Week 24 labs: lipids down, resting HR up, weight stuck

My RHR went up too, then settled by week 20.

Sleep was my first clue. Choppy from week 18 to 22. I started tracking HRV and saw it dip when weight stalled.

Your ALT drop is interesting. Mine went 41 to 29 by week 16, but LDL barely moved until week 28. Did you change diet at all?

The flat scale after steady loss can mess with your head. I had a five-week plateau around week 20. What helped me was comparing monthly averages instead of daily weigh-ins. My weekly average kept dropping slowly even when individual mornings looked stuck. Also, my resting HR went from 56 to 64 around week 12, then back to 59 by week 30. I did not change anything except walking more. Not saying that caused it, just what lined up for me. I also noticed my hunger changed around week 3, but that's a different thread. Are you tracking sleep or only weight?

My lipids dropped before my weight did. LDL 138 to 112 by week 12, then weight caught up. Bodies are weird.

Three weeks flat at week 24 isn't a stall in my book. Six weeks where the scale didn't budge around week 30, then 4 lbs gone in ten days. Monthly averages are the only thing that keeps the sanity check honest.

That HR thread is the one that gets me. Resting rate crept up to 72 at one point, which is high for me. Got it checked, everything looked normal, but I still log it every morning anyway. Wild how much sleep, hydration, and a hard training block can move that number.

Did your sleep improve when HR came down, or was it the other way around? I'm trying to figure out my own pattern.

I had the opposite. RHR stayed low but my sleep was trash weeks 8-12. It evened out after I stopped late workouts.

Your starting numbers look a lot like what I've been logging. 5 foot 9, 214 to 183 over 26 weeks. ALT 36 to 22. The last 5 lbs took forever to come off.

I use a Withings scale and Apple Watch. The trend line is smoother than daily weights. No clue if HR drift is common, but mine was temporary.

Three weeks flat at week 24? I'd call that a pause, not a stall. My monthly average finally moved after I stopped weighing daily. The scale is noisy; the trend is the signal.

My resting HR bumped around week 12 too. I kept logging it and didn't panic. Sleep was just okay, then it evened out. No big fix, just gentler evenings.

Late workouts wrecked my sleep too. Moved mine to lunch, and my RHR settled within a week or so. Could be coincidence, but I'll take it.

Monthly averages saved my sanity. Daily weights are pure chaos.

We're stats twins. 5'9", started 212, now 184 at week 27. Those last pounds are glacial. My labs improved too, but I try not to obsess over one number.

Same setup: Withings and Apple Watch. I only look at the 7-day trend. HR drift came and went. My best weeks were boring: same meals, same walks, same bedtime.

For me sleep improved first. RHR followed about ten days later. I was surprised how long the lag was. Your pattern might be the reverse.

Week 24 here too. Lipids down, weight stuck, RHR up a bit. I'm just holding the line. Sometimes the body catches up after you stop pushing.

Mine did the same thing, resting HR went from 57 to 66 around month 5 while every lab looked better. My sleep went to garbage right around week 19 too, lots of 2am wakeups. Honestly the sleep was driving the HR more than anything. Once my wakeups dropped back to one a night it settled down maybe 6 weeks later. Still mid 60s, not my old 57, but stable.

Curious whether your sleep went bad before or after the weight stalled. My worst stretches were the flat ones, like poor recovery makes hunger louder.

Week 18 here, scale froze at 27 down for a solid month while my waist kept shrinking, 38 to 34.5 inches. That part scrambled my head because I was doing everything the same, running 3x a week, same breakfast, same lunch basically on repeat. What actually busted the plateau for me was weekends. I was being "good" Monday through Friday then Saturday would be a restaurant dinner, two drinks, and a Sunday brunch, easily 1500 extra calories over two days, which erased the whole deficit. Once I started splitting restaurant plates and swapping the after-dinner drink for seltzer, the scale moved again in about 10 days. On the sleep side, I was eating dinner later than usual because I wasn't hungry earlier, and that plus a nightcap was wrecking my deep sleep, which my watch kept flagging. Pushed my last food to two hours before bed and dropped the wine on weeknights, resting HR came down 4 beats over about two weeks and I stopped waking at 2am. Also started weighing first thing after the bathroom, not after coffee, way less noise in the data. If the scale stalls again, track something that doesn't lie, sleep hours, waist, how a specific pair of jeans fits. My heart rate isn't back to my pre-start baseline and I honestly don't expect it to be, but it stopped climbing and my sleep came back, which matters more to me than 10 beats.

It went the other way for me, my pants got looser during the exact three weeks the scale didn't move, then the scale caught up. Also my HR spike tracked my sleep debt way more than my weight loss. One bad night a week, HR up 8 to 10 beats the next day, every time. What finally helped was moving dinner 30 minutes earlier, no screens after 10, and a cooler bedroom, HR came down 6 beats over about two and a half weeks. Not asking you to chase numbers, but if I had to pick one lever, I'd pick whatever gets you one more solid hour of sleep and watch the morning HR for two weeks.

Your RHR jump is almost exactly mine: 57 to 66 between weeks 18 and 22, while my LDL and ALT were doing their own little victory lap. Mine didn’t settle until around week 31, and the weird part was it came down while my weight was flat, not while I was still losing. What helped was logging my waking pulse before coffee instead of trusting the all-day average, because that one was always inflated by stress and errands, plus I noticed my “easy” weeks had drifted into two takeout dinners and a lot of salty leftovers. I didn’t change anything med-wise, just got bak to 10k steps, earlier dinners, and one less glass of wine on weekends, and morning RHR went from 66 to 60 over about 6 weeks. Are you using a wearable’s all-day number or a true first-thing waking pulse? That was the first thing I had to untangle, because mine looked way worse than it actually was.

Systems view: weight is a lagging indicator. I’d plot weekly averages of RHR, sleep midpoint, and step count against weight. Mine stalled when my sleep midpoint drifted 47 minutes later and steps dropped ~1.8k; RHR followed the sleep debt, not the scale. Did your choppy sleep start around the same week your weight flattened? If yes, I’d audit evening caffeine, alcohol, and late workouts before changing anything else. Also check if your tracker’s readiness score tanked—mine did.

Solid labs, especially ALT/LDL. I track RHR and sleep, and my bump lined up with fewer deep-sleep minutes, not the scale. Scale flat for 3.5 weeks around week 21, but my weekday step average had fallen from 9.2k to 5.8k and late snacking crept in. Fixing those two (not the med) got things moving again. Sharp q: are your choppy nights more trouble falling asleep or waking at 2–4am? Mine were almost all 3am wake-ups, and eating dinner earlier/lighter seemed to help more than anything. If yours are sleep-onset, that’s a different pattern and I’d track room temp/caffeine cutoff for a week.

those labs are a win—especially with road food. Travel-heavy here too. During my flat stretches, the scale is usually the last thing to move after a messy hotel week. One thing that helped me see a pattern: I logged morning RHR next to sleep timing and late hotel meals. My RHR crept up on weeks with 2+ flights, late room service, and 4pm airport coffee. Sleep got choppy and weight stalled; when I got home and ate earlier, both settled. Is your flat 3 weeks lining up with more travel/time zones, or are you sleeping in your own bed? Also, same scale/time? Hotel scales are chaos.

The sleep piece is what I’d focus on, not the scale. I wear a ring and my RHR climbed 9 bpm during a stretch of 3am wakeups. What helped me was tracking late meals and alcohol: I moved dinner earlier and cut evening wine, and over about 6 weeks my RHR came back down and sleep consolidated. Weight stayed flat for another week or two after that, then started drifting down again. Did your choppy sleep start around week 19, same as the plateau? Curious if they’re linked for you too.

I had a similar 3-week flat around week 22–24. What finally explained mine wasn't the scale: my sleep schedule was the real variable. Once I logged actual sleep hours next to the weekly average, the flat weeks finally made sense.

Flat scale with those lab shifts sounds like recomp to me. What are your waist/neck tape and top-set numbers doing? Mine went flat for about 4 weeks while waist dropped 1.5" and squats held. My RHR also bumped when I stacked extra lower-body volume and was under-fueled around training. I started logging session RPE, steps, and tape weekly; backing off one hard set and adding easy walking settled it in ~10 days. Not saying that’s your cause, but the scale was the last thing to move for me.

Quick one: are you checking your RHR same time every morning, before coffee? Mine jumps 6–8 bpm if I look after my mug or before water. Our little pharmacy has that free BP cuff by the vitamins, and I’ve learned I have to sit quiet a few minutes or it’s all over the map. This summer heat has me waking up dry even when I drink a lot, and my tracker shows it. I started keeping a quart jar on the counter and counting it, plus salty snacks on long outdoor days. Settled in about a week. Any chance you're underhydrated or fighting a little summer crud?

Hi, very new here (day 5), so I’m mostly lurking and learning. One thing I didn’t see mentioned: is your RHR from overnight sleep or daytime spot checks? Mine looks 5–8 bpm higher if I’ve

Five weeks of choppy sleep plus RHR up 9 is a pattern I’d trust more than the scale. Mine crept up ~6 bpm when my sleep got fragmented, mostly from late workouts, evening fluids, and an earlier wake time. Have you looked at sleep midpoint and room temp? I’d also overlay 7-day avg RHR with steps and training load and see whether the rise started before or after the plateau. Sometimes the scale is just the last thing to catch up. Trend-line zen: zoom out to 4-week averages.

late-night gamer here. my rhr did the same thing during a 6-week valorant binge even though lifting stayed same. what finally showed it: i logged my last 2 hours before bed as “screen time” vs “chill” and my rhr was +5 on screen nights. not saying it’s your cause, but if sleep got choppy around the same time, maybe check whether it’s wakeups or just later bedtime. also curious: did your soda swaps change sodium or volume? my scale stalled when i went from regular to sparkling water + more salt at dinner.

one thing I didn’t see mentioned: late eating. My RHR crept up when I started eating dinner with the kids at 5:30, then grazing their leftovers at 8:30 while cleaning up. Choppy sleep + flat scale. I moved my last real bite to 7 and kept a snack-drawer protein thing only if truly hungry. RHR came down 3–4 pts in two weeks. Not saying that’s your cause, but are your meal times later/more chaotic than 5 weeks ago? That’s when your sleep went bad. Also, any evening alcohol or super salty takeout nights? Those two always spike my morning RHR.

The morning-vs-overnight split might be worth a look. If your wearable shows overnight low HR is stable and only the morning reading is up, that points more toward sleep fragmentation/stress on waking. If both have climbed, I’d be more curious about overall recovery, hydration, or under-fueling now that the scale is flat. In the trials, resting HR tends to rise a few bpm and plateau, so 58→67 is a bigger drift than I’d ignore. What’s your overnight HR/HRV trend over those same five weeks? Also, any late meals, alcohol, or room temp changes? Not a doc, just what I’d track.

There was a long thread last spring about RHR creeping up during a flat-scale stretch—most folks found it was less about the meds and more about sleep debt/stress load. Which flavor of choppy are you getting: can’t fall asleep, or waking