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The Low Carb Plateau Nobody talks About I’ve noticed an interesting pattern among low carb dieters in India & elsewhere. They often make an incredible transformation initially. They go from Obese to Overweight remarkably quickly. But then something interesting happens. Many people struggle to make the next transformation Overweight to healthy weight to lean. Why? There is a pattern here. A low carb diet can make creating a calorie deficit much easier. You prioritize protein, eliminate or heavily restrict an entire category of foods, reduce food choices & that improves satiety tremendously. For someone carrying a lot of excess body fat, this can be incredibly effective especially without ever having to count a calorie. & that’s liberating. This is one reason low carb diets have such passionate advocates. But your body doesn’t stay the same throughout the process. As body weight comes down, energy expenditure can decrease because you are carrying less mass & because of metabolic adaptation. Your maintenance calories may now be substantially lower than they were when you started. But your diet often hasn’t changed & this is where I see the problem. Instead of reassessing total energy intake, people often double down on the same strategy “Maybe I need even fewer carbs.” “Maybe I need more fat.” “Butter is healthy.” “Cheese is fine.” “Calories don’t matter.” & when you’re deeply into a dietary tribe, easy for nobody to give you a reality check. Yes, your transformation was incredible so far, but it’s stayed the same for a while now. Why aren’t you moving forward? The uncomfortable truth is, Calories mattered when you were 120 kg. They matter when you’re 90 kg & they still matter when you’re trying to get to 75 kg. The difference is that the diet made creating that deficit easy when you were heavier. It may no longer be doing that. & if you’ve spent years believing that calories are irrelevant, your hands are tied There is another interesting observation. People who combine low carb eating with serious strength training often manage to get much leaner. Why? Because resistance training gives you another lever. You can build muscle, improve body composition & potentially maintain a higher energy expenditure than someone who simply loses weight through dietary restriction. But for the average person who isn’t doing much resistance training or is still in the early stages of building muscle, there is a very real possibility that adding large amounts of dietary fat simply adds calories. So what do you do when low carb stops working? Two things. 1. Build muscle. Strength training is a long term investment in body composition. But it’s slow. You don’t build a significant amount of muscle in a few weeks. 2. Accept that energy intake matters. You don’t necessarily have to count calories even now (it will help) But you do need some mechanism for controlling them. & one of the simplest adjustments for someone eating very low carb is often to reduce dietary fat somewhat. Like less cheese, less butter, perhaps malai paneer to low fat paneer.. If you’re heavily adapted to a high fat diet, that may not feel great initially. So you can compensate with more protein or depending on your goals & metabolic health, introduce a bit more carbs. & no, this doesn’t mean you suddenly need to eat sugar, refined flour & ultra-processed food. So you have to stop fearing carbs entirely & learn to choose the right sources, in the right amounts. & match them to your activity level, the metabolic situation & the goal.

California Burrito Mini bowl + Boiled eggs Ticks off both Protein & Taste

Trying out a few protein options on the road.

Circumstances + Childhood Habits → Behavioural Patterns Behavioural Patterns + Genetic Predisposition → Health Outcomes Your environment shapes your habits. Your habits influence your behaviour. & your behaviour along with your genetic vulnerabilities influences your long term health. Start with your environment & build better habits

Normal Food + More Protein = Healthy Food

Clearly you don’t understand the pathophysiology of Diabetes. Im not a fan of multiple sugar tea habit either, but 1-2 sugar tea per day is not the reason for Diabetes. At the root of it is a chronic calorie surplus coupled with a genetic limitation to effective store much body fat subcutaneously. You can say diet is the reason for a calorie surplus, but the reality is that average calorie consumption of an Indian isn’t too crazy high, it’s just that we don’t have enough Muscle mass & Physical activity to get into a deficit even at this calorie intake. That physical activity was what shielded a lot of our grandparents from Diabetes even though their diet was less than ideal.

Leaving Dal-Chawal entirely is not possible, practical or sustainable for most people. It is commonly made in every home almost everyday & you are expected to not eat it all? That’s stupid. But one thing we need to learn is to treat it as Carbohydrate, not a source of Protein or any substantial nutrients for that matter. Have Dal-Chawal, but along with proper Protein source & Veggies. Ofcourse, within your Calorie requirements & hence Portion control is critical.

Signs that you are losing Muscle while losing Weight - Significant drop in strength - Waist not reducing much despite weight loss - Feeling weak & drained constantly - Recovery becoming worse inspite of adequate rest - Persistent muscle soreness - Struggling to complete Workouts - Muscles look flatter/smaller - Looking more Skinny fat than becoming more toned Some of these are common temporarily as you cut down food, but if these persists then you maybe losing muscle.

Switching from one energy substrate to another may offer some metabolic advantages in the short term by providing a new stimulus to the body & forcibly shutting off one. But Calories equated, there is hardly any difference between various approaches in long term outcome. Find an approach that you can stick in the long term, monitor your blood markers, be honest with the results you are seeing & then make changes if needed.

Clients hiding their actual meals to their coaches is nothing new. But the newest trend? Using AI generated meal pics to make those meals look “better” Fyi the only person they’re really fooling & the only person who stands to lose anything is themselves. Coaching works only when there’s honesty.

Low Fat Paneer isn’t really “Low Fat” It is lower in fat compared to Normal Paneer. To put things into perspective, 100g Low Fat paneer has around 9g Fat, whereas 100g eggs (2 eggs) has 10g Fat. If we go by Saturated fat, then low fat paneer has 6g Saturated fat in comparison to 3.1g in eggs. So if you think hormones will crash because of Low fat paneer then you are worrying about the wrong thing.

Big Breakfast or Big Dinner: Which keeps you Fuller? Ever since Intermittent fasting got popular, the belief is that avoiding breakfast or having a small breakfast is the best way to burn more calories & lose more weight. A randomized crossover trial (PMID: 36087576) tested this idea in 30 adults with obesity. Participants followed two calorie-restricted diets for 4 weeks each: 🥞 Morning loaded diet: 45% breakfast, 35% lunch, 20% dinner 🌙 Evening loaded diet: 20% breakfast, 35% lunch, 45% dinner Both diets had the same calories & macronutrients. The only difference was when the calories were eaten. What did the researchers find? ✅ Weight loss was similar in both diets. ✅ Resting metabolic rate & total daily energy expenditure were unchanged. ✅ Calories burned after meals (thermic effect of food) were also similar. However, the participants eating the larger breakfast reported less hunger, greater fullness & lower desire to eat throughout the day. This means that eating neither a larger breakfast nor smaller breakfast doesn’t appear to increase metabolism or accelerate weight loss when calories are matched. But the main benefit of eating a larger breakfast is likely better appetite control, which may make it easier to stick to a calorie deficit over time.