Hello - new with question

#1

Hey there, I am fairly new to Keto but I have done a lot of research over the last few months.

This is my second stint with Keto, the first time I dropped about 20-25 pounds but broke my Keto when visiting my boyfriend across the country.

I gained back 10 pounds of it, but that was from literally eating whatever I wanted. I had a morbid addiction to caffeine (drinking at least 1 energy drink a day, minimum) I was so bad I was hiding it and saying i was having less than I really was, etc, etc.

I have since jumped back on the wagon and I have been doing Keto for a year now.

A little about me, I am 31, Female, and at current weight 158 pounds. (seems to be fluxing a lot this week) My body tends to want to be around 165, the last 5 years or so of my life I have been stuck around there.

My lowest on Keto was 149, my goal is 120-135. I have heard it a million times that I shouldn’t worry about the numbers, but, that is my goal, and it is something that keeps me going on Keto.

I found this site some time ago but didn’t actively participate until now. I believe this is mostly because I have been on Keto over a month now and I seem to have stalled this week and my weight has decided it wants to go back up. I was at 154 but it has been slowly creeping back up.

I am eating about 1500 calories a day, 70ish % fat, minimal carbs. Almost all carb intake is from green leafy veggies such as asparagus, brussel sprouts, etc. The only thing’s I can think of that are holding me back are possibly:

Not enough water
Artificial sweeteners
Too many calories

I don’t track my food in my little phone app anymore, now that I am cooking everything myself. It tends to be quite tedious and with going to school (more than) full time, I have been finding it hard to track my calories/fats/etc.

I have started restricting my eating time and prolonging eating to intermittent fast. So far it doesn’t seem to be working. I am in ketosis according to the urine strips, they actually are registering on the darkest, which was a tip off I might not be getting enough water.

Starting tomorrow I will be cutting the artificial sweeteners out completely and drink more water to see if it alleviates the issue.

The only other clue I have right now is that it is actually semi painful to urinate, I am not sure what is causing it, it doesn’t feel like a UTI, it ONLY hurts when I go to the bathroom, and I feel no other symptoms, nor do i feel the need to urinate like a typical UTI.

Anyways, hello :stuck_out_tongue: I will be trying to use the forums to stay focused and figure out what is stalling me right now, as well as potential road blocks in the future :smiley:

(Carl Keller) #2

Hello Yaz. Glad to see you participating. Keto can be easier when you don’t feel so alone in your journey. There’s lots of positive support here from people who love to see others succeed. :slight_smile:

The first two might be holding you up but I doubt the last thing is if you are staying low carb and keeping your insulin as inactive as possible. One of the best anecdotal experiments to validate this is Sam Feltham’s self experiment where he ate 5,900 calories per day for a month, eating Carbohydrate 10%, Fat 53%, and Protein 37%.

According to standard calorie calculations, he figures that he should have gained 7.3kg of fat (yellow line in graph above). Actual weight gain, however, was 1.3kg.

What is even more interesting (as if that is possible!) is his waist measurements. From a baseline of 79.5cm he dropped 3 cm from his waist which means that even as he gained some weight, much of that is lean mass.

Then he tried the opposite for 30 days, eating 5900 calories that included 64% carbs, 22% fat, 14% protein and gained 7.1 kg.

So his experiment is a great example of: it’s not important how much you eat, as it is what you eat. Try to remember keto isn’t calorie restriction, it’s hormone restriction and that staying low carb and paying attention to your hormone signals are the keys to knowing when enough is enough.

https://idmprogram.com/smash-the-fat-calories-part-xi/

Maybe it would help with your stall if you did? I’m pretty obsessive about it and it only takes me 5 minutes out of my day. IMHO, the time invested is the worth assurance that I am on track.

I will also say that some people find cutting out dairy and nuts can help with a stall. It’s easy to (almost) subconsciously overeat things in this category and those extra carbs and fats might be fueling our body enough that our body fat goes unused.

The thread below might be helpful to you. Most of the suggestions seem to suggest making sure you drink plenty of water. I also will add that balanced electrolytes, most particularly salt, are vital to keep our bodies functioning properly. Up to 8 cups of water and 2+ teaspoons of salt solves the majority of the problems people encounter when doing keto.

(Laurie) #3

I don’t have any practical suggestions at the moment, but are you sure the weight is really “creeping back up”? After the first wonderful weight loss, stalls and ups and downs are common–at least for me. I can be all excited about being down to a certain weight, and next thing you know I’m up 5 pounds again. I get a bit frustrated, but in reality I am still losing if I look at it over the longer term (e.g., a month instead of a day or a week).

Cutting out the sweeteners and drinking more water sounds like a good idea. Try it and see what happens. And coming here for support will help too. Welcome!

(mole person) #4

Welcome!

First of all this may not be a real stall. it’s very common for people to lose a lot of weight in the first couple of weeks and then see a tiny bit of weight come back on in the weeks following. So you may just want to wait and see for a couple of more weeks.

I have a few questions for you. First, how many times a day are you taking in calories, including things like cream in your coffee or MCT oil?

Second, are you actually hungry for all the food you’re eating or are you trying to pad fat in order to fill a macro? You absolutely do not have to do this. The fat macro is there to help achieve satiety. It has no value except that. If you eat fat past your satiety all you’re accomplishing is giving your body more fat to burn that it would otherwise have to get from your body.

#5

@CarlKeller that was a very informative and we’ll thought out response!

(Carl Keller) #6

Thanks @Hapygirl! :slight_smile:

#7

On days that I don’t fast I will typically eat breakfast which is 1 egg and 3 pieces of sausage. I typically drink a glass of water with this.

At lunch i have whatever I made the night before. On average it is cooked hamburger or chicken with 1 or more of the following veggies: Brussel sprouts, asparagus, cabbage, sometimes Radishes. Then I usually have a salad with a low or 0 carb dressing, typically ranch dressing. Then i bring a stick of cheese ( extra sharp white cheddar ) and a handfull of nuts (Pecans/Hazel nuts)

For Dinner, IF i have dinner ( sometimes im just not hungry) It is usually salad or a few pieces of sausage.

As far as guilty pleasures, sometimes i have Atkins treats or snacks. They use sugar alcohols and have 2 net carbs.

According to my Urine strips I am in keto and have been fairly persistently. Two days ago I had a little bit of Pina Colata and had a burger king breakfast sandwich, which somehow did not kick me out of ketosis.

I have however been drinking Diet Dr. Pepper and Diet Sunkist on a fairly regular basis and have not been drinking as much water as I should. I am fairly prone to headaches and attributed them to lack of caffeine ( I recently quit caffeine)

To be honest, most of the time I am eating to make sure I eat a minimum amount of calories, I could probably go days without eating right now I just didn’t want to risk that right around mid terms.

Mentioning midterms maybe stress is an issue too. Midterm is done now, got an 87 so I am good to go there, phew (Myology).

My plan of action here is to increase my water intake significantly, stop drinking the diet soda, and just wait it out a bit. If I am still having issues after a week I will stop eating so much. I could probably eat half of what I do and still be fine mentally… I just don’t feel hungry almost ever, usually only at breakfast.

On a side note, I fainted today and fell out of my chair at lunch. I felt fine otherwise before and after. but yeah, more water >.> My anatomy and physiology teacher has been really interested in my Keto diet but warns me to drink more water to try and bring the concentration of Ketones down because that could be causing it to burn when i pee XD

(mole person) #8

Thanks for that level of detail. I’m not sure yet that you are in a real stall, but one thing that CAN stall people is eating too many times during the day. This causes your insulin to stay elevated and your body cannot metabolize fat under that condition. This is why so many people use time restricted feeding. It’s about getting as much time in a reduced insulin state as possible.

You’ve been at this a month and you say you aren’t ravenously hungry so perhaps start by leaving off the snacks. If you are hungrier at meal times as a result, that’s fine, eat more then.

Oh, and the burning pee could be the ketones, I’ve had that. Definitely drink more water.

Good luck!

#9

Thanks for the reply, I will do so.

#10

Lastnight after classes i started drimking water. I ended up drinking almost 3 liters and had no idea how thirsty i was until i started drinking. When i went to the bathroom after that the burning sensation was greatly deminished.

Ironically after all that water, i went down 3 pounds by morning. Back down to 155.6 as of this morning