My leptin experiment

[Guest guest]

Since my weight loss slowed to a crawl (about half a pound a month, with

occasional larger gains every 3 months or so), I decided to try " The Leptin

Diet " approach to meal timing. I bought the book recommended, " Mastering

Leptin, " and also gave me a few suggestions in private email.

When I started it one month ago, I had lost 127.5 pounds doing Atkins and some

minimal weight lifting (albeit with fairly heavy weights) in 26 months.

I did not go off Atkins, I simply changed the intervals of my meals. I never ate

without a five hour gap between meals, and I didn't eat after dinner, and always

had at least three hours between finishing dinner and going to bed. I also

concluded my meals within a 45 minute window.

The first week I lost 3 pounds and was so hungry and cranky and miserable I was

chewing the keyboard.

I tweaked a few things here and there and felt a lot better, and actually got

into a rhythm with this and kind of began to enjoy it.

The thing is - not only did those three pounds come right back, but they brought

a friend. My overall weight change for this one month experiment was a GAIN of

four pounds.

I am not a calorie counter, but I do check my calories now and then using

fitday.com. I spot-checked frequently during this process.

The first week, my calories were much lower - about 20 percent lower than

pre-leptin diet. No wonder I was hungry!

The second week, I ate a lot more at my meals and my calorie count went up, but

was still around 5 percent less than pre-leptin diet levels. That is when the

three pounds I lost came back, although even by the end of this week I had

re-lost about half of them.

The third and fourth weeks my calories dropped back down again, to around 12-15

percent lower than they were pre-leptin diet levels. I lost the rest of the

three pounds I'd re-gained during the third week, and had hoped to have lost

even more the fourth. Instead, I gained all three of them back and one more

besides, all in that last week.

I'm quite discouraged as I had hoped this would be the start of a newly

accelerated phase of weight loss for me. I realize I've already lost a great

deal of weight and that there is no time table and this isn't a race. Perhaps

half a pound a month isn't so bad ... this month it's looking really good to me.

I just don't know. I am still following the eating schedule and haven't made any

decisions about what I'm going to do. One person on one of my Atkins lists

suggested I had cut my calories too much (although it was spontaneous and not

deliberate) and should try eating more. That one week I ate more, though, was

when I put the three pounds back on. The other one I gained this week.

Should I try for one more month? What do you guys think?

Christie

Caber Feidh ish Deerhounds

Holistically Raising Our Dogs Since 1986

http://www.caberfeidh.com/

http://www.doggedblog.com/