Dancing and Confused

(Darlene Horsley) #1

Okay here goes… I started keto September 5th 2017. The first two months I lost 17 pounds. To date I have lost 20 and 2 inches from the waist. My A1C on September 3rd was 6.5 and I won’t be getting more blood work done until the beginning of March. I have been dancing with the same four pounds for the last 8 weeks and no more lost inches. My macros are good (20 net carbs or below, protein 64 grams, fat 107) , 1300 calories per day give or take and I’m doing IF.
Now here is where my confusion comes in… I have read if your stalled, up the fat. I have also read if you’re having too much fat your body is not burning stored fat only the fat you are consuming. So which is it? Trying to keep calm and keto on but I am frustrated.

Stalled with keto diet
(Allie) #2

Your body will burn its own fat in the abcense of dietary fat, but you have to give it enough dietary fat for it to learn how to burn its own fat (keto adaptation). Once this has happened, whenever there’s no dietary fat available, the body will burn its own stores which is why strategies like intermittent fasting are helpful.

#3

Like Allie said, it’s pretty much about the timing. When you start out and before you become fat-adapted, up the fat to teach your body how to use it for energy. Once you become fat-adapted (unfortunately there is no test to determine that but there are some signs to help you identify it) you need to drop some fat from your diet so that your body can start to “chew it’s own fat”. :slight_smile:
Sue

(Darlene Horsley) #4

Well since 2/5 will be the 5 month mark I would assume that I am fat adapted by now. So I should be lowering fat intake at this point…correct?

(Karen) #5

I would think you’d be fat adapted, but I’m at 5 months and show signs of maybe I’ m not. Wish I could tell.

K

(Allie) #6

It took me over six months to adapt, there are no set rules, and never any need to cut back on dietary fat.

(Richard Morris) #7

I’ve never said that, or even thought it … but apparently I have a reputation for saying that.

I have always said eat to satiety. If you are sated, then stop eating. Your body will use hunger/satiety signals to tell you how much energy it needs in addition to the amount it expects to be able to draw down from body fat.

Before a type 2 diabetic goes keto, their body fat has been broken by years of overfeeding and it is releasing energy when it is supposed to be holding onto it - but you can’t use it because insulin is inhibiting oxidation of fat for energy for your muscles. So your blood is full of energy that you can’t use.

As soon as you go keto, you can finally use that energy. You won’t be hungry much in the early days because you have energy and can use it. Satiety tells you to NOT eat a lot of fat. You aren’t losing weight because you aren’t very hungry - you are losing weight cos you are finally using body fat for energy.

A plateau is a good thing, it means the organ that stores your energy - body fat - is finally becoming healthy and doing what it is supposed to do, store energy when insulin is up.

Now if your body fat is holding onto energy then your satiety signals are telling you to add more fat to your plate. You don’t add fat when you plateau. You don’t restrict fat when you plateau. You eat to satiety and your body determines how much fat you eat based on how much it can get from body fat.

If you are plateaued and want to weigh less then you have 2 basic strategies - you can restrict calories coming in but that can reduce your metabolic rate, use some of your lean tissue, and start you off in a cycle of diet yo-yoing.

The other strategy is to lower your insulin - then you can use more fat, and you’ll lose more weight like you did the last time you could use your body fat for energy. If you are keto (very few carbs, minimum amount of protein to maintain lean mass, getting energy from fat) then you are already doing the most you can do to lower insulin through diet.

Now you need to use time. You are already stewing in less insulin than you were for those decades that things got worse. The longer you keep that going, the less insulin resistant you’ll get, and the less insulin you’ll make.

There are other tricks you can use, like strategic fasting, getting plenty of sleep, building muscles, using them, high intensity interval training.

(Lynne Hurley Perry) #8

She noted her daily caloric intake of 1300 per day. Could this be slowing her metabolism?

(Brian) #9

I have wondered whether the body becomes more efficient at the “new norm” we give it when we are keto for a while. We burn through some fat but then the fat loss slows way down, even stops. Maybe that’s what we call a plateau?

What I wondered is, if we up the fat significantly for even a day or two, would we be signaling the body to “turn up the thermostat”? In other words, would that raise the metabolism?

I’m not talking bumping the calories by several thousand and doing that for weeks. I’m talking more about a “nudge”, a sort of little wake up call that says, “It’s OK to burn some more fat now.”

Am I wrong about that?

(Karen) #10

@Bellyman… Not sure, but I think that happened recently to me. Just don’t know if that is why. Increased the fat. Was on a plateau, lost weight. Hmmm

K

(Darlene Horsley) #11

Thank you for this Richard! Now it makes so much more sense to me than it did when I was reading, in various places, conflicting advise. Not from you…just in general (or my interpretation) so your reputation is safe. :slight_smile: Think I’ll just keep that ol’ song, Time Is On My Side, running on a loop in my head. Thank you again for clearing this up for me.

(Darlene Horsley) #12

I don’t know either but it seems to be the amount I am comfortable with as far as feeling satiety. Some days it is more… 1500 maybe and other days 1200. It varies that’s for sure.

(Darlene Horsley) #13

Thank you all for the input.