Comment by timr
3 years ago
I have also done almost exactly this process, and it worked for years to regulate my weight. But then I hit a plateau (a high plateau, not a low one) where I was unable to drop weight no matter how low I cut my calories. I started at a range that I knew had worked in the past, and lowered it over the course of weeks, well past the point where I was miserable. I even tried more complicated things, like varying my intake, doing on weeks and off weeks, etc. Nothing worked.
I wasn't sure what was causing it, so I hypothesized that I was low on muscle mass, and took up weight training. Then I gained ten pounds.
I'm not sure what the upshot is here, but my guess is that this approach indiscriminately consumes lean muscle mass if you don't pair it with muscle-building exercises.
> But then I hit a plateau (a high plateau, not a low one) where I was unable to drop weight no matter how low I cut my calories.
Fat cells "remember" their metabolic environment when they were created--ie. they "remember" your weight and fight you when you try to reduce it. It's one of the problems with dieting to large weight losses.
It is somewhere around 3 years for a fat cell to die off and be replaced. You probably need to "hang out" at the plateau weight for a bit until the fat cells that remember you being heavier die off.
I thought you never lose fat cells, they only shrink? Got a citation for that assertion?
It's been a while. IIRC, it was from an article discussing the fact that radioactive fallout allows critical measurements of cellular lifetimes and that in about 25 years the fallout levels will be too low to do the experiments. I'll see if I can cough it up.
Sorry, medium link: https://prosetech.medium.com/what-nuclear-bombs-tell-us-abou...
> The carbon-14 fat-cell study also revealed that fat cells don’t last forever. Fat or thin, your body replaces roughly 10% of your fat cells every year. If you have more fat cells to begin with, you’ll have more fat cells to replace.
I can't seem to find the study talking about how fat cells remember the chemical environment when they are created.
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What I know from personal experience and learned a bit through knowledge osmosis (my better half studied ecotrophology/nutrition) is that many people underestimate how the body adapts to a "new normal" of caloric intake when this is well below basal metabolic rate/consumption.
On the other hand, the body also likes to get essential amino acids, if it does not get them from food, from the body's own muscle mass. This leads to a reduction of the own muscles and to a low basal metabolic rate.
I cannot judge whether one of the reasons is true, that would be the job of a good (!) nutritionist. Unfortunately, at least in Germany, the term is not protected and anyone, regardless of education, knowledge or experience may call himself so. Here there are really (especially on social networks) really many false claims.
The most likely possibility is that you were simply underestimating your calorie consumption. A lot of people forget to count the creamer in their coffee, the candies from the office break room, the little tastes while cooking dinner. Unless you have a severe metabolic disorder your body will only burn lean muscle mass as a last resort when you have exhausted glycogen stores and can't sustain the energy demand from fat alone. Some weight training is always a good idea, though.
I explicitly overshot the goal by more than 500 calories. Yes, there are always mistakes in estimation, but that isn't what was happening. Remember, I've done this before successfully.
A catabolic state induced by caloric deficit will absolutely consume lean muscle mass regardless of the availability of fat reserves. Muscle stimulus (via weight training, for example) and sufficient dietary protein can prevent this. But if you're just dieting without specifically controlling this, you will lose muscle along with the fat.
I've only used this to go up/down +-10 lbs seasonally (although I did permanently drop 40lbs on a one time calorie restriction diet about a decade ago, but not exactly this method). One thing to keep in mind (you probably thought of this already) is your calorie burn goes down as you lose weight. So a 160lbs person takes in less calories to maintain even weight than a 200lbs person, thus you may need to reassess baseline for longer cuts. Beyond that, no idea, and yes, everyone is individual.
I will say the whole time I have used this I have trained with weights extensively (5 days/week standard 3x sets per exercise body building routine). I do not know how much or little this plays into it, but definitely helps with the fat/muscle ratio (obviously).
I don’t see how the weight change is relevant in this. Muscle weighs more than fat, so your strength training caused you to build up some muscle, making you heavier. The valuable metric to track would be what % of your body is fat mass vs. muscle mass
For how long were you in a deficit before plateuing? There are some adaptations the body will make with regards to the thyroid that'll drastically lower your BMR