Anemic and on Keto! I CANNOT LOSE WEIGHT despite everything i try!

#1

i am iron deficient anemic and close to 40 female and have a history of yo-yo dieting in the past and the last time i did keto, the pounds melted off. i lost 17 pounds in a month!

This time around nada! I have been eating from 11-6pm everyday and doing intermittent fasting and i checked my ketones and i’m in ketosis dark red strips!

My carbs are about 20 net a day and my calories around 1200-1500. I started working out again too and literally have close to 3 weeks not one pound has been lost!

I am at a loss for what to do next. I check every ingredient that goes into my mouth for hidden sugars and non keto like foods! What could be wrong???

Please provide suggestions. I eat all my calories usually at two meals with little to no snacking in between since I know this boosts insulin! HELP!!!

#2

The yoyo dieting most likely screwed your metabolism, how active are you? 1200-1500 isn’t much if you’re actively working out. Mine was pretty bad and fasting made it way worse. When I had my RMR checked my guess would have been it was around 2200 or so, my last check a couple years prior was almost 3000 and it came back at 1700. That was with lifting and cardio 5-6 times a week! Had to drop my calories more and reverse diet to get it back up.

The ketones don’t matter, there’s no link to how high your ketones are and fat loss. Don’t worry about snacking as long as it fits into your allowance unless your snacking on Snickers bars.

#3

That 17 pounds you lost in a month was probably mostly water.

Have you determined your macros? Are you weighing and tracking what you eat? Being in ketosis is no guarantee of weight loss.

i checked my ketones and i’m in ketosis dark red strips!

The urine strips are designed for type 1 diabetics to look for one type of ketone body being excreted as waste, one which doesn’t usually get created later on in nutritional ketosis.

If you’re only eating 20 net carbs per day, you are in ketosis.

#4

Yes i am tracking everything i eat and i am at a loss for why i cannot lose. it’s like my stomach just doesn’t budge and i am bloated even after fasting for 16-18 hours! Am i putting on chronic stress from fasting every day? Or do i need to mix things up and do a 24 hour fast a few times a week and do normal eating throughout the day on those other days?

I walk an hour a day at a steady pace and do a little bit of strength training like either abs one day or arms the next. Nothing too intensive but enough to get my body moving and me feeling it. I do this 5-6 times a week. Starting to wonder if it’s a coristol problem or hormone imbalance or medical issue. It’s just strange. I am working harder than ever and seeing no results. Not one pound lost! And I don’t even look better in the mirror it’s like my body just holds on to the fat or retains the water.

#5

Odd but 3 weeks is such a short time, it’s possible your body decided to retain more water. It would take an insanely slow metabolism to need only 1200-1500 kcal or less a day even with some activity. That’s possible too but I wouldn’t think about that after only 3 weeks. Be patient, it seems you do it right (unless you eat too little, I really can’t possibly have much idea about your energy need).
Losing fat is very complicated and usually not very quick and you only can measure your weight (well there is circumferences and fat percentage estimation etc. but you wrote about pounds). It’s very easy to offset your not very quick fat-loss with extra water, who knows what your body does right now? I’ve heard about several cases where there were no changes on the scale for weeks and then bam, suddenly a drop, it may be small and bigger at once. The scale isn’t reliable short term regarding fat-loss.
Some people experience certain items interfere, I don’t really get those but it seems it’s possible too.

#6

What are you using though to gauge your metabolic rate? If you were truly at a deficit you’d be loosing.

Of course you are, not eating is 100% a stress to the body. Whether that becomes a problem or not is person specific.

Just remember the body adapts very quickly, if you’re doing the same stuff all the time it won’t be exercise anymore, it’ll just be what you do. You can get your RMR checked fro around $50-$75, do that and get you’re real answer. You may be as surprised as I was. (Hopefully not though).

#7

I may be slightly undereating. Here is an example. What I ate today: 2 eggs with 1/4 cup cheese and 4 pieces of bacon for brunch and then for dinner a serving of califlower noodles with feta and tomato sauce and about 10 low sugar cocoa almonds with 3 tbls of peanut butter. Also, had a coffee with MCT oil and 2 tbls heavy cream and stevia inside. For drinks I had mostly water and 1-2 cans of zevia. Does this sound unhealthy or like I am over or under eating on something?

I have a tendency to fast too much and go overboard all at once when i want to see results. i guess i’m not 20 anymore and the pounds don’t just melt off when i do something like this.

Maybe I need to give up caffeine! I am anemic iron deficiency and I hear that makes metabolisms very slow and years of yo yo dieting too! I used to lose though taking such drastic measures. Not sure if my cortisol is high. I have been a little bit stressed so maybe that’s it. Or maybe not having normal iron levels is not allowing enough oxygen to make my muscles repair and therefore my RMR is low! I will get my metabolism tested somehow and look into that in the meantime, let me know if my diet sounds okay or if you think I am fasting too much. I did too many chronic fasts in the past and I worry that that too messed up my metabolism or I have insulin resistence and that’s why it is taking so long to get back to normal. So unsure what is going on in my body.

#8

I had a similar problem when I started keto and actually gained weight. I read up on a few keto websites and discovered that for older women (over 40) too much protein and not enough fat can be a problem. So, I switched things up and gave it a try, along with calorie counting. It slowly started to work for me so I began tracking everything and put it into a spreadsheet in order to figure out what worked best for my body. I later discovered I needed quite a bit of fiber too. I have also read that it is more difficult to lose weight on a keto restart than when you do it for the first time. I can’t speak from experience though.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #9

The first thing is to be sure you are eating enough. Even with a low carb intake, your body will still hang onto its fat reserve if it thinks there is a famine going on. And the signal of famine is not getting enough food (fasting acts differently). So the key to persuading your body it’s safe to shed some of those extra pounds of fat is to eat to satiation. In other words, eat when you are hungry and stop eating when your hunger goes away. Don’t eat again until you are hungry again. Whatever amount of food you end up eating, eat as much as your body tells you to, not what you think you should be eating.

The second thing is to be patient. At only three weeks in, you have not become fat-adapted yet. Also, you are older than you were last time, and your hormones may need to re-regulate themselves before fat loss can begin this time. It might also be far too soon to be worrying about fasting or exercise.

The last point is that you might very well be more insulin-resistant than you were the last time around. This means that your insulin response may still be too high, which would mean you might have to cut your carb intake even further until you become more insulin-sensitive.

#10

Are you close to normal weight? Why are you anemic? You should not be. Have you had that checked out?

#11

I have iron deficiency anemia. I think from my periods. I am taking iron now more regularly once a day so hopefully it improves. I would like to lose 30-40 pounds.

#12

I had problems with anemia as well in my 40s . I would go and check with to see if there are any bleeding anywhere just in case. Make sure you absorb that iron usually with some vitamin C. If you are picking up your exercising maybe you are changing body shape. Are your measuring? Also be patient and give it time and good fatty foods to heal and wait till it is ready to let go of the fat

#13

@Iwanttobelieve

If I had constant, unexplained bloating combined with anemia then I would do as @HeleneS has suggested and see a doctor.