Gaining Back Fasted Weight - Advice Please

(VLC.MD) #21

Fantastic !
Super nutritious as well.
I’d wean off the cherry tomatoes as they are 1 carb each. Hard to fit into macros really. Great for maintenance, less so for weight loss.

(Dawn) #22

@LizinLowell These folks really know what they are talking about. Hopefully more people will continue to chime in and give us even more insight. But the biggies that I take from this, you are going to gain weight back when you eat because of the water needed to digest the food, but if you remain strict keto (and not have a feast day like I did) then the weight should fall back off relatively quickly because it is mostly water and inflammation and probably not actual fat gain. Good luck. We can do this, we just have to keep at it.

(Dawn) #23

Check! I will kick the Tomatoes out. I don’t really like them anyway. They just make my salad pretty and I have it stuck in my head that they are healthy and that’s why I eat them. I will save them for maintenance as you suggest.

(VLC.MD) #24

They are but not worth it during an active weight loss phase.
I save my tomato carbs for salsa !

#25

I typically fast for 4-10 days before some occasion (ie. dinner engagement, visitors, birthday party) interrupts it. It’s easy to skip breakfasts and get out of lunches, but it can be very disruptive to opt out of some dinners. I won’t allow my fasting be the center of attention.

If my family is having a sit down dinner, I will have a bouillon cube. It doesn’t happen every night, but here again, it’s about being social and everyone being comfortable.

(Dave Corbett) #26

I’ve been doing a lot of fasting with Keto and have found what I called the “Claw-back effect”.

I’d lose .5 to 1lb a day and then it would all come back as soon as I resumed eating - even 100% Keto-legal foods.
I believe it was all water flowing into those newly emptied fat cells. Water weighs more than fat, which would explain this. As long as I KCKO the weight would eventually “wash out” especially if I would be really good with my diet.

I suppose this is why so many people advise against weighing yourself daily. Those water gains could easily discourage you. Here is my weight chart showing mostly daily (With some gaps) weight measurements. Then I made the same chart just showing the first day of each month. MUCH SMOOTHER!

Weight
Weight.png1014×640 28.2 KB

The big dip towards the end is the powerful combination of Intermittent Fasting (One meal a day and 2-4 days between meals) and cutting out all alcohol. Booze is just calories without any nutrients, so I got rid of them!

(Dawn) #27

Hi @oldcrow66 - WOW, your second chart is perfection and shows the real story of your success.

Thanks for this information. You are 100% correct. I needed to just calm down. KCKO. Because the truth appears to be that I never actually gained any body fat. The weight appears to all have been water. It took less than four days of fasting for all nine of the pounds to come back off. I am starting to believe that the weight that we lose while fasting is real. But the weight that we gain while eating is fake (or at least temporary) as long as we keep it keto and go right back to fasting at the earliest available window. I am now much more conscious of paying attention to my weight daily but not FREAKING out because it goes up. I am doing something similar to you in that I only eat 1-2 meals every 5 days or so (this is just for my weight loss phase. I do not plan to do this once I hit maintenance). I am super excited to have found this wonderful tool called fasting. Thanks for the support @oldcrow66

(KCKO, KCFO) #28

I tend to agree with you. I loss very quickly when I start fasting, then when I start eating again, a lb. or more a day can show up… I am in maintenance mode now. So I do weigh daily, I don’t freak out when I see a bounce it just tells me to do more fasting. Looking at the trend helps. There are apps for this and an old school website called trendweight.com where you can do this. Really eases the stress of the ups and downs when you can see your trending downwards. Or in my case really staying the same.

(Ethan) #29

I also gain back all of the weight i lose in an extended fast, but it shortly after goes down to the new set point. I think doing resistance training also helps this. For example, here is a standard scenario for me (what has happened this month and will continue, based on experience):

11/1: 223 lbs
After 5-day fast: 220 pounds
3 days of eating: 223 pounds
5 more days of eating: 220 pounds
After 5-day fast: 217 pounds
3 days of eating: 220 pounds
5 more days of eating: 217 pounds
12/1: 217 pounds (12/1 goal)

While fasted, I drink only a probiotic “gutshot” made from cabbage with <1g carb per “shot”… I take a vitamin. I do full workouts, especially resistance training. I avoid completely the carb snacks, especially when post-fasting feeding. I would focus on eating more fat when feeding and try some resistance training, especially when fasted, if you can.

(Dawn) #30

I haven’t done any resistance training. That intrigues me because it seems like something I can do at home. I will do some research on good exercises for me.

(Ethan) #31

I have a full gym in my basement with PowerBlock U-90 set, a bench, and an elliptical recumbent bike. I also use resistance bands in the door frames. The latter are cheap and effective.

(Richard Hanson) #32

Hi Dawn,

I have been thinking about this thread for some days and it has taken me a bit to get a response organized. Gaining back 11 pounds sounds like a large number.

Each week I fast for about 60 hours from Monday dinner to Thursday morning when I will break my fast with a keto coffee. The other five days I eat about 1400-1600 kcal/day. This last week I decided to experiment a bit to see if I cound understand better what you are experiencing. I ate a lot more food, more like 2000-2200 kcal/day, all keto foods, and I have a few observations.

This might get a little disgusting, sorry.

When I am fasting I still use the bathroom and it can take as much as three days before my digestive track is emptied. The scale goes down over this time and I think this is a combination of burning fat, but also just eliminating weight that is inside my digestive system. When I break my fast, the weight will go back up, just a couple of pounds, but I don’t think I am actually adding fat back onto my body. Rather, I am just material back into my digestive track. This added weight is “inside” me, but not “on” me. After a day or two everything just levels out and I become productive on the toilet again.

So … last week I ate a lot more on purpose as I wanted to see what would happen. An n=1 experiment, and I put on a massive 9 lb in two days. Obviously, this is not new fat stored “on” the body, at least most of it is not, but I don’t think all of this is just weight “inside” my digestive track. I think that 9 lb gain is in part the weight of the food I ate, but I don’t think I ate that much weight in two days. Much of the rest might be water gain. Perhaps, some of the excessive protein I was eating was converted into glucose, gluconeogenesis, and then stored as glycogen along with quite a bit of water.

This situation was far different than my previous experiences fasting where I ate much more modestly and gained back only a small amount of weight before stabilizing and then loosing weight again, even before the next weekly fast.

So … what to make of this?

For myself, I will not be “feasting” after a fast, that is I will not be intentionally eating quite a bit more food and I will limit my intake as before. For myself, I think the heavy eating was causing me to also retain quite a bit more water and that before I start dropping again both the digestive system needs to achieve a new balance between inputs and outputs and the retained water must also be excreted.

I can’t tell you what will work for you, I have a hard time just sorting this out for myself, but I would cheerfully suggest that you can also try some personal experiments, observe the results, and then try to understand how your body is reacting to your intentional behaviors.

I hope at least some of this will be helpful and it sounds like you are very highly motivated.

Keto for Life!

Warmest Regards,
Richard

(Dawn) #33

Thank you so much. I also want to mention that my refeed was for 7 full days and it included a single day of eating sweets and carbs. So I believe that what you mentioned above is exactly correct. I experienced exactly what you experienced in terms of food in my stomach and water gain. You nailed it. My biggest lesson is that I DO NOT need to eat for a full seven days. Once the weight starts to creep up above 2-3 pounds, I need to start fasting immediately to get back on track. I love your feedback. You have validated all of the thoughts that I was having regarding this topic

(Richard Hanson) #34

You are most welcome Dawn.

Experiment, innovate, learn … knowledge is power over your own future.

Keto for Life!
Richard

(Bunny) #35

Just from my own experience (under Dr. Eric Bergs advice “why am I gaining or not losing weight?” youtube video modules?); ONE (1) of MANY FACTORS MAY BE when you go off your intermittent fast or when your not intermittent fasting and doing regular keto; some of the following may be occurring:

You may need to ADJUST your FAT (YOUR NOT CONSUMING ENOUGH FAT? You cannot lose weight without eating enough fat, but also too much FAT may result in gluconeogenesis) and PROTEIN (YOUR NOT CONSUMING ENOUGH PROTEIN? generally 4 oz. is recommended on keto BUT YOU MAY NEED MORE?, over that amount may also result in gluconeogenesis) INTAKE ratios or as Dr. Berg puts it “finding your sweet spot!”

Another possibility is your NOT GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP?; That is when HGH is produced and released into the blood stream by the cells on the pituitary gland in the delta phase (at a frequency sequence between 0.5hz to 4.0hz hertz) of sleep and is also around the time when the fat actually (resting state/down time) breaks down and is used for fuel (burning the fat) and results in the presence and excretion of ketones throughout the day in the blood, urine and breath!

CORTISOL. (excessive adrenal stress = under a lot of stress?), INSULIN & ESTROGEN (not so much as the two previous ibid.): blocks fat burning period!

DHEA & HUMAN GROWTH HORMONE (HGH): cannot burn fat if levels are too low!

Or your SOME HOW SPIKING INSULIN TOO FREQUENTLY? You cannot burn fat in the presence of insulin and may gain!

I do apologize for all the long parenthetical captions, just trying to convey this in a nutshell the best I can!

Personally I only eat one meal a day to skip some of the above!

Help! Help! Help! And SOS too!
(Dawn) #36

I llove Dr. Berg and I have watched all of these videos. Thanks for the reference. Turns out that the weight gain was just water.

(Bunny) #37

Lol, water weight (forgot about that one!). I was monitoring my water weight too and doing a little bit of experimenting as I have a physicians scale (very accurate!) at the foot of my bed and I noticed that when I drink water the weights on the scale will go up, then when I quit drinking water for a while, it will go down.

(Jennifer) #38

You have to remember that your bowels can hold a lot of food/weight. I might gain 5-6 pounds back after a fast, but as soon as I start to fast again and my digestive track empties, I’m right back at my last fasting low.

Instead of focusing on the ups and downs, focus on each incremental fasting low point. If that shows a downward trend you are golden!

(Judy ) #39

Maybe someone has stated this obvious fact. Keto is not an excuse to just over eat. To eat till satisfied and stop before stuffed. It helps me to check in if I’m really hungry, be present to what I’m eating and to chew each mouthful 30 times or as close as possible. I think keto helps with emotional eating and cravings but (myself included) it can still be easy to emotionally over eat, especially if it’s been a longtime habit to avoid feelings.
I too, have gained back weight after fasting, but didn’t go overboard refeeding. So I’m not sure why and reading everyone’s comments does help figure it out. I’m already at a “normal” weight, but feel like the lower end would feel better (10-13 lbs less than now). I’m amazed how well I can “hide” extra fat and maybe there’s truth about a body’s set point. Also interesting where we store fat- legs for me.