I really don’t have any other way of starting this but that I am super frustrated. I started out at 161 and hit 163 on day 4 and haven’t budged. I’m on day 14 of this diet. I have tracked my marcos, I have tracked how many carbs (20-25 a day), I have I’ve upped my calories, I have lowered my calories and nothing is working. I realize that this scale doesn’t tell you everything that’s going on in your body. However I am not able to exercise right now so I lowered the calories to approximately 1100 to make up for the fact that I’m not exercising right now. I have been 100% honest with myself when recording everything that I eat. Some days i go above and others i go below my macros. I’ve tried intermittent fasting and eating all day long. My window of eating is usually either 1100 to 1800 or 0730 to 1800. I am in ketosis as I work in a lab and have access to blood monitors and professional grade urine dip sticks and have backed my findings up with results in both. I am desperate here as I find this diet easy to stick to and don’t want to give up on it, but it’s hard to stick with something that you aren’t seeing any results.
Frustrated as Expletive
14 days is not enough time to make those changes (In MY experience). When add/removing calories, you need to allow about 2 weeks for your body to settle.
I would suggest you hit a couple of keto macro calculators (I used 9 of them) and find the average for your stats and then hit that. I wouldn’t subtract calories because you can’t exercise, just be sure to not indicate any exercise on the calculators.
Once you get the macros, strive to hit them as close to exactly as you can and give it a minimum of 2 weeks … even if you show some weight gain, stick with it and hold fast.
I just went though this … I was stalled for MONTHS. I did the 9 different calculators, found the average for the macros and then started logging and keeping track to hit them (and it was MORE calories than I was eating before). I also, as a personal choice, went to OMAD … eating ALL the calories in that one meal. I initially had some [scale] weight gain, but in about 1-2 weeks … the weight started dropping and had be since.
Good luck and trust the WOE!
Hang in there! Maybe adjust your timeline of expectations. Two weeks is barely enough time to let Keto heal all the processes inside you that might need help. And certainly not enough time to totally switch your body from burning glucose to burning fat. If you enjoy the food then bide your time and see how you feel in 6 more weeks. Also at the beginning, don’t restrict your calories and definitely not your fat intake. You are literally teaching your mitochondria to use fat for energy. Meanwhile read ALL the threads here and see that you are not alone! Anyway that always helps me be more patient.
How much are you drinking? Bear in mind water is roughly 8lb per gallon. Not saying that’s why you’re not losing, but if you’re mixing it up by drinking a lot of fluids, that might look like weight gain when it’s just simple water doing its thing.
Drink lots of water and try not to focus too much on calories right now. Eat fats to satiety and try to stay under 20g carbs. I agree that making too many changes all at once might be too much - try making a change and then keeping that for a week or two. And take measurements too - have you noticed your clothes getting looser at all?
Oh and my personal opinion is to avoid ‘fake bread/sugars’ for awhile. Wait until you are fully fat adapted and know how your body will respond to those.
yeah…my gf was kinda mad at me about that part! Well, not at me per say, but frustrated nonetheless. She’s gone down a couple sizes though and has great energy, so she’s happy now.
Double check all of your food macros. I have found tooooo many errors to list on all food app calculators.
One error that comes to mind specifically was this Costco EVOO entry.
Double check everything!
I feel your pain on the online and app type nutrition counters. I have found that regardless of the size that the page starts with. (ie, 1cup or 1tsp.) I found that if I just change that to another amount, and then back, the recalculation of the nutrient levels resolves most errors. I am not sure why this bug was ever allowed to make it to the user, but I keep in mind that we get what we pay for, and I guess “free” suggests we wouldnt care if it was correct. Keep trying, and hopefully my hack helps.
I’m just another voice in the chorus, but it definitely seems like you’ve made 4 months worth of changes in just two weeks. You should really only weigh yourself once a week (at most) so you should only know where you started, last week, and today.
That said, just go back to the basics. Find your macro needs. 20g carbs, the bare minimum of protein to maintain lean body mass, and the rest up to your maintenance/deficit in fat. Keep it simple. Don’t try to get fancy or cheat the system with fake sugars (or diet sodas). Eat simple stuff and exact amounts; and continue to keep track. Make sure the package matches up with the app’s data.
Finally, let it ride for a while. Don’t keep making course corrections. You haven’t been doing anything long enough to know what’s working or what’s broken about your system. Good luck - stay here for motivation and check out the podcasts, too!
What are some of the apps that you all use? Right now I’m using KetoDiet ($12 a yr) but I have noticed wrong info when scanning the food in. I would be great full for suggestions on apps and macro calculators.
I have been drinking diet sodas! Especially when I need something sweet with some caffeine. I will definately take those out asap
I used My Fitness Pal, but their database can be dicey too. You can make your own entries though, which is nice if you use something a lot and can’t find a match.
Diet sodas, fake sugars, net carbs vs total carbs, atkins bars, etc… All these things seem to be n=1 sort of thing; that is, some people are affected, others aren’t. Some will say they spike insulin, some say they don’t have any effect. I’m actually not sure about myself, so I just avoid them all for the most part. That said, I do occasionally have some diet soda - but I can make one can last several days. I don’t chug a 20oz in a few minutes like I used to. I also make an incredible chocolate mousse out of heavy whippin cream and sugar-free jello pudding which is to die for… It supposedly has a few carbs in it, but I only eat a little at a time so I don’t worry too much.
The thing you have to realize about this WOE is that it’s almost all 100% “bro science.” There is a lot of real science to back up the claims, and endless anecdotal evidence for its efficacy, but where the rubber meets the road is very subjective and open to interpretation and one size definitely DOES NOT fit all.
Atkins bars and artificial sweeteners stall my weight loss. For weight loss I stay far away from “keto cheat food” which is good maintaining weight, but not losing weight IMO.
Also, you could have started at the wrong time during your cycle. Weight will fluctuate based on it. My weightloss graph goes up one week, holds steady the next, goes down, etc…
Joining in to second most of the above advice.
Just want to add, take progress pictures and measurements.
And:
Your body needs time to heal and progress from being sugar fueled to fat fueled, just worry about fat to satiety. There is a recent podcast about what that means. Listen to it.
I have used MFP for years, if you use it correctly, it tracks what you need to know. There is a long thread over there on logging correctly:
Ketogains.com has a decent calculator but none of them are perfect.
As for apps if you are IFing Zero or Vora are both good. I use Vora because you can use it for longer fasts that you set the hours for, and it tracks your fasts for you, you can even download .csv files, the free one is what I use but you can get more features with a paid Pro vers. Free has all I have needed so far.
I drink a TON of diet soda, always have. It never stalled my weight loss, not ever. I’ve read that people get more sweet cravings when using artificial sweeteners, but that never happened to me. That said, if you ARE drinking a lot of it, Diet Soda is (surprise!) mostly water - and like I said before, water is 8 pounds per gallon 