8 pounds in first 15 days... and I'm a small-to-medium sized woman

[Talia]

Today is my 15th day in Keto. I’ve had 2 small slips during that time but otherwise really rigorous. I keep switching back and forth between burning fat and glucose. I’ll have this amazing, fabulous energy where I can barely sit still and go on cleaning frenzies, and then I’ll feel like sludge for a day. It’s like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Today was a sludge day, and I was pouting and wondering if this was ever going to work. I decided to weigh myself as part of my self-pity party because I was convinced I hadn’t even lost anything or maybe even gained. I stepped on the scale, glanced at the number, thought, “yeah, just like I thought…” And then did a double take. WAIT, the middle digit was an entire number lower! I’ve lost 8 pounds, holy cow. And I’m not medically overweight (just chasing a goal of supreme fitness) so 8 pounds is… unprecedented. I didn’t even lose this much when I did the lemon juice / cayenne cleanse in my 20’s.

I was suddenly inspired to throw out the remaining food items in my home that contain sugar and grain. I guess I was holding onto them just in case this didn’t work. But I’m a believer.

For reference, the highest ketone readings I’ve gotten has been 1.0 mm. My blood sugar is usually between 70-75.

[mtncntrykid]

You might find this an interesting read, and welcome to the forum!

Doing Keto solely to lose weight? Read this

I was a starry eyed newbie with huge expectations once. I get it. You’re excited. Great swathes of weight are about to fall off you with relative ease. You’ll be buying new clothes every month you’re shrinking so fast. Friends and family will be in awe of your dramatic rapid weight loss. Only- none of that is likely to be true. Sorry pumpkins Keto is not a magic bullet. Keto is not a diet. Keto is a way of eating which enables your body to undo years of metabolic damage, abuse from…

[Talia]

Thanks! I’ve heard that people continue to experience new levels of transformation for a year and longer. I’m already seeing a huge improvement with allergies. Hope asthma will improve.

Thanks for reaching out.

[Robert_Johnson]

Congrats! Come for the weight loss, stay for the health benefits.

I came her because diabetes had me up against the ropes in the first round of the fight. The day after I started keto, my blood sugar went from wildly swinging between 200-390 to sitting around 85. Two weeks after starting keto I lost 40 pounds. I had the same feeling at first too. Is this really doing anything for my weight? I too read the scale wrong and thought, “figures, pfft” and stepped down. Then thought, “wait a sec… did that say 245 or 205???” It said 205!

Just keep your carb intake low. And trust your body more than those keto test strips. As long as you are making ketones, you are in ketosis. If you done see much change on that test strip, that’s ok. That test strip is picking up waste ketones in your urine. A lowish number just means you are using most of them.

If you think you are bouncing back and forth between sugar and fat burning, lower your carb intake. Once your body is well adapted at making ketones you will be able to handle occasional carbs spikes and get right back into ketosis. Until then, you can knock yourself out of ketosis and slow down your progress.

Don’t be fooled. Yo don’t need to eat carbs. I went zero carb nearly a year ago, and feel better everyday. Your liver will produce all the sugar your body needs on its own.

Keep calm, keto on!

Sit back and enjoy the ride.

Keto Vitae!

[240lbfatloss]

Not to rain on your parade, but the vast majority, if not all of those eight pounds was stored glycogen. It’s the first step to becoming lipolytic. After that occurs, a one pound per week fat loss is entirely reasonable.

[Anniegirl9]

I keep switching back and forth between burning fat and glucose

I’m not sure how you would know this. How are you tracking this?

What you are doing now is depleating your body’s stores of glycogen, which is 75% water, so you’re seeing a big dip on the scale. Mostly it’s water weight from the glycogen.

It’s also the reason for the sluggishness. That was your body’s primary fuel source before. Now you should be producing ketones (provided your slip ups haven’t prohibited this). But your body doesn’t know how to efficiently use the ketones yet for fuel. This will take 6-8 weeks typically to get to what we call fat adaption. In the meantime, it’s like a car with a hole in the gas tank. You’re putting fuel in (ketones) but it’s just spilling out at this point and you’re not able to get as far as you need to go.
The good news is it won’t take the entire adaption period before you start to see some improvement. It isn’t an on:off switch but rather a slow ramp up.

I also want to warn you about PISS (post induction stall syndrome) which often occurs around week 3-6 Once you lose your initial weight, your body begins to balance itself with hydration levels. You need to take in more water and salt now because your body gets rid of it so much faster, and the body stabilizes during this point. Many, many people stop losing any weight for some time. And many will even gain a little back. This doesn’t mean your not getting smaller though. Take measurements. You may be very pleasantly surprised to find that even if the scale doesn’t budge, you’re getting smaller. This is because your building lean body mass at as you are losing fat. Weight wise there is an equalibrium but muscle is far denser than fat, so there’s a big difference in size.

Also be prepared… the closer you are to your ideal body weight, the slower it usually comes off. So don’t be upset if you begin to stall, slow down weight loss or even gain some back unexplainablely. It’s all part of the process.

[Keigan]

Dear fat burner,

Welcome to the healthier time of your life and life style.

[Talia]

Thanks everyone,

I tried keto once before and quit. The thing that got me over the initial hurdle this time was doubling my salt. I’ve been consuming about 4 grams a day.

Thanks for the tips about what to expect next. I think my next big hurdle will be mental. I’m going to get really bored with food if I don’t start cooking. I’ve just been eating salad, olives, meat, butter, jerky, and MCT oil. I have 2 cookbooks but I feel overwhelmed whenever I look at them.

What’s a good first recipe or set of recipes?

[Anniegirl9]

Omelets are super easy and take no recipies. Just stuff with your favorite Keto stuff.

I also love to take tuna and make a quick tuna salad. You can eat with lettuce leaves or by the fork.

Try fathead pizza. I’ll bet there’s a version of it in at least one of those books you have. If not, search for it on here. It’s super easy.
Just don’t overlook the crust like I did my first time. Best of all, the whole family loved it.

[SondraRose]

Talia,
I eliminated my asthma symptoms by getting my D3 level up to 80 ng/ml. I did this over 8 years ago and maintain with 8000 IUs per day. I was Keto most of this time.

[Regina]

Impressive!

[AndySat]

I found the key to sticking with the change is hammering home the science behind the lies that led to a disastrous revolution in diet change to low fat high carb recommendations from governments around the world. Many piece of information and intelligent people speaking out and staring a movement, but the web runs deep. A generation or two have been raised on a diet that made many ill or at least reduced their potential and raised disease.

Add to that the promotion of vegetable oil which was never meant to be a food becoming common place.

A Pre-Agricultural style diet is what we are designed to fuel on. Chucking man made crap into our systems has choked it up.

Further, add the way our health systems treat diabetes and there is the ultimate storm of lies led by incorrect science and arrogant medical experts and governments.

IT IS SCANDOLOUS!