Yeah! I'm not losing weight! - I think I found my CCLL

Week 1 down on Monday. No weight loss or minimal change.

I've had doubts about the concept of the CCLL. I wondered if there
really was a magic level of carbs whereby you stop/drastically slow
loosing weight, even though calories are low. Well tomorrow will be a
full week of no loss and my caloric average for this week will be 1658
for a 300 pound guy. I've been loosing steadily for 14 weeks with a
caloric average of about 1900 historically.

Last monday I moved from 50 to 60 carbs. I'm doing steps of 10 carbs
for two weeks each now. Also I've been calculating a "metabolic
rating". Basically calories eaten plus calorie deficit for total
caloires expended then divided by current weight. It gives me a number
to compare against the 8x,10x,12x multiplier normally suggested for
cals/pound. Daily numbers are horribly erratic due to physical
activity. However a 2-week moving average looks more revealing. On my
first 60-carb day that metabolic rating number started diving. It is
at an all new low at 7.12. For the previous 14 weeks it has ranged
from high 9's to low 14's. If I had a thermometer I'd take my
temperature to look for other signs of reduced thyroid activity.

http://members.aol.com/digitalvinyl66/metabolic.gif

It was alittle frustrating since I was at 299 lbs for four days, that
was a milestone--being under 300. But if it builds on my understanding
of the diet, it will be better for the long run.

I will stay at 60 carbs another week to see if this "stall" lasts.
Then I'm going to drop to 35, 40, or 45 as a limit. Hopefully my
weight loss will resume with the carb change. I lost best in the
30-35 range. I don't have data in the 35-40 or 40-45 ranges. My weeks
at 35-40 carbs I either undershot or overshot. I may have to go back
to induction. I try that only if the 35/40/45 doesn't kick me back to
losing weight. At 50 carbs I had rapid loss than no loss for a week
then a moderate loss. 50 may be close to my CCLL. I need more data to
tell.

Even though I expect to lose no weight before May, I at least got to
enjoy doing laundry today. I pulled out a large shopping bag of old
clothes that fit again. they are ready to be worn. Although a few will
*NOT* be worn outside the house.


DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email)
350/300/Apr-299/200
Atkins since Jan 12, 2004
OWL-60 carbs/day (CCLL=?)

An interesting experiment. Your burn rate at 1600 is remarkably low. I had
been wondering what a typical CCLL would be.

I have not done a CCLL myself. I'm too eager to lose weight to deliberately
stall the process.

Cubit
308+3 /254.0/165
new bathroom scale

"DigitalVinyl" wrote in message
...
Week 1 down on Monday. No weight loss or minimal change.

I've had doubts about the concept of the CCLL. I wondered if there
really was a magic level of carbs whereby you stop/drastically slow
loosing weight, even though calories are low. Well tomorrow will be a
full week of no loss and my caloric average for this week will be 1658
for a 300 pound guy. I've been loosing steadily for 14 weeks with a
caloric average of about 1900 historically.

Last monday I moved from 50 to 60 carbs. I'm doing steps of 10 carbs
for two weeks each now. Also I've been calculating a "metabolic
rating". Basically calories eaten plus calorie deficit for total
caloires expended then divided by current weight. It gives me a number
to compare against the 8x,10x,12x multiplier normally suggested for
cals/pound. Daily numbers are horribly erratic due to physical
activity. However a 2-week moving average looks more revealing. On my
first 60-carb day that metabolic rating number started diving. It is
at an all new low at 7.12. For the previous 14 weeks it has ranged
from high 9's to low 14's. If I had a thermometer I'd take my
temperature to look for other signs of reduced thyroid activity.

http://members.aol.com/digitalvinyl66/metabolic.gif

It was alittle frustrating since I was at 299 lbs for four days, that
was a milestone--being under 300. But if it builds on my understanding
of the diet, it will be better for the long run.

I will stay at 60 carbs another week to see if this "stall" lasts.
Then I'm going to drop to 35, 40, or 45 as a limit. Hopefully my
weight loss will resume with the carb change. I lost best in the
30-35 range. I don't have data in the 35-40 or 40-45 ranges. My weeks
at 35-40 carbs I either undershot or overshot. I may have to go back
to induction. I try that only if the 35/40/45 doesn't kick me back to
losing weight. At 50 carbs I had rapid loss than no loss for a week
then a moderate loss. 50 may be close to my CCLL. I need more data to
tell.

Even though I expect to lose no weight before May, I at least got to
enjoy doing laundry today. I pulled out a large shopping bag of old
clothes that fit again. they are ready to be worn. Although a few will
*NOT* be worn outside the house.


DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email)
350/300/Apr-299/200
Atkins since Jan 12, 2004
OWL-60 carbs/day (CCLL=?)

DigitalVinyl wrote:

Week 1 down on Monday. No weight loss or minimal change.

One week is too short to tell. No matter that everyone hates the
fact, the time scale for loss is month to month not week to week.

Week to week is far too random to tell something like loss rates.

Find that CCLL by spending a week out of ketosis. I know you
don't want to believe it. It the opposite of obvious. But it is
phase 2a of the 4 phase plan.

Doug Freyburger wrote:

One week is too short to tell. No matter that everyone hates the
fact, the time scale for loss is month to month not week to week.

I'd have to agree here. One thing I've noticed is that with LC, almost
everybody ends up having quite a few stalls or mini-stalls, whether they
are at a lower or higher carb level. And losses seem to register on the
scale on an occasional basis. IOW, periods where the weight stays the
same or (more common) bounces up and down the same couple of pounds,
followed by a modest or dramatic loss of several pounds, sometimes over
a period of several days, occasionally all at once ("whoosh"), followed
by more "stall" time, then another "whoosh". This mode of loss is more
common the farther you get from your start weight, and is also tied to
hormonal cycles in women.

Find that CCLL by spending a week out of ketosis. I know you
don't want to believe it. It the opposite of obvious. But it is
phase 2a of the 4 phase plan.

Except that if he's doing it the Atkins way he'll actually be out of
ketoneuria, not ketosis. There is a difference, ketoneuria becoming
evident at a carb level below the point where one enters ketosis.

Personally I think what DV is doing is awesome. The graph of [(calories)
- (activity calorie burn)]/ weight = Metabolic Rating is a great tool,
although it does require you to keep track of calories and exercise more
than I'd probably want to do. Nevertheless, the drop in value when he
went to 60 g is very fascinating. Actually the values seem to have been
dropping for the last 25 days or so. I guess I'd want to know if he had
been exercising more, or just mostly eating less. Still, it's an
interesting trend and I'd agree that if I found that number dropping
like that, I'd also have some concern about thyroid/metabolic effects.
If just lowering the carb level was enough to get the intake back up,
and weight loss was continuing (as you say, Doug, on a multi-week basis,
not just for one week) I'd be inclined to step back down to 50.

HG

Hannah Gruen wrote:

Doug Freyburger wrote:

One week is too short to tell. No matter that everyone hates the
fact, the time scale for loss is month to month not week to week.

I've been losing about 3.5 lbs a week since the start so I can observe
changes in rate better than someone only losing 1 lb a week. One week
*IS* too short to tell anything. I find this a problem with Atkin's
process. Using one week of weight gain/slowing loss as an indcator of
coming close to CCLL is troublesome. A stall could easily be
interpretted as CCLL. I wonder how many people start upping carbs in
week 3 and stall so they give up and stay at induction.

I am hoping to prove that I can *Control* the "stall". If I up carbs
and the stall ends, I can further prove it by upping carbs again and
looking for a newly induced *stall*.

I do want to be relatively sure about what my CCLL is. If I do get
myself exercising later in the process I will want to note how that
affected CCLL. That's a major reason why I want to document what my
CCLL now, when I'm 300 lbs and less active.

I'd have to agree here. One thing I've noticed is that with LC, almost
everybody ends up having quite a few stalls or mini-stalls, whether they
are at a lower or higher carb level. And losses seem to register on the
scale on an occasional basis. IOW, periods where the weight stays the
same or (more common) bounces up and down the same couple of pounds,
followed by a modest or dramatic loss of several pounds, sometimes over
a period of several days, occasionally all at once ("whoosh"), followed
by more "stall" time, then another "whoosh". This mode of loss is more
common the farther you get from your start weight, and is also tied to
hormonal cycles in women.

I do have days when I maintain or gain half a pound, but these are not
what I consider a stall. Often they coincide with lack of a bowel
movement, or a bounce up after heavy weight loss or heavy exercise. It
was common after a day of heavy exercise to see temporary gains not
additional loss. In weeks 13-14 at 50 carbs I saw a dramatic 3 day-5.1
lbs loss--for no visible reason. I had no activity--sitting like a
lump on a log. Then I had 8-9 days of steady, or temporary gain. I
believe 50 may actually be near at CCLL. I decided to progress to 60
to get more obvious results. If 50 is close to CCLL, 60 should be well
within Maintenance.

Find that CCLL by spending a week out of ketosis. I know you
don't want to believe it. It the opposite of obvious. But it is
phase 2a of the 4 phase plan.

Except that if he's doing it the Atkins way he'll actually be out of
ketoneuria, not ketosis. There is a difference, ketoneuria becoming
evident at a carb level below the point where one enters ketosis.

Personally I think what DV is doing is awesome. The graph of [(calories)
- (activity calorie burn)]/ weight = Metabolic Rating is a great tool,
although it does require you to keep track of calories and exercise more
than I'd probably want to do.
I keep notes on unusual activity only. Trying to determine actual
activity-calories burned is a useless exercise. You'll never really
know. That's why the 'metabolic rating' will fluctuate wildly day to
day--also because eating low doesn't mean weight loss on a day-to-day
measure.

Nevertheless, the drop in value when he
went to 60 g is very fascinating. Actually the values seem to have been
dropping for the last 25 days or so.

That is because of what happened at 50 carbs. Remember, the M.R. is a
2-week moving average (MR is caluclated at end of two weeks).

(14-day average of calories consumed) + (14-day average of calorie
deficit-overage) / 14-day average weight.

So day 14 of 50 carbs included my entire stay at 50 Carbs. Day 1 of 60
was days 2-14 of 50 carbs and day 1 of 60 carbs. You have to take this
into account. I believe my CCLL is around 50, not 60. The first 3
days of 50 carbs I lost 5 lbs. Once those came out of the average, a
drastically lower M.R. was revealed. It is always an issue with
statistics that singular anomalies can hide stuff in averaging.

This graph compares measure MR daily, against 3 moving averages,
3-day,7-day & 14-day. The erratic daily levels just confuse things.

http://members.aol.com/digitalvinyl66/metaavg.gif

I guess I'd want to know if he had
been exercising more, or just mostly eating less.

That's where it got more interesting. The largest increase in fact
happened during a week of rest! Active days seem to be compensated for
in the days after them.

Day074-78 long hours,very active, skipped meals. There is a spike
on the daily rates, but averages maintain around 10-11.
Day080-84 sightly elavated MR-doing nothing sitting at home
Day085-87 sudden weight loss, my MR went high--unknown why
Day088-96 bouncing around same weight-MR decreases
Day096-97 lost 4 lbs,a new low is reached-MR shoots high for 2 days
Day 097 did include 4 hrs of physical work outside
Day099 begins 60 carbs, MR average lower than ever and continues low

Eating less should only affect the MR if I've triggered some
starvation mode thingy. If I eat less the caloric deficit will even
out the math and keep me close to the 10x-11x average I've had for
three months.

Still, it's an
interesting trend and I'd agree that if I found that number dropping
like that, I'd also have some concern about thyroid/metabolic effects.
If just lowering the carb level was enough to get the intake back up,
and weight loss was continuing (as you say, Doug, on a multi-week basis,
not just for one week) I'd be inclined to step back down to 50.

HG

I think 50 is were my weight loss became unstable. Once the 5lbs in 3
days is removed, the averages show the lower MR number started during
my 50 weeks. My 60 weeks are just so deep in that the numbers are more
obvious.
DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email)
350/300/Apr-299/200
Atkins since Jan 12, 2004
OWL-60 carbs/day (CCLL=?)

(Doug Freyburger) wrote:

DigitalVinyl wrote:

Week 1 down on Monday. No weight loss or minimal change.

One week is too short to tell. No matter that everyone hates the
fact, the time scale for loss is month to month not week to week.

Week to week is far too random to tell something like loss rates.

Which is why I stopped trying to do OWL in 1 week-5-carb increments. 2
week-10-carb increments gave me a better average.


Find that CCLL by spending a week out of ketosis.

Unfortunately I don't know what that exactly means. "Ketosis" - yes I
understand that it is a process in the body, but Atkins uses it as a
state of existence. Ketosis happens every day to everybody. Atkins is
really saying look for {THIS} much ketosis occuring, without really
giving a discrete measurable. Strips are notoriously unreliable. I
don't recognize the breath issue, so all I have to go on is "does this
carb level affect my loss?" Am I getting cravings?

The answer in the last week+ is yes. The last week I've had greater
cravings for sweets. I've eaten much more Low-carb ice cream than
before(especially while standing in front of the fridge!). Thankfully
it is saving me from doing greater damage with real sweets.

The second test will be if I can control the weight direction. If I
resume 35-40 carbs (which I believe is safely under CCLL) and weight
loss resume in sync, I've got another point of proof. I could even
choose a week of maintenance in the future and rise again--look for a
sudden stall in sync. This is the best way I know to assure myself
that I've found the trigger and not looking at anomalous data.

I know you
don't want to believe it. It the opposite of obvious. But it is
phase 2a of the 4 phase plan.


DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email)
350/300/Apr-299/200
Atkins since Jan 12, 2004
OWL-60 carbs/day (CCLL=?)

DigitalVinyl wrote:

Often they coincide with lack of a bowel
movement, or a bounce up after heavy weight loss or heavy exercise. It
was common after a day of heavy exercise to see temporary gains not
additional loss.

I think this is water.

Course I think this for personal reasons... since upping my exercise
significantly, I am knocking off 2 liters of water in about an hour
before/during/after workouts.

But n=1, so do with that what you will.

--
As you accelerate your food, it takes exponentially more and more energy
to increase its velocity, until you hit a limit at C. This energy has
to come from somewhere; in this case, from the food's nutritional value.
Thus, the faster the food is, the worse it gets.
-- Mark Hughes, comprehending the taste of fast food

Jackie Patti wrote:

I think this is water.

Course I think this for personal reasons... since upping my exercise
significantly, I am knocking off 2 liters of water in about an hour
before/during/after workouts.

You may well be right. I know when used to do those aerobic workout
videos for the first time, the low-impact ones that used to be popular,
with a lot of squats, my legs would be sore and I'd also notice that the
legs of my somewhat snug levis would be much tighter for a day or so. I
wasn't weighing daily then, but I've noticed temporary gains more
recently that I'm sure were due to water retention following
heavier-than-usual exercise, the kind that leaves a muscle group or two
slightly sore (DOMS I guess). I think that's natural. And some people
may also retain a little more water after heavy exercise if their body
sees it as stress.

HG

DigitalVinyl wrote:

I've been losing about 3.5 lbs a week since the start so I can observe
changes in rate better than someone only losing 1 lb a week. One week
*IS* too short to tell anything. I find this a problem with Atkin's
process. Using one week of weight gain/slowing loss as an indcator of
coming close to CCLL is troublesome. A stall could easily be
interpretted as CCLL. I wonder how many people start upping carbs in
week 3 and stall so they give up and stay at induction.

You got it. Way too many. Actually, the whole CCLL thing is a bit
misleading. After a while you'll recognize that the same quantitative g
number of carbs may have vastly different effects depending on the type
of food. On whether you've been exercising regularly or being a slug. On
your stress level.

Personally, I kind of partially gave up on trying to determine a rigid
CCLL and went in a different direction. But not after months of doing
induction, gradually increasing carbs, etc. I now can "feel" when I've
been overdoing, either too many carbs overall (less likely) or too much
of the wrong kinds of carbs (more likely). But I find that I can
tolerate the identified trigger foods better sometimes than at other
times. It's all a big experiment, but so long as you keep losing,
however slowly, no harm is done.

I am hoping to prove that I can *Control* the "stall". If I up carbs
and the stall ends, I can further prove it by upping carbs again and
looking for a newly induced *stall*.

You're not allowed to call it a "stall" actually until it's been like
six weeks I think. I think it's in the newsgroup FAQ

I do want to be relatively sure about what my CCLL is. If I do get
myself exercising later in the process I will want to note how that
affected CCLL. That's a major reason why I want to document what my
CCLL now, when I'm 300 lbs and less active.

Unless you're really abnormal, adding exercise will raise your CCLL.

I do have days when I maintain or gain half a pound, but these are not
what I consider a stall. Often they coincide with lack of a bowel
movement, or a bounce up after heavy weight loss or heavy exercise. It
was common after a day of heavy exercise to see temporary gains not
additional loss. In weeks 13-14 at 50 carbs I saw a dramatic 3 day-5.1
lbs loss--for no visible reason. I had no activity--sitting like a
lump on a log. Then I had 8-9 days of steady, or temporary gain. I
believe 50 may actually be near at CCLL. I decided to progress to 60
to get more obvious results. If 50 is close to CCLL, 60 should be well
within Maintenance.

Maybe, for now, but so far nobody has found any particular rhyme or
reason why we'll stay the same weight for two weeks and than all of a
sudden drop 3 pounds, instead of losing it more gradually. It's just
kind of the low carb way, and you will learn to factor that into your
study design

I keep notes on unusual activity only. Trying to determine actual
activity-calories burned is a useless exercise.

I agree, and I think it's kind of the way it's usually done.

Remember, the M.R. is a
2-week moving average (MR is caluclated at end of two weeks).

True, and I had forgotten about that.

I believe my CCLL is around 50, not 60.

I'd guess you're right there, but you may find it will change over time,
so stay flexible. Your appetite and presence/absence of cravings will
typically be a really good guide. Likewise, lots of people will find
themselves mostly disinterested in food, even slightly anorexic, if they
drop carbs too low for a while. (A little higher carb food will fix that
in a hurry.)

It is always an issue with
statistics that singular anomalies can hide stuff in averaging.

Yep, sometimes you just have to discard the outliers, but probably not
in this case.


This graph compares measure MR daily, against 3 moving averages,
3-day,7-day & 14-day. The erratic daily levels just confuse things.

http://members.aol.com/digitalvinyl66/metaavg.gif

That's interesting, really smooths things out, doesn't it?

That's where it got more interesting. The largest increase in fact
happened during a week of rest! Active days seem to be compensated for
in the days after them.

Another interesting observation. Isn't data analysis fun

Eating less should only affect the MR if I've triggered some
starvation mode thingy. If I eat less the caloric deficit will even
out the math and keep me close to the 10x-11x average I've had for
three months.

I guess, although there may be additional factors to consider.

I think 50 is were my weight loss became unstable.

Or, you just hit one of those patches everyone goes through. Loss of
pounds seems to rarely be linear in any sense, and the factors that
control it are often not obvious. Although you've gone a long way to
sort some of the more dominant ones out, which is very helpful, IMO.

HG

DigitalVinyl wrote:
Doug Freyburger wrote:
DigitalVinyl wrote:

Week 1 down on Monday. No weight loss or minimal change.

One week is too short to tell. No matter that everyone hates the
fact, the time scale for loss is month to month not week to week.
Week to week is far too random to tell something like loss rates.

Which is why I stopped trying to do OWL in 1 week-5-carb increments. 2
week-10-carb increments gave me a better average.

Two weeks is still too short to tell. No matter that everyone hates
the fact, the time scale for loss is month to month not fortnight
to fortnight.

You are observing the brownian motion of a bacterium in your
microscope and you are drawing conclusions about the bacterium's
deliberate efforts to move. A logical falacy. Loss just isn't
every two weeks just like it isn't every one week. Your time
scale remains too compressed.

Find that CCLL by spending a week out of ketosis.

Unfortunately I don't know what that exactly means.

No positive tests for a week. The primary reason is simple: The
test sticks *never* give a false positive so the time scale for
being certain you're *in* ketosis is a single test. The test
sticks *do* give some false negatives, so it takes several negative
days in a row for a list of 10% odds to multiply together to acheive
certainty. There are also reasons like uncertainty in counts, etc.

Atkins is really saying look for {THIS} much ketosis occuring,
without really giving a discrete measurable.

Trace or darker.

Strips are notoriously unreliable.

The primary reason for the asymetry in time scales. No false
postivies, one day time scale to be in ketosis. Yes false negatives,
several days in a row until the odds multiply below the threshold
of possiblity.

I don't recognize the breath issue

So the sticks are your primary tool.

so all I have to go on is "does this carb level affect my loss?"

So you desparately grasp at any time scale shorter than a month no
matter that it doesn't actually work that way.

Am I getting cravings?

This is one good potential sign, but cravings based only on carbs
aren't supposed to happen until you exceed your CCLM well out of
ketosis. The other possible cause is a mild trigger food often
called a slippery slope food. You've been adding new unknown
effect carb foods to get to each level, and one of them may have
been a slippery slope food. There's also the potential for insulin
swings if you have concentrated your daily carbs in a single meal
rather than spreading them out. Some turning on cravings is only
a maybe.

The second test will be if I can control the weight direction. If I
resume 35-40 carbs (which I believe is safely under CCLL) and weight
loss resume in sync, I've got another point of proof.

You embarked on the effort intending to go ahead and continue the
chart until you've spent a week out of ketosis to find your CCLL.
I urge you to do that. Maybe your fastest loss is more than 5-10
grams under the point that kicks you out of ketosis and maybe this
is just a random glitch because you're grasping at a shorter time
scale than actually works. But once you know the level that kicks
you out of ketosis you know what you have to work with.

Remember, increasing your carbs DID increase your loss rate. So
at least you know that Dr A and his 4-phase process beats staying
on Induction. Step out in faith and complete step 2A. Complete
the experiment.

I could even
choose a week of maintenance in the future and rise again--look for a
sudden stall in sync. This is the best way I know to assure myself
that I've found the trigger and not looking at anomalous data.

Eventually you'll need to be in Maintenance anyways. Phase 2A,
CCLL finding, finishes when you've spent a week at the bottom of your
maintenance range out of ketosis.

A fun point - Being out of ketosis is no guarantee that loss will
stop. Folks who have plenty to lose can easily continue to drop while
out of ketosis. Lots of plan that don't use ketosis work. Ketosis
is the TOOL not the GOAL while in OWL.