Am I doing this wrong?

(Kim) #1

Hi there. New to the forum and have read some of the posts looking for answers, found lots of good information.

Here’s my story. I welcome and encourage input, advice, and criticism just please don’t be mean. :flushed:
I have been doing keto for almost 2 months. With the exception of a 4 day vacation in Mid Feb, I have been pretty clean, and even then I didn’t go crazy. I am female, 45 years old, 5’2, 161, 27% BF. I do high intensity spin class 3x a week and weight training 3x a week. My goal weight is 142.
I have never been able to lose weight…I don’t even yo-yo. I Only gain, and gain fast in the abdomen. Obesity runs in my family so I am fighting it every day of my life and to be honest I am just exhausted. I read about people losing 10lbs in a week (or even 5, or even 3!!) and I am insanely jealous. I have been told I am not eating enough yet when I eat the amount of calories I am supposed to eat according to my RMR (1900 on rest day, 2700 on workout days!!!) I gain or maintain. The amount of calories is insane to me. Other people have told me that’s too many calories and I must have a deficit. No matter whether I cut it down to 1400 o 1900 it makes no difference. There has been no change, except for a twice I weighed in at 158 in the morning. The next dy, its bac to 161.
I am keeping net carbs at 20-30 or less. I am not a person who crave bad carbs or eats sweets so I never have “keto flu” … but what I would do to have some beans!! I loosely track macros now. I was tracking everything and my ratios were in range of where the should be so I stopped tracking because I don’t vary my diet much. I do not drink BPC instead I opt for BPB (Bulletproof broth) 4 scoops of collagen in 2 cups of broth in the am with some MCT oil. I don’t drink milk or use butter. Not much cheese either :confused: I use but and olive oils along wit MCT for fat and of course meat/fish. I have been known to save my carbs for wine.
At first my workouts were suffering terribly but I’m getting my strength back and feeling pretty good. I don’t get hungry much or hangry at all anymore.
My blood ketones have been all over the place and I measure them frequently. I have never got higher than a 1.8 mmol on my keto mojo since I started measuring on 03/05. for about a week my blood ketones were in light nutritional ketosis range but the past 4 days they have dropped into .5, .4 etc. I don’t know what I am doing wrong… Scale not budging in the right direction. In fact I was feeling so gross this morning (that fat feeling) I didn’t get on the scale for fear of ruining my day.
Keto groups on Facebook are a fun distraction but it’s mostly people posting pics of their cheat meals, fighting (and I DO mean fighting!) about “This is keto/That’s not keto”, and stirring the pot. I am getting little support and I just can’t seem to get any reliable information. The blogs I find seem more like opinion pieces and a lot of guesswork and a “you do you” attitude.
So I guess what I am asking is 1. What am I doing wrong and 2.Is the science really there or is it still evolving and 3.are there people who are "keto-resistant and 4.Wouldn’t you think even if one is not in nutritional ketosis at a minimum that one would still lose weight from cutting carbs so drastically?
Thanks in advance.

(8 year Ketogenic Veteran) #2
  1. The only thing that raises a red flag is saving all your carbs for wine, but even then I myself wouldn’t worry about doing that unless I was having an issue, then I might cut it out and see if I have more success.
  2. Is the science really there for the fact that eating low carb can cause weight loss? Absolutely! Eating low carb keeps our insulin down and insulin is the fat storing hormone. There’s plenty of science on this. Have you tried doing searches in this forum?
  3. In the entire four years I’ve been ketogenic I’ve only seen one person that was someone documented as being keto resistant, but she was an athlete. Probably something other metabolically going on.
  4. From the numbers that you told me you ARE in fact in nutritional ketosis. The only thing that caught my eye about what you’re doing is the intense workouts. Although exercise is great for building lean mass and strength and toning, it is not proven to help with weight loss. Actually just the opposite. And there is science on this. Exercise will definitely make you hungry, cause an energy deficit, so your body might hold onto the weight it has even harder.

I’m going to strongly encourage you to read the newbie section in this forum.
Also, do specific searches for any of these topics you want more information on. If you find topics you want more information on, you can specifically ask the original poster.