3 weeks in and very frustrated

(Jennifer M Palacios) #1

Hi Guys! So I am a little more than 3 weeks in and I am so frustrated. I have gone up and down losing the same 3-4 pounds and then gaining them back. I have been tracking everything I eat. I also cut out nuts and berries because I thought maybe that was affecting the weight loss. I adjusted my macros and now make sure that I hit them. I walk 3-4 miles at least 4-5 days a week and still no progress. I did take my measurements and have lost a couple here and there, but I would have thought my progress would be further along.

I don’t know what I am doing wrong or what else I can do. If you guys have any input, advice or suggestions, please send them all my way. It gets so frustrating and hard to stay motivated when I don’t see much change on the scale or in the mirror. :expressionless:

(Polly) #2

What sort of diet were you following before you decided to try keto?

Sometimes if we have been very low fat and high carb we have a good deal of healing to do before weight loss is possible.

Also how tall are you, what do you weigh at the moment, what do you hope to weigh, what have you been eating whilst keto? The answeres to those questions will give seasoned oldtimers some data to base their guidance on.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #3

In addition, if you were skimping on calories before, and are now eating to satiety, your body may add lean tissue, possibly even while shedding excess fat, which will affect the reading on your scale. Be sure to keep track of the fit of your clothing as an additional measure of progress.

Because of all the exciting fat-loss stories circulating in the press, the public perception is that a ketogenic diet is a fast weight-loss diet. It is not. What the ketogenic way of eating does first and formost is to promote metabolic health. Shedding excess fat is part of that, but is really more in the nature of a pleasant side-effect. If your metabolism is really out of whack, you may need some time in ketosis to get it back into shape, before your body will feel comfortable parting with its stored energy reserves.

(Gregory - You can teach an old dog new tricks.) #4

How much water/liquids do you drink?
A gallon of water weighs over eight pounds.

Are you tracking measurements; waist, chest, thighs, upper arm?

Three weeks is way to soon to be realizing all the benefits of a keto way of eating…

If you are overweight, you should eventually see some loss. but it varies from person to person.

#5

Are you eating when you’re not hungry, in order to “hit them”? How did you establish your macros?

The proteins macro is a lower limit, while the carbs and fats macros are upper limits. There are no essential carbs, so that macro could be zero.

(Jennifer M Palacios) #6

Hi Polly! Before Keto I was following a vegetarian diet, so I was definitely eating a lot of carbs.

I am 5’2" and I weigh 166.4. I am hoping to lose at least 40 pounds. Since I have been on Keto my meals look a little like the below:

Breakfast
Eggs and chorizo or Ham and cheese omlete
Half of a avocado

Lunch
Turkey/cheese lettuce wraps and pork rinds
Or
Ground beef/cheese/sour cream with broccoli

Dinner
Sausage/brussel sprouts/cheese
or
Beef steak and small salad

I don’t really eat any processed keto foods and I don’t really snack in between meals. Any help will be appreciated. :slightly_smiling_face:

#7

Sorry for your frustration but I have to say 3 weeks in is low. This is a lifestyle change and no ‘instant weight loss on your timeline’ will happen cause your body is adjusting/healing/changing and all that takes priority over your body dropping those lbs each week.

So always remember one thing, you lost already, you know this works, you know now you need time under your belt and with this and holding your eating plan as you are, the good results will come to you.

but again it is time. There ain’t a person on the planet that wants to hear this and I was one of them LOL but in truth you hold your eating and you will be rewarded for sure!!

Best of luck and hold on for the long term great ride to getting healthier!!

(Jennifer M Palacios) #8

Thank you, Fangs.

(Polly) #9

Your typical menu looks good @JPalacios provided you are eating enough to stay satisfied from one meal to the next.

I suspect that your former diet may mean that it takes a while for you to reap the rewards so my advice would be to keep doing what you are doing. Don’t be tempted to weigh too often and get down about lack of progress, just stick with it and suddenly you will start to see some changes.

(Jennifer M Palacios) #10

I use the Carbmanager app for tracking. It set up my macros when I started for me. (20 net carbs / 124g Fat / 99g Protein) I usually end the day with about 1500 calories but I do burn about 450-500 calories walking.

I have eaten out of boredom but I would say that was in the first week or so. Not too much now, I haven’t been very hungry in between meals lately.

(Jennifer M Palacios) #11

Thank you, Polly1.

#12

JP just make sure you do hit more kcals that you gear at cause if we undereat the darn losses do slow…sometimes in many people’s favor is the more ya eat the faster you lose. Of course it does require us to eat at our ‘sweet spot’, in other words 1600 kcals from donuts doesn’t equal 1600 kcals from fresh food and I know ya get me on this :wink:

While we tap carbs at say 20…which is fab, then if we don’t complete the rest of the equation, as in not hitting our kcal amts and more we come up short ya know…so even if a tad less hungry in any way wtih our bodies changing, be sure to always make sure you get some food in ya!

(Jennifer M Palacios) #13

Thanks for that, Fangs. Sometimes I worry about eating too much.

#14

I am probably going to to get internet rocks thrown at me but…
I see a doctor that has put me on this keto journey. She recommends a calorie deficit. I am also 5’2 but I started at 180 lbs. She told me, because of my fat percentage and weight, that I wouldn’t be able to follow her traditional (typical keto) diet. I believe I was around your weight when I first saw her, frustrated by keto and watching my husband’s weight melt away. Most of the regulars will say otherwise. I lost most of my weight (40 lbs) in the first 6 months.

(Jennifer M Palacios) #15

Pbash, that is good to know. Thank you!

(Khalil Islam-Zwart) #16

You are fairly new into the way of eating, so know that its not always a linear journey. But that said, sometimes if I’m feeling a stall, I shake my routine. If you IF, extend your fast or do a day of OMAD. Or consider a 24-36 hour fast. Sometimes I’ll do a week of carnivore or carnivore like eating. An easy favorite is to simply eat ground beef and butter for 4-5 days (lunch and dinner - 1c cooked ground beef, spiced as you like, with 3 added tablespoons of butter). This guarantees you aren’t eating hidden carbs, etc, and is really filling.

That said, again, weight loss isn’t always linear. This is a healing diet, so your body may be working to repair itself rather than working on weight loss at the moment.

(Jennifer M Palacios) #17

I have considered doing fasts but I just don’t like the feeling of being so hungry that I can’t concentrate. I have a cup of espresso with HWC every morning and it can usually keep me until lunchtime. So today, I am not eating breakfast and trying to push my lunch back as much as I can. I will eat dinner when I feel hungry because I don’t want to feel starved and try to do the same the rest of the week. Hopefully, I can get to a 24 hour fast without feeling like I am starving myself purposely. Like you said, my body could be in a healing state so I am just going to relax and let the healing happen. :blush:

(Nicolas) #18

This is what I would do, keep doing breakfast, but push it later little by little.

For example:
Got up at 7 Am, get Breakfast (eating) at 8 Am -> Week 1
Got up at 7 Am, get Breakfast (eating) at 9 Am -> Week 2
Got up at 7 Am, get Breakfast (eating) at 10 Am -> Week 3
Got up at 7 Am, get Breakfast (eating) at 11 Am -> Week 4
Got up at 7 Am, get Breakfast (eating) at 12 Pm -> Week 5
Got up at 7 Am, NO Breakfast - Lunch at 1 Pm -> Week 6

And if you have to do it in 30 min, then 12 weeks then. Remember that you need to eat a little bit more on lunch because the idea is not to subtract x amount of calories, because that will harm your metabolism and catabolize muscles if you eat protein on breakfast.

The idea of this is to be in a fasted state for longer, which is good, because your body will go to Autophagy mode and clean a lot of mess, plus you wont have an insulin spike in the morning.

That would be a good way to do it.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #19

Then wait until it comes naturally. I stopped wanting breakfast eventually, but still generally eat twice a day, though sometimes only once, depending on how I feel. If you find yourself forgetting to eat, or suddenly realising that it’s been a whole day since your last meal, then you may be ready to fast intentionally.

(Jennifer M Palacios) #20

Hi Nickso, I usually eat breakfast at about 10am. My coffee keeps me until about that time. So, I thought I would just drop breakfast and push myself to wait a longer to eat lunch?