Back when the Atkins diet first got popular 16 years ago was the first and only time I have had significant weight loss on a ketogenic diet. It was a miracle I didn’t have to count calories, exercise, or be burdened by any thing really. The weight just melted away. It was all but effortless. I understand that being 20 years old and having a physical occupation helped. I know my body has changed some over the years but I’m still in my prime relativly speaking. After experiencing that first buzz of weight loss I have never been able to recapture it. I have lost weight since then through running and a hybrid of keto and fasting, but I just find it hard to believe I have to darn near starve myself in order to lose any weight. I researched the matter and found one reference to my conundrum by Dr. Atkins. He had called it the golden shot, because after the first successful introduction to ketosis it becomes much more difficult. No matter what I do my body is so resistant to ketosis that I can not lose weight unless I eat just enough to sustain a pulse. Am I the only one? Is there magical nutrient I’m deficient in? Is there a way to improve efficiency that doesn’t include martyr status self denial?
Golden shot theory?
Welcome to the forum, Justin.
As long as you keep your carbs as low as possible and don’t eat any sugar, your body should respond favourably and lose weight.
We suggest 20 grams or less of net carbs, no sugar, adequate proteins and healthy fats, drink enough water and electrolytes, and the Keto miracles will happen =).
I am 55 and started Keto in February and it is working for me, just be patient and make sure your carbs are low =).
I am never feeling deprived or hungry on Keto, it is all about keeping those carbs really low.
I don’t know what is blocking your success. But it is possible to be successful later in life, after prior attempts. I am an example of one, at least so far. Though the real challenge is not losing, but keeping it off long term. So I am not yet a success story. Check back with me in 5 years.
I have been able to lose weight in a number of ways:
- Eat less, exercise more
- Phen-fen (diet drug combo).
- Original Atkins
- Weight Watchers
- Low-carb, combined with eating less and exercising more, and occasional fasting (my current, and most successful approach).
I lost a pretty good chunk (from 285 down to about 240) when I was about 51, by eating less and exercising more. I just didn’t maintain those good habits at the time and backslid into old patterns. I also developed an injury (plantar fasciitis) which made it so I couldn’t just ramp up the exercise which used to be my go-to kick-start to weight loss.
But I am now nearly 62, and started a low-carb diet about 14 months ago, and am down 115 pounds so far, to around 205 (from 320), and still losing gradually. I have also added back in regular but not excessive exercise, and I do occasional 1-day fasts.
I do certainly “deprive” myself of unhealthy foods, but I don’t consider that martyrdom, but more like a wake-up call to how I used to eat. Just like I quit tobacco in 1993, and have been depriving myself of nicotine since then.
I certainly don’t starve myself. But I don’t eat a lot of food all the time, either.
Thank you all for the encouragement. Yea loosing is easier than maintaining. I can attest to that. Carb comas can become a way of life, one is to many and a thousand is never enough.
So Patience is would I take away. I just want to turn that stick purple and not be fasting. Deep ketosis.
I am currently doing this protocol from IDM (Dr. Jason Fung) and it is working well for me:
I also am not eating any dairy atm, and eliminated all sugar substitutes in June, as my body cannot lose weight on them.
Fung introduced me to fasting. I have done long term like 10 day and a 7 day. But I find it hard to IM fast. It takes more self control to IM that to long term for me.
Okay. Different things certainly work differently for everyone. Good luck figuring out what will work for you =).
Anywhere from 2 to 7 times a week. I weigh first thing in the morning, after any elimination needs, but before my first cup of coffee, but I only count the Monday morning weigh-in as “official.”
I originally did Atkins in about 1980, losing 70 pounds. Unfortunately, once I was at goal weight I let the fat-phobia get into my brain and went to a 10% fat diet (a la Dean Ornish). From 1982 until the late '90s, I ran, then transitioned to long bike rides and every other permutation of eat less/move more, none of which ever worked beyond a short term change. A couple of years ago, I went back to keto and have lost the same 70 pounds back to where I was in 1981 or '82, so almost 38 years ago. A wasted 38 years.
My experience tells me that there’s no such thing as the golden shot. I think it took me longer than the first time, but the memory of how hard it was 38 years ago is hazy now. Those 38 years change a body in a lot of ways and very of few of them are good. Or none of them.
So what is eating like for you Justin? Maybe you need to tweak something. There’s no good reason that you should have to go hungry on KETO. It doesn’t work like that. Keto works by correcting your hormonal responses to food and hunger, not by eating less and moving more. I’ve lost 60 lbs without exercise or hunger in a year. 
It might not be diet at all. You might want to review your life:
- Do you get 8 hours of good sleep? (Monitored with a wearable.)
- Have you got stress completely handled?
- Have you tried cutting down on exercise? (This one is important - try just resistance training, no cardio - reducing muscle mass is not what you want.)
- Have you given your body enough food? (Sounds like “no” - with your running and low calorie intake you may have killed your metabolism - the way to reverse that is eat more, the way to further worsen it is to eat less.)
You are trying to affect hormones not hit food intake levels - when you were 20 it sounds like your hormones were cooperating.
Now you need to up your game to get them to cooperate again.
PS - I think the “golden shot” is more related to bouts of a new diet close together - I don’t think it has anything to do with 16 years apart - that’s your hormones.
@Just10_Doeskins Justin, I too was a frequent flyer of weight loss. I did Atkins in my 30s, and did well, but not to my goal weight. I’ve been eating ketogenically now for 19 months. Lost 67 pounds, still losing. The only exercise has been weekend warrior type stuff, have a sedentary job.
You nailed it in an earlier post on this thread. Patience. and maybe throw out those pee sticks. I’ve only tested my ketones once, with a coworker’s meter, and was disappointed in whatever it measured. I went almost 11 months with NO weight loss. Meanwhile, I was losing inches.
I’m curious about David’s questions about your diet. Are you eating enough?
I think Dr. Atkin’s was right about the “golden shot” because your body does not want to be in a constant state of ketosis and it starts to resist because it does not want your blood to be in a constant state of being to acidic.
So the only way around it I have found in myself is to build more muscle tissue by lifting as much weight as I can possibly stand to make microscopic tears in my muscle strands and get rid of the visceral fatty deposits that populate inside and around the muscle tissue itself, this allows the muscle to release amino-isometric-buytric-acid and when you do eat a carbohydrate the muscle reacts by releasing this chemical that tells the mitochondria and insulin to not store carbohydrates or glucose as lipid droplets in white adipose tissue but instead the mitochondria in white adipose tissue for which there are very few starts burning it directly for fuel.
This is the other end of the spectrum of preventing fat storage rather than trying to extract it out of the adipose tissue and making the liver or muscle tissue burn or oxidize fatty acids for fuel.
Just my personal theory and it works for me!
It only takes me seconds to lift weights and do this to my muscle tissue in a few reps, I am not sitting their pumping weights for hours. That includes the biceps and glutes upper and lower body.
Just listened to a podcast (low carb MD) with Dr. Rob Cywes. He said he had a patient with very low fasting insulin (like 2) yet with high blood glucose. The patient did a lot of aerobic exercise, I think. The Dr. got the patient to do lifting (I never heard of the routine, so I’m not sure what it was), and that lowered glucose.
So, it’s possible “lifting” will help. Personally, I’ve gone to using my body weight as my “lifts”, for everything except where I need a machine (still can’t do a pull up, for instance, so I have to use a weighted machine to help me there; same for dips).
There is some anecdotal evidence that it is more difficult to lose weight on a ketogenic diet on subsequent attempts, than it is the first time around.
On the other hand, though, your body has changed since the last time, and who knows for sure what shape you are in, metabolically, and fat-wise? The conditions have changed, so the diet may act differently.
What I would recommend is the following:
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Be very strict with your carb intake. You might wish to count total intake, rather than trying to subtract the fibre.
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Double-check all the processed foods you eat, and don’t just look at the nutrition panel, check the list of ingredients, as well, for the presence of sugar. In the U.S. manufacturers are allowed to manipulate the serving size in order to be able to claim 0 g of sugar per serving. If sugar (under any of its many names) is present in the list of ingredients, you may wish to stop using that product. Sticking to whole, real foods and avoiding processed foods as much as possible can be a valuable strategy, in this regard.
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Be sure to eat enough. Even on a low-carb/ketogenic diet, the body will still hold on to its store of fat for as long as possible during what it considers famine conditions. The solution is to eat an abundance of food. And a good way to be sure we are getting enough but not too much is to eat to satisfy our hunger; i.e., eat only when hungry, and when we stop being hungry, stop eating. In the early days of a ketogenic diet, this may seem like quite a bit of food, but as your appetite hormones (principally ghrelin and leptin, but there are several others, as well) reassert themselves, your appetite will settle at a level that will allow your body to use up some of its excess stored fat. Eating to satiety also has the added benefit of eliminating the need to count calories. Our body is perfectly capable of adjusting our metabolism up or down to accommodate the level of calories we give it.
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Get a reasonable amount of protein, and then fill in the rest of your caloric needs with fat. The reason for this is that fat has a negligible effect on the secretion of insulin, so it is a safe source of calories. The main reason we put on so much fat is that insulin is the principal fat-storage hormone, and a high-carb diet keeps our insulin level elevated all the time. A ketogenic diet reduces our insulin level to the minimum necessary for healthy life.
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Consider whether your scale weight is the most useful metric for what you are trying to achieve. Some people are so calorie-conscious, and the dietary guidelines are so harmful, that when they go on a ketogenic diet, their body is finally getting adequate energy and proper nutrition for the first time in years. Such people often put on a fair amount of muscle (and increase their bone density), which adds weight. This can happen simultaneously with fat loss, which means that their scale number may not change, even though their body composition is shifting towards greater health. The clue that this is happening is that, regardless of what the scale is doing, our clothes get looser.
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You might find it helpful to hold off on the fasting until you are successfully fat-adapted again, and your appetite is at the point where you are so satisfied by your food intake that you forget to eat meals. At that point, fasting will come naturally, and your body should respond well to it.
There are many health benefits to a well-formulated ketogenic diet, and fat loss is only one of them. Part of the reason for your apparent lack of success this time around may simply be that your body is healing other types of damage, before being ready to shed fat. And notice that I keep talking about fat loss, not weight loss, because it is not healthy to lose muscle or have lighter, more-brittle bones. That is a kind of weight we want to preserve, not lose.
I’m not buying the “golden shot” hypothesis. If we did a poll of how many folks here have done Atkins or South Beach back in the 2000’s, I’m guessing it would be at least 50%. I know I did! For me as least, it wasn’t noticeably more difficult for me to drop into ketosis the second time around or the third time around. Heck, there are folks here who cycle in and out of ketosis once a month or even once a week as part of their training regimen!
I can’t discount the possibility that it could be a little more difficult to drop into ketosis the second time around, but barring genetic abnormality if you keep your carbs under 20g a day, and stick to it for a few weeks, you’ll be dropping into ketosis. Hang in there!
I’m not sure if it really is about dropping in or out of ketosis as much as it is being able to burn the body fat.
You could very well be in ketosis and not burn any body fat, mostly what gets burned in this “golden shot theory” is dietary fat (or sugar from over-doing it with the protein) not body fat.
10 or 20 grams of carbohydrates long-term is just going to make your body hang on to the body fat rather then let it go. In addition to that you could be making your body so resistant to oxidizing carbohydrates that all your doing is storing fat rather than oxidizing carbs on contact?
Fair point. I’m conflating ketosis with lipolysis.
I’m still not buying the “golden shot theory”. Anecdotal evidence isn’t irrelevant, but there’s probably confounding factors. For example my own two forays into low carb were 15 years apart (like a lot of folks who tried Atkins during the low carb craze). If it is more difficult for me to burn body fat currently, and I don’t believe that is, would that be because of a missed golden shot, or because I’m 15 years older? I’d guess the latter.
I don’t have any evidence that the “golden shot” doesn’t exist, but I’ve never seen a study that investigated it. I have however seen many dozens of extended fasting studies, and I’ve yet to come across one where lipolysis didn’t occur at a predictable rate.
Anything is possible though I guess.