This is an article that follows on the heals of logical reasons that you may need to ignore the 2 lb rule for stabilization when you enter P3 of the hCG Diet – those reasons are addressed here:
- Reason 1: If You Didn’t Eat the Fruits During P2
- Reason 2: If You Choose to Begin Exercise in P3
- Reason 3: When You’ve Done a Million Steak Days Already
If you have one of the above reasons to stabilize at a higher weight than the 2 lb window, the next logical question is, how long should do Phase 3 then since your weight may take longer to stabilize out in this case?
Just click a topic to go right there!
How long to stay in P3 if ignoring the 2 lb rule
What a “stable weight” even means
What is a natural weight “range” or “window”?
Once your weight is within your natural range for 2-3 weeks, enter Phase 4 this way
Example person to show you this whole process
How many pounds will your natural range be?
Important Note About Recording Your Daily Weight
My Example: My stable weight range
How long should you stay in P3 then if you are ignoring the 2 lb rule?
To me, starches/carbs is what will make things be more volatile, so with that in mind, to me it’s important to stay with Phase 3 style eating until your weight becomes stable within a natural “window” for a period of time.
What does “stable” mean? What is a natural weight “window”?
What a Stable Weight Means
Well, what I don’t mean is when your weight is always exactly the same on a daily basis. Because that will never happen. Between fluid retention levels, bowel movements, how much fiber you ate that day and how much resulting water that fiber absorbed in your intestines (which then weighs more), workouts, time of day you did your workout, variable salt intake, time of day you wake up, to how much you drank or didn’t drink, PMS, ovulation, your weight will ALWAYS vary to some degree from day to day.
Let me say that part again: Your weight will always vary to some degree from day to day.
So a stable weight to me is: When there is a certain RANGE of weight fluctuation you experience.
What a Weight Range Means
How big this range is will vary from person to person, so I can’t give you an exact thing on that.
My range is about 3 lbs.
For some women, their range is a fully 5 lbs.
How do you know what your range is? We’ll get to tips on discovering that.
But the idea is that your weight is pretty much always inside this window.
That over the course of a month you go and up down the scale of this range, but in general, never outside that window.
See this post for more details on what factors contribute to the need to have a range rather than 1 set weight:
Factors that effect your daily weight that have NOTHING to do with true weight Gain (ie fat)
I give you an actual example of my daily weight for 1 months time at two different times in my maintenance to help you get a better idea further below.
Once Weight Is Always In Your Range for 2-3 Weeks, Add More Carbs Back
So ONCE you get to the point where your weight is staying inside whatever range your body naturally falls into for a good 2-3 weeks, it’s this point that I feel you can start experimenting with adding some denser carbs back in a Phase 4 type manner.
Example:
You ended hCG at 175 lbs, but didn’t eat the fruits in Phase 2 and/or are working out with weights. You immediately gain 2-3 lbs right off the bat in the first 5 days of P3. You don’t do a correction day because you know you are increasing your calories gradually and eating no sugar or starch. You continue eating P3 style. Over the course of another week you gain another 2 lbs. You’re now 5 lbs up total. But your clothes fit good, you’re eating P3 standards and you’re sore from your workouts. You continue eating P3.
Week 3 starts at 180 lbs. Over the course of the next 2 weeks (Weeks 3-5 of eating P3) your weight is up down each day between 180-183, but never goes past 183 and never falls below 180. It’s not a gradual increase each day from 180 to 183, rather some days during the 2 week period I’m 182.6, some days I’m 181.1, or 180.8, or 182.8.
You lose .2 one day, then gain .8, then lose .4, then gain .6 etc. type pattern.
For me it’s at this point, and the end of week 5 in this example that I would think that my weight is becoming more stable and I’m finding my natural “range” that my body stays inside of.
If you are eating P3 style and not eating too many calories for your metabolic level, your weight will not just keep going up and up.
Even if you gain 5-7 lbs during P3, it WILL naturally start to stabilize out and starting doing that little jig up and down inside of a little window and not just keep going up anymore (IF the gains are from the factors we’ve discussed and not fat. If you are overeating and gaining fat, then yes in this the case the scale would continue to gradually go up in which case you know you really do have a problem you need to fix).
That’s the sweet spot you are looking to find yourself in – at this point is when I think you can start trying some Phase 4 foods and see how things go.
Regarding finding your range – even if you have to deal with some of the reasons for ignoring the 2lb rule in Phase3, your weight should not just keep going up and up and up indefinitely. Within about 2-3 weeks you should start to see it leveling off.
For a discussion on how many lbs to allow for, see this post for tips on deciding on that.
So for instance, once you start staying within 2-3 lb window all the time for say 2 weeks, like me I got to the point that no matter what I was always somewhere between 127-129 lbs – that’s when you know your body is in homeostasis. Even with working out that will happen because any glycogen or muscle gains you get during this time will slow down to where you are stable. Does that make sense? I hope that helps! Just usually you don’t want to add starchy carbs in when your weight is still moving a lot that’s all.
How Many Lbs Will Your Range Be?
From my reading online, it appears that water retention especially REALLY varies from woman to woman and probably has a lot to do with hormone levels, height, weight, muscle amount and bone structure and probably other genetic factors we can’t even begin to understand yet.
As a result the natural weight range that a woman has will NOT be the same from woman to woman – so please do not compare yourself to others – this is about your own body exploration and learning to read your own unique body.
Some women have a 5-7 lb weight range.
In these cases you may see bigger gains on the scale from day to day, but also just as quick bigger losses from day to day.
So while my weight range is only 2-3 lbs, so I’m up and down in .6, .8, .2’s, occasionally 1.2 or 1.4 ups and downs, that’s the extent of my gains and losses for my daily range. While other women may gain 5 lbs near their period, but they may also be able to lose 4 lbs after a steak day as well- that’s not something I ever experience – my gains are small and my losses are small on anything that causes water retention or water weight loss.
If you have a larger natural weight range, then you will likely have bigger gains and losses perhaps more like this:
+2.6, or +2.8, +.1.4, +3.2
-1.8, -2.4, -3.0
This also means that you are likely to have larger drops from doing intermittent fast days or steak days. But also that since much of this will be water weight you will have a larger “gain” the next day or so as that water weight comes back.
You will have to get to know what the natural rhythm of your body is in this respect. And you CAN. It just takes a little while of observing to find your normal pattern and to be at peace with it.
For instance, I don’t get nervous when I gain .8 or .6 or 1.2 on the scale, because I’m ALWAYS gaining or losing that amount of weight day to day – I’ve been weighing most days long enough now, to know this is normal for me and I will have that same amount of loss likely on other days. The only time I would question a gain like this is if I KNOW I ate differently than I usually do and felt like overate- that’s the only time I might do a correction day from a gain.
So for you if you have a bigger range, you will get to the point where you are not alarmed by a 3lb gain when you are sore from a workout or your menstrual cycle is about to start, because you also know that your body frequently drops 2 or 3 lbs overnight as well if you eat lower carb for a day or just eat clean or take a rest day from exercise or move past your period.
Whereas for me, I pretty much never lose 2 or 3 lbs overnight. My body doesn’t fluctuate that much, so even if I do something drastic like fast and drink lots of water, I’m still usually only down like 1.6 the next day. only on a VERY rare occasion, like once a year, if I accidentally get super dehydrated and the forces combine just right, I might have that experience. But otherwise, I always gain and lose in .6, .2, .8, and 1.2 or 1.4 increments.
IMPORTANT NOTE About Recording Your Daily Weight
When I write down my weight every day, while I have indicated for you below how much loss or gain that equates to (ie +.6, or -.8 lbs) just for your reference, I do NOT, I repeat, I do NOT write these plus or minus how much weight I gained or lost in my actual log – you can see that in my actual log above. I ONLY notate my weight. I wanted to mention this because I personally think logging how much of an increase or decrease the daily weight is would mess with my head.
For me, as long as the actual scale number is within my current natural weight range, I do not care how much of a gain or loss it is- notating a gain or loss makes it easier to think something is wrong (or that I did something right, which tends to make me think I can let loose a little the next day, when in fact it’s most likely just water weight so I really should just continue eating conscientiously like usual).
My Example: My Stable Weight Range
So for me, for a long time I was in the 127-130 lbs range. I could be anywhere between those numbers but pretty much never went outside that range.
Then for a time, I dropped a couple pounds and my range then became 125-128. These days I’m in a 127-130 lb range again.
Here’s an example of my real weights on the scale over the course of 1 month at my higher range a couple years ago, and then more recently in my new range.
Here’s my weight tracking log – so professional butt-ugly right? I seriously need to make a pretty P3 weight tracker like the Phase 2 hCG Workbook.
This first range will show you some variations involved with when I was fasting a bit more and also a gain where I knew it was fat related, vs my regular window.
Notes on this:
You’ll see with my range typed below, my lowest is 127.2 and my highest is 130.0 for normal weight fluctuations given the variety of things I do like Xfit, occasional fasting, and the other factors we discussed.
ONE time during this 30 day period my weight went an entire lb above this range to 131.0
To me, as you can see with my stats, this is not my normal, so for me this signaled I had overdone it (likely been eating too much, I totally do that) so for me that called for corrective measures, which I did by eating “cleaner” (meaning no phase 4 carbs that I usually eat, along with leaner meat choices, miracle noodles for bulk etc) and less calories overall that day, then the following day I did an intermittent fast day.
You will notice I FREQUENTLY gain weight after a crossfit day– and especially this is the case if my crossfit workout was in the evening vs. the morning. This is because when you workout intensely or heavy, your body surrounds the microfiber tears you’ve created in your muscles during the workout with water to support and rebuild those areas stronger.
A note about my intermittent fasting (IF) days – you will notice that I fasted a total of 4 times during this 30 day period- about once a week. It’s important to note that my fasts typically don’t bring out much real weight loss because I typically break my fast with a pretty hearty dinner – we’re talking I go to my grill and get a bunless 80/20 beef patty, a salad with dressing that probably has about 200 cals in it, and french fries. I might go home and have a P3tolife dessert smoothie. My dinner meal after a fast probably has about 1300 calorie – see the MyFitnessPal calorie app below – I didn’t add in things like the lettuce or tomato in my salad since that’s pretty negligible calories- just to give you an idea. I usually eat about 1900-2000 calories a day, so you can see for me that’s a final calorie deficit total on a fast day of about 600-700 calories, which is about 1/4 lb of fat or so. .25 on the scale. So the rest of a bigger drop after a fasting day is actually just water weight, which is why most of it comes back the following day or two.
If you have a different metabolism than me, and your maintenance level of calories is more like 1500 calories, obviously this would then be different for you and you’d want to break your fast with a lower calorie meal. –
2016: Range 127-130 lbs
3/20 – 129.0 | xfit
3/21 – 129.6 |+.6 | xfit
3/22 – 128.6 | 0 | xfit
3/23 – didn’t weigh
3/24 – 128.6 | 0
3/25 – 129.0 |+.4
3/26 – 129.4 |+.4 | xfit
3/27 – 128.6 |-.8 | fasted till 6:30pm
3/28 – 127.2 | -1.4
3/29 – didn’t weigh
3/30 – 127.2 | 0 | xfit
3/31 – 128.8 | +1.6 | xfit
4/1 – 129.6 | +.8 | note: very sore from xfit = water retention
4/2 – didn’t weigh
4/3 – 128.6 | -1.0
4/4 – 129.0 | +.4 | xfit
4/5 – 128.8 | -.2 | xfit & fasted till 6:45 pm PERIOD started.
4/6 – 127.4 | -1.4
4/7 129.0 | +1.6
4/8 128.4 | xfit
4/9 didn’t weight
4/10 129.2 | +1.6
4/11 129.2 | 0
4/12 129.2 | 0 xfit
4/13 130.0 | +.8 | xfit, fasted till 7pm
4/14 didn’t weigh
4/15 didn’t weigh
4/16 131.0 | + 1.0 | !! Ate cleaner and less than usual
4/17 130.4 | -.6 | fasted till 7pm
4/18 128.6 | -1.8 | xfit
4/19 128.4 | -.2 | xfit
4/20 130.0 | +1.6
4/21 129.8 | -.2
4/22 129.2 | -.6
Now let me give you a month of weigh-ins during a time period where I did no fasting and where I feel more in tune now with how much I can eat to keep things even more in balance from day to day naturally without needing to fast:
Notes:
My stable weight range here is between 124-127.
My lowest weight is 124.4 and my highest weight is 126.2. At all times during this month I never went higher or lower than those numbers.
2017:
12/1 125.8 | xfit
12/2 125.2 | -.6
12/3 125.4 | +.2
12/4 125.6 | +.2 | xfit
12/5 126.2 | +.6
12/6 125.4 | xfit
12/7 didn’t weigh | PERIOD started
12/8 didn’t weigh
12/9 124.4 | -1.0
12/10 didn’t weigh
12/11 125.6 | +1.2 | xfit
12/12 126.2 | +.6 | Note: super sore from xfit
12/13 125.0 | -1.2 | Note: weight at 10am. – much later than usual weigh in.
12/14 125.0 | 0
12/15 125.4 | +.4 | xfit
12/16 125.8 | +.4
12/17 didn’t weigh
12/18 126.2 | +.4
12/19 didn’t weigh
12/20 124.8 | -1.4 | xfit | Note: weight at 10:40am – way overslept – which is why I weigh less – more pee/fluids released later in morning.
12/21 125.6 | +.8
12/22 126.4 | +.8
12/23 125.4 | -1.0
12/24 125.4 | 0
12/25 125.4 | 0
12/26 didn’t weigh | xfit
12/27 didn’t weigh
12/28 126.8 | +1.4 | xfit
12/29 125.8 | -1.0 | xfit
12/30 125.8 | 0
12/31 125.4 | -.4
I hope this helps give you some idea of things- of course your own journey and body will likely be somewhat different but I think what I hope you’ll get from this is that you are not one weight on the scale every day, and gains and losses each day are a normal part of maintenance and do not at all necessarily indicate that you’ve done something wrong (or right!). Once you learn the flow of your own weight range, you will be empowered to know when it’s time to correct and when you don’t need to worry about it.
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