Week 72 trial curves: did anyone else see a mid-trial stall?

I followed the Week 0-72 design pretty closely. The 5 mg and 15 mg arms aren't really separate stories—people drop out, dose changes happen, so the curves get messy.

Messy is right. I stopped comparing my own midway point to the trial average because those averages hide the flat stretches.

The flat stretches are the whole puzzle for me. Did yours break on its own or after a dose change?

Worth knowing before comparing the arms: 10 mg is the middle dose, and it's the one that gets skipped over. Everyone fixates on 5 vs 15, but common surprise — the middle dose might be what actually explains the stepwise look in the data.

NCT04184622 had 2539 participants. That's large, but dropouts still make the later weeks feel like a different study.

Exactly—by Week 72 the people still logging are not a random slice. That's why I take the tail end with salt.

I keep a simple note each week: appetite, side effects, sleep, scale. The scale is the least useful column lately.

Sleep? That's a new one for me. My sleep got weird around the same time my appetite changed, but I never connected them.

Been reading the Week 0-72 results as a shape, not a promise. The 5 mg, 10 mg, and 15 mg groups all have their own early responders and slow starters. That framing carries over to the tracking side: plotting weight in fixed blocks instead of weekly. Weekly noise makes a flat stretch look like a stall. The block view showed a drop, a plateau, then another drop. It doesn't tell anyone what happens next, but it stops the whole chasing-every-blip thing.

Block pltoting is smart. Daily made me obsessive.

Did anyone else see appetite come back before the scale moved? That gap is what I can't figure out.

Mine went flat weeks 19–28, then dropped 4 lbs in nine days. Weirdly, the stall ended when I stopped chasing the scale after salty dinners and started weighing every morning but only trusting a 7-day average. I also upped water and walked 20 minutes after lunch. My curve looked stepwise, not linear. Did your appetite shift line up with those flat stretches, or was it more random?

I didn't follow the trial arms closely, but my own 72-week-ish pattern was definitely stepwise. Weeks 1-16: down 21 lbs. Weeks 17-33: scale bounced within 2 lbs, sometimes up 1.5 after a weekend. I almost quit tracking. The surprise was my waist tape kept moving: lost 1.5 inches and a belt notch during that flat scale stretch. Weeks 34-52: another 18 lbs down, then another plateau around weeks 60-67. What helped me see it was logging sodium, sleep, and stress next to my weight instead of just the number. High-stress weeks plus bad sleep meant flat scale but looser clothes. Low-stress weeks meant whoosh. If you only have scale data, the middle can look like a stall when stuff is still changing. Did you take waist or progress pics during your flat stretch?

Common surprise: five solid days on plan can get erased by the weekend, and the stall shows up mid-stretch. Two taco nights, and the scale stays flat till Wednesday — worth knowing before comparing anything else.

Adding 30g protein at breakfast broke my flat stretch more than any calorie tweak.

I quit the dily scale around week 30 and started a Sunday tape measure instead, and it told a totally different story: waist down 4.5 inches by week 40, then the scale sat dead flat for six weeks while the tape still gave up 0.75 inch. That gap is what convinced me the middle stretch wasn't a real stall, just my body reorganizing while the number sulked.

@brittany_66 said: waist down 4.5 inches by week 40, then the scale sat dead flat

Mine wasn't tape vs scale so much as sleep vs scale. My flat stretch lined up almost perfectly with about eight weeks of five-hour nights and a brutal work deadline. Weird reversal though: the one week I slept nine hours on vacation I dropped 3 lbs without changing anything else. Anyone else notice their stall tracking sleep more than food? I log sleep hours now next to my weight and the pattern is honestly embarrassing.

Mild disagree with chasing the curve shape. My daily weights showed over 40 flat days across 72 weeks, but when I averaged in 4-week blocks, only two blocks were actually flat. The rest was just noise from salt, hormones, and a heavy dinner the night before. Monthly averages saved my sanity and stopped me from quitting around week 35.

Flew to a wedding around week 48, ate normally-ish but restaurant food for four days, and the scale jumped 5 lbs. Took 12 days to come back down, then it dropped past where I'd been. So my mid-journey plateau was partly just travel sodium. I started weighing the morning after a normal home dinner instead of post-trip, way less panic.

I noticed my week 30-38 plateau wasn't food at all—it was a run of 5-hour nights and a work deadline. Once I got back to 7.5 hours, the scale moved 3 lbs in ten days. Weird part: my waist tape had already dropped 1.5 inches during the stall, so the scale was just lagging. Anyone else see measurements move while weight sat still?

My mid-trial stall had a clear weekend signature: Fri-Sun I'd be up 2-3 lbs, then by Wed it was gone, so every Monday looked like a plateau. I started weighing only Tue/Thu and the 'stall' from weeks 22-31 basically vanished. The surprise was how much salt and restaurant food, not actual fat, was driving it. I still track waist monthly; that line kept inching down.

The weirdest part of my week 40-52 flat patch was that my jeans went from tight to needing a belt, even with the scale stuck at the same number. I'd been lifting 2x a week and walking 8k steps, so I think composition was shifting. The scale finally dropped 4 lbs over three weeks after that. If I'd only watched the curve, I'd have quit. Anyone else have clothes move first?

The thing that broke my mid-trial stall was boring: I stopped grazing after dinner. I set a hard kitchen-close at 7pm and added a 15-min walk after lunch. Weeks 35-43 went flat, then 5 lbs came off by week 50. The odd bit: my appetite was quiet all day but loud at night, so the fix was timing, not willpower.

Mine looked stepwise, not linear. I kept a weekly average (daily was too noisy) and it went: down 6 lbs by week 8, then dead flat weeks 9-13, then a 4 lb drop inside six days, flat again. The flat stretch lined up almost exactly with a work crunch — sleeping about 5 hours and eating whatever was in front of me. When sleep came back, the scale moved again. So the trial curve might just be a bunch of our staircases averaged into something smooth.

Just my two cents, Remember the old “paper towel” thread? That matched what I saw. My scale sat in a 2-lb window for what felt like forever, but monthly waist-at-navel and upper-thigh measurements kept creeping down. Stairs got easier before the number moved. Then it dropped again over about 10 days. So my mid-trial stretch felt less about appetite and more about my body recomposing while I wasn’t looking. For the trial-curve folks: did your flat patch line up with a routine change—sleep, steps, stress—or did it seem to happen on its own?

I was around for the old week-72 thread too. The thing I wish I’d done earlier was log sleep and steps next to the scale. My mid-trial stall wasn’t mysterious in hindsight: it overlapped with a brutal work stretch, 2 a.m. bedtimes, and steps dropping from ~8k to ~3k. Weight froze, then started moving again once sleep normalized, without any dramatic changes. Did anyone else’s flat patch map onto a life stressor rather than the appetite phase? I’m curious how much of the trial curve is just that kind of noise getting smoothed out.

I also tracked the shape rather than the endpoint. Plotting a four-week rolling average beside my daily calories and step count was revealing: my mid-trial flat stretch lined up almost exactly with a stressful work project, not with anything I intentionally changed. Once that eased, the line resumed its earlier slope. I could not easily compare the arm-by-arm curves in the main figure, though. Did anyone here overlay their own weekly average on the published mean curve, or does that feel too apples-to-oranges to be useful?

Hi—I’m only on week one, so I have no curve to add, but I’m saving this thread because the middle is what worries me. For those who tracked the middle: did your appetite or food-noise change show up before the scale did, or did the scale move first? I’m trying to figure out if my early changes are a real trend or just first-week nerves. Also, did anyone’s stall line up more with poor sleep or stress than with the timeline? Sorry if that’s a basic question—I’m new and taking notes.

My mid-trial flat patch had a pretty dumb explanation once I actually looked. I'm on reception at a vet clinic — clients drop off donuts, cookie tins, the occasional sheet cake as thank-yous, and guess who opens them. I started jotting those bites in the same note as my Sunday weigh-in, and my flat weeks were basically the donut weeks. Took me way too long to see it. Not saying that's your curve. But did your stretch line up with something recurring in your week, or was it more trial timing than life noise? Curious.

I kept weekly averages as well, but the piece that helped me understand my own middle phase was a tape measure. During what felt like a stall, my weight average was almost flat for several weeks, yet my waist at the navel and upper hip kept changing slowly. Then the scale finally moved. It made the curve feel less like a pause and more like the body reorganizing before the next drop. Did anyone else track measurements through that middle stretch, or only weight? I would be curious whether that pattern showed up across the different arms.

New here, week one, so I don’t have a curve yet—just nerves and a lot of notes. The only thing I’ve started tracking is whether my appetite shifts line up with my sleep: short night = hungrier next afternoon, good night = way less interested in snacks. Has anyone looked at sleep during the middle stretch? I’m curious because I’m not weighing daily yet (I know I’d spiral), but sleep is one variable I can actually control-ish. Sorry if this is a basic question.

I’m a data nerd, so I logged weight, waist, sleep, steps, and protein. My flat patch wasn’t appetite at all—it was a four-week stretch of terrible seep and way fewer steps after a work project. Scale froze, but my waist kept creeping down about half an inch. When I added back evening walks, the scale finally moved again. That made me think the middle of the curve is often habits holding the floor. Did anyone else see appetite changes show up weeks before the scale caught up?

I run a cafe, so my flat stretch lined up with taste-testing new pastry batches—little bites that never hit my log. What finally movd my own curve was tracking bites, not just meals: I made a tally mark every taste. Turned out I was eating an extra 150-250 cal/day in “just checking” spoons. Once I counted those, my weekly average started drifting down again without changing anything else. Curious whether anyone in the 5 vs 15 arms saw their stall line up with a change in appetite quality rather than appetite amount—like sweets getting louder while meals got quieter?

I’m in maintenance now, and the mid-trial shape is what I wish I’d understood earlier. My flat stretch lasted about eight weeks, and what finally explained it was looking at non-scale stuff in 4-week blocks instead of weekly: resting heart rate, ring fit, and how often I finished meals without grazing after. The scale was boring, but those were still drifting. Sharp question: in the curves you’re looking at, does the lower arm plateau earlier or later than the higher arm? I’d also be curious whether hunger/appetite ratings move before weight or after. That lag would make a mid-trial stall look bigger than it felt.

For what it's worth, i’m in a small town, and our pharmacy prints those 90-day calendars. I started writing my Friday weigh-in right on it, and my flat patch was weeks 28–36—right when harvest had me running on coffee and gas-station snacks. Once I got back to church-potluck portions and two after-supper walks, the line dipped again. For the curve folks: did the lower groups look like one long plateau, or more like a stair-step? I keep picturing a staircase, not a smooth slide. Also, did anyone else’s waist keep shrinking during the scale stall? Mine did, which made me less panicky the second time.

Not in that trial, but I kept a 72-week line graph in my Notes app: weekly weight average, waist, steps, and a 1–5 appetite note. Mine was a staircase—early drop, flat around months 4–6, then another drop. The weird part: my appetite note shifted a few weeks before the scale did, both times. Monthly photos and how clothes fit kept me from panicking during the flat stretch. Did your second appetite change come before or after the scale started moving again?