3 weeks. No weight loss

#1

I have been keto for over 1 year and maintain a healthy weight. My husband started keto 3 weeks ago. I have been preparing food and snacks for both of us. He has about 50 pounds to lose. Unfortunately he has not lost ANY weight. He is frustrated and ready to throw in the towel. I don’t know how to help him. Any ideas? He won’t input numbers.

(Liz ) #2

In my experience, anyone trying Keto should give it a good 3 months. It’s not a quick weight loss diet, it’s changing your whole system to run on fat instead of carbs & that takes time. If he likes the food & sticks with it, he might start to experience the other non scale benefits that make it worth the effort.

#3

My sister joined Keto 6 weeks ago, she has about 30lbs to lose, and other than her first 3lbs she hasn’t lost anything. She was feeling super discouraged and went off for a day, but then came right back on. She said even though she’s not losing as fast as she would like, the cravings control has been amazing.
My hypotheses for why she’s not losing faster is that maybe she’s being to strict- she exercises a lot, and did a 36 hour fast after only 2 weeks in (yes I told her not to). Plus, she’s done weight watchers for the last little while, which may have messed up her metabolism? Not to mention, she’s just still so stressed about it, which doesn’t help.
I told her to research more for herself so that she feels confident that Keto will work for her, and to relax and think long term. Does this sound like I’m on the right track with my advice?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #4

Women, because of their hormones, often react a bit differently to ketosis, at least as far as weight loss is concerned. Also, women who have restricted their calories for a long time may find that their bodies want to put on lean muscle mass, which confuses the issue where the scale is concerned. They may not lose weight even though they are losing quite a bit of fat. Men, on the other hand, generally shed poundage quite easily when they go ketotic, since they haven’t been restricting calories to begin with.

@tambus If your husband isn’t losing weight, the two things to try are (a) restricting carbohydrate even further (he should be eating less than 20 grams a day) and (b) eating more fat (in other words, replacing the calories from the carbohydrate he’s no longer eating with calories from fat). If he eats fat at each meal until he is no longer hungry, he will be giving his body enough energy for the body to feel safe burning its store of fat. Don’t worry that he will eat too much, because fat is so satisfying that he will automatically stop at a calorie level that will allow him to burn both the fat he eats and the fat on his body.

@Juke88 It sounds as though you and your sister are thinking along the right lines. If she feels so good eating keto, she should probably continue, regardless of how much weight she actually loses. She is likely to find that her body will lose inches, even if it doesn’t lose pounds (remember that weight of the lean tissue she gains will disguise the weight loss from fat). And I suspect that if she gets blood work done now, and compares it with blood work in six months (three months is too soon), she will be amazed and impressed by the results.