Need some advice - how much weight should I expect to lose? page 3

[banananutmuffin]

I'm 5'0", and a woman, and I initially went Primal a year ago to lose weight. So I know where you're at right now.

The weight loss was slow for me at first. Actually, it took me 3 months to lose my goal amount (15 lbs), which compared to some other diets and dieters is painfully slow. (Although I've always been a slow loser.) Fortunately, I discovered other advantages of Primal (aside from weight loss) before I threw in the towel.

I tried a lot of different things suggested here to speed up the weight loss: cutting dairy, cutting nuts, more exercise, more sleep, less stress, etc. The only thing that really made the weight melt off was IFing. Calories do count, and IFing was an easy way for me to control them.

Ultimately, I managed to get down to my college weight of 102 lbs (with more muscle this time around) by:

- Eliminating almost all dairy, except maybe a slice or two of cheese once a week
- Eliminating almost all nuts, except maybe a little almond meal in a recipe once a week
- Increasing my vegetables in the veg-to-meat ratio
- Eliminating almost all fruit, except maybe one or two pieces a week (I don't like fruit anyway)
- Intermittent Fasting (which for me meant skipping breakfast and eating a very late lunch)

HTH!

[MattyH]

I actually think you're completely on track - I read somewhere that you can expect to lose 10% of your target loss in the the first 4 - 6 weeks, while the liver glucose, etc and various endocrine systems reset themselves. After 6 weeks, you'll see a leveling off while fluid levels and lipid stores adjust. Then weight loss will start again at a fairly steady rate.

That being said, while this is a life style not a diet, lets face it, losing excess weight is a good thing - and fun too! You could cut out the apples and carrots "for now" - much like "induction" or "fast starts" that other diets have. I found when starting that mini fruits worked better for me than maxi fruits. I can eat four grapes or three blackberries for a sweet treat, but it's hard to limit yourself to 1/4 apple, unless you have a skinny teen around to help.

[pearlina]

Thanks guys, for all the tips, very helpful.
I guess I will just stick it out to see how things go.

Although this morning I weighed myself, I actually gained a lb
As for IFing, I don't usually have breakfast, for me the morning is hectic. I only have a cup of americano each day in the AM.

As for finding foods that are high in fat, the comment about pistachios made me go look at the nutritional info some more. Pistachios actually does have 2x the carbs of something like macadamia nuts. So maybe I will switch to the latter. I just really like the taste of pistachios! Now I know why.

I will try incorporating more fats into the diet, maybe fish (salmon?) and coconut oli/butter.
I also think that it's difficult to gauge how fatty my steaks have been, what type of steak cuts yield higher fat to protein ratio? I think I definitely don't need nearly as much protein as I have been taking in.

The other guilty thing I do is I do eat a lot of soy. I love tofu and any related tofu products. I know soy is not 100% primal, and only the fermented stuff are good, but I do eat tofu as a filler, I find them tasty and picks up sauces really well. Tofu is probably not adding the high fat/moderate protein ratio too well.

Any other advice will be greatly appreciated. I am counting calories a bit just to make sure I am not over eating, I was recommended a daily of about 1400 calories, I find it hard to stay lower than that, and some days I do hit 1500s.

P

[loves walking]

How to Succeed with the Primal Blueprint | Mark's Daily Apple

A couple of your days on the carb. count was more in the maintenance range. So I would try to cut back there.

[Belforte]

It is not just that soy is not primal, it is not good for you at all. I have found one of the big benefits of eating this way was that PMT and that time of month, stopped being an issue, no PMT or cramps and it is very manageable. It might be worth thinking about when did your cycle cause you problems, was it after you started eating tofu? I certainly think you should eliminate it for a month to see how you feel and you know what if you really miss it than go back. But part of MDA is the very powerful N=1 experiments that people do on themselves and to really give this a fair shot, you should eliminate tofu.

Certainly eliminate tofu over fruit and carby vegetables.

Don't get discouraged, it is a process. A wonderful learning curve. I am so happy that I found MDA and all the related ideas on nutrition and how to live etc.

[sakura_girl]

The other guilty thing I do is I do eat a lot of soy. I love tofu and any related tofu products. I know soy is not 100% primal, and only the fermented stuff are good, but I do eat tofu as a filler, I find them tasty and picks up sauces really well. Tofu is probably not adding the high fat/moderate protein ratio too well.

Wow. This is a definite no-no. That phytoestrogen probably isn't helping your loss at all.

Are you Asian, by any chance? I don't think that you need to go low carb, necessarily. Last year, when I was in your shoes, I started eating a lot in fats and I was never satisfied unless I ate like 3000 calories. I think Asians have a way better tolerance to higher carbs than Westerners, so I don't think that is really an issue....

I would nix the pistachios, though. Those don't help at all xD

[pearlina]

Great tips on tofu... Will stop for a month and see what happens. I am also just about to switch into new yaz cycle, will try to stop and see if irregularity comes back.

And sakura_girl, yes I'm Asian. That's why I love tofu!

As for the pistachios, would macadamia nuts be ok?
They seem to be high in fats, low in carbs and nutritious.

[manoseao]

I will also pick up the book, thanks for the suggestions.

[jkr]

You have hormone issues and are on the pill so you are definitely going to lose weight slowly. In fact, though Paleo can help a lot, you'd get better/faster results if you saw a practitioner to balance your hormones (I'm biased to Chinese medicine.)

Since you do need hormone support, I would NOT drop your carbs to much below 70 to 100 grams a day. Higher (up to 150 since your are sedentary), in the form of squash, sweet potatoes, plaintain, etc., would probably be fine.

While you working on healing your endocrine system, your weight loss might even plateau but just keep going.

[sakura_girl]

As for the pistachios, would macadamia nuts be ok?
They seem to be high in fats, low in carbs and nutritious.

Sounds like you like snacks. Try to eliminate them and only eat meals. Focus on getting as much nutrition into your meals as possible, and you later on won't care for nuts. I don't even consider buying nuts anymore, despite having a pretty bad bingeing cycle in the summer with them. Well, except for the lone raw brazilian nut I eat once in a while for selenium