Learning to not eat when you’re not hungry sounds basic, but it’s HUGE. It was a big relief for me to skip breakfast since I usually wasn’t hungry, but it was so ingrained in me that I “needed to eat” in order to get my metabolism started for the day. Who knew that my metabolism was already going, and that’s how I was able too get out of bed to begin with.
On the flip side (especially early on), EAT when you’re hungry. Don’t force fasting. It will come naturally later.
Not necessarily. In fact one of the challenges many people run into is not eating enough. You SHOULD feel ravenous at meal times, and if you’re hungry again a couple hours later, it’s a good sign you didn’t eat enough at the meal.
It’s easy to skip breakfast for me too. Harder to get through the afternoon without a fat bomb.
Well why am I eating a ton of fat, still hungry at meals and not loosing weight? Carbs have been around 15g btw.
@MooBoom covered it beautifully in a post recently, and the latest podcast talked about it as well. Keto isn’t a weight loss diet (
the crowd murmurs…). Keto allows the body to heal itself and rebalance hormones that are out of whack due to years, decades… of abuse. Weight loss/fat loss is a byproduct of the healing. It can take time.
I started keto at around 475 pounds. After 8 months I’m at 415. Obviously 60 lbs is great, but I still have a LONG way to go. I’ve been at that 415 (plus or minus 5 lbs) for a few months. What keeps me going is the fact that I feel better than I did at 100 lbs less. I can walk up multiple flights of stairs without needing to catch my breath. I’m breathing easier at night and getting close to ditching my cpap machine that I’ve been using for years for sleep apnea. My blood sugar (although still sitting higher than I’d like) is steady and I’m no longer diabetic.
I started keto to loose weight, but I’ve come to learn that the weight was simply a product, and a marker, of other issues that keto is fixing.
It will happen, but this is a lifestyle, not a crash course to get ready for the summer swimsuit.
I think what I have lost is water weight as well. Miranda - everyone’s body is different. Before Keto, I would skip dinner out of laziness. Boy, that didn’t help with weight loss. Lunch would be a bag of potato chips. What the anti-keto people don’t realize is, at least in my case, my eating patterns and quality are 100% better than pre-keto. What is more nutritious than real meat and fresh veggies? (I know some ketoers don’t believe in the veggie part). Now I eat three meals a day, and have improved my digestion immensely. I’m not ready to go to two meals a day - my body is still healing. On early Keto I was overdoing dairy, and cut it out as an experiment. The very idea of fatbombs, quite frankly, grosses me out, and I find them (for me) unnecessary. (I am such a fake - the early weeks found me drinking HWC, guess that was my own version of a fatbomb!) But did I improve my diet, and learn to eat more? - yes. I feel good, and am getting compliments. But I am nowhere near being able to skip a meal - quite ironic since I did it pre-keto, and it gave me quite the stomachache. Sorry, rambling. But wanted to detail more of my personal experience. This WOE has been nothing but positive for me. I whine about my belly, but have started walking/running and doing weights. I would not go back to the way I was eating before. But not saying I will never have cheese and sour cream again.
Thank God for that! I don’t even own one anymore - I don’t want to be dangerous to self or others.
I have swim trunks, and within a few minutes I always seem to have the pool to myself.
Actually - I don’t have a pool around anymore. Ok, somewhat of a lie - I could get up at five in the morning to go to the city’s senior swim thing (damn, seniors apparently really don’t need that much sleep.) I love swimming. I’ve always lived in apartments with pools, or had neighbors. And even though I have always been active, I find it very suspicious that I started gaining weight a year or so after I stopped swimming.
Oh well, I know that my usual five mile walk is better for the bones than swimming.
There’s nothing wrong with those levels of fat. And if you’re hungry, eat more.
This tells me several things. After ten weeks you should not be starving. You may not be eating enough calories for the entire day. If you’re using artificial sweeteners try dropping them and see if that makes a difference.(this worked for someone). I was taking a teaspoon of honey in my coffee twice a day which was a reduction from having three teaspoons of sugar before Keto but now I hardly drink coffee at all, no need for any sugar, honey or sweetener. I just drink water which is great because I can concentrate on getting at least 2 litres a day.
After two weeks I went for zero carbs (but allowed for hidden carbs in vegetables) by dropping the biggest carb foods: bread (wheat), pasta, rice and potatoes. That should take care of the hunger aspect. If you’re not shifting your weight, and you KNOW you are doing everything else right, adjusting one or several things mentioned should either make you put on more weight or take it off.
Macros just give you percentages of fat, protein and carbs. You still need to know how many calories your body needs to function properly in a day. Your fats could be correct but are you eating enough total calories for your body’s daily expenditure? If not you may be in starvation mode which is what @Anniegirl9 mentioned. Eating less calories over an entire day is not necessarily going to make you lose. Sounds counter-productive but eating more could be the answer, its really up to you to adjust and see what actually works. I see a common thread regarding lack of weight loss and it often comes down to people not knowing how much food they need for their bodies. An app is not going to do that for you, we all have individual metabolisms and we have to work it out for ourselves.
Try to make your first meal for the day substantial so you kick off the body with a healthy dose of energy, stick to your plan, moderate exercise helps to stave off hunger, drink plenty of water, don’t over-eat your optimum calories for the day. If you must snack eat more fats like macadamia nuts, and keep the salt intake up. If you’re doing all that it’ll probably move things along. Keep me posted. This is just my opinion, take it or leave it. KCKO 
Hi @Miranda_1016,
I know you are getting tons of advice and things can get very confusing. Keto isn’t really about percentages, it’s more about keeping your carbs low, moderate protein (for me about 60 to 70 grams a day) and then fat to satiety. That means add enough fat until you are full. You don’t need to add extra fat for fat’s sake. Percentages can be deceiving. Actual numbers like 20g carbs, and 50g protein are better.
Also, MCT oil is used by your body right away because your body can’t store it. If you are using a fair bit of MCT oil, your body will use that first before its own body fat. Maybe lay off on that for a while.
Next, sodium needs to be about about 5g a day or a little more than two teaspoons of salt. If I start to get hungry, first I will have a glass or bouillon tea or 1/2 teaspoon salt mixed in warm water. That frequently curbs my hunger. If that doesn’t work or works only for a little while, I know it’s time to eat.
Finally, as you get fat adapted, your muscles will feel less and less lead-like. It took me over two months and then it wasn’t like, “Oh, my gosh, my muscles feel great!” It was more like they just started gradually becoming less and less lead-like.
I hope you are figuring things out.
SOME artificial sweeteners will cause an insulin spike in SOME people. I’ve done an n=1 on two occasions with erythritol and a glucose meter. I didn’t see a glucose drop in 30, 60, 90, 120 minutes. At 60 and 120 minutes my blood ketone level also measured good. I’ve seen other n=1s on the forum where people found the same thing. Yep … there are n=1s where people saw a spike.
I understand that if the OP is concerned about a lack of progress they need to be careful with what they take in … particuarly if they don’t know (based on something other than intuition) how they react to something. I still have a LOT to learn, but one thing I have learned is a lot of this varies by individual. Reaction to a given artificial sweetener is one of those things that varies. Personally I use erythritol very infrequently, When I do use it, I have evidence that leads me to believe that it doesn’t give me an insulin spike.
Miranda,
Lots of great advice here. I too am a slow loser. I’ve been doing keto for going on 4 months now … did low carb for a bit prior to going keto.I didn’t lose much of anything the first 8 weeks. In total I’ve lost about 8 pounds so far … and that came through two 4 day fasts and a couple of shorter ones. I resumed my workout activity after the first month of keto and can now say I don’t feel like keto is affecting my workouts.
Everyone is different but one thing I saw that caught my eye was in your first post.
I stopped tracking 4 weeks in because I was going absolutely insane with numbers. I want to do ‘simple keto’.
A trueism I read in a software quality assurance book was “You don’t get what you expect, you get what you measure”. Being a slow loser, I still measure my intake by choice. If you don’t measure you cannot have a firm idea of what your intake is.
There are a number of apps out there that make tracking macros very easy. I use one called the Keto Diet App. I’m not advocating that particular app … it’s simply the one I learned to use. I do the nutrient math … particularly carbs and fat on keto recipes I find online based on the ingredients I use. The numbers I get are sometimes different than what is published. The nutrient information on anything processed (ie boxed foods) or pre-made (ie smoothies or any flavored coffee) is instantly suspect. Carbs are sneaky things and they’re in more places in higher quantities than a person might think. My favorite example is 13 rams of carbs in 1 cup of 2% milk … who knew?
OK … so what’s the point? I can know for a fact that my slow loss is not due to sneaky carbs or over cosumption of anything. Once again if you don’t measure … particularly early in … you can’t know if you’re conforming to your dietary goals (people that have been doing this a long time eventually have the needed information filed away in their heads) .
You don’t have to go “insane with numbers”. Spend a little time learning to use an app (lots of recommendations on the forum) and it goes crazy with the math for you.
You’re close to your goal weight so the loss will be slower. I’ve read some o fthe sories of the long time people whose opinions I respect a great deal. Many of them lost a LOT of weight. Seems that last 10 or 20 pounds is bedeviling for them. Lastly, and I know from experience ths is hard advice to take when you’re tring to determine why you’re not losing, but keto is about so much more than weight loss.
I wish you well.
And I’m the opposite! When I was new here and didn’t have my labs, I was sure I was IR but my BG was always normal. I too thought the BG and insulin levels had to go hand in hand but no. I have now confirmed my IR with a 13.1 but somehow my body regulates my BG. Go figure!
I super appreciate this Virginia! I had a feeling I was eating too much fat! Will definitely only eat fat until I’m satiated and not just for fun. I don’t get feel any energy from MCT oil so will ditch that also (or not re buy anyways). I think once I’m super fat adapted then I will feel the energy people talk about from MCT oil but I’m not there yet.
My protein has been around 70-80 so maybe I’ll try lowering it to 60 this week also. Upping salt is very helpful as well…I’m really into pickle juice! This is week 11 for me…so almost hitting the 3 month mark and still only lost a few pounds…it’s been a rough beginning so I’m not going to focus on my weight so much but just the health benefits of keto.
Thanks! I started tracking again it’s really helpful! I’m not losing weight yet but hopefully on my way…this is week 11!
I don’t use MCT, but I did not really notice a difference in energy until the 6 month mark! Hang in there. There are so many other benefits along the way, if you have to wait for one in particular, it will definitely be worth it!
I love this comment so much…it gives me hope! I really feel like I’m in it for the long haul…mostly because I’ve read so much about the benefits. I also have chronic fatigue syndrome and am hoping with my entire life this will help my energy since there is no known cure. Loosing ten pounds would be great but it’s not happening and I’m tired of focusing on it. Great news to see that it can take 6 months or more to notice change because I know my body is super slow (and so is my metabolism) so maybe it will just take me extra long to fix.