Losing weight in BULK???????

[wiskband]

I have noticed this strange pattern according to my calender.
It seems that the past 3 weeks or so, I have stayed the same weight from thursday to thursday and then friday BAM! 3 pounds gone!!!!! thankfully I am keeping it off from week to week but I find this strange....anyone experience this?
renee

 

[Castillo Mom]

It's happened to me in the past. Kind of weird, huh? But hey can't complain!

 

[DoeWDW]

If you're eating low-carb (I'm sorry, I just can't keep everyone's eating style straight ) then this is common and expected. It seems to be the way the body works on low-carb. There's an explanation but I won't get into it here unless someone really wants me to post it. I feel like I'm always posting all this technical info that people really don't want to read.

 

[Rhonda]

Yes! I'm on Atkins, and that's what happens with me! I don't lose all week, then Friday or Saturday morning I drop!! Good - I'm glad I'm not the only one that does this! LOL!

 

[wld]

Same thing here. 2 poiunds a week when I weigh on Monday. Earlier in the week it won't have been anything. I've lost 12 lbs but it doesn't seem like my clothes are that much looser. Somewhere here I read you either lose weight or inches.
DoeWDW I would love your technical explanation of the pound thing and inches if you have it.

 

[DoeWDW]

I'll try to make this as short and non-technical as possible.

We all know that on low-carb, your body is releasing the fat from the fat cells and burning it for fuel - that's ketosis, and it's a good thing!

Your fat cells, however, don't like radical change. Besides, they may be called upon to store more fat in the near future. So when fat is released from a fat cell, that cell replaces the fat with water so that it's still roughly the same size.

Once it is clear that the body is still burning fat for fuel and not storing more fat in the fat cell, then it sheds all that water - causing a visit from.....the Whoosh Fairy!

That's why you stay the same for a few days to a week, and then all of a sudden, you drop a couple pounds. All your fat cells drop their excess water because you continue to burn body fat instead of storing it.

That's the theory as it was explained to me. Hope it helps!

 

[A1A1]

Thank you DoeWDW. I wanted the explanation, too. I would like any other technical explanation of how this actually works that you would care to give.

 

[wiskband]

Originally posted by DoeWDW
I'll try to make this as short and non-technical as possible.

We all know that on low-carb, your body is releasing the fat from the fat cells and burning it for fuel - that's ketosis, and it's a good thing!

Your fat cells, however, don't like radical change. Besides, they may be called upon to store more fat in the near future. So when fat is released from a fat cell, that cell replaces the fat with water so that it's still roughly the same size.

Once it is clear that the body is still burning fat for fuel and not storing more fat in the fat cell, then it sheds all that water - causing a visit from.....the Whoosh Fairy!

That's why you stay the same for a few days to a week, and then all of a sudden, you drop a couple pounds. All your fat cells drop their excess water because you continue to burn body fat instead of storing it.

That's the theory as it was explained to me. Hope it helps!

COOL......but now I am curious and have always wanted to know ..

If you are on atkins or doing low carb...... and are doing good for say........a week or two ...no cheating..... and then suddenly eat alot of carbs in say.....one day.....how will your body react?

I have always thought that the outcome of atkins (beside the obvisious to lose weight) was to eventually work your way back up to eating a certain amount of carbs (with the exception of atkins for life).

So if your working towards this goal and screw up in the mean time does your body interpet this as you have to start all over again?
have you now set yourself back?
Most importantly, has the one day of eating a crazy amount of carbs messed up your weight loss and how will your body react to this?



WHOOOOOOSH.........strange question and hard to word it....
but you seem very knowledgable about how exactly the body works with low carbs.
thanks
and sorry if I made ya think too much lol

renee

 

[DoeWDW]

It's OK, Renee - I actually LIKE to think...LOL!

Here's LOW-CARB PHYSIOLOGY 101

When you take in a lot of carbs, whether you've eaten low-carb or not, your body has to digest them. Carbs are broken down into sugar by your digestive system and then that sugar is dumped into your bloodstream to be used as fuel to run your body. Your blood sugar gets too high (more fuel than you can possibly use at the moment) so your pancreas sends insulin into the bloodstream. Insulin has many jobs in the body but one of them is to lower blood sugar when it is too high.

How does insulin lower blood sugar? Well, it opens the doors on your fat cells and shoves that sugar into them for storage as FAT. That's why eating too many carbs makes you fat, whether you've been eating low-carb or not. That's also why you can never go back to eating high levels of carbs.

In very low-carb eating, we take in fewer carbs and more protein. When our body is digesting the protein, our blood sugar does not rise. The body says "hey I need fuel - where can I get some?" The body releases glucagon, which has the opposite job of insulin. It goes out to the fat cells, opens the doors and takes fat out to be used as fuel for your body. This is what puts us in ketosis when we eat very low-carb and allows our body to use the fat we have stored as fuel.

When you get to maintenance, you want to balance your levels of insulin and glucagon. You eat just enough carbs to fuel your body but not enough to cause lots of insulin to store those carbs as fat. Each person needs to find what that level of carbs is for their metabolism.

Based on this, I'll create another post to answer your questions.

 

[A1A1]

Thank you for this info...............!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love this stuff. It is important to understand what is happening in my body.


Why do some say it is important not to allow the body to go into ketosis? I read that in some article.

 

[DoeWDW]

OK, Renee, let's say you've been a very good low-carber for a month and you suddenly spend a whole day eating LOTS of carbs.

First of all, your body will have high blood sugar from digesting all those carbs. Insulin will shove all the extra sugar into your fat cells so it can be used later.

So, do you start over? Well, you have to go back to eating low-carb long enough to clear your body of all that extra insulin floating around and long enough for your body to run out of easy fuel.

Your body is smart. It stores large amounts of excess sugar in the fat cells for long term use. However, there are times when the body needs quick fuel. It stores some fuel in your muscles as glycogen. Now, you have to use all this glycogen up before your body will open those fat cells and use the fat as fuel. That's why it often takes a couple days to start burning fat again after you've had a carb binge.

If you keep eating low-carb after your binge, you do recover in a few days, depending on how much you exercise, how much water you drink, etc.

If you have more questions, or if I haven't explained it clearly enough, please feel free to post! I love to discuss the technical side of why low-carb eating works and I really do try to make it easy to understand.

 

[wiskband]

Cool. I actually understand that!
I am a quick fixer so rather than tale aminute to understand why things work I just want them done.
Just latley I have gottne interested in how my body works.
It is very interesting and glad you took some time to explain.
thanks
renee