I’m scared that I’m getting fatter, help

#1

Hi, I’m about 4 or 5 months in this woe and I’ve always been a slim person, once was a vegetarian for about 2 years and got into this diet for other health reasons other than weight, however now weight becomes my problem.

I now eat Ketovore mostly, and keep my net carbs under 20g or 10g, 2mad, don’t snack at all, I just eat until I feel full, all whole foods healthy fat, healthy meat, few nuts and vegetables.

I have gained about 8kg in less than 5 months! My cloths are getting real tight and the belly and the waist are bigger. Please help….

(Edith) #2

Unfortunately, I don’t have much advice to give. I have heard of women, in particular, who gained weight when first starting keto and carnivore, but that they eventually started losing. Keto is not just about weight loss but healing. It could be that there is healing going on that needs to happen before your body decides to let go of the weight.

How do you feel besides the weight gain? Do you have any non-scale victories (nsv) like more energy, improved skin, better sleep, clarity of thought?

Also, are you male or female? What’s your height and weight? Can you give an example of what you eat in a day? These answers may help provide more clues to others on the forum.

(Polly) #3

Welcome to this forum @Ketovore8

I agree with what @VirginiaEdie says about healing coming first. You may be developing muscles from eating a better diet but unless you give us some more details about you it is hard to tell what exactly is going on.

When you say healthy fats, you do mean good healthy animal fats I hope. If you are hanging on to the idea that industrial seed oils or vegetable fats are healthy that might possibly be a problem.

(Marianne) #4

Hmmm, that is somewhat puzzling. I know “gaining weight,” is very stressful, especially when you have been severely overweight or thin to begin with. I would try to put those fears aside for a while and feel confident that your body is taking care of itself and knows best.

At face value, I would say for a month or more, keep the total carbs to <15/day, if you can, get rid of most of the vegetables except for at one meal, and ditch the nuts. Nuts for me are too delicious and calorie dense to consume for the amount that is a reasonably sized portion (which is pretty small).

Good luck.

(Robin) #5

Yes, we’ll need the full details to help you, if possible. Current height/weight, caloric intake, the medical reason for you doing keto may provide a clue as well. Let us know!

#6

I’m sorry you’ve put on weight.

I lost weight at the beginning of a keto WOE. Then I put it back. But I wasn’t worried, because my weight was “normal” anyway.

However, when I changed from keto to carnivore, I put on weight. I had never been so heavy before in my whole life. I persevered for a few months, trusting it’d go back down, but it did not.

Last summer I went back to eating lots of carbs, but consuming a lot of calories because I was traveling by bicycle for over one month, with lots of climbs. I lost the weight I had gained on carnivore with this CICO.

Now I’m back to keto and I didn’t lose, nor gain.

My take is that if you have a normal weight, chances are you’ll become overweight. The community calls it “healing”.

If you don’t need this type of “healing”, consider tweaking your diet. Perhaps more carbs. Or more proteins. A little at a time, to keep it as low as it is healthy for you. We’re all different.

Good luck!

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #7

I’m sorry your experience isn’t what you were hoping for.

A ketogenic diet is more about weight-normalisation than weight-loss. The reason we hear so much about it as a weight-loss tool, is that so many of us are obsese, these days. If you were underweight before, you can expect to gain weight, but 8 kg seems a lot, and it would be interesting to know—if there were any way to determine it—whether the gain was muscle or fat.

People have been asking for what might seem like personal information, but it is the only way to advise you. Your age, sex, height, starting weight, goal weight, and your diet are all essential information for figuring out what is going on. Other health conditions and medications you may be taking are also relevant.

I hate to add this, but disagreements with our body about our “ideal” weight are common. I’d like to be 80 lbs. (36 kg) lighter, myself, but I already lost 26% of my starting weight on keto, and my body is happy where it is.

#8

If you were slim, maybe your weight is still okay? I don’t see you…

But of course, one may gain with keto, why not? It matters how much you eat, maybe not for everyone (well probably for almost everyone but some people can’t seriously overeat on keto and they don’t gain if they eat just a bit more than their needs) but for many of us. I don’t gain on keto but I definitely don’t lose ever even if I want to and need to, without extra focus on the food items to avoid eating too much.

As others wrote, it may be temporal as well. But I probably would try to figure out if I started to eat too much… There are some tricky items many of us can overeat. It seems very good what you are doing but maybe you have some of those tricky items. Or your body needed the extra weight for some reason?

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #9

To some extent, the metabolism can rev up in response to extra calories, just as it slows down in response to insufficient calories (one of the reasons that calorie-cutting rarely works over the long haul). We also have to be mindful of the fact that fat storage is only one of the possibilities from eating too much. There are also muscle growth and the strengthening of bone to factor into the equation (which is why we tell people to use the fit of their clothing as a guide; if our bones get denser, we weigh more, but our middle is not any thicker than before). Not only that, but the body is to some extent capable of excreting extra protein, fat, and glucose, if it can’t manage to do anything else with them.

The point is, there is a deal more to the picture, than simply saying, “eating too much makes us fat.”

#10

You’re eating too much… TADA! It’s very easy to over eat especially if you’re doing super high fat intentionally.

Are you tracking your intake? If so what are all your stats and what are you eating? Working out? Activity level otherwise? Don’t assume you can trust your hunger / satiety signals to guide you. If I ate to satiety I’d be as round as I’m tall. I did strict standard keto for 4yrs, nothing “normalized”. You know what waiting did? Made me fatter! Then I started fasting a lot, which actually got my hunger under control… so under control I under ate my metabolism to death, then spent a little over a year fixing that.

By the time I finally caved and got my metabolism checked and realized how bad it was the damage was done, then I started tracking everything and in 6mo lost more fat than I did in the prior couple years.

#11

Isn’t that great? Easier to rename a problem rather than to troubleshoot it. Healing is positive :grinning:

#12

I’m 163cm, was 48kg and now 56kg. Still wearing size small but my clothes are tighter! After reading some of your comments, I measured myself and turned out my waist is still the same, but the space between waist and butt got fatter which I didn’t measure before, and 3cm wider shoulders and 3cm wider hip, lower breast 1cm wider.

I love keto or ketovore, I’ve gained so many benefits I can tell you forever, inside and out! I’m lean PCOS, and my period becomes regular the first month I started Keto!

I enjoy cooking and I love all kinds of meat based dishes on this diet. So I eat grass-fed beef, lamb, butter, ghee, and salmon, pork, bacon, chicken, chicken liver, avocado, leafy green, peanut butter, almonds, eggs, coconut milk with coffee( 1 a day), sometimes coconut flour muffins, boysenberries, blackberries for fruit, 2mad. I’ve always have very good appetites when food is tasty, so I eat until full for the past 5 months. I do light weight training 2,3 times a week about 40mins, and do 2 kilos walk daily, never really a sporty girl type.

I will start a two day fasting from today and hope that will lower my appetite a bit and see what happens.

(Tim Cee) #13

Best wishes. I am also one who can over eat on keto. Unexplained weight gain can be a sign of a serious health issue. I’d say try adjusting your food and see if it goes better. If you don’t find a happy medium, check with your doctor for medical advice.

(Laurie) #14

Sorry, I have to convert this. Let’s see … You’re 5’4" and you went from 106 pounds to 126 pounds. That does seem like “normalization” to me. Perhaps you were underweight before?

(Polly) #15

I had to do some sums too @islandlight.

At 8 stone 8 pounds a five foot four woman sounds pretty normal to me. Your previous weight was under 8 stone which is pretty low for a grown woman and if you put any reliance in BMI calculations at all would be regarded as underweight. FWIW The BMI score gives a more accurate representation of healthy weight for height in small women than in big men.

Enjoy your health benefits and relax. You are doing great.

If you try fasting whether it helps or not, do let us know how you are getting on.

#16

I guess I’m just used to be at 48kg all the time and always small frame bodied and losing weight was never my intention either, however I just didn’t think I could quickly gain 8kg in such short time…

(Edith) #17

Your original weight was pretty low for your height. Is it possible your period is better because you put on those kgs?

It sounds like you have reaped many nsvs. Maybe your weight will level out at a place where your body and it’s hormones are happy?

But….with that being said, I would take out the muffins and nuts and just eat your meat and veggies. See if that stops any more weight gain.

(Robin) #18

This.

(Marianne) #19

That is so true. I venture to say that the majority of us discovered keto after a lifetime search to find some way to lose weight (and keep it off).

(Marianne) #20

Our programs are as individual as we are, and we all have to find a WOE we can live with long term. I have found that sticking to zero carb has quelled my appetite. I become satiated faster and the feeling lasts longer. Not everyone wants to do zero carb, however. It is pretty restrictive in what you can and “can’t” eat. I don’t mind the trade-off and find what I do eat to be satisfying and delicious. Just saying what has worked for me.