Disappointed after 13 months

#21

9mo isn’t a plateau, it’s an all out stop. You need to track what you’re eating. If you’re not there is no way to troubleshoot what’s wrong about your diet. Anything more than a couple weeks shows something isn’t right and needs to be tweaked.

There’s always the possibility you’re eating something that actually disagrees with you, but unlikely to the levels of an all out weight freeze for the better part of the year. Track your intake for a couple days and post it here, give us your stats and we’ll most likely see the issue screaming at us. Also throw the pee strips in the trash, they don’t have any effect on your weight loss.

Cronometer is good for tracking and will also show a micronutrient breakdown.

(Robin) #22

Excellent news! Energy is a good measuring stick for me. Sometimes I will feel totally depleted and will go drink some beef broth that I’ve saved from some brisket or a roast… whatever. And I will chug like I’m dying of thirst. 15 minutes later, happy camper.

#23

Thanks @lfod14. I think I was eating more carbs than I thought. I also think too much sugar alcohol sweetener might have been disagreeing with me.

The past two days I have aimed for carnivore and I think I am already feeling better. (Is that possible?) Not sure if it’s because my carbs are close to zero now or I have eliminated certain plants. I hope the former because it would not be easy for me to sustain a carnivore diet long term.

Foods I’ve eaten in past two days:
Coffee with 1-2 tablespoons heavy cream
Eggs in butter or duck fat
Organic ground beef
Chicken thighs stewed in bacon fat
Small amounts of manchego and Feta cheese (sheep and goat milk - trying to eliminate all cheese for a while but might not be possible)
About 5 homemade pickle slices (a cheat)
Small amount of erythritol/monk fruit sweetener in coffee (trying to phase that out)
Corned beef from an Irish restaurant (hoping it was made with just beef and salt…)
The chicken and turkey meat that was inside the wraps provided at my job one day (meat was probably processed with some sugar but hopefully not a lot…)
One cup of boxed chicken broth that I thought was bone broth but later realized it was made with vegetable stock.

#24

I never had serious problems when I tried carnivore but yep, I felt some benefits right away. I know it’s not common but it’s very cool I have this. I always go off and always returns and it’s always better, if not right away, on the 2nd or 3rd for sure (stupid carbs with their lingering effects). Of course, other benefits take more time.
Who knows what the reason of the benefits for you or me? It seems to me that extreme low-carb, more meat and eliminating certain items all help in my case. I never noticed a problem with plants as long as the carb intake from them is very low but I am not particularly sensitive, many people do have problems with them.

Good luck for your carnivore-ish trial… Be careful with the extras, your list possibly could give me tiny problems and I am not very sensitive as I wrote (so I feel okay BUT gets control or satiating problems, even my energy level can be affected and it’s already low). Pickle slices? Never a problem for me. Sweetener - I am not sure, it seems to be okay for me but may trigger or keep alive sweets eating desires and things easily can get out of hand. Maybe not for you. Not pure carnivore restaurant food easily causes problems for people on carnivore so it may be okay or not… But it’s a very good start and it’s enough for many people.

(Manda) #25

As you’re past 50, I would definitely recommend you keep your carbs very low, below 20. If you’re going to 30 and even more, you’re likely not in ketosis at all and that could be half of your problem. Do you take anything to fix the joint pain other than just doing keto? I was born with joint problems so I know what it’s like for you, and keto alone has never fixed mine.
We do really need to know what you’re eating, but intermittent and extended fasting is the way to go to see improvements.

(Vic) #26

Nope , its the latter. Stick with carnivore for at least 1 month and then try to figure out what plant toxins are hurting you.

Yes you can sustain carnivore, its easy and very diverse. But you don’t have to, just reset for a month and then go exploring,its fun

#27

I’m curious about what you’ve written, because I’m also above 50 and I eat very low carb. That’s a question I’ve already asked on the forum and since you seem to know something about it I don’t, I’d like to ask you to share and help me understand the science behind it.

Suppose I’d eat 50g of total carbs a day. That’s 50 × 4 = 200 Kcal. If my basal metabolic rate is 1200 Kcal, where are the other 1000 Kcal coming from, if not from, at least in part, burning fat?

And what happens if I’m above 50?

Could you share your sources, the ones saying I wouldn’t be in ketosis unless I’d eat below 20g of carbs a day? That’s something I’d definitely like to read about.

#28

@Mandaxx Thanks. I take Advil for my joint pain and it helps. Since I’m already noticing improvements after 3 days of carnivore-ish, I will continue with this diet, aiming for <5 grams carbs. I have bone-on-bone hip arthritis and need a double hip replacement. No amount of keto/carnivore will change that. I already feel less overall inflammatory pain after 3 days. My hope is that when I get my surgery later this year, reduced inflammation will help a lot with the healing process.

@Corals I’m not one of the experts here, but I think I was probably going in and out of ketosis on my previous – lax – 25-60 g net carb diet. I also think I have been going in and out of fat adaptation, because of the extreme exhaustion I was feeling. After 3 days of ultra low carb, my energy is back up. For the past two days, I’ve averaged 90 g protein and 90 g fat, so I am slightly under my 1200 Kcal goal, but I haven’t been hungry.

(Ian) #29

Hi Wendy,

This is my n=1 experience and YMMV. I have been keto (for me that’s under 30 g to maintain blood ketones in the 0.8 to 1.5 region) or low carb under 80 g for 2.5 years and now recognize that the less carbs I eat the easier it is to control my weight, or even lose weight as necessary. However, I also found it easy to go overboard with the nuts, cheese and heavy cream and even when very low carb, i.e. under 20 g, it is still possible to put on weight.

Regarding your joint pain, this is something I did not suffer from prior to adopting a keto diet which I adopted to correct pre-diabetes. Like many Keto’ers, I started to snack on nuts and consumed a lot more almond flour in pizza dough etc. After about 18 months I started to suffer from inflammation and joint pain in my thumb. It got bad enough that I could not sleep with the pain and I started to take anti-inflamatory drugs on a regular basis, which was a big concern.

After watching a couple of videos by Sally Norton, I wondered if the relatively high oxalate content of nuts, particularly almonds and in some of the vegetables, such as spinach and kale were the cause. I stopped eating nuts and cut back on the high oxalate veggies and I am now inflammation and pain free.
Regarding blood tests, C reactive protein (CRP) is a blood test that measures overall inflammation in the body. Prior to keto my CRP was 3.4, which was within an acceptable limit of 4.8 here in Canada. However, it is now 0.5-0.8 mg/L.

Another other tool that can be very useful is a continuous blood glucose meter. This will tell you exactly how different foods spike your glucose and was a revelation to me.

Sounds like you elimination diet is going in the right direction, and wish you good luck in achieving your goals.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #30

@Knnn @Wendy198

It’s not only oxalates. Nuts are high in PUFAs which are suspect for a number of negative consequences including inflammation, if I remember correctly. The local go-to guy for the scoop on PUFAs is @ctviggen and maybe he’ll pop in. We need some PUFAs, of course, but very little. All the plant-based foods that contain major PUFAs also have an ω6:ω3 ratio upwards of 15-20:1 which is not desirable. We need closer to 1-3:1 instead.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #31

On a well-formulated ketogenic diet, fat becomes the major source of calories, in lieu of the carbohydrate no longer being eaten. The benefit of using fat as the primary fuel is that its effect on insulin levels is minor, compared to the effect of carbohydrate, which is major, since carbohydrate is just glucose molecules arranged in various ways. Unlike protein and certain fats, carbohydrate is unnecessary to the human diet, since the body is capable of making the small amount of glucose it needs.

Protein intake does not need to change when switching to a ketogenic diet, and its contribution to meeting our energy needs is not very great, in any case. The amino acids that make up the proteins we eat are rearranged into new proteins and used to build muscle, repair tissues, etc.

This is why experts always take of a ketogenic diet as involving low carbohydrate, moderate protein, and fat eaten to satisfy hunger.

The 20 g/day limit is actually arbitrary. The story going round the forums when I joined was that Carl and Richard wanted to set the limit at zero but were afraid of frightening people away from the diet. They picked 20 g as a limit that would work for nearly everyone. In practice, everyone has a different carbohydrate tolerance, depending on (among other things) their level of insulin resistance.

After you become keto-adapted, you could try increasing your carb intake to see where your limit is. But a lot of people find that at that point they are content with their carb intake and have no need to increase it.

#32

Really?
It’s borderline impossible anyway and very much unnecessary for most of us and I don’t even talk about the people who feels way better with a bit more carbs.
I ate any amount of carbs between 3 and 19g of carbs on my carnivore days (I don’t consider my exceptional milky day properly carnivore, that was very sugary). It’s safer and better if I mostly stay below 10 but I need some allowance to have some of my favorite items. I am sure I am not the only one.
Well, we all should figure out our own sweet spot. Mine is way below my ketosis carb limit for sure but zero is out of question.

#33

Hi Wendy and @PaulL,

Paul, I understand that we get our energy from other sources. But from fat, too. Even folks who eat, say 100 g carbs a day.

How could you (Wendy) not be in ketosis eating 60g of carbs? 60 x 4 = 240 Kcal. Your body didn’t work only with this energy. You’ve got at least about 900 kcal from something else than the carbs you’ve eaten. Some part of it, from fat, therefore, ketosis. Probably, over 50% from ketosis, no? Otherwise, you’d have shrunk (if you had lost only bone and muscle - no fat - equivalent to those 900 Kcal/day).

I get confused with this.

Fat adaptation: isn’t the idea that we shouldn’t be eating carbs because we evolved eating protein and fat? But a few centuries eating carbs and our bodies don’t know how to burn fat anymore? And it learns again how to burn fat and use it for fuel by eating keto for months, but then our body forgets again if you eat 60 g of carbs instead of 20?

Am I the only one who finds it weird?

I’m not asking because I want to eat carbs. I don’t! I’m happy plenty with less than 20g most days and never go over 30.

I just find the thing of “out of ketosis” because a 20-60g of carbs difficult to understand.

If eating 30g I’m not in ketosis, I should be shrinking. I’m not. I don’t lose weight, I don’t put weight on. Mind you, I don’t care, because I’m happy with my weight.

I’m ok with just saying “I feel so and so and I don’t know why”. What I don’t get is all the certitude of knowing it’s the 40 extra carb g that made me go out of ketosis, I’m not fat adapted, etc, that’s the reason I felt/feel like this. Do you understand my confusion?

There aren’t answers to all of our questions. And it’s ok.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #34

The issue here is insulin level, not the quantity of carbohydrate consumed. The production of ketone bodies is stimulated by glucagon and inhibited by insulin. They work in tandem. A low ratio of insulin to glucagon is ketogenic, a high ratio of insulin to glucagon is not.

Glucagon secretion is stimulated by a low-carbohydrate diet; whereas insulin secretion is stimulate by a high-carbohydrate diet. The threshold at which carb intake becomes too much depends on how insulin-resistant a person is. Too much carbohydrate for too many years leads to a situation in which cells are overwhelmed by the insulin generated to bring blood sugar down (remember that a carbohydrate consists of glucose molecules arranged in various ways), and so they down-regulate their insulin receptors in self-defense. This means that it takes more and more insulin to clear the blood of a given amount of glucose. This in turn means that the insulin/glucagon ratio in someone who is insulin-resistant is going to be higher than the ratio in someone who is insulin-sensitive, when they eat identical amounts of carbohydrate. An insulin-resistant person has to really restrict carbohydrate, in order to get insulin down to the same level as a more insulin-sensitive person.

Because too much glucose in the blood is toxic, the body reacts by metabolising some of the excess and by storing the rest in the form of fat. A rise in insulin is the signal to do this. As you can imagine, when there is an emergency load of glucose, the body doesn’t want cells using ketones instead (because there is all that glucose to get rid of), so it shuts off ketone production as soon as insulin rises above a certain level. The liver stops producing ketones and starts turning excess glucose into fatty acids, and insulin tells our fat cells to take in those fatty acids and not let them out again until the emergency is over. This is why a high-carbohydrate diet is so deadly to so many people. Their muscles and other cells are being damaged by all the glucose they are being forced to metabolise, and their fat cells are getting stuffed with fatty acids they can’t let go of, because insulin is too high. And on top of it all, the excessively high insulin is also causing damage.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #35

I think you’re confusing a couple things here. Burning fat can and does occur without ketosis. People on CICO diets do lose fat. They have a problem keeping it off because by restricting calories they also slow their metabolism.

Ketosis is a byproduct of burning fat. So ketosis can only occur when fat is burned. As pointed out by @PaulL above, glucose/insulin prevent ketosis. They also interfere with fat burn because even when you’re burning fat because you’re eating too little carbs to supply all the energy you need, at the same time insulin is locking fat inside adipose cells for storage. That’s why even though you can burn fat when not in ketosis, it’s inefficient.

The inefficiency of burning fat while insulin is stuffing it into adipose cells is why there is no ‘fat adaptation’ occurring. Fat adaptation can only occur when insulin is low enough that it’s not trying to store fat and prevent burning it.

It’s very important to understand this.

#36

Thank you, Paul!

However, we aren’t talking about someone eating in excess of what this person needs just to survive. Even people who are insulin resistant lose weight if they restrict calories. It’s tough, but it happens. It means high insulin doesn’t mean that person doesn’t need energy to survive. Energy that can’t be explained only by those 240 Kcal (60g carbs) that person has eaten. Breathing, digesting, blinking will deplete those 240 Kcal and it’s not going to be enough. The rest of the energy is going to come from burning other stuff, including fat.

Also, many people aren’t insulin resistant.

#37

I’m googling some of the things you say to try to understand. For instance: “ketosis is a byproduct of burning fat”.

I’m back with this from Diet Doctor:
" Ketosis is a metabolic state in which your body uses fat and ketones rather than glucose (sugar) as its main fuel source.

Glucose is stored in your liver and released as needed for energy. However, after carb intake has been extremely low for one to two days, these glucose stores become depleted.

Your liver can make some glucose from amino acids in the protein you eat via a process known as gluconeogenesis , but not nearly enough to meet all the needs of your brain, which requires a constant fuel supply."

So, I still don’t understand why, when one would eat 60g of carbs per day, the main fuel source wouldn’t be fat.

(I’m so sorry we’re hijacking this thread! It wasn’t my intention! If someone wants to move this discussion elsewhere…)

Ketosis and Fat Adaptation - A Discussion and Analysis
(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #38

However, there is a difference between losing weight and losing fat. It is very difficult to shed excess stored fat when insulin is high, because insulin signals fat cells not to allow the fatty acids to escape (the mechanism is more complicated than that, but that’s the gist).

(Edith) #39

This is soooooo me! Just add berries, dark chocolate, black and green tea to the list.

#40

Though I personally agree with you, for some individuals, cutting carbs works, too. I personally find it a miserable way to live, but it works for some folks, too.

https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(15)00350-2