Frustration with results

(Mark) #1

I’m about three months into my strict Keto journey. I use the LoseIt! app to track my macros and calories (yes, I believe calories do matter, even on Keto. Input must be less than output to lose weight).

My macros average (weekly): 62-70% fats, 25-30% proteins, and 2-4% carbs. My total carb intake is less than 30 grams daily (only from leafy greens and keto “approved” items).
My blood ketone level is just starting to nudge up (was 1.2 mmols yesterday) after I have added 30-45 mins of cardio exercise to my day. My urine ketone is high. I know they are different (urine is “waste” ketone?, but not sure the relationship).
My weight is not moving like others I know on this life style. I’m only down 11 pounds in since Jan 7th. Friends are down 20, 25 or even more.
If I don’t count calories, I don’t have any weight loss. I have a hard time keeping under 1800 calories when also trying to keep fats up - they are opposite in nature.
I do “feel” better, but I want and need to lose weight.
I’m 246 pounds age 54, 5’11". I carry it well, but I want to get down to 200.
What am I doing wrong? Can I be “keto” intolerant? I would think by now my ketone level would be 1.7 or higher being so strict. I’m wondering if I should just go onto a “eat what I want” diet while still counting and weighing foods. That is what I didn’t want to do and why I chose Keto life style. I didn’t want to be weighing and measuring foods, but I do anyway.
Can a person just not adapt to losing weight on keto? I’m very frustrated.
Any advice to improve my results?
TIA
Mark

macros
macros.jpg1440×2960 398 KB

(Little Miss Scare-All) #2

Are you losing inches? How do your clothes fit? Sometimes the scale is a jerk and shouldn’t be listened to. Do you feel or know you’re body is taking up less real-estate in this world?

(Cindy) #3

You’re not keto intolerant. You’re not really doing keto.

No, not really. I’ve had weeks where I feel like I over eat. Certainly, if I were tracking calories, I’d be way over my “allotment.” Those are weeks where I’ll see a drop in scale number. Other days, I’m eating 500-800 calories and the scale doesn’t budge.

The problem with focusing on calories is that it means you’re NOT listening to what your body needs on a daily basis. One day, you might need more (or less) fat, more (or less) protein, etc. Keto is about regulating the hormones that helped us get fat in the first place. If you’re not willing to let those hormones regulate themselves, you’re not really doing keto but just another version of a calorie restrictive diet.

Then don’t! You need to do this as a lifestyle, not a weight loss diet. You need to find the way you CAN do it long-term. Again, not to try to force weight loss in x period of time. Trust (I know that can be difficult to do!) in the process and let it happen.

And you can do it that way. I started keto at the beginning of November. Haven’t a clue how much weight I lost in the first 3 months because I didn’t weigh. I judged my success from clothing and how I FELT (less creaky, more positive, etc). When I did start weighing, I started weighing sporadically in January…and since then, I’ve lost 1-5 lbs depending on what the scale shows on any given day. BUT…I’m still fitting into clothes more easily. Sure, at some point, that scale needs to drop, but what’s more important is SIZE, HEALTH, and whether or not I can sustain this woe…otherwise, the weight will just come back.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #4

Input must be non-insulinogenic, or calories will be stored. The hypothesis behind the ketogenic diet is that by manipulating the hormonal situation by eating very little carbohydrate, the body will adjust its metabolism automatically to use both the food eaten and stored resources. There is a limit to how much leverage we can put on the body’s food partitioning by limiting caloric intake, because the body adjusts the metabolism according to the food intake. Read the follow-up study on the Biggest Loser contestants and they metabolic damage they experienced.

(Scott) #5

While gluttony with regard to calories is not going to work however counting them on keto is not the fist step but the last step if at all. This is not about restriction. It is about optimization and adaption. I was a big CICO calorie deficit person and lost 53 pounds via starving and maxing out on exercise. Then a funny thing happened. I gradually put thirty pounds back on.

Enter the Magic Pill documentary and I fell head first into keto. I was very sceptical and can remember thinking to myself on July 10th 2018. “Okay I can eat all the fat I want, all the calories I want (no counting) and all I need to limit is carbs”. I had doubts but thought what I had done previously was not sustainable so I said I am in. That was now thirty pounds ago and I never give a thought to any calorie content of any food I eat only the carb content.

I am now adapted so when I allowed a three month stall to playout I so no movement happening. I reduced my moning fat slightly and the scale began to move again. Only three pounds to go but I have lost five pounds in the past five days. I say give it a try and ignore calories for a while and let your body guide you. You may be surprised.

(*Tame Those Ghrelin Gremlins) #6

Hello. Have you ever read the book, “The Obesity Code”? I highly recommend it. It will change the way you look at calories and you will get an understanding that calories are not what drives weight lose, insulin is.

Getting your insulin low and reversing insulin resistance is key. You should not be counting calories in the way you are. The type of food you put into your body is way more important then counting calories. Also you haven’t been doing Keto very long, it may take time to repair before a huge difference in weight is noticed.

(Mark) #7

Thanks for all the advice. Contrary to what some have written I feel I am on a keto life style considering the level of carbs I’m eating. My concern is that I am not in a nutritional ketogenic state. Regardless of the number of calories I’m eating my limiting of carbs should have me there. Everything I’ve read states that calorie deficit happens because you are in ketosis and feel satisfied and don’t want to eat. I’m just doing the same thing artificially. My Clothes do fit better but for health one should be lighter. No one over weight lives longer than someone more lean regardless of how their clothes fit.

(Cindy) #8

Do you really not see that there’s a difference? An artificially imposed limit vs a limit set by your hunger and body’s dietary needs?

#9

That’s your problem. If you give it time & become fat adapted then your appetite will naturally drop. If you force a defecit your body will want to conserve energy.

#10

Yes… please listen to your body! Since you’re asking for advice. Good luck!

#11

more notes … 30-45 min of cardio every day could be putting your body in an even higher calorie deficit than you’re calculating and for some people, it makes them even hungrier. I would scale back on the cardio a lot since you’re just starting out, and let your hormones and body adjust to this new nutrition life. If you LOVE exercising and it makes you feel good, I’m not going to tell you to stop, but that could be one thing standing in your way especially if you’re restricting calories.

(Cindy) #12

I also wanted to address this (and this is part of why I said you’re not doing keto). Limiting calories at the same time you’re limiting carbs is simply a calorie restrictive diet. It really is NOT keto. Keto is not just about limiting carbs, although that’s the first step.

You first need to limit carbs so that you lower insulin levels. Once insulin levels are lowered, you begin to use dietary fat for fuel. That’s an important step! Because initially, your biochemistry is in ‘carb burning mode.’ Your body needs time to increase all the “fat burning” machinery. But if you’ve limited carbs and other fuel (calories in the form of fat), you’re simply using the same machinery but now at a reduced efficiency (results in a lowered BMR).

So you INCREASE fat for a while, until you’re fat-adapted. Once you’re fat-adapted, you can begin to DECREASE the fat on your plate so your body uses its own fat stores for fuel…so then, there really isn’t an energy deficit because you’re body easily taps its own fat.

Even after you’re fat-adapted and losing fat, I’m a big believer in listening to your body’s signals. Some days, you WILL need more of one thing than another. It’s like thirst. You can tell yourself you’re always going to drink 100 oz of water/day…but what if it’s a really hot, sweaty day? You’d drink more, right? Or what if you really just did not want any more water? Could be your body is telling you you’re flushing out too many minerals and it’s a day to NOT drink so much.

(Mark) #13

So I’ve been doing that. Why aren’t I in a measureable consistent ketogenic state of 1.3 or higer5?

I’ve done that. My fat is 65 to 70 precent daily intake. I’m not very hungry even tho I’m limiting the amount of food I eat. I’m not feeling like I am depriving myself.
I just thought I’d see results faster.

(DougH) #14

I won’t touch any of the comments here about WOE or WOL. I think they are valid based on my journey but I think it is missing the point of your question even if it is valuable advice. Lets just think about the metabolic term nutritional ketosis instead of getting dogmatic.

Setting aside the calorie discussion your macros point to the requirements for nutritional ketosis.

What are you specifically eating that make up the carbohydrates and sugar in your diet? Is there potentially hidden carbs in stuff that you are eating?

Are you cooking your own meals using whole foods, or are you using packaged foods? Is there prepackaged junk keto foods in there.

What is the source of your protein. Is it good whole food, or are you taking protein powders like whey?

What about alcohol, do you drink regularly?

5’11 246 pounds isn’t extremely metabolically deranged but it is on the heavier side, is there a possibility that you are pre-diabetic? Insulin is one of the antagonist hormones to ketone production. Maybe it is taking your body longer adjust and for your insulin levels to decrease?

Do you have a meter that measure blood glucose as well? I am curious what your fasting BG looks like, and what it looks like after you eat.

I will say that I recall that some keto researchers have said that any range of ketone production is a good sign (to caveat, it may have been someone citing someone else in a related discussion), and that there isn’t truly a low point where you aren’t ketogenic.

If you are making ketones then you have depleted your carbohydrate and glycogen stores, and have switched to alternative metabolic systems.

You might be able to give yourself a proof of concept by doing an extended fast, that WILL push you into a higher level of blood ketones than you have currently experienced with your macros.

(Jennibc) #15

You MUST STOP COMPARING yourself to other people. It’s a fools errand. There are people who have lost in a month, what it has taken me a year (40 pounds). I understand the frustration but it may take you longer to really start losing on this. You might have to undo a lot of metabolic damage before the weight starts to drop.

Alternately, when you say ‘keto approved’ are you drinking alcohol? Some keto approved alcohol will stop you from losing very much. Zero carb spirits (keto approved) can still get in the way of you losing weight (ask me how I know this!) Or some sweeteners are keto approved, but there are some of who don’t lose anything when we used artificial sweeteners.

Some scale movement, which you have had is promising. Stay the course. But consider that some of your keto approved foods may not work for you.

(Windmill Tilter) #16

@striperseeker

Short Version: In short, there is nothing wrong with your version of “keto” because almost nobody here does the ketogenic diet anyway. Where you might run into trouble is managing calories to an arbitrary target of calorie restriction without knowing what metabolic reaction it’s going to elicit. What you’re doing now is not working, so it’s not an entirely crazy idea to give “eat to satiety” a try for a month or two to see if your results are better.

TLDR Version:

Your version of the ketogenic diet is pretty similar to most folks here with respect to macro composition, so you’re doing just fine. I would guess that less than 1% of people here follow an actual ketogenic diet, as authored by Dr. Russell Wilder of the Mayo Clinic in 1923. It calls for 90% of calories from fat, 6% from protein, and 4% from carb. Nobody does that. Pretty much everybody has their own version. That’s cool because few of us have epilepsy which is what the diet is meant to treat. You’re doing fine!

The dominant version on this forum is one where you limit carbs to 20g, target protein between 1g/kg-2gkg of lean bodyweight, and then eat fat to satiety. Some folks track calories, some don’t, but the calories do not guide the food consumption, they just report on it. You’re pretty much square except for the last point.

It’s an important point though. It sounds like nonsense until you realize that you have no idea how many calories you actually expend every day, and you don’t know how many calories you eat. You don’t know how many calories you expend in a day, because you’ve never had your resting metabolic rate tested. If you used an online calculator, you have an estimate that’s accurate to +/-30%. You also have no idea how much you expend with exercise because you’ve never done a VO2 max test, and you don’t wear a 24 hr heart rate monitor. This gives you an additional +/-10% error range. In short, your Calories Out number has problems.

Calories In has a similar problem. You can’t know with any degree of certainty how many calories you consumed, because in US, food companies can legally understate calories by up to 17%, and many understate by more. The non-processed foods you eat are not sufficiently uniform to be estimated with much better precision. The variation between 2 ribeye’s could be 40% just based on marbling and trimming.

So now you’ve got at 20% estimate problem on the Calories In, and you’ve got 40% estimate problem on your Calories out. Managing to that number is not necessarily going to get good results.

But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that calorie partitioning is controlled by hormones once they get into your body. Insulin is the major player here. If insulin is elevated, your ability to burn stored fat is impaired. The percentage of calories consumed that you convert to fat is increased. Since you’re 240lbs and 5:11, there is a decent probability that you have insulin resistance and that this is a major problem for you. There are a few dozen other hormones that will similarly bedevil your efforts but that’s too much typing. So let’s just say that you have a hormone problem.

Fortunately, you have a hormone solution. The 2 hormones that interpret this whole complicated mess in a meaningful way are Gherlin and Leptin. These are your satiety hormones. One makes you feel hungry, one makes you feel full. If you listen to them carefully, and do what they tell you, they will by and large leave you alone and so will the other trillion cells involved in your metabolism. If you fight back, you set off a metabolic chain of events like the reduction of resting metabolic rate, increase in cortisol, increased hunger, decreased satiety, and so on until your metabolism succeeds in storing fat. That’s what most people accomplish by using force of will to adhere to an arbitrary calorie target. They lose 15lbs and then gain back 20.

So your choice is really whether or not you will force your metabolism to fight back, reinforcing a vicious cycle, or trust your satiety hormones to slowly guide you down to a healthy body weight. When you realize that your body has 2 million years of practice burning/conserving body fat, and all you have is a spreadsheet, choosing the latter is not as crazy as it sounds!

(Carl Keller) #17

To add to some of the great advice already said here, I will say that you can do everything perfectly ketogenic and something as simple as stress can prevent you from losing any weight. The phrase KCKO is often repeated in the forum and for very good reason.

I doubt you all gained weight at the same rate so it’s unfair to assume you will lose at the same rate. Everyone is different and how deranged our metabolism is often determines how quickly we start seeing good results on the scale. If you are restricting carbs and eating single item, whole foods, you can rest assured that you are healing. That is the most crucial step in a healthy weight loss scenario.

If you are doing 30 net carbs, I would recommend trying 20 net. If it’s 30 total, then I think you should be fine as long as you keep making the right food choices.

(Mark) #18

I do cook all my own food except for whole foods such as spinach, cheese etc.
I have never been diabetic. I do test my glucose and it’s around 72 to 80 consistently. I have done fasting and check my blood ketone level only to see it around 0.3 to 0.5. that’s the confusing and frustrating part. I don’t drink alcohol, eat chocolate or pre-processed bars or shakes. I do very occasionally have an Atkins bar when I’m wanting a treat. I read a lot in this forum about people in the same situation as me and I wonder if depriving oneself of a certain food without a benefit is worth it. I did lose to 50 pounds on a calorie restricted diet. I kept it off for a while but I let myself eat uncontrollably and gained most back. I like how I feel removing carbs but I worry it isn’t Syracuse l sustainable (vacations, trips, etc.) Without the benefit of more rapid weight loss I’m second guessing myself. One thing I do now tho is drink much more diet soda than I ever did. I’ve read this can cause issues even tho no carbs or sugar. I’m cutting that out.
Thanks

(Carl Keller) #19

@Don_Q Very well said sir. Your last post was excellent.

(DougH) #20

What are the diet sodas sweetened with. Some sugar replacements can spike insulin, which could be a potential cause of your low ketones.