Having very hard time to get into Ketosis

#1

Hi Guys,

I started Keto diet religiously on Jan 10 2018, read Jimmy Moore and few other books to understand the concept.
mostly I eat two meals. lately, bulletproof coffee(15ml MCT, 15 BUTTER, 15ML HEAVY CREAM) at 9am and one meal at 7pm.

typical meal - bone broth soup with 25g ghee, 22 g of collagen, avocados , salad leaves, sour cream, cheese, asparagus etc. ( roughly macros 35-40 g of Fat, 30 -35g of protein, 10-15 carbs from veggies only) nothing else. this routine I followed to induce myself into ketosis.
And I did this on 25th day !! BP Coffee - Intermittent fasting - evening meal as per above description.

my body weight - 192 lbs ( that keeps yoyoing from 195 -193 -192 -194-195-196 !! again .

precision Neo blood ketone readings:
28 Jan - 1.2 mmol /L
05 Feb - 0.3
06 Feb - 0.1 (morning)
06 Feb - 0.6 (evening)
07 Feb - 0.3
08 Feb - 0.7
09 Feb - 0.3

you can see the pattern ( all reading are taken two hours after meals)

interestingly , I have three reading of blood sugar and it shows pretty good sugar in my system 87, 87, 90 mg/dL .

minerals are in place, I stay hydrated all day. I have passed the headache and cranky or weak feeling. Now, I don’t feel very hungry, I can live without food practically all day. I have zero carb cravings. I run on treadmill 4 times a week in the mornings.

so far I have lost nothing, starting weight is 192 lbs ( i’m 5’11’’ tall and 41 years old), just yo yoing. Energy level is best at mid day (even when I’m IM fasting, I wake up very sluggish still, very active at night, quality of sleep is bit better than before). looks like I am extremely sensitive to carb and protein both. Any tips. My objective is loose 32lbs !!! and I’m loosing hope, I was thinking that I will loose atleast 10 lbs in first month. They say last 15 lbs are most hard to loose. I am not able loose at all.

Please help.
Thanks

(Rob) #2

My initial thought is that you may already be a body set point which may not shift until you gone long enough to reduce your insulin resistance below a specific level that is preventing lipolysis? Just a WAG since you seem to be doing it pretty well from a macro perspective. The other thing is that you are getting very few calories - 600-700 (even at 2 meals + 500 more) and are unlikely to be fat adapted yet so you may be lowering your BMR and your body is just fighting you. Personally, I’ve done better eating more ironically but I have more to lose than you.

That said, it is early days and after losing water weight, it took me 5 weeks to lose again but now it’s 38lbs in 4 months. Slower than some, but faster than I’ve ever done before.

#3

Pretty good points !!!
When I started I was eating three meals and coffee. May I need to go back to three meals and be there for more days. May be I’m rushing too fast. But my understanding was I’ll get into ketosis in couple of weeks. Then I started experimenting with intermittent fasting … I was reading exhaustively jimmy Moore and Jason Fung. Thinking that I need to attack insulin by fasting. But I guess you’re right about lowering my BMR !!!
Thanks for input.

(Rob) #4

IF doesn’t necessarily mean eating fewer calories. I’d continue IF (2 or 1 MAD) but just up the calories per meal until you are fat adapted (longer than ketosis typically). No need to lose the fasting benefits if you can get them without insatiable hunger etc (which it sounds like is not a problem. A little starvation response might explain morning sluggishness?

Calories are tricky as you can see from the constant debate here. Insulin sensitive people can massively overfeed without consequence if they stay on keto macros, insulin resistant folks, not so much. I would consider experimenting a bit with calories? Maybe a few days of OMAD but 2000Kcal feasts? Some 2 days 1000Kcal per? See what happens.

As I said, I’ve lost more weight when I’ve eaten more unless I’m in a natural fast (not at all hungry, eating to satiety). I’m doing 2 meals of bacon, eggs and cheese per day this week and lost 4lbs in 5 days. Maybe it’s the high fat, high sodium, shock to the system or the fact that it’s so damn yummy, or entirely coincidental… we are such special snowflakes! :grin:

(Olivia) #5

I wouldn’t stress too much about the ketone readings; mine range from 0.3-0.9 and I have never gone above that higher number on a normal day. Your goal weight is doable but might require a little more patience. 1 lbs/week is more realistic. If you’re worried about the starvation response, I’d suggest you calculate you BMR and eat 200 kcal above that number. Also consider replacing bpc with black coffee and invest those calories in something more nutritious for lunch or in something to add to your dinner.

#6

Looks like I need to bump up my fat intake and cut back to proteins to 20g/ meal. Thanks for amazing tips.

#7

Thanks!!
I don’t know how to calculate BMR , I’ll search in older posts. Thanks for your suggestion.

(Rob) #8

http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/

As to the protein - not sure you need to limit it so much. Use a macro calculator to see what range you should do and maybe focus on the middle and then be prepared to flex it to experiment. Some people do better on low protein, others don’t see any benefit (and it’s often easier to do keto if your macros aren’t 80%+ fat)

(Hoteski) #9

Don’t forget that your body fat forms part of the 80% fat you use/ consume in a day. When I realised this having seen a video on YouTube about it everything changed.

(Leon C) #10

Henny, can you share the link to the video you are referring to please? Thank you.

(Hoteski) #11
(Hoteski) #12

I find this guy very insightful

(Leon C) #13

Thank you @Hoteski :+1:

#14

FYI, for you newbies, don’t click on the “START NOW,” it’s an ad to change your home page.

(Rob) #15

Good catch. On which link?

(Mike W.) #16

Care to explain this?

#17

It was on the Keto Calculator. The ad is cleverly positioned just below where they enter their info.

Could be worse, it could be a “Meet Asian Women” ad.

(Rob) #18

I got “the worst carb to eat over age 50” :rofl: (all of them)

Just random ads.