Week 36 stall, but fasting glucose barely moved?

Yeah, same pattern in my logs. Fasting glucose sat in the low 100s for a long stretch — week 30 came and went with basically no movement, and it hung out there until around week 42ish. Meanwhile the scale kept creeping down the whole time. Then glucose finally dropped a few points over about a month. Bodies are weird about which numbers move first.

That lag makes sense because A1c reflects months of glucose. Your 5.9 to 5.8 at week 36 may just be catching earlier weight loss.

Sleep matters too. My fasting glucose is trash if I get under six hours.

Same. Sleep and stress move mine more than the scale.

The 2539-person trial was in obesity or overweight and ran 72 weeks, so fasting glucose wasn't the main endpoint. Weight was. Maybe that's why your glucose curve looks boring.

Boring is good though. I'd rather have flat glucose than a fast drop with side effects.

I've tracked both for 58 weeks in a spreadsheet. My weight trend moved first, then waist, then fasting glucose. The glucose number stayed noisy for months. What helped me see it was using a 14-day average, not single mornings. Week 36 was my worst plateau: weight flat for five weeks, then dropped seven pounds by week 44. I also noticed travel and salty food wreck the daily number, which made the plateau look worse than it was. The trial's 72-week window makes sense because these curves are slow. Are you using weekly averages or just daily readings?

14-day average is the only way I can read mine. Daily fasting is all over the place.

My A1c went 5.8 to 5.6 by week 52, but fasting glucose bounced 98-112 the whole time. Weight was down a lot by then.

I'm only week 18, but this thread is why I started logging fasting glucose every Sunday. Curious what your 14-day average looks like.

Mine actually dropped before the scale. Opposite pattern. Bodies are weird.

Could be insulin resistance improving before fat loss shows up. Or inflammation. Not a doctor, just what I've read.

I log my fasting number every morning but only judge it by the weekly average, because mine swings 7-8 points on nothing. Week 41 for me, 22 lb down, FBG went 103 to 99 and honestly that happened in two clumps, not gradually. Weight dropped about a pound a week the whole time. Curious whether you're testing right at wakeup or after you've been up and moving a bit? That alone moved mine 5 points.

Mine actually got worse before it got better, which I wasn't expecting. Weeks 28-33 I was sleeping maybe 5.5 hours a night through a rough stretch at work, and my fasting glucose sat at 106-108 while I was still losing about a pound a week and my waist dropped another inch. Once I got back to 7 hours, it fell to 98-100 over about three weeks with zero change to food. My A1c is the slowest of everything; it took a full five months to go from 5.9 to 5.7 even though my fasting numbers looked better months earlier. So I stopped expecting them to move together and just track fasting as a 14-day average.

The sleep piece tracks for me too, but adding a 20-30 minute walk after dinner is what finally nudged my morning number from 102-104 down to 96-99, and it did nothing for the scale. Weird trade. Waist kept shrinking though, so I stopped treating fasting glucose as proof of anything about fat loss and started treating it as its own slow project.

Confession: for like two months my "fasting" draw was 45 minutes after I'd had coffee with heavy cream, because I genuinely forgot cream counted. Switching to testing before I even get out of bed dropped my average 6 points overnight. Might be worth checking your routine before you read too much into a 3-point move over 36 weeks.

A1c only moves as fast as your red blood cells turn over, so it lags the scale by a few months. I dropped 22 lb over eight months before mine went 5.8 to 5.5 — the first four months it just sat there, same as yours. My fasting number is also stubbornly detached from yesterday, so a single morning draw tells me almost nothing. What does your afternoon number look like?

I'll push back a little — fasting glucose is the least useful number on the whole panel for me. Mine sat at 98-104 for the better part of a year while my 2-hour post-meal reading went from the 160s down to the low 120s, and that's the one that actually tracked how I felt. 19 lb and 3 inches off your waist in 36 weeks is real fat loss. If you have a CGM, look at the overnight and post-dinner curves instead of the morning one.

What made this way less maddening for me was switching from single readings to a 7-day average. My morning number swings 12-15 points on nothing I can identify — same dinner, same bedtime, different result. Averaged, my trend over about 36 weeks went 103 to 99 to 96, even though any given morning looked random. Also worth saying: 19 lb and 3 inches of waist in 36 weeks usually means you're still losing fat while holding water, and a tape measure is a better referee than the scale during a slow stretch. My last plateau was six weeks of zero scale movement while I went down a jeans size. Keep the weekly average and the tape, ignore the daily noise.

Weekends are my culprit and it took me way too long to spot it. Friday through Sunday I'm eating out more, saltier, and my Monday morning reading runs 8-10 points higher than Thursday's, then drifts back down by Wednesday. If your draws happen to land early in the week, you might be measuring your weekend instead of your progress. Try noting Thursday versus Monday for a month and see if the pattern shows up for you.

A1c lags weight by like three months for me, so week 36 seems early.

My fasting number tracks my sleep way more than my weight. Under 7 hours and it's usually 8-10 points higher; a calm 8-hour night drops it back down. I started writing bedtime and stress next to my morning reading, and the pattern showed up within two weeks. Not saying it explains your plateau, but worth a look.

My scale les for weeks, but my jeans rarely do.

I had a six-week stretch where morning glucose sat at 99-103 while I lost 8 pounds. What broke the plateau was adding a 20-minute walk after dinner most nights; not for weight, but it kept my evening stress eating down and my sleep got deeper. The scale moved again around week 40. Are you tracking afternoon or evening readings too, or just fasting?

I’m in maintenance now, but I had a long stretch where fasting glucose just sat there while my waist kept shrinking. What finally helped me stop obsessing was tracking post-meal and overnight patterns instead of the morning snapshot. My after-dinner walks and a protein-forward breakfast seemed to smooth things more than the scale did. Have you ever worn a CGM for a couple weeks to see if there’s a dawn bump or a late-dinner pattern? That’s what made my A1c finally budge a few tenths.

Hi, I’m only week one so apologies if this is obvious, but have you looked at your average glucose or post-meal numbers instead of just fasting? In my past tracking, fasting was the last to move; my after-dinner walk and earlier dinner seemed to shift my 2-hour number more than my morning one. A1c is a long average, so maybe 0.1 is just the older weeks still weighing it down? Curious if you’ve seen that too.

Fasting was the last number to move for me, and it was weirdly disconnected from the scale. What helped me stop spiraling was switching from just morning fingersticks to tracking three things: sleep hours, whether I ate after 8pm, and my 2-hour post-dinner number. My fasting sat at 100-105 for ages while A1c crept down, because morning glucose seemed more about sleep/liver stuff than the overall trend. Are you seeing any movement in post-meal numbers, or only fasting? If post-meal is improving, that might be the curve decoupling/lagging rather than truly stuck. I lost 60, regained 25, and am back to tracking—so I get the frustration.

Out of curiosity, are you tracking sleep, late dinners, or alcohol? My fasting number was the last thing to move; post-meal and overnight CGM patterns shifted first, then fasting followed once my waist changes held steady. A bad night or a late dinner can bump it 5–8 points and make it look frozen. If you have a CGM, what does your overnight curve look like compared with 2 hours after dinner? That pattern told me more than the single morning number.

I’m with you on the stubborn fating number. What helped me stop obsessing was testing the second I opened my eyes vs. 45 minutes later—mine jumped 5-8 points after coffee and school drop-off. Dawn effect, probably. Also, my A1c lagged way behind the scale, like 3 months behind. Have you tried tracking pre-dinner and 2-hour post-dinner for a week instead? That’s what finally showed me my glucose response was changing even when morning numbers weren’t.

I’m in a similar spot: scale barely moved for ~10 weeks but waist kept dropping, and my fasting glucose didn’t budge until much later. The thing that made my log make sense was noting fasting duration—if I tested at 9 hours vs 13 hours, my number could swing 8–10 points. Also, A1c is a slow average, so 5.9→5.8 at week 36 may still be reflecting older blood cells, not this month’s effort. Are you tracking hours fasted next to the glucose number? That pattern was more useful to me than the daily number itself.

chaotic mealtimes here too. The thing that finally explained my weird fasting plateau wasn’t my actual meals—it was the 8–9pm snack-drawer cleanup. A few bites of my kids’ leftover pasta, cheese, or crackers while unloading the dishwasher showed up on my morning number way more than dinner did. I started noting “kitchen clean-up bites” in my log, not calories, just yes/no. My fasting mornings were consistently higher on yes days. Are you tracking those little leftover/cleanup bites? Might be a hidden variable while your scale and waist are still moving.

Your waist drop is such a real signal — I’d trust that over one fasting number. Something that finally made my chart make sense: I started logging sleep duration and hours since my last bite, not just food. My fasting glucose swings 5–8 points on short-sleep weeks even when meals are identical. Do you note bedtime/wake time or late-evening stress? And are you testing right after waking, or after coffee/shower? That gap bit me for months. Curious if your log shows any of that.

I feel this. What finally cracked my own “why is fasting so stubborn” puzzle wasn’t the scale — it was my hotel-log column: bedtime, last bite, and time zone. Airport days with a 9pm dinner and 5:30am alarm gave me higher fasting readings even while my waist kept shrinking; home weeks with earlier dinners looked better. Might be worth adding “hotel vs home” and “hours since last meal” next to your fasting number for a couple weeks. Are your 101s clustered on travel mornings? Also, trial-arm envy is real — I remind myself those are averaged over a controlled 72 weeks, not a Tuesday in Terminal B.

One thing I’d add to the log: time of fasting check and sleep duration. My fasting glucose looked stuck until I started averaging seven days and tagging poor-sleep nights. The weekly average was much calmer than the single mornings I was staring at. If you test at 6:30 one day and 8:45 the next, dawn effect can make the same underlying trend look flat. Have you tried a seven-day rolling average with sleep notes? It made the A1c lag feel less mysterious for me.

Do you log sleep and last bite time next to the fasting glucose? I hit a similar stretch, and when I added those two columns, my readings tracked short sleep and late dinners way more than anything else. Then it drifted down a few weeks later, which made the daily number feel less like a verdict. Are you testing right on waking, or after coffee/shower? That changed my numbers more than I expected.

Question on the 72-week trial angle: are you comparing week-36 A1c to baseline? A1c is roughly a 2–3 month average, so it can lag recent waist/food-noise changes. Also, are those fasting checks same time, same sleep, before coffee? Mine run 8–10 points higher after poor sleep or a late dinner. If you have a CGM, what’s your overnight 3–5 a.m. trend vs morning fingerstick? That split explained more for me than one fasting number.