Not losing weight on VLCD

[sij19821]

Hello everyone.

I was recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and after speaking to my Dr I am now doing a vlcd. I do mix it up a bit. I have 2 shakes per day, a soup, a snack from the shake company and at dinner I have chicken, pork or fish with vegetables.

My total calorie intake is between 700 and 750 per day.

I have been on this diet for 2 weeks now. I lost 5lbs within the first 2 days and not even a quarter of a lb in the 12 days after.

Does anyone know if this is normal?

I'm not so concerned with weight loss as I am helping my diabetes but it is quite disheartening when the scale isn't moving at all and I'm concerned/confused why this would be.

 

[childofthesea43]

It is just a matter of patience, it is very common to plateau for 2-3 weeks or so. On that level of calories there is no way you can fail to lose weight as time goes on unless you’re already skeletal.

 

[sij19821]

I am definitely not skeletal and have around 4 stone to lose to be consider a healthy weight.

It's definitely not stopping me as I am doing it to help the diabetes more than anything else but was getting concerned nothing was moving at all.

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate it.

 

[childofthesea43]

Incidentally, my own weight loss trajectory over a four month period when I lost 2.5 stone on very restricted calories saw four occasions when my weight did not move for at least a fortnight. The key thing is that it never went up. It is natural to want a continuous monotonic reduction but the body just isn’t like that. You’ll be fine.

 

[zuludog]

I lost weight a while ago with a similar diet - shake powders, meal replacement bars, and a no/low carb meal in the evening.
I went down from 95kg to 80kg, which is a loss of just over 2 stones
But it was not an even, regular rate of loss - sometimes quite a lot, sometimes next to nothing, and occasionally you might go up a bit - welcome to the fun!
You could try a couple of things besides the diet -

As well as the usual cups of tea & coffee, drink extra water, say 2 litres per day - buy a cheap bottle of plain or flavoured water - not sugary! - refill it once you've used it and sip that throughout the day

Do some exercise, it doesn't need to be very strenuous or a serious gym session - owt's better than nowt!
Try a walk or Search YouTube for indoor exercises, there are loads to choose from

Weigh yourself in the same way each time - I try to do every Monday morning, after a pee, before coffee, and naked
I have a home blood pressure tester, and do that as well

EDIT & PS -- Best of luck with your progress!

 

[Drummer]

I did so many low calorie diets that my body learned to shut down as soon as I started cutting back on eating.
These days I eat two meals a day at 12 hour intervals and that seems to do the trick, keeping my metabolism humming along happily - I can even forget to eat one of the meals, but fast all day and my energy levels drop and I turn pale grey rather my usual pink.
I am sure that 'starvation shut down' is a consequence of the low calorie regimes many dieticians seem to think of as set in stone certainties for weightloss.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

It's definitely not stopping me as I am doing it to help the diabetes more than anything else but was getting concerned nothing was moving at all.

Good for you @sij19821

Keep going! Hope your weight loss recommences soon.