Iāve been in high levels of ketosis for 6 weeks. Iāve only lost water weight and gained a lb back.
I fast daily 16-17 hours. My question is does everyoneās body or cells have the ability to fat adapt? Are there some people who can never or have wrecked metabolisms or is everyone capable of fat adapting?
Iāve been on so many diets in my life time that I am beginning to worry when and if this is going to happen.
Being fat adapted doesnāt necessarily mean you will automatically lose body fat. It just means that you body has become a more efficient fat burner. Are you feeling less hungry? If so thatās a good indication that you are fat adapted.
Some people find that they have to tweak the diet a bit to get things moving. Why donāt you tell us what and when you are eating. Do you snack at all? Have fat bombs? Put fat in your coffees?
I have been trying to only eat two meals a day. One at 11 and one at 5pm. I sometimes eat one serving of nuts or dark chocolate between but other than that no. I am going to start putting mct in my coffee in the mornings. Right now I use heavy whipping cream.
My carbs are down to 15-20 a day. My keto strips read high. But Iām not losing any weight. Inches I donāt think either. My calories are at about 1200 daily.
I have two eggs with cheese and sour cream and guac and butter in the afternoon along with my coffee w cream and stevia then I donāt eat until dinner and have something like a burger with out without cheese and a large salad with apple cider vinegar on it. Or just a huge salad with veggies and some cheese and dressing or fish and veggies.
Am I doing something wrong? I havenāt lost weight in 4 weeks and yes Iām less hungry I donāt care that much to eat to be honest. But I am not losing.
Urine strips are not the best indicators. I prefer the blood ketone and glucose tests.
But even while in ketosis, you need to give your body time depending on how long youāve had the fat. Your fat cells are like tiny balloons with a collagen skin and filled with liquid fat. As you consume the liquid fat inside, your body replaces it with water because it expects to need the storage space again later.
Water weighs more than fat so you can actually see weight gain in the beginning after the initial flush. Donāt get discouraged. Once you persevere long enough, your body will see that the storage is unnecessary and will cannibalize the water filled balloons - and youāll have another big flush. This will repeat over and over.
Also, there are two kinds of fat - visceral around your organs and subcutaneous under the skin. Visceral should go first but you wonāt see it in your clothes.
Donāt look at the scale for a whileā¦ focus on getting to a narrower feeding window and eat 70%+ fat.
Oneās degree of insulin resistance and oneās average insulin level makes a big difference, Stacie. Yes, Iād say everybody can get adapted to burning fat, but making progress on that will go at different rates for different people.
Higher on the chart is good for weight/fat loss. You can see that as the insulin level increases, going left to right, the bodyās ability to burn fat rapidly decreases.
If insulin is not a problem, our cells can easily burn fat. With carbs (glucose in the body) an enzyme must be added to get the glucose into the energy-producing parts of the cell. Medium-length to short fatty acids can go right in, on their own - in some ways weāre really set up better to burn fat than carbs.
For the longer fatty acid molecules, which includes some of our food and how we store energy as fat, they need the ācarnitine shuttleā to get in to where we can make energy from them, to āburn the fat.ā Thereās some good reading just by googling ācarnitine shuttle.ā
Higher insulin levels have us making new fatty acids - the body is in energy storage mode, even if weāre hungry and even our very cells need energy. Weāre not burning the fat, and weāre even trying to make more. The body still has to have energy, and it has less efficient ways to deal with the fat, but itās a slow process of busting up those long molecules, and all this time the person is probably feeling low-energy, hungry, and maybe even like life sucks. 
Youāre eating during a relatively short time window each day. This is good - this is more time without stimulating insulin production, and results in a lower average insulin level. It can still take a while - your body is becoming more sensitive to insulin, but weeks, even months, may have to go by. Most of us took many years/decades to get to where weāre at, and it can be a while healing it all.
Thank you so much for the long explanation! Iāll try and be more patient. You eat keto for a month and are like pls let me lose 5 lbs for all my hard work but fat adaption takes time and patience! I got so excited when I lost 13 initial lbs of water weight. And then I was like okay ten more cmon body but sadly it doesnāt work that way. However, in my early twenties it sure did 
haha
I donāt think youāre doing anything wrong.Your 13 initial pounds are probably not entirely water weight. Thatās actually a very good number for the first month, so you shouldnāt be upset about it. I recommend waiting another couple of weeks, just doing what youāve been doing.
If that still doesnāt work, you can play around with trying to change your eating window, and removing any snacks. Another thing that some people have problems with is too much dairy. How many times a day do you have coffee with cream?
I am a big believer in tossing artificial sweetener if you hit some sort of plateau. I have read too many things that lead me to believe that it still does something to your insulin levels.
That said, I have NEVER lost up to 10 pounds in a single month eating this way so 19 pounds in 6 weeks is way better than anything Iāve experienced. I think sometimes people hyperfocus on those stories where people drop incredible amounts in a short amount of time and donāt look at people like me, who has taken almost 10 and a half months to drop about 37 pounds. I am zeroing in on my goal, but I may not get there until late spring at the rate I am goingā¦and thatās okay, because summer will get here either way and it will be nice to be āfitā for the first summer in like 25 years.
For sure - it makes a huge difference. In the end, itās mostly a psychological thing for most of us. Heh, easy for me to say thatā¦
I donāt think youāre stalledā¦ youāre just getting started.
If months go by, Iād look at foods that are inflammatory or artificially spike insulin. Dairy and veggies (including nuts) were inflammatory to me. Vegetable oils got me too (corn, canola,ā¦). Switching to ghee was liberating. Sweeteners other than Stevia also tricked my body to release insulinā¦ regarding my loss.
I took carnitine supplements before I started eating a lot more red meat. The body can scavenge it but itās not bad to nudge it along.
Apple cider vinegar also helps reduce glucose (and therefore insulin) and improve nutrient absorption as well as helping concentrate bile salts.
My understanding is that yes, everyone can. But the adaptations that need to take place at the cellular level take time. If you can find it, there is a post somewhere by Dr. Phinney (on Virta Health, I thought, but I havenāt been able to find it), in which he explains the chemicals involved.
The general experience is that we get into ketosis pretty quickly, within a couple of days, but that fat-adaptation, or keto-adaptation, takes six to eight weeks and sometimes even longer. But itās not an on-off type thing, itās gradual, and in some people it takes longer, so donāt give up hope. There is no real way to measure fat-adaptation, though one of the signs can be that the blood glucose rises somewhat after a time, even though HbA1C has dropped and stays low. This is called āadaptative glucose-sparingā or āphysiological insulin-resistanceā and it is a sign that the muscle cells have switched to burning fatty acids and are refusing to take in glucose (and ketones, as well), so as to spare it (and the ketones) for those cells that absolutely have to have it.
But otherwise, the main sign of fat-adaptation is a sensation of well-being and abundant energy, as well as a sense of mental alertness. Athletes generally find that their performance drops off when they start eating keto, and they know they are fat-adapted when their performance returns to its previous level.
Bear in mind as well, that weight loss on keto is different for women, and that your monthly cycle is playing a role here. Many women have posted that it took them quite some time to get to the point where the weight started to drop, which is another reason to be patient. And may you be spared the irregular cycling that some women experience at first! Obviously I have no first-hand experience, but many women apparently need some time to get their hormones sorted out at first, before everything settles down.
All this is to say, patience, grasshopper! All will (eventually) be well. Here is some virtual 
to encourage you.
Hi.
These kinds of things and not unheard of an often victory is around the corner. Although I sympathise and I know it can be very frustrating and disheartening .
Any medication or pills whatsoever can affect weight loss.
Fighting any chronic infection or inflammation can also affect everything. Staying with the diet is a great way to eventually beat these.
Hidden carbs are real. Everyone says oh no not meā¦
Sometimes people donāt lose weight for many weeks then suddenly whoosh.
Once youāre burning fat for fuel it becomes a lot harder to over eat but until that breakthrough occurs we do need a sanity check on food volumes. Canāt be too high and certainly canāt be too low (slows down metabolism).
Some food for thought (no pun intended).
Cheers
Have you considered increasing your caloric intake some? 1200 calories is low, even for ketogenic eating. Maybe go up a bit for awhile and see if that helps? I may be wrong but maybe increasing your fat and going up 200-400 calories might be just the thing
Haha thanks for the great advice and the virtual bacon! It was tasty!
Yes I guess I read too many stories about people losing 80 lbs in 5 months and then u think it will happen to you and that everyone is the same but sadly we arenāt. I lost water weight in the first two weeks but nothing else so Iāll just continue on. Oh question, does the horrible rose smell under your arm pits ever go away or from your pee? I know TMI!
Speaking of chronic pain and inflammation. I have this in my knees and ankle form an accident. The ankle pain sadly might never go away Bc there may be scar tissue pinching in my joint so it comes and goes. Especially bad at night. I canāt do a lot of exercise because of this. Thatās why I keto because I used to be super active and so I was thin even eating moderately and whatever I wanted.
My inflammation isnāt as bad since I have been on keto but thatās mainly Bc of the cortisone shot I had. I am suppose to take nsaids and opioids for it but I rarely do. Maybe once a week or once a month if ever.
Anyhow no regular medications. I want to pop Advil but I never do. I have troubles sleeping though often Bc I have pain most then.
Yes I know Iāve been trying to eat a tad more because I am never really hungry. So adding butter to my food and certain stuff to get in calories. 
Eventually. Especially as your body gets more efficient at using the ketones and not excreting them.
Yeah, I have pain in my shoulder from an accident that keto is not likely to help, but the arthritis in my knees and fingers is gone.
Ouch sorry to hear it.
Fair enough. BTW I shouldāve said my list of possibilities which I previously posted is not an exhaustive list, just indicative of the sorts of things which can put weight loss on hold. The body is also doing many other transformations, I donāt think weight loss is itās top priority.
Anyway give it a another week or two and see how you go. I know itās more fun to see the scales dive but sometimes we just have to hang in thereā¦
I think youāre doing fine and would advise patience like everyone above, but I think that cortisone shots can raise blood sugar, right? (Iām not sure but someone on here probably does)
