Why does Zero Carbs diet work the first time you try it, but later it just doesn't work at all?

[SeekerOfTruth007]

2 years ago I was going to fight Amateur just ot prove that a 40 years old of my skill level can beat a 20 years old, and so I needed to cut weight to 205 to qualify for a real weight class. Louisiana's boxing commission doesn't allow catchweights. So me and the other amateur fighter agreed to weigh in at 205. I thought i could make the cut if I zero carbs dieted for 1.5 months and also exercised literally 8 hours per day. So after a month of being on zero carbs and working out literally all day long 8 hours per day, i did not lose a single damned pound and had to cancel the fight because of it.

Why did it not work the second time? the first time i did zero carbs, I lost 20 pounds in the first month and lost 43 pounds across 3 months.

My ideal weight is actually 185, so I would have still been 20 pounds overweight even at 205 so there was plenty room to lose weight.

I am type 2 diabetic and "insulin resistant" but not "insulin dependent".

Updates

11 mo

if it matters, I was doing reps of basics, 100 flights of stairs, 1.5 miles per day of road work, and the usual 300 pushups, 100 situps, 200 jump squats, 100 jumping jacks and then other things too.

[Sonorous]

Well this stuff is complex so there could be many reasons. Calorie intake, inflammation, sodium intake, stress levels, gut health, quality of food, sleep quality, lipostatic issues, mitochondrial inefficiency, reduced neat levels or metabolism for other reasons, etc. Unless you get tested & analyzed, we can only blindly speculate. Which isn't as useful.

[SeekerOfTruth007]

i was eating fresh lean meat, mostly baked chicken, and only about 1200 calories per day, and I still didn't lose weight. I don't understand wtf I'm supposed to do to lose weight, because i can't cut calories anymore than that, and eating pure meat every day ends up being pretty expensive at times.

[Sonorous]

It's mainly a numbers & energy game really. For instance, if I eat 1200calories for a good while, my body will lower my metabolism closer to around my bmr. I've found that the best way for me to consistently lose weight is to keep calories high & keep output high. For instance, a good tactic I use when I'm really trying to drop weight fast is to eat around 200-300cals below my sedentary tdee but maintain a high energy output during the day with the help of mainly carbs for fuel. I don't really eat fats or protein until at night to prevent insulin resistance & muscle degradation. Then one or two times out of the week, I'll drop the calories to the floor. Either fasting the entire day or keeping the calories triple digit or low quadruple digit. Then I'll go right back up close to maintenance & keep my output high & continue the cycle. This method kind of tricks the body so that it doesn't freak out at slow down neat levels & performance capability. With this method, my body doesn't try to slow my metabolism down to 1700cals (my bmr). It stays at 2300cals (my lightly to moderately active tdee). And once in a while I'll throw in a high carb day to replenish glycogen & continue the cycle. It's how I'm currently getting to 10% body fat. Even though I'm 11.5% right now, I'll be there by next week with this method. The no calorie day can be hard but I just make sure that my glycogen is full the day before & that I'm carb-backloading the night before the deficit. Even better if they're combined with enough fats that will spill over in to the next day in terms of small intestine absorption.

[WonderingManII]

A low-carb diet, especially one with minimal carbohydrates, often leads to initial weight loss due to the rapid depletion of glycogen stores and the associated water weight loss. However, this initial effect is not sustained long-term, and weight loss can slow down or plateau. This is because the body eventually adapts to using fat for fuel, and the initial water weight loss is followed by a slower, more sustainable fat loss.