Hello everyone,
I have been diligently doing Keto for 3 months now. Lost 25 lbs so far, great mental clarity, lots of energy and my day doesn’t revolve around food anymore. However, my ketones are showing less and less on my urine test strips and I have plateaued on my weight loss. I literally have been eating the same things for 3 months. Healthy fats, lean meats, greens from a keto green food supplement and lots of water. Not sure what I am doing wrong or what I can do to push myself over the plateau. I do intermittent fasting at least 2-3 times per week and my macros are on point. I measure all of my food on a scale and enter all of my food in a Keto app on my phone. Someone said maybe cutting out dairy all together to push over the plateau?..Anyone else had this problem?
Diet has not changed...but showing trace ketones and weight plateau
Why lean? The fatty cuts are better all the way around.
I hit a plateau at three months and stayed there for another three months before I started doing minor tweaks. Sometimes I thing my body needs time to adapt to new setpoints. I don’t stress over it because I am not gaining weight and my belt seem to be fitting better.
Why lean meat? What’s in the supplement? As you get fat adapted you will show lower readings as you’re using ketones rather than excreting them (they’re not exactly accurate anyway) also search for post induction stall syndrome, it’s fairly common. Just KCKO and enjoy the benefits you’re already feeling.
Stop using the urine strips. They are not reliable and often stop showing ketones when you are fat adapted. Weight loss sometimes stops. Sometimes you need to solve other issues. After 5 months of weight loss, I plateaued for 15 months–I cut out all plants and dairy and immediately dropped 15+ pounds in 3 weeks and continue to lose slowly.
Not lean meat, mean to type red meat its full fat. Like kielbasa sausage, salami, pepperoni, etc
That’s to be expected. The urine testing strips aren’t designed to measure ketosis. They’re designed for T1 diabetics to test for signs of ketoacidosis.
https://www.reddit.com/r/keto/wiki/faq#wiki_all_about_ketostix
Most short-term weight fluctuation is going to be a simple change in water retention and digestive tract contents, which can be large early on. Long term, real weight loss comes through caloric restriction.
What are the guesstimates of your macros and your caloric deficit? How did you determine them? Being in ketosis doesn’t automatically cause weight loss.
Even at a caloric deficit of 200 calories per day, it could take up to 3 weeks to lose a pound. And that’s assuming weight loss is linear, which it isn’t.
When you do eat, is it because you’re hungry?
Details? Likely just thinning your pocketbook.
Not lean meats, meant to type red meats. They are full fat, like kielbasa sausage, salami, pepperoni, etc
I track all my macros via a keto app and i use a scale to portion out my food. My macros are usually anywhere between 75-80% fat, 18-22% protein and than 5% or less of carbs and i stay around 1100 calories or less
How tall are you? That doesn’t seem like a lot.
I will say that eventually the weight-loss will plateau for a while as your body adjusts, that’s normal. And the piss strips will show fewer ketones because it can only measure the ones you’re drop; as you become more efficient at using them, as you become more fat-adapted, you’ll be dropping a lot fewer.
5’5 , starting weight was around 215 now I am at 193 and just been floating between 193.8 and 193.2 for almost a week and a half when before I was dropping 2 - 4 lbs every week and a half
And in my app (I use Carb Manager), i put in my starting weight and goal weight and it puts me at a restricted 14 grams of Carbs per day which I have adhered to for the past 3 months
First, congratulations! Be proud of how far you’ve come!
I’m right there with you. Just over the four month mark and the strips are not showing much. Honestly, I stopped testing since everyone says they stop being useful once you have been eating this way a while. (But they were fun in the beginning.) I haven’t had much change when on the scale, but I feel it. Hard to explain, but it is when I touch my hips and they seem in a different place, or when I feel like my pants are gaping when I sit when they never did before. There is a subtle shift, if that makes sense.
As much as we don’t want to hear it, I think we just have to give our body time to catch up when we hit a wall. In the meantime, it can’t hurt to try some things to see if the change helps. Maybe get some different fatty meats or IF every morning for a week?
I don’t think there is any magic bullet. Although there is Bulletproof Coffee (I couldn’t get into it personally).
I ordered a blood ketone monitor because I was told that that was the best way to test our blood BHB’s and would be the most accurate way to monitor ketosis. I am doing this to prepare for my wedding in November so I was really excited when I started to see results so I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing anything wrong that could hinder my continuing results
Percentages are next to worthless. Your macros should be set in grams. Which should be easy if you are tracking so diligently. For me, the simplest concept of keto is “Minimal carbs. Adequate proteins. Fats as needed (for satiety).”
The “rule of thumb” for carbs is 20 net carbs or less.
Proteins should be set on what you need. Not as a percentage of overall calories that you are eating. IMO, this is really the only macro that needs to be guesstimated. When people have a lowered hunger level, this is the macro that should be prioritized, because there are consequences to not getting enough proteins on a regular basis. Better too many than too few.
Since you want to lose weight, you want your fat needs to be met partially by stored body fat. So you don’t need to eat all of your daily fat needs. Hunger should be telling you if you need to eat more fat, not some (more or less arbitrary) guesstimate of your overall need for fats.
I really like this type of calculator:
A whole potato could easily go to P:E = 6.0 from P:E = 0.2 in “fat loss” on that chart if you re-boiled boiled and cooled them a few times! You would have to eat potato’s only (salt and pepper only, no butter) for a couple of weeks (very temporary) though but you will also stay in ketosis and burn body fat more rapidly and give the gut microbiome a little more sustenance!
It’a a Keto greens supplement, i have a hard time physically eating my leafy greens but i know nutritionally i need them so this is a keto branded greens powder
I do but the ones i like are restricted on keto, my favorites are carrots, cucumbers, and tomatoes and then a good chopped salad but overall i really have never been a veggie person