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I've seen the ratio of glycogen:water listed anywhere from 1:2.4 to 1:4. In any case, there is water weight lost when someone restricts carbohydrate intake. Additionally, I just experimented with raising my salt intake for a few days and my weight increased by 5 pounds. I am by no means very large, so the latter phenomenon would likely be more pronounced in a heavier person. By not eating packaged food or in restaurants, a person's salt intake would likely decline precipitously.

I've seen a lot of posts where people lost 10 or so pounds initially and then not much after that. I took measurements before and after the salt test and there was a difference there as well, so all indications would be that someone is shrinking as a result of the diet change, but little fat may be lost.

This isn't an argument against LC paleo or reduced salt intake, it's simply a reiteration of the need to make changes if something isn't working, even if it did before (or at least seemed to).

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 The mindset seems pretty entrenched in places like this that if you stop losing weight, you have to go lower and lower carb. It’s the low-fat craze all over again. – Paleo2.0 Sep 1 2011 at 20:42
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 i think there has to be a discussion on how to move people's setpoint when they hit a plateau. i think the calories don't matter dogma is too simplistic and may obscure the fact that low carb is a form of calorie restriction the way most people use it- replacing calorically dense foods with fat for satiation. IF'ing should be talked about. PSMF should be discussed. and yes, going a bit lower carb if you're heavy on the potatoes and rice. – luckybastard♦ Sep 1 2011 at 20:53
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 Luckybastard - It just never seems to be the people “heavy on the potatoes and rice” who are plateaued in the paleosphere. In the paleosphere it usually seems to be the people already at 50 carbs or less. The people coming to the forums to ask for help already tried dropping the potatoes and rice. I do agree that getting past plateaus are what losing weight is all about, but there seems to be too many at 30 or more pounds above their goal, eating 20g of carbs a day, and wondering why the magic isn’t working for them. – Paleo2.0 Sep 2 2011 at 0:09
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 Just an N=1 perspective: The people who are likeliest to plateau may not be stalling because they're LC, as the assumption seems to be here, but truly because they're not LC enough, even though Paleo2.0 thinks that's just a "mindset." Obese people are likely to be extremely hyperinsulinemic, and even 20g of carbs a day can be too much for some people. Ask me how I know, lol. That doesn't mean extreme LC will work in every single case -- there are bound to be outliers -- but as diabesity gets handed down thru the generations, I think we'll see lots more folks who need to go extreme LC. – Rose Sep 2 2011 at 3:18
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 @rose and paleo2.0 the caveat i want to throw in here is that i think calorie restriction is something you throw in there once the hormonal issues are fixed. with women, unfortunately, it's more than just leptin/insulin. it's also possibly being estrogen dominant and/or having hypothyroid symptoms. lately, i have been trying to be really clear in pointing out that women have more confounding issues with weight loss than men. – luckybastard♦ Sep 2 2011 at 15:21
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from my experiences and thousands of others, the fat loss from going lc and vlc is very real. could the same loss for a very overweight or obese person be achieved by rote calorie counting or low fat? probably but i doubt it'd be as facile. the lc/vlc camp feel very strongly about their opinions because the effect of ketosis from lc eating is almost magical in that it takes your appetite away and restricts calories mindlessly in most people- at least for a period of time. i've experienced this and have observed others experience this. so it's calorie restriction but it's done in a way that i don't think can be replicated on a lowfat diet. it also is good for leptin/insulin sensitivity resetting initially- although i'm in the camp that believes that at some point you should start cycling starchy carbs and ramping up to maximize that sensitivity. just my $.02.

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It definitely works for thousands of people, but it also simply doesn't work for a lot of people. We need to find out what the difference is. Is it for example more effective for those who focus on MCT-rich fats like coconut instead of fat in general? – Travis Culp♦ Sep 1 2011 at 22:09
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 Travis, before I knew anything about paleo, I lost a ton of weight while eating high omega 6 oils. Also, I know of no one who has done low carb right not lose weight. They may be out there but from my observations they would be the exceptions. I think it is almost a no-brainer that the metabolically damaged try low carb first- not because it's the only way that works- but because it makes it easier for most than any other approach once u get past induction. – luckybastard♦ Sep 1 2011 at 22:57
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 @LB - It's your dang b-day. Stop hacking and go out and PARTY! – none Sep 1 2011 at 23:17
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 The difference between who it works for and who it doesn't, IMO, is patience. You have to be willing to not give up when you stall. My own weight loss has been slow and I have gone through a couple of stalls before it started up again. If I had given up because of that I would consider it a failure, but, because I hung in there and let my body do it's thing to adjust, I consider it a success. I think people just give up because they want fast results and then blame paleo. – turkeytyme Sep 2 2011 at 4:26
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Almost 50lbs down on my version of LC-VLC paleo and it has stayed off with no effort. I didn't lose 10lbs or so in a few days mine just came off slowly over a few months, even though I went paleo cold turkey. I was going for healthy my mind was not narrowed by the allure of weight loss, it was just a by product of living healthy.

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What does your version of LC-VLC consist of, generally speaking? – Travis Culp♦ Sep 1 2011 at 22:09
@Travis, pastured beef, free range eggs, bone broth almost daily, eat raw liver 3x a week, some salmon & other seafood, good oils, sweet potatoes once in a while, some 90% dark chocolate on occasion, berries in cream as a treat when the mood strikes. – Josh M Sep 2 2011 at 0:30
Pt 2: I should also mention I eat most of my meat almost raw, barely cooked in most cases, also use sea salt and only drink water, no coffee, tea, etc. – Josh M Sep 2 2011 at 0:37
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What I see over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over on these boards is people "going paleo" with very significant amounts of weight to lose who are eating: fruits, nuts, high starch/carb veggies etc. These questions are asked in great abundance here.

So, yes, it is suggested to these folks who are not infrequently obese or morbidly obese, that they need to dump the fruits, nuts and high starch/carb veggies, as well as the chocolate and ice cream, and alcohol they have on the weekend...or more often...

The, ah, waterweight theory is a bit farfetched in my book. It reminds me of the crazed dietician who literally chased me around at work 13 years ago because she observed me eating a few times and figured out I was one of the "dread low carbers." This woman would tell me repeatedly, every single day, and I had to work with her every single day, that I was "only losing water weight." Well, my intial goal weight was 90lbs down, which I hit in about 2.5 years and have been maintaining since 02. I have in the last year year dropped another 8 lbs, so i am just about 100 WATER WEIGHT POUNDS down for nearly 10 years.

What in the #$%^!!@#!! do we think I was - a water balloon?

Also, please consider that timing and the whole picture is everything. Some of the suggestions given could be very useful suggestions well down the road of weight loss. They would NOT be useful suggestions to a person who has failed to cut out the obvious offenders in a low or lower carb paleo diet. There is a whole bag full of tricks (tools) that can be used, but when they are used and the readiness of the person to use them well is crucial. Believe me, as I have seen it so many times that I am saddened just thinking about it, people DO fall into proverbial mounds of potatoes for months at a time when they are not very firmly entrenched in lower car eating. They fall in and sometimes they stay in for a long time and many pounds regained.

We are not talking about body builders here. We, in this question, as it was asked and stated, are talking about at least very significantly overweight people or obese or morbidly obese people.

So yes, as first "tool" dump the high glycemic index stuff, dump the nuts, dump the starchy vegetable, throw all the chocolate and icecream and booze in the trashcan! Drink at least 8 glasses of cold water and salt your food well.

And do the supplement repletion that most obese folks, who are often the very worst nutritional nightmares, need more than anyone, and imho, need right away.

And if it is an anxious/depressed/insomniac/Type-A high stessed type, then at the very least, get walking every day to get that cortisol down and increase skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity, both of which will also affect ingestive behavior and decrease/stop the cortisol shunting to fat and if the walking is at a good enough click, will decrease triglycerides and start decreasing visceral belly fat.

Take it a step at a time. Talk to successful loser/maintainers and increase the tools, a tool at a time, in your tool-bag.

And reframe "plateau." IF you lose 30-40- 50lbs and are "stuck" there for a year, OK. It's an opportunity for you to practice maintenance and also to pick up some new tools and to get verrrrrrrry realistic about how much harder dropping that last 30 is going to be. You're out of kindergarten now and running with the big league losers and it will be a whole diferent ballgame.

And be assured that unless you are a waterballoon, that 60-70-80-90- 100lbs you take off IS NOT WATER WEIGHT.

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 Yep, you don't lose 40 or 50kgs by accident. I love it when some "expert" tells me Im doing it wrong. – Kimble Sep 3 2011 at 8:34
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 love this post, mem. for me there's an argument to be made about strategies to returning to a more moderate- or even high paleo carb- diet after weight loss. but for the process of losing and repairing, the low carb is magical. i really want a discussion to be had- equal input between men and women- who have lost and maintained and what their maintenance diets are. the surprising thing to me on this board is that there seem to be more women low-carbers than men. i find that fascinating. anyways, great post. – luckybastard♦ Sep 3 2011 at 12:33
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 I agree with practically everything you wrote. But...Eating lower carb does cause you to retain less water. This is established, and it's what gave that crazed dietitian the confidence that she was on to something. But this is a good thing, especially for really heavy people. Those people frequently have that Syndrome X suite of problems: Insulin resistance, obesity, high blood pressure, etc. Well, while losing weight which would you rather do to lower your BP? Take pills that mess with your renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system? Or throw some water naturally and bring your BP down? – karlub Sep 3 2011 at 13:11
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 Sure, karlub, low-carb has a diuretic effect, well documented most recently by Phinney and Volek. But what gets a lot of successful long-term low-carbers either angry or amused (depending on temperament, and sometimes both) is being told that 15, 25, and eve 75 and 100 pound losses are water weight. Surely you can see the silliness of such assertions. – Rose Sep 3 2011 at 14:24
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 @Travis: And to be clear, my "water balloon" statements were tongue in cheek. BUT, you also need to understand that for those of us who started low carbing back in the 90's, we were regaled with this "you're killing yourselves and you will ONLY lose water weight." The phenomenon that you are describing is clear and known. Yes, lower levels of carb intake, even much above ketosis level, will promote diuresis. And we see, as per my answer, instances here all the time of folks who do NOT decrease carbs adequately for the level of weight they have to lose. So, yes, they get some diuresis, but then – Atkins-witha-loincloth Sep 3 2011 at 20:35
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It's also an argument in favor of lower-carb eating in that throwing off that water is good for your blood pressure.

This is a great thing to point out, though. People don't talk about it much.

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very interesting. you have any more information about that? – luckybastard♦ Sep 1 2011 at 20:56
Picked up that factoid in Taubes' "Good Calories, Bad Calories." Here's a link that confirms the observation, but it does not provide the rationale re. fluid volume. For the time being you'll have to take my recollection of Taubes on that part ;-) webmd.com/diet/news/20100125/… – karlub Sep 1 2011 at 22:53
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I have been wondering this for a while actually. It seems to me that calories still count more than anything for weight loss.

But, I feel younger and perkier with none of the aches and pains or sickness most people my age seem to have, so dumping the grains and sugars and processed BS has been very worth it to me.

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 It's healthier in a lot of ways, it just may not be the best route to fat loss. – Travis Culp♦ Sep 1 2011 at 22:06
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I think the discussions have to differentiate between obese and non-obese subjects. It's a lot easier to say LC or VLC is good for obese subjects because they're generally a lot more worried about weight loss than they are muscle retention or activity level.

I decided to cut sugar out of my diet and ended up going VLC. I lost 10 lbs in about 2 weeks. I've never gotten an accurate calculation of my BF% but I'd guess it was between 10 and 15, so at the start I didn't really have that much weight to lose and especially not that fast. My biceps lost close to an inch of diameter so glycogen definitely has a lot to do with that effect on the scale. VLC caused a lot of problems and wasn't very enjoyable (the food was fine and my appetite was fine but my mood and energy level went downhill). I think if I lost 10 lbs of fat I'd easily be in the single digits BF%, this 10 lbs weight loss barely looked any different and my waist is not noticably smaller.

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 A thousand times yes. Just surveying the literature as much as one amateur can, and various fora filled with anecdotes, I agree that obese subjects are metabolically very different from non-obese subjects, and that being obese results in possibly permanent changes to the body. And that the longer one is obese, the more profound those changes are. Non-obese people get annoyed when fat people say, "you don't get it," but it's not a cultural or personal thing. The fat body is a very different internal, biological milieu. – Rose Sep 1 2011 at 22:56
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 @Rose: mem shakes head vigorously - YES! And as usually, well put. – Atkins-witha-loincloth Sep 2 2011 at 0:06
Dylan, good answer. LC is a tool in the toolbox for certain people (I would say the bigger, obese folks). I, too, while already thin went LC then VLC in a misguided attempt to really lean out and I lost a good chunk of muscle definition, spirit, energy, etc. – ben61820 Sep 3 2011 at 12:22

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