Do I need to tweak something? Update answer was Yes

progress
(Short224) #17

Katie could you possibly post a typical day for you I know I need to cut down on fat as well but i feel lost at doing that sometimes I am so used to eating Bacon and cheese and high fat dressings I guess I am not sure how to do this without this stuff .

(Katie the Quiche Scoffing Stick Ninja ) #18

I don’t eat every day
I was doing extended fasting until I dropped my body fat to 20%
Now I am doing alternate day fasting and strength training on my fasting days and feasting the rest of the time.
When I do eat, I mainly eat protein and low fat.
I live on steak, pork belly, garlic prawns, bacon, eggs, roasts.
My body needs an additional 50g of fat only a day to run.

You might find this calculator handy, but basically you are not losing weight because you are still eating so much dietary fat rather than allowing it to come from your body fat stores.

(Lisa ) #19

Track, track, track. You’ll be surprised how a snack here and there (or a “splash” of cream) adds up! Also I have found that artificial sweeteners instantly set off my appetite, so I would advise against them.

(Misty Torrey) #20

I noticed that too when I looked at the data as a whole rather than just a day at a time. When I log my day I think oh, fat was high today, but don’t look back at a history of it. I know some days that I didn’t track were somewhat lower bc I had maybe coffee and a couple eggs, for the whole day. Other than cream in my coffee, I don’t add fat perse. Maybe a pat of butter to cook eggs. It’s fat from meat and cheese. I will have to take a closer look at my cheese.

#21

A couple of things, you say you had 4 eggs and some Spanish ‘rice’. Is that for the whole day? Did you have cream in your coffee? If so, how much?

#22

I have listed my food & macros for a week, on another thread. Might be useful, click the title, and it will take you there.

(Running from stupidity) #23

I think it would be useful to keep it all in one thread (this one, probably).

#24

Hey Mic,

is that directed at me?

(Misty Torrey) #25

I had 2 coffees through the day. Often I have 3. That was about 6 tbs of cream between the two. I account for the 1/2 c of heavy cream in my daily macros. It’s something I enjoy and even pre keto I often went all day on two cups of coffee and creamer. I just replaced creamer with cream.

I had 18 pieces of mini hard salami at lunch.

My Spanish rice was
1lb of ground beef
1lb of pork sausage
6 ounces of grated cheddar
1 can of no sugar added fire roasted tomatoes (drained)
1 can of green chillies (about 8 tbs total)
1/4 of a small onion
1/4 of a green pepper
1 bag of riced cauliflower and broccoli (bag says 4 cups)

It made about 8 total cups of Spanish “Rice”. I made it Thursday last week for the family, but they didn’t care for it so I am stuck with it. At 7.2 g of carbs per cup I found it a little carby. So instead of eating that alone, I added the eggs and made a scramble. Generally, I can’t finish 3 eggs let alone 4 plus the meat/veggie mixture of the Spanish rice. I was surprised I felt so hungry after finishing it. I often have broccoli cheese omlets and feel quite full.

#26

Is it double or single cream?

(Misty Torrey) #27

I can do that. I am new to the forums so please bear with me. I appreciate the advice so much!

I have been reading other threads and have found people are asked for starting and current stats. Idk if that helps.

I am 41. 5 foot 3 inches. I started at 281.5. I am down a little today at 210.6. My a1c was 4.7 at my highest weight. Would that indicate that I may not be insulin resistant? I will get it checked again next month.

My current goal is 197. Then 170. I was 170 as an athlete and lifeguard in high school. I can not see myself at 130 as the “guidelines” suggest for my height. Even as a skinny 13 year old I wasn’t 130. So, I am focused on 197 and then we shall see from there.

My blood pressure runs about 112/66. I was on meds but I felt crappy. I ran out of meds and found my blood pressure stayed low do I stopped them. They were a very low dose anyway.

(Misty Torrey) #28

Heavy whipping cream. I am not familiar with double vs single. I live in a very rural area so my choices are very limited. I have to drive an hour to get to a Walmart. 30 minutes to an average grocery store.

#29

So you’ve lost 70lb? Or was that a typo?

I think your HWC is equivalent to our double cream. That would be around 310 calories, 34g of fat and 2.6g carbs from the cream alone?

EDIT - just re read your first post, 70lb is right

#30

You might benefit from boring keto for a while. Keep it simple - a cut of meat you like, with some leafy greens for your main meal, maybe bacon and eggs for your first meal. If you can keep to 2 meals a day for now, it will help greatly. One meal is better but, if you’re constantly hungry, keep to 2. OMAD is almost impossible if you’re consistently hungry.

Try not to snack. If you have to, have a very low carb snack handy. I cannot stress this enough - measure everything, that you put in your mouth. You’re using quite a lot of your macros on coffee. Try reducing the cream content by half.

You’re quite experienced at keto so, I don’t expect you to be getting things wrong per se. Maybe try to get your macros in a different way. Katie said your fat content is too high. That may be right (certainly way higher than mine). However, I would be careful in reducing it too much too quickly, if you are hungry. It’s this hunger that concerns me most. If your carb count is right, you shouldn’t be feeling that hungry.

For now, I would concentrate on reducing your carbs to average 12g - 15g per day max. If this does the trick, your fat content should be easily reducible.

(Misty Torrey) #31

Yep I have lost 70 lbs. The first 60 happened between Jan and June. Then 10 came off between Aug and Sep. I gained in October and I am at a net gain so far for November. That is why I think I could be at a point that I need to adjust. The weight loss has slowed.

Reading here I am finding I may need to pay attention to fat more. I really only tuned in to carbs up to this point. I kept total carbs to 20 or less. My initial resources indicated that I could not over eat fat. So I followed my hunger signals which is new for me since keto bc I actually felt hunger and satiation now.

However, in June I went on prednisone which continued through October and I found I wasn’t able to feel satiated like I was prior to steroids. Then in September and October I was on injectable gonadotropin for a couple weeks, oral ovarian stimulator and then injectable blood thinners. I was giving myself daily injections in my stomach for about 3 weeks. I got pregnant but it lasted only days and I miscarried on 10/19. That is when I stopped meds.

I am letting go of further fertility treatments. We have had 7 pregnancy losses in 3 years. One was a full term still birth and another was an 18 week loss. I started keto for the purpose of having another child. I was encouraged to eat a lot of high quality fat and protein to that end. The weight loss was just an added bonus.

I am no longer pursuing that so I need to key in to what will get me to my healthiest self. I am in a stage of physical, emotional and mental healing. My body has been on a roller coaster of hormones for 3 years. So there is healing going on too.

#32

Ouch!

I’m really sorry to hear that.

Coming back from that kind of thing, takes a huge amount of courage, mental and physical stamina.
I wish nothing but the best for you and your family :hugs::hugs:

#33

Misty, if you were on prednisone, that alone can interfere with fat loss. (And it looks like your weight loss slowed right after starting the drug.) It sounds like you’re doing very well for the most part. Not sure what to tell you to tweak, except maybe increase protein and cut back a bit on fat. Honestly, though, I would see what happens in the next several weeks now that you’re off the prednisone. Steroid medications can be a roadblock to fat loss.

Also, remember that it’s normal and to be expected for things to slow down. The more people have to lose at the start, the more quickly it tends to come off at first, and then it does slow down at some point. Weight loss is rarely a completely linear slide downward with no hiccups, stalls, or plateaus along the way.

(John) #34

Takes a while to adjust back to normal after being on prednisone for that long.

I was recently on a short course (5 days) and it took probably a week and a half after stopping it before all after-effects were gone (that I could observe, that is).

You might consider cutting back on the heavy whipping cream a bit. Sounds like you are “snacking” all day on cream-laden coffee, without giving your body time to get out of the fed state and into the fasting state between meals. See if compressing your eating into two or three actual meals, with no caloric intake in between, makes any difference in results.

(Kristin T ) #35

HI -
I am brand new here, and actually just registered to reply to this thread.

Misty, I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through with your pregnancy issues. But, it’s beautiful that you have such a healthy attitude and are looking towards the future.

In addition to being new to this forum, I’m pretty new to keto (two months or so), and after a strong start got lazy about tracking so had some backslide (back to being diligent now, though). However, I’m definitely not new to nutrition, the negative effects of a carb-heavy diet, and the effects of diet on hormones and neurotransmitters.

Anwyay, after reading through this thread, I have a few suggestions/thoughts:

  1. To address the issue of still being hungry, I would up the protein to 30% and decrease the fat to 60%. Amongst other things, protein increases dopamine. Without adequate dopamine levels it’s hard to feel full. And as far as I can tell from what I’ve read, protein is not really the villain some keto advocates make it out to be. And along these lines, my personal experience has shown me that some of that protein really needs to be meat.

  2. Your calorie counts and eating habits vary way too much day to day. This makes it very hard for your body to function properly and can wreak havoc with both your metabolism and your hormone levels. That’s not to say that various fasting regimens aren’t fine, but they should be regular. I do a 14/10 daliy fast (meaning I eat my first bite of my first meal no earlier than 6:00 a.m. and my last bite of my last meal at 4:00 p.m. After another month or so, I may try 16/8, but I think that might be too much for my particular system). In any event, you want to keep your meals as steady as possible, which will keep your blood sugar as steady as possible and help damp down cravings even more. Three meals a day should be your routine, no matter what always eat your first meal within an hour of rising, and make sure it has adequate protein (including meat).

  3. Other than holiday/truly special occasions, I would give up eating anything sweet. No matter how keto friendly, eating sweets simply keeps our appetitite/preference for them alive. But give them up for awhile, and they will hold zero power over you. Not only do I not eat them anymore, the thought of eating sweets is slightly repulsive.

  4. Finally, keep this in mind: A ketogenic diet is not magic. While restricting the hours per day that you eat is known to help weight loss in general, that is actually true on any diet, regardless of makeup. The basic rules still govern: Eat a protein-rich breakfast to stabilize your blood sugar. Eat less calories than you’re expending. Exercise regularly.

It does seem that being very diligent about tracking macros is necessary for success, as is getting arriving at set of macro numbers that make sense for you. Keep in mind that as you lose weight, your appropriate macro numbers will go down. But the good news is that if you settle on a few core meals (i.e., eating the same thing for breakfast most days, the same lunch, the same dinner) you only have to calculate the macros once, and then you’ll know what they are every time you eat them.

Also, keep in mind that, especially as someone who is in a process of healing on multiple levels, weight loss shouldn’t be your only goal. Really, steady meals are your friend right now. But I suspect if you really pay some serious attention to the numbers and get on a good routine, the weight will start to come off again anyway.

Anyway, good luck!

(Misty Torrey) #36

Thank you! So much good advice here!

I never thought about my coffee as snacking, but DUH it totally is! Otherwise, I am not a snacker. Yet, here I am keeping insulin high all day through cream. Today I had one cup with 2 tbs of cream. Now, I am enjoying a pot of decaf tea, black

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I am interested to experiment with my protein and fat. I am also curious where my iron levels are. I will have them checked at the dr next month. I am freaking exhausted. If I can get away with it I go to bed by 7 PM sometimes 6 and am sound asleep through the night until my alarm goes off at 5. If it’s the weekend and no alarm I would sleep until 9 or 10. This is not like me at all!

My thyroid was being monitored through my fertility clinic, but I am moving from a reproductive endocrinologist to a regular endocrinologist now. It is regulated well through meds so I don’t think that is the exhaustion cause.

I am going to prep some lunches and bacon for breakfast. Eggs are easy enough to make in the morning. I will try to come up with some meals I can rotate through for dinner. I have to feed my teens and my husband. I refuse to make multiple meals so dinner for everyone is almost always keto. They will revolt if I make the same thing each night. But, I can probably pick 5 or 6 and rotate through them.

That makes me feel better bc I was starting to think the whole prednisone thing was in my head.

For now, the plan is decrease fat slowly, increase protein moderately, track, track, track, plan simple meals, shrink my feeding window and drastically decrease my cream.