My LCHF lifestyle - week 7

Week 7 is over and here is my regular weekly progress update. You may remember that last week I introduced a strict LCHF diet where at least 80% of calories were coming from fats. I also kept carbohydrates below 20 grams, and that meant sugars and dietary fiber combined. My weight went down considerably and this week, I kept it going. So, let's look at the results first and then see my comments.

My weight and waistline progress in the past 7 weeks.
You can see my weight settling between 105 and 106kg,
but waistline is going down nicely.

Weight

Today (Nov 4th 2013):	105,4kg
7 days ago (Oct 28th 2013):	106,0kg
LCHF Day 1 (Sep 20th 2013):	112,0kg
Weekly progress:	-0,6kg
Absolute progress:	-6,6kg

As you can see, I lost 6,6 kilograms altogether and 0,6 kilograms since last Monday. Being on LCHF for seven weeks, this gives me a mean weight loss of 0,94kg per week. This is about twice as good as any other diet I've been on (they averaged about 0,5kg loss per week). However, by looking at blogs of other LCHF-ers, I found out that they loose between 1 and 2 kilograms per week. Therefore, I'll be looking for some ways to tweak my diet even further.

Waistline

Today (Nov 4th 2013):	116,5kg
7 days ago (Oct 28th 2013):	118,5kg
LCHF Day 1 (Sep 20th 2013):	126,0kg
Weekly progress:	-2,0cm
Absolute progress:	-9,5cm

While my weight was quite steady this week, my waistline certainly wasn't. A 2cm drop is an all time high. Altogether, I lost 9,5 centimeters in 7 weeks, and it shows!

So... stagnant weight and excellent decrease of waistline. What is happening?

Reasons for plateau on LCHF

Technically, a period of 4 weeks, in which neither weight nor waistline hasn't changed  is considered a dietary plateau. Since in the past three weeks, I had two weeks of slower progress, I am still far away from plateauing. But since I am rather safe then sorry, I investigated this subject a bit.

I found several reasons for plateauing on LCHF and decided to compare them against my dietary habits. So, let's take a look. Below table shows a list of possible reasons, description of my habit and conclusion about whether I am doing it right or wrong.

Reason for plateau	My dieatary habit	Conclusion
Eating too much hidden carbs	Most frequent sources of hidden carbs are processed foods, fast food, salad dressings and beer. I am not eating nor drinking any of those things. Most of my meals I prepare myself from fresh ingredients and when I am eating out, I choose my restaurants carefuly.	I'm doing it right!
Eating too much chocolate and peanuts	Dark chocolate (70% and more cocoa solids) and peanuts are allowed on LCHF as a treat, but it still doesn't take much to eat too much carbs. Anyway, I haven't eaten any chocolate since I started LCHF, and if I eat nuts, I choose macadamia nuts of almonds over peanuts.	I'm doing it right!
Eating too little	While most of the diets require cutting down calories, LCHF doesn't. On a contrary, it is suggested to eat normal daily caloric requirements. I've been monitoring my daily caloric intake and I am consistently below 2000 calories. Since my basic metabolic rate is about 2200 calories, I may be eating too little.	I may be doing it wrong!
Eating too seldom	Even though LCHF doesn't prescribe a particular dietary schedule, nutritional ketosis does. People who eat only once or twice a day may ingest too much food at the same time. This may interrupt ketosis and consequently, slow down metabolism of triglycerides. For the past two weeks, I have been mostly eating twice a day. Since my objective is to be in ketosis as much as possible, this may not have been a good decision.	I may be doing it wrong!
Eating too much	It is difficult, but not impossible to eat too much on LCHF. According to Sam Feltham's experiments, eating about 1,7 times more calories than basic metabolic rate is still OK. I am definitively not eating that much.	I'm doing it right!
Other reasons	Among other reasons for stalling, I found medications, food alergies and not drinking enough water. I don't take any medications (not even aspirins), I am not aware of any alergies and I drink according to my thirst.	I'm doing it right!

Based on above analysis of my habits, the reason for my stalling may be me eating too few calories and too few meals. So for this week, I decided to strictly eat three meals a day and to increase my caloric intake to reach my basal metabolic rate of 2200 calories.

Just think about that for a second. A dietary response to stalling is to eat more and bigger meals. If this is gonna work, that will be another myth busted :).

Plans for week 8

In week 8, I will keep eating by the 80-20-150 formula. I will strictly eat three meals a day (even if I won't be hungry and will feel like I could keep up a few more hours) and target 2200 calories per day. I will also try to obtain a device for measuring blood ketones to make sure to stay in ketosis (I've been trying to get it for the past two weeks, but no success so far - noone keeps it in stock).

I wish you a nice, successful and healthy week!