Re: Day 19, plateau?

I've been planning to go for 30 days. Wondering if it's normal to plateau on the weight loss at this stage. I think my weight's stayed the same for a few days after losing steadily in the beginning.

Hi Healthierguts,

It is exceedingly normal for weight loss to be fastest towards the beginning and slowest towards the end and though a reduced metabolic rate is one factor (by 25-40% over a long fast according to Dr. Shelton, the vast majority of this by 21 days) the primary and overwhelming factor is that the majority of temporary water and intestinal content losses are already gone by the later stages.

"Metabolism is lowered from one-fourth to two-fifths during the fast. This falls quite rapidly during the first part of the fast until the true physiological minimum for metabolism is reached. From this point on, until the return of hunger, metabolism is maintained at a fairly uniform level.

from: http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020127shelton.III/020127.ch10.htm

If you have days with no scale loss whatsoever it's just a matter of how much water is being held or released since your body has no choice but to continue burning fat to sustain itself (and to a much lesser extent protein sources to procure the minimally required amounts of glucose).

In one of my own experiences, on days 1-7 I averaged about 2.4 pounds of loss per day: 3.5, 1.75, 2.5, 3.25, 1.75, 2 and 2, 16.75 pounds in 7 days... and on days 24-30 i averaged .75 pounds of loss, 5.25 pounds in 7 days. This would have been about a pound per day, but i had slowed down on my activity in the final days of that fast.

I'm still really weak and had an extra-extra tired day today. That 21-day mark looks good to me but I'd regret not sticking it out to the 30-day goal I set my mind to at the outset.

I can share in this :). Every day looks tempting to break a fast early but i agree with you that there is nothing quite as sweet or as worthy of our sacrifice as reaching our goal.

"But I suppose with ideal refeeding I won't gain it back other than a few pounds of water rebalancing weight?"

The temporary losses are often a bigger part of it than we might like to believe, but the fat losses are real and can be permanant with the right post-fast practices.