Centurians - people who have lost more than 100 lbs


(Dustin Cade) #31

If you use me on the show, you can just call me Dustin, it’s easier to pronounce than my forum name…

I started keto September of 2016, I was about 410/420lbs and now (weighed on 1/7/2018) I’m 300lbs so I’m down well over 100lbsn

The following photo gives a glimpse at my progress!

Here I am with 42 in pants!


(Kenneth Russell) #32


I lost 250 pounds in 30 months. I start eating low carb in February 2014 - tipping the scales at 440 pounds. The photo on the right was taken in July 2014 after I’d lost 70 pounds (or so). I don’t have any true “before” photos at 440 as I did a pretty good job of avoiding the camera. Low carb (< 30 net) was how I started out. When my weight loss slowed I started eating at a deeper ketogenic level (< 20 net carbs) to keep the scale moving. In August 2016 I reached my goal of 190 pounds. Since then I’ve had a little bounce with the scale as I try to figure out what I must do to maintain. I experimented with adding back a few more daily carbs and weight creep set in. I regained about 25 pounds over the next year. Lesson learned. Lower carb is not good enough for me. I’m back to eating true keto and the scale is moving in the right direction again.

In 2014 I had chronic lower back pain, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and a number of other conditions related to high blood sugar. I have completely regained my health. The secret for me was making LCHF how I eat for life. I stopped “going on a diet”. I changed how I eat forever. I have not had cake, candy, donuts, bread, pizza, pasta, you-name-it in nearly 4 years. I deprived myself of the junk that I used to love to eat until I no longer felt deprived. These days I eat healthy, whole foods. I hardly miss carby junk anymore. By sticking to on-plan foods my brain rewired itself around what I do eat and I’m completely happy with how I eat. My body is happy, too. After 30 years of morbid obesity I now have my life back. To keep it I know that I have to stay away from foods that I cannot moderate. I am a keto man. That is how I eat.


(Will Madams) #33

super impressive people must be blown away!


(Ethan) #34

An inspiration of what is possible.


(Richard Morris) #35

Wow Kenneth that is amazing progress. My own journey had a lot of similar parallel experiences to yours.


(8 year Ketogenic Veteran) #36

I’m in Minnesota. USA
On the ketogenic diet since February of 2014.
Arrived here purely by chance, as I was experimenting with making dietary changes through the book Wheat Belly in 2013, and stumbled across LCHF support groups on facebook, then quickly found keto. I had never heard of the ketogenic diet. I thought the keto people were crazy, risky, and rebellious.
I wanted in.
Becoming fat adapted quickly cured T2DM, though that’s not even the reason I started keto. It also cured my cyclical depression, also not the reason I started keto.
My A1c was 12 then, and my triglycerides 1200.
Now? My A1c is in the normal range, 5, and my triglycerides just a few days ago were 90. Also normal. Matter of fact my doctor recently took my diagnosis of T2DM off my chart.
These days I ride a huge dualsport motorcycle and travel on it (I rode to KetoFest 2017 from Minnesota), swim laps at the gym, and lift heavy. I spend an enormous amount of my time helping others learn the ketogenic diet. My focus is on those with diabetes and severe obesity, as I once had both. I’ve lost a total of 100 pounds on my journey. I have toyed with losing 20 more, but have discovered/realized that this extra body fat gives me a distinct advantage when fasting! I can go several DAYS without any food or energy supplementation.
It’s like having a super power.
More importantly, I am challenging myself to build more LBM. Mine as confirmed by a recent DEXA scan is 127 lbs. I am 5’7". 2020 UPDATE: My LBM is now 140 LBS !!!
3 months later I repeated the DEXA after lowering my protein macro by HALF. I had been at 1 gram protein per pound of LBM, and lowered my macro to .5 (half a gram) protein per pound of LBM. I continued my regular lifting routine. In that 3 months I INCREASED my LBM by 4 pounds! I have stayed with the lower macro amount. Anything more would be wasted as obviously I do not need it for muscle building and repair. Also, excess protein only increases insulin, which I avoid at all costs.
I have done a lot of things on this ketogenic journey. I ran the original Keto Ninjas group online (it was closed. any group with that name there now was not mine), I admined many more including the now archived 2KetoDudes Facebook group. I was the third member of that group that grew to 14,000 in 9 months. Carl, Richard, and me. There’s a cool history there.
I have been a guest on SEVEN 2KetoDudes podcasts, my story is podcast number 21. http://2ketodudes.com/show.aspx?episode=21
In 2017 my personal story was published by Dr. Jason Fung on his IDM site and The Diet Doctor site as well. https://www.dietdoctor.com/life-is-good
I traveled to Missouri for a keto meet up with Tom Seest and his local people, twice, and I have had several individual meet ups with ketopians in my area. I attended Low Carb Breckenridge 2017 in Colorado with the 2KetoDudes crew, and attended KetoFest in July 2017. I will be attending Low Carb Breckenridge 2018, and of course KetoFest 2018!
My newest development, I now work with Dr. Jason Fung and Megan Ramos for their Intensive Dietary Management Program.
I love my keto life.
The most important aspect for me though, is helping YOU.

Family reunion photo 2006. It’s not hard to find me, I’m the biggest one there. It took me 4 years to be comfortable to post this publicly, but all my closest friends have seen it, so that includes the two keto dudes crew. It used to be painful to look at, now I just have empathy for the person I was who didn’t know what to do.

These three photos of me are very recent. As you can see by the photo on the left, I don’t exactly like taking full body shots for the camera for people to look at, but I try to be a good sport. At least I’m smiling. Heh. That’s my daughter in the upper right. She turned 30 today. Her friends said I looked 20 when she snap chatted that pic. I can skate on that compliment for years. The photo in the lower right is when I wasn’t eating enough fat. It’s important to eat an adequate amount of fat on the ketogenic diet or that’s what can happen. Word of warning. DON’T FEAR THE FAT


I usually hate pictures of myself and dressing up because of how bad I look
June 2018 ZornFast
(*Rusty* Instagram: @Rustyk61) #37

@Brenda, I hope that others here can be inspired by your story as I have been since reading it when I started KETO back in September. Awesome work Ma’am. :nerd_face:


(Ryan James Dansby) #38

My Name is Ryan. I have for the most part just lurked around here.
I began my keto journey in August of 2017. I follow a strict 75/20/5 macro regiment and IF of 16/8. I went from 370lbs to 268lbs. After a break from thanksgiving to Christmas, I gained back 10lbs. I have since lost those ten pounds and am my way to my 240lbs realistic goal and 220lbs BFG. I am 35 years old and 6’8”. So in all, I lost 100+ in six months. Keep strong and keto on!


(Marie Dantoni) #39

Wow, congratulations !


(Richard Morris) #40

100 lbs since August is great


(8 year Ketogenic Veteran) #41

Fanfuckingtastic.

Incredible. Stupendous.
Amazing.
Keto this for life my man, and an amazing life it will surely be!


(Adam Kirby) #42

Richard, why do you think some people go on keto and lose crazy amounts of weight in a relatively short time period, while others plateau quite hard?


(Ryan James Dansby) #43

In my case and IMO, my weight loss had a lot to do with the dramatic change in lifestyle. I was a 12pk a day soda drinker who ate almost all carbs. Now I consume NO sugars and all my carbs come from green veggies.
Just my 2 cents.


(8 year Ketogenic Veteran) #44

In my case my female hormones kept me at the same weight for several months after starting Keto, but my depression was gone my type 2 diabetes was reversing I felt fantastic and my body shape was changing. So I didn’t worry about it and I kept calm and ketoed on!


(Richard Morris) #45

Obesity is a run away process in which adipose fills and becomes insulin resistant and starts spilling some of the fat it has stored, the pancreas responds to fat + glucose in circulation at the same time by making even more insulin, so more energy is stuffed into adipose until it becomes even more insulin resistant, etc

At the same time insulin is stopping cells from moving fatty acids rapidly (via the carnitine shuttle) into mitochondria to be burned, and instead they have to take a slower route (peroxisomal cleavage). So at this point any fatty acids spilling from fat cells unable to hold any more are not burned, but bundled into triglycerides and stuffed into LDL particles (yes @DaveKeto VLDLs really) which is why a diabetic has incredible levels of triglycerides. Mine were 1111 mg/dl.

That goes on for up to a decade, the pancreas making more insulin, the body desperately trying to make new adipose cells, and grow existing adipose cells which are becoming filled to bursting.

Then we go low carb and all of a sudden there is a LOT less glucose and the pancreas gets a break and insulin starts dropping and all of a sudden all your cells can burn fat at pace (the inhibition of the carnitine shuttle is relaxed) and as that insulin comes down your fat cells finally can start delivering energy into circulation - which is now being burned.

And with a great whoosh all that pent up energy is released - and THIS is why diabetics who go from a high carb to a low carb diet lose a lot of weight very quickly … and why it’s all fat and not lean tissue.

The real question is why do they stop losing weight? Why do they plateau with still some weight to lose before they are at an 8% body fat or whatever their ideal weight loss is.

The answer appears to be (this is my hypothesis that could well be wrong) that multiple tissues have independent insulin resistance levels and the one that drives the most secretion of insulin determines the amount of insulin secreted and that sets the insulin sensitivity of the rest of the tissues to perform their function. So even tho your adipose tissue no longer needs to be insulin resistant to hold onto more energy, some other tissue is holding insulin higher than your adipose tissue needs to hold onto energy.

So the simple way to explain this is that we plateau at our underlying level of insulin resistance after the Adipose tissue no longer gets a vote.

Why do some people plateau higher than others? They have higher fasted insulin. It might be tissue in an organ like the liver, or the alpha cells of the pancreas that’s requiring insulin to stay elevated, maybe it’s tissue in the hypothalamus that drives our energy signalling, maybe it’s muscle tissue, maybe a multiple.

The important thing is that Insulin exposure begets insulin resistance which begets even more insulin exposure … etc.

This is why we encourage people who plateau to keep calm and keto on because the longer they are at a lower level of insulin thanks to a ketogenic diet, the more likely the tissue keeping insulin higher becomes more insulin sensitive.

Sorry that’s a long complex answer to a simple question. The simple answer is people who plateau probably have fasting insulin over 14 mIU/l, and each us get there a different way.


(8 year Ketogenic Veteran) #46

This makes me happy. So glad I could be a source of inspiration for you. It is my greatest joy in life to positively affect the lives of others.
It’s a very powerful thing.


(8 year Ketogenic Veteran) #47

Wait wait wait.

LMFAOROFL.

OK. I’ll finish reading your post now.
8%. Hahahaha


(Adam Kirby) #48

No worries, always enjoy your big sciencey posts. I have wondered for a long time about the peeps who lose weight prodigiously vs those who lose a modest amount but are dogged by plateaus. I doubt it’s anything as simple as “well the big losers tracked their macros better.”


(Seth Rue) #49

With some prodding from @Brenda I am sharing my story here.

Disclaimer I am only at around 90 pounds lost right now, and only half of it, 46 pounds to be exact, come from Keto

Disclaimer 2 I have actually lost 100 pounds on Keto before but I will get to that.

My story likely begins when I was growing up. I seemed to be naturally predisposed to gaining weight. Although my diet was not helping that in any way. But I have been overweight since I was 7 or so. And I never stopped piling it on until college. I went from being 380 out of high school to 45 by then end of freshman year. Wanting to undue that I worked out during the summer and by the middle of sophomore year came about I was back down to 380. This unfortunately didn’t last and by graduation I was up to around 480. Again I had a change though. For the first time I was able to buy my own food. At home my dad was the one who stocked the fridge and pantries, and in college we had a meal plan and I was too poor to get groceries, or so I thought while ordering a pizza or two every week.

When I graduated I moved back home and got a new job. This time however I brought my mini fridge home from college with me and I made myself a rule. I can only eat the things I take out of my fridge. This meant no food from dads fridge or the pantries. I ended up mainly stocking my fridge with meat cheese milk and veggies. Almost keto. Fortunately I used reddit a lot and heard so many keto success stories. I quickly dumped the fruit and choose keto things instead. And it worked. I ended up losing 100 pounds over the course of a year and a half. I was back down to 380.

Then I got a new job and moved. I left my accountability groups I had built up around me and entered the stress of a new job, and the stress of moving somewhere new. I fell off Keto and I fell off hard. For two years I went back to drinking alcohol, soda, ordering pizza, eating out. Some weekends my roommate and I would order pizza three times in the same day. I packed the pounds back on and started to get depressed.

April of 2017 however I had had enough. I had to go to the doctor because of an infection in my leg and I saw the scale sitting above 490. I refused to let it hit 500 and resolved to lose the weight again and this time to keep it off. I immediately quit drinking alcohol and getting back into a healthier eating pattern. On November 8th of 2017 I was fully back on Keto and looking to be as healthy as I could. As of Today January 10th I weighed in at 399.

My biggest hurdle has always been self-sabotage. And in that respect I have set up an accountability group. I now message around 15 friends and family every Wednesday morning, I update them on my weight and how I am feeling and other goals, and I ask them questions about how they are doing and their progress on goals. I am also super thankful for things like podcasts and forums where I can constantly immerse myself in the lifestyle. It helps to always be thinking about it as it keeps my goals fresh in my mind.


Me at my friends wedding close to 480, wish I still had my tux measurements to compare too.


Me trying on a reward shirt last week likely around 403. The bottoms still a little too tight.


A picture I took because people were telling me how nice I looked and for once I believed them. It felt good to be able to wear nicer clothes and look more professional for work.


(Richard Morris) #50

There is an alternate hypothesis - that if you are on a plateau you just need to eat less fat.

What that means in a ketogenic context where energy comes from fat is simply a restatement of Calories in: Calories out hypothesis AKA the low calorie diet … and we know what that does.

If you are at a plateau, your stored energy is not available to contribute to satiation or energy consumption. The technical reason is that your insulin is always above the level of inhibition of Lipolysis.

Thought Experiment: changing insulin

Let’s imagine your insulin is lowered a little, now your body fat can release a little energy, now you get satiated just a little sooner, and now you lose a little more weight.

Let’s imagine a new thought experiment where your insulin is raised a little, OK now the lid goes on your storage, and it is even dragging more energy our of circulation to store more under the instruction of insulin, now you have less energy from your plate to contribute to satiety, and you gain a little more weight.

You probably know that one. That was how most of us who were obese got obese in the first place.

So being at a plateau means that we are on the inhibition point of the curve. Lowering insulin means we draw down body fat.

Thought Experiment: changing calories in

So let’s say you are burning 2500 kCal/day and eating 2500 kCal/day, you are keto AND eating to satiety yet you are at a plateau. Necessarily your body fat is not contributing to your energy needs. Everything is balanced.

Now let’s say we suddenly eat 2000 kCal/day, but our bodies are used to burning 2500 kcal … so what happens. The first thing is we try to get some from storage … Oh no but the (insulin) lid is on that remember.

So the next thing our body does is look for budgetary savings it can make; Maybe it doesn’t need to warm your fingers and toes … let’s say that saves 100 kCal/day. How about if you only kill 80% of the foreign invaders, and run the immune system a little slower - we’d have to be unlucky to get a virus in the next day - so let’s say that’s another 100 kCal/day. Let’s say we can make another 100 kCal/day in savings by doing a hundred little tasks that each usually take 5 kCal at 80% efficiency … so each now takes 4 kCal. Well we’ve saved 300 kCal/day … but we are still short 200 kCal for the day.

Let’s see if we can find other sources of energy, we can’t get any from storage with insulin up like that, how about glucose … we got any of that? ummm no we’ve been keto for 6 months. No chance of any alcohol I guess. So the only other option is to burn amino-acids for energy, let’s look for protein in structures that are optional for immediate survival. How about those biceps, we can shave a little off those.

And that is how if you are plateaued and your fasted insulin is high that using fat as a lever will scavenge your lean mass and kneecap your metabolic rate, and you will eventually yoyo back up again.

And how if you have plateaued yet your fasted insulin is really quite low then you can eat less and draw down energy from storage. Heck you can probably eat just your essential nutrients (ie: 60g of protein and some vitamins and minerals) and let those fat bombs on your belly bring you into a graceful landing.


Introduction - 40yo male. On the right track?