Can I get some encouragement please?
That’s really low for your height and weight. You may be slowing your metabolism down.
How long have you been eating at a deficit?
Maybe this will help me. I am thinking I need to add more veggies too. I don’t know. I did this diet about 5 years ago and it took me a long time to lose weight. I thought I wasn’t in ketosis so I cut down to almost 0 carbs. I didn’t know what I was doing and I got really sick because I didn’t get enough electrolytes or b12. But I lost weight. I guess I need to find that balance. Thank you
When you say eating at a deficit? What exactly do you mean? I think I’ve always eaten around that amount. I actually am really fat for someone that eats very little. It is the story of my life. Just went to a new doctor and I could tell he didn’t believe me that I don’t eat a ton because of my weight, but I’ve eaten like that for years. I was told by one doctor I needed to eat as little as 900 calories a day.
Maryann
Sorry, but this is not enough. You say you’ve been eating at this level for a long time. This means you have seriously decreased your metabolism, and the fix is to eat more. A lot more. You need to eat more fat.
This may mean in the short term a slight increase in weight but you should not be concerned with that. Focus on fixing (ie increasing) your metabolism by eating more fat.
After your body understands the famine is over, it will start losing weight.
To elaborate on that a little. Initially, your body may store the extra energy coming in for a rainy day. Then, as it learns that this is the new budget, it will start ramping up those processes that it has sidelined for lack of energy. Then, your body can start to heal itself as it figures out that the energy famine is over.
Then, you can finally start convincing your body to give up its death grip on its emergency energy stores - ie your body fat.
Without that, your body is fighting you when you ask it to give up its doomsday rations
That’s because you’ve slowed your metabolism down.
For example, it was discovered that all the contestants on the Biggest Loser lowered their metabolic maintenance threshold by hundreds of calories. That means you’ve lowered the amount of calories it takes just to maintain weight.
The only way to fix it is to eat more. This might mean you will see a temporary initial weight gain, but you have to fuel your metabolism to get it working again.
Could you give me a good example of how to eat more fat? I struggle with this as I’m used to eating more traditionally and I don’t quite get how to eat more fat without eating it on something, if that makes sense. Thank you.
Thank you all for your help. I will try to make the above mentioned changes! I appreciate the help.
From another thread
Hard boiled eggs - replace with eggs scrambled in bacon grease or a stick of butter
Dinner meat with … slather in a fatty sauce or with a stock of butter
Cook everything in butter, lard, tallow or coconut oil.
Eat an entire avocado every day. I mash butter into my avocados, yummy!
Drink heavy whipping cream or melted butter in your morning coffee or tea.
Eat bacon. I personally don’t, but that’s because of an ethical dilemma. Pork is very fatty.
Salmon is delicious. Put butter on the salmon.
Eat chicken with skin. Eat rib eye steaks or the fattiest cut you can find. Eat the fat, don’t trim it off. Put butter on the steaks
Macadamia nuts and pecans are high in fat but also have a few carbs so go lightly but enjoy.
Cheese is also good but choose real, hard cheeses. See if you can find raw cheese because they are better for your microbiome
That’s a whole other subject for discussion, your damaged microbiome
Thank you. Yes, I’m sure my microbiome is just horrible. I’m actually surprised how well my body has done since I’m pretty sure I’m very sick. My son has autism and we have treated him biomedically with success, but he has mthfr, as I do. I actually have it significantly worse than him with a compound heterozygous snp that has been expressed. I need methylb12 injections because I don’t absorb or use enough of what I get in my food.
You could add fat by adding vegetables cooked in fat, as I don’t think you get enough veggies. Melt butter over broccoli. Cook spinach or kale in bacon grease.
I agree with the others that your body has been underfed for so long that it thinks it’s in famine.
Deep fry everything that you can! Vegetables are super crispy and delish when deep fried in lard!!
Avocados helped me a lot in the beginning, as well as adding Cletic Pink Salt to help with Electrolytes and increased my water to 3-4 liters a day. Also you might consider several blood test to get some base lines and look for improvement in at 3 months. It is inside you heal and out ward to your eyes. From the IDM site with Dr Jason Fung “Your own physician will decide which tests are necessary depending upon your medical condition. Some may require more frequent testing and others less.
Initial and Yearly: Lipid Panel, Fasting C-Peptide, Fasting Insulin, Vitamin B12, high sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hsCRP)
Every 3 Months: Complete blood count, fasting glucose, creatinine, uric acid, sodium, potassium, chloride, albumin/creatinine ratio (urine), urea, bicarbonate Hemoglobin A1C (HbA1C), alanine transaminase (ALT), alkaline phosphatase (ALP), albumin, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium.”
This is my second week on the keto journey and so far I have lost 4 pounds but if nothing else my weight is staying steady. I have very bad insomnia and have a bad habit of waking up in the middle of the night and staying up for hours after I wake up but I can say the last 3 or 4 days I have been sleeping throughout the night. When I started this journey I was looking for a very dramatic weight lose and wanting to lose at least 25 pounds but I have not lost anything on this second week but I can say I have not gained as well. So with that being said I plan to stick to it for a while to see where things goes from here. My skin is glowing and I am getting more sleep now so that is a plus.
Hi Maryann,
You’ve gotten a lot of good advice here, but I thought I’d add my story. I didn’t lose anything until I gave up fake sugar and start IF (Intermittent Fasting).
Even though I’ve seen that some ‘experts’ say that certain sugar substitutes won’t affect you, for me it was the key. I had to eat clean Keto, keep the carbs under 20/day AND let go of the Stevia. I also started skipping breakfast and doing IF 16/8 (Sixteen hours fasting / 8 hours feasting) Once I did that, the scale started moving.
If you haven’t already, look for the podcasts with Jason Fung and Megan Ramos, they give a lot of information and success stories!
Every body is different, so that may not be your key, but for MY body, that was the only thing that worked.
Hang in there, I know you’ll see results, you just have to tweak one thing at a time until you find what works for you!
I know this is late, I hope you were able to stick with KETO. I agree with Anniegirl9 and Alecmcq, those are the incorrect calories for your weight and height. I ran into that problem in the beginning as well. good luck! Maybe consider researching fat fasting?