carbs you can eat and still lose weight.

Even though you haven’t lost weight you have started to improve your health. Unfortunately these improvements are unseen but they are still happening even though we can’t see them.

Hi Lauryloo,
You poor thing, I can understand how frustrating it must be but have you been measuring? There are so many posts about this and oftentimes you will be losing fat on the inside and inches everywhere else before you lose numbers on the scales. Also search for the whoosh effect!
It’s just not possible to eat these low calories and not have something happen. It won’t hurt to give it another week, just see it as a common plateau that just about everybody goes through and I bet you get a nice surprise soon!

I had a plateau last just short of three weeks in October. It was hard not to burst into tears every time I stepped on the scale, even though I’d already experienced a couple of week-long plateaus by then. I stick to 20 grams of net carbs a day and have from the beginning (August 1st), so I couldn’t even follow Krysia’s excellent advice to reduce carb intake. I just had to be fatalistic about it and keep on keeping on. The body is a complex, often maddening, machine and it will do what it wants sometimes no matter what you want it to do. I promise you, though, despite the frustration and despair of the hiccups, it’s worth it to stick to the BSD. I’ve lost more than 60 pounds since August, and that’s with multiple plateaus scattered in there. My only regret is that I didn’t start it earlier.

Best of luck to you, Lauryloo.

The stress hormone cortisol might also be screwing you up. Especially bad for people with diabetes.

QUOTE :
Adrenaline increases your heart rate, elevates your blood pressure and boosts energy supplies. Cortisol, the primary stress hormone, increases sugars (glucose) in the bloodstream, enhances your brain’s use of glucose and increases the availability of substances that repair tissues.

Cortisol also curbs functions that would be nonessential or detrimental in a fight-or-flight situation. It alters immune system responses and suppresses the digestive system, the reproductive system and growth processes. This complex natural alarm system also communicates with regions of your brain that control mood, motivation and fear. END QUOTE

from : http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress/art-20046037

Thanks all- I cheated (Xmas party) and ended up losing 2 lbs?! How does that work! A very confusing journey indeed is this diet! X

Over the weeks I have found that if I go over on carbs or calories (say a big bowl of traditional porridge) on a given day a couple of days later it can kick-start a loss a couple of days later – no idea why!

I read on one of the whooshes links that someone posted that this can happen, I haven’t noticed a link myself, I don’t call them cheat days though, I use the term planned exceptions for Christmas parties which makes me feel less guilty and set myself some reasonable limits.

I’ve been doing some reading about fasting and drastically reducing carbs. Apparently once your body starts to use it’s own fat stores for fuel it can start to build up lean muscle which weighs more than fat. This could be the reason the weight loss isn’t as much as we hope it will be.

The other thing which I’ve often heard is that scales are the least effective way of measuring what’s really going on. Better to use a tape measure. As Inka13 says earlier in this post there are good things going on inside your body that you have no way of measuring.

I have been following the blood sugar diet now for 16 weeks and I don’t eat any pasta, sugar, potatoes, rice, bread. I keep my calorie intake to 800. I lost a stone in the first week, and importantly my blood came down from 17.1 to 12.0 then 11.1. I have not lost any more weight, I am doing more exorcise then I have ever done. But I was hoping by now my blood sugar should be in a more normal range, but it is still reading 9.0 to 12.0. I don’t no what more I can do, all this time I have been really strict with myself and I am coping fine with it , I was just hoping for a better result by now.

Hi gracie, have your measurements changed at all? Are you much overweight? Are you on any medication that may be inhibiting weightloss? If you can give us a little more detail about your situation we may be able to suggest something.