I'm getting discouraged, but I'm not going to quit

#1

I’m here in my home office thinking about today and feeling shitty. I’m going over the days events thinking about where I went wrong and what I could’ve done differently. No self pity though. That never works. I don’t have anyone to talk to about struggling with food so I came here to vent a little.

I’ve been on and off keto for a number of years. I’ve never really lost a significant amount of weight, but for the longest time I used a cyclical ketogenic diet from the late 90’s until the late 00’s to help keep my weight from getting too out of control when I was weightlifting.

Fast forward about 12 years and here we are. I’m about 80lbs overweight. Thankfully I don’t have any metabolic diseases that come with being obese, but that’s only today. Tomorrow might be different.

I decided to return to keto because I believe it works, I believe it’s healthy and the food tastes good. I was doing pretty well sticking to a ketogenic diet for about 12 weeks or so. I lost about 10lbs overall including about 5-6lbs of water weight. It’s good that I lost weight, but it sucks that it doesn’t seem to be all that much. I look around this forum and I go on other venues like reddit and see these people posting things like “I dropped 30lbs in 3 weeks!!! Keto is awesome!” Then I look down and see my gut and can’t help but feel just a bit jealous.

When I first started I keto I knew that my weakness was the weekends. I could eat the keto way all week long and then Friday night rolls around and I think to myself “why not? I’ve been good all week. I deserve a break.” This break would usually last until Sunday evening.

This time was different and vowed that I would do whatever it took to just stick with keto foods and keep my carbs under 20g. It worked in a sense. I was no longer straying from the keto diet. If I did get any cravings I would snack on keto approved food. I lost a few lbs doing it this way, but it was not easy.

For the past 2-3 weeks I’ve had a couple of days where I fell off the wagon. This was not just a thing like “Oh I ate the croutons on my Caesar salad.” It was a full on carbfest freak out. It’s like I was trying to make up for lost time. Definitely not my fines moments.

I can’t seem to get back on track for very long. I do see where today went off course though. I am pretty familiar with IF and have been doing it here and there for a while now. I can get through my day ending at 2pm, but I’m pretty hungry at this time. Also, my sleep is not the best, which tends to make the hunger even more prevalent. Today was rough though and if I could do it over again I would bring a small meal to work and eat around 12pm. That would tide me over until I get home and I would eat again around 6-7pm. I know 2 hours doesn’t seem like much, but lack of sleep, stress and fasting don’t work well with me.

Anyway, tomorrow is a chance to try again. Hopefully, I’ve learned something here. Meal prep is my friend and maybe IF isn’t for everyone or at least not all the time.

Any other advice?

Thanks for reading.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #2

The key to a well-formulated ketogenic diet is to eat mostly meat and fat, with very little carbohydrate. The easiest way to do this is to eat real, whole foods. This keeps serum insulin and serum glucose low, permitting the damage they cause to heal, and allowing fat cells to release excess stored fat to be metabolised. Avoid all forms of sugar, avoid refined grains, avoid starches. Stick to vegetables that grow above ground, such as leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli and cauliflower. When or if you eat fruits, stick to high-fibre ones, such as berries, and be careful which nuts you eat. Eating this way lowers your insulin and raises your glucagon, which stimulates fatty-acid metabolism in place of glucose metabolism.

It is also beginning to look as though chronic systemic inflammation is a very important part of metabolic dysregulation, and one of the big causes of chronic systemic inflammation is using too much of the industrial seed oils (cottonseed, safflower, soybean, corn, canola, and the like). They all contain an extremely large percentage of polyunsaturated fatty acids, many of which cause inflammation when ingested in quantity. One lecture I just watched strongly recommends limiting our PUFA intake to about one percent of our total fat intake (a couple of PUFA’s are essential to the diet, but they are needed only in very small quantities). For this reason, it is best to cook with butter, lard, tallow, and bacon grease, because they are primarily monounsaturated and saturated fats, with a very small percentage as PUFA’s.

Using a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet to treat obesity goes back to the middle of the nineteenth century. A prominent Londoner, William Banting, was so obese that fat deposits around his ear canals were starting to interfere with his hearing. He had been trying to eat less and exercise more for years, with no success. In desperation he went to a friend, Dr. William Harvey, and asked for advice. Harvey had just returned from a medical conference in Paris, where doctors were using a low-carbohydrate diet to treat obese patients, so he suggested the same diet to his patient. Banting was so successful on this way of eating that he wrote a pamphlet, called A Letter on Corpulence, in which he tells his story and gives the details of his new way of eating.

It can be difficult to give up carbohydrates and sugar if one is addicted to them. I am definitely a sugar/carb addict, and I find that the cravings can be difficult at times. Interestingly, while the cravings have persisted since I started eating ketogenically, the diet has helped me come to distinguish between true hunger and cravings for my substance of choice. I also find that, on those occasions when I do yield to the cravings, I tend not to binge as much as I used to. Also, I now find my favourite food, glazed doughnuts, too sweet to eat, and my cravings now tend to focus on yeast bread for some reason.

I’m sorry you are finding things so difficult, but I can tell you that if you are in a situation where you can control the foodstuffs available in your house, it greatly helps to eliminate all sugary foods, and all carbohydrates that do not work with a ketogenic diet. If you then keep healthy, high-fat foods to snack on when you have a craving (I like pepperoni, high-fat cheeses, and pork rinds as keto snacks), you are less likely to eat in a way that will be detrimental to your health.

(Scott) #3

My experience is that the longer I stay keto consistently the easier it gets. I used to have quite the macadamia nut addiction and kept a bag in my office. Gradually I was able to break the snacking habit. About that time I no longer had to hold my breath while tying my shoes. I am sure many here can relate to that. I know it sounds crazy and extreme but do some reading and give carnivore a try. It’s about as easy to follow as it gets. No labels to read or carb counting, just eat meat. Anything that comes from an animal that has two eyes is fair game except some dairy (milk sugars). Stay keto or try carnivore but give your body time to settle in without convincing yourself that you’ve been good so you deserve to eat some crap.

#4

A lot of people have monitors with PWM(pulse width modulation) that flicker the screen and this unnoticeable flickering induces oxidative stress in the eyes which then induces hunger. The latest Benq monitors are the best from my experience in not inducing hunger because they don’t flicker and are low in blue light.

Also…

#5

I can relate to most of you wrote… I never was discouraged by the total lack of fat-loss as I know we are all different, I have not very much to lose as the most successful people (who are usually male anyway) and keto had some tiny benefits (and a huge one in fat adaptation that I totally adore). But it never was hard for me while I did it. Like you, I go off a lot myself but I keep my most important habits most of the time, I probably couldn’t do a carbfest if I wanted after all these low-carb days (it’s good as I would feel awful afterwards). Training myself (without force) is very important for me and I practice my keto habits even off keto, I had crazy meals and days but very occasionally. Going back to the bad habits sounds very wrong to me. And every weekend? I surely wouldn’t expect much then. Some people can do it, of course but some people slim down easily on high-carb too and potentially never get fat again. We should find our own personal method.

What do you eat? How much? Maybe there is some problem there. Bad sleep can make things worse as well. I don’t need the mention the timing as you already tried that.
Maybe you are sensitive to some item, there are such cases. For me, it’s just the net carbs - and the right fats. I easily overeat on keto eating the wrong items. My wrong items, it’s individual. It’s not always a mysterious effect, some food triggers eating too much.

If you find keto already hard, maybe it won’t help but who knows? It did in my case… Try to eliminate nearly everything with carbs. Eat simply and see what happens. And add back things to try it what happens then. I wouldn’t cut out my very important items, that would just make me quit keto and I do that way too often anyway but maybe you could live without this and that or just use smaller amounts if you can… My good days have close to zero plants and they solve a bunch of problems for me, I really don’t feel I need much effort. It’s just an example, I don’t know what is your problem and what you are able and willing to do. But eliminating items is very useful for many people who found keto not good enough.
You may even keep your off days if they aren’t too extreme or frequent but helps to keep your sanity and life quality and cause no problems… Some people should go cold turkey for a long time, I prefer on/off and gradual changes. It’s surely better than not even trying to be on the right woe and in some lucky cases, no harm seems to be done with rare and modest off days.
(If you are very strict by default, a normal keto day is off too… You relax your ways but you stay in ketosis.)

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #6

Get real. Folks on this forum can give you all the support and advice under the sun, but you have to do it. There’s no magic formula. If it’s a struggle no one here is going to deal with it for you. It’s Friday afternoon and you have the choice to fall off the wagon or not. Some times good things require hard work. Buy some cacao butter and whenever you feel tempted to go off your plan, suck on a piece of it. Best wishes.

(Matt) #7

I spent a little money and subscribed to Carb Manager premium. The subscription includes their premium recipes which are delicious, including desserts. This has helped with giving me good variety and satisfied my sweet tooth while still hanging around 20 carbs a day.

#8

HI!!

Gosh almighty that was me. Good for so long, then hit the crap food and gained back what little I lost and thought, wow now I did 2 whole weeks on low carb and WHY is there no loss LOL

I floundered in my eating. I was low carb, low carb high fat, high protein and high fat, then I went into low fat and more veggies which was a friggin’ nightmare and I was all over the place like crazy but I also knew where I flourished well. For me it was very very protein and fat heavy and extreme low carb. When I held that I did well, I felt great, life was so much easier ‘dieting’ ya know til I realized I can just make this my lifestyle and learned about zero carb and that is me now…but you can go protein keto heavy.

But Amwassil, Michael, said it best. You have to want this. Truly cause when I was one step from totally giving up and saying screw this crap…I dug down deep and said my ONLY goal in life is STAY ON PLAN 24/7, 365. That was the only way I could make this all work…one has to stay on plan. You can’t eat crap on weekends, you can’t ‘play’ with tons of sub foods for your old time favs cause they just make ya crazy and want the real thing.

I just made my plan fit me. How I love to eat. I ate only what I like, ate a ton of it when I was kinda batty on plan and always had a full belly to help me thru the transition.

So yea you have to pick a meal plan that works best for you…hold onto that thing for dear life to give your body time to adjust truly and say ya ain’t going back to unhealthy crap. Some of the hardest chats I ever had with myself :slight_smile: You can only make it happen and that is kinda a hard thing to digest when I was looking for some magic pill that didn’t exist. It doesn’t. Only you can make all the changes required!

wishing you the best!!

(Stuart Young) #9

Hello, been a long time since I posted, however you mentioned your lack of sleep and felt the need to offer a potential solution:

Like you I have been on/off Keto and obese. 4 weeks ago, I went on Keto with 1 thing I did differently. It has made a tremendous difference, and it is thanks to Covid research.

As I was returning back to work, I was looking at what could possibly help to strengthen the immune system. I had already decided Keto was a must, and was looking at Vitamin D deficiency. Yes, your immune system is very much compromised with a deficiency, and after finding out I ticked most boxes for a deficiency (most obese people are), I then researched the effects of vitamin D supplements.

There are mixed results, however a meta-analysis with a grading of ‘robust’ shown 2 things were certain. Supplements do assist the immune system to not have an inflammatory response to Flu or Covid-19 (which can lead to the dreaded cytokine storm), and survival rates against cancer go up 13% due to a stronger immune system. So I decided to start supplementing immediately, and begun my Keto journey at the same time.

2 amazing side effects occured that were not expected (like when I do keto my snoring stops and my Asthma clears up!).

The first day I did my Keto, took a supplement at night after a high fat meal. Then about 2 hours later, I felt like I was drugged. I had an overwhelming need to go bed, so I did. I went bed earlier than usual, and slept through to the alarm in the morning with zero memory of even slightly stirring. I felt so refreshed! So I had to research that…

Seems that supplementation can have an immediate effect on sleep quality. We all have vitamin D receptors all over our central nervous system, and lots in our brain. Once the ones in the brain are triggered, it releases melatonin. Which was the duggy effect I felt after I ate and took a supplement.

And on that point, Vitamin D is fat soluble. Which means a high fat meal will help transport the vitamin into your cells easier.

For 4 weeks now, I have had great sleep. And it has made the diet/lifestyle 100 times easier. I feel loads better and refreshed, and much less hungrier.

1 other side effect I didn’t expect, took a little longer but was a nice surprise. My hayfever stopped. I realised after 3-5 days I had stopped taking antihistamines. It took a little longer to realise vitamin D helped with that, but a simple google seach shows how it does help.

So I hope that helps mate. If you do have a deficiency and aren’t supplementing, it really is worth a shot :wink:

(Carolyn aka stokies) #10

Lack of full night’s sleep often delayed my progress to, for what it is worth. That level of dysregulation kept my cortisol levels elevated and impeded my fat loss.

#11

Some advice: If you live with others not doing the keto diet, I recommend separating the fridge into keto approved and not keto approved areas. I did this. For example, the bottom shelf of the fridge door is all keto, while the top is not. I don’t even look there when I go to eat. Also, for lunch, try a Premier Protein shake. It actually tastes good (amazing, right??) and it is 30g protein with 1-3 carbs depending on the flavor. It is filling too.

#12

me too LOL

I have the 2 bottom drawers in my fridge and NO ONE is allowed inside those drawers. All my meat/seafood/cheese I require are in there and I must have those available to me at all times. So I truly think this is a smart way for many of us. I never look to eat from the carby eaters family part of the fridge, I go straight to my 2 drawers. You know this really helped me to separate just like you said!

(charlie3) #13

My 4 siblings and I like to get together in the big summer house we inheritedd from parents. We’ve all gotten so particular about what we eat that more than a few shared meals a year doesn’t work very well. To make all the individual menus work we agreed to keep the kitchen spotless when we’re done with preparation and we got a second refrigerator that’s in a catchall closet so there’s never any squabbling about space.

#14

So true, and I SO get that LOL we are the same. Older I get the more insane particular I am on my food…and the family is the same way. I think thru our years on this planet we all know what we want and how we want it and never the 2 really mix for each of us :wink: :sunny:

#15

Thanks for the reply’s. They’ve been a big help. I’ve made some changes recently and I think the thing that got me off track the other week was waiting too long between meals. I normally wait until 2pm to eat lunch and by that time I’m genuinely ravenous. When situations like the dreaded office birthday surface I’m not at my strongest.

I know a lot of people here recommend IF, but right now I think not being hungry is something I should focus on.

So what’ve started doing is to take a lunch to work and to eat around 11-12. So far it seems to do the trick.

I’ll keep it up and we’ll see how it goes.

#16

Yep, right timing is quite important for many of us. I don’t have this problem anymore but waiting for too lon easily resulted in a “bigger than my daily energy need” meal and I didn’t even enjoy it while being super hungry… Eating too early may have its disadvantages too but it’s not always easy to know when is the best time, I experiment and like to wait for some real urge to eat.

I think I am a natural IFer, I started it many years before I heard about IF (I never was hungry in the morning, well, maybe when I was a baby, I only slept through the whole night back then) but I don’t think everyone should do it let alone force it. We are different, let’s do whatever fits us best at the moment.
I am all for eating when hungry. It is basically my rule number one eating wise but I don’t want to argue with anyone who stays hungry for half a day because they think it’s the right way. But we usually really should eat when hungry.
First meal at 11 still may be IF if you don’t eat late… And maybe things will change. But it’s fine if doesn’t, the food you eat is the really important thing and if you give your body what it wants timing wise, what could possibly go wrong? :smiley:

Good luck!

(Stuart Young) #17

Yup, that is a good point by @Shinita. While I am someone who practices omad most days in a week, it took some time to get there.

I have a friend who is a chronic 10 year diabetic, and very very obese. And seriously addcited to food in general, especially the carbs. He couldn’t handle much fasting at all. And it caused him to fall off the wagon quickly a number of times. So I told him to listen to his body and eat when he is hungry, so he tried that approach. With a much improved result. So much so, his diabetes clinic actually enquired as to how he achieved such good blood sugar numbers and weight loss.

#18

Definitely.

I’m no stranger to IF. I’ve done quite a few 24 hr fasts and a few 36 hour ones. I can do it. But maybe now is not the best time. Maybe it’s something I should work up towards.

You’re also correct in that 11 can be an IF day. It varies for me though.

Onward.

#19

So glad it helps!

(Bunny) #20

I think that it is innate (natural) when we do that because our glycogen storage gets depleted and can withstand a carbfest because you built up a ‘health reserve’ as a buffer.

I can do a carbfest right before or after lifting weights without gaining a pound, I don’t gain body fat but gain more muscle in the process, I don’t have very much body fat anyway so it really wouldn’t matter. I don’t want to gain too much muscle so I only lift weights once a week or I would have to feed the bigger muscles more calories.