I'm panicking, probably for nothing

(Sid) #1

Hey guys,

So you’re all probably going to laugh at me but I’m stuck in my head.

I’ve been on carnivore + omad(23:1 fasting) since 2024-02-22, so barely 1,5 weeks.
At first it was going great, I lost some water weight and some more, total 5,9 Kg(13 lbs).

Today when I stood on the scale I had gone up 0.6 kg again(~1.2 lbs).

Changes I’ve made in diet:
I started using MCT C8 oil in a cup of tea everyday, drinking it at the same time I had my meal.
I ate ~400 grams of minute steak yesterday together with 50g of bearnaise which on the label(after I divided it) had:

Grams: 50
Protein(grams): 0.2
Fat(grams): 19.5
Carbs(grams): 0.05
Fibers(grams): 0
Calories: 353

I also had some cheese(not even 50g) with a meal the day before.

I don’t eat more than 500g / 1 lbs of meat each day so I’m already in quite a bit of calorie defecit aswell as no carbs and fasting.

I haven’t had a bowel movement in 2 or 3 days(can’t remember).

–

I know I should add more fats and people tell me to eat more but I don’t really feel the hunger anymore and 500g / 1lbs makes me full now, I don’t even finish it all.

But this small weight gain scares me, what am I doing wrong?
Please tell me I’m just overthinking it?

Also, if I don’t feel hungry at my daily meal time, should I just not eat until the next day?

Edit:
And I just thought of a few possible reasons… 1) I usually just weigh myself directly in the morning which I did not do today, and 2) I’ve had a lot of water up until now (2:40 pm), atleast 2,5 liters which equates to 2,5 kg(~5 pounds)… So that could explain a bit I guess :laughing:

Cheers,
Sid

(Chuck) #2

To be honest the scale is your enemy, pay attention to your body measurements and not so much weight. Your body composition is changing and more than likely you are adding muscle due to the protein.

(Sid) #3

Thanks for the input!

It makes sense now that you say it and I’m trying to not look at the scaled but I’m a numbers guy so it’s hard.

Will start taking body meassurements also, should help me ease my “obsession” :laughing:

(Robin) #4

Hi Sid,
Well, let’s start with the easiest thing.… weighing first thing in the morning will guarantee the lowest weight of the day. But it means nothing… just makes us feel better.

Honestly, you listed everything that is likely causing your panic.
I would not even weigh yourself for at least a month. Weight and scales fluctuate all the time, it’s the trend you’re interested in. And truly… those numbers can mess with your head, as they obviously just did.

1.5 weeks is definitely not long enough to see or make a difference.

A calorie deficit is your worst enemy here! We have been programmed to starve ourselves in order to lose weight. Most of us eat more calories now than we ever did before. It’s just better calories.
Your body thinks you are starving, so it’s acting accordingly. Even when food does not sound good, and you are not hungry, EAT. True health cannot be achieved by fear… and your fear of gaining weight is creating an aversion to eating more.

You have only two things to concentrate on…. Limiting your carbs and feeding your body. Trust the process. Forget the scales for now. Give it time.
You got this!

(Sid) #5

Hey Robin!

Thanks so much for the feedback and also for the pep-talk!

I realize I am super hard wired to not trust fat, I treat it like the enemy and I just don’t think that minced beef is that good to eat more of it, but I’ll have to counter with different meats ofcourse!

And yes, I shall give it more time :smiley:

Cheers

(Edith) #6

Trying not to sound to snarky here. Did you ever weigh yourself before you went keto? If so, I’m sure you noticed your weight fluctuated almost daily. Weight can change based upon electrolyte intake (too much you may hold extra water, not enough, you may lose extra water), exercise (you sweated a lot the day before and didn’t quite replenish all the lost water, or maybe you overdid it and your muscles are a little sore and inflamed). It can fluctuate because you didn’t get a good night sleep. It’s the trend that matters, not the day to day ups and downs.

I would go with the others’ suggestions. Maybe weigh once a week, but definitely take measurements. There are a number of people on the forum who continued to lose inches but the scale stayed the same. Fat was being replaced with muscle. This could very well be something that happens with you as well.

(KM) #7

Absolutely what everyone else is saying. I do weigh in daily because I want to see where my weight is trending over time. But that means looking at my graphed points over few months, not a few hours. I gained 1% of my body weight in 24 hours. I’ll probably lose it again tomorrow. Or next week. Bowel contents, bad sleep, stress, water retention, dehydration, alcohol, different clothing, even a giant glass of water or a big salad are all normal variables that cause fluctuations and mean nothing in the long run. I know it’s disappointing in the beginning, you have so few data points and they’re not telling the story you want! Be patient.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #8

One and a half weeks, and you’re worried. Hmm.

First, the advice I’ve seen about starting carnivore is to avoid fasting. Newbies, especially, are advised to eat three meals a day. Also, the advice from people like Kelly Hogan and Charles Washtington is that the solution to practically every new carnivore’s problems or concerns is to “eat more meat.” I followed both pieces of advice successfully when I went carnivore.

Later on, you can let your body dictate your eating pattern. For example, after about a year on keto, I stopped wanting to eat in the morning, so my first meal of the day is at lunchtime, and my second meal is at suppertime. But when I eat, I eat. Also, there are occasional days when I want a morning meal, and other days when I don’t want to eat till supper. I let my body tell me.

Some advice from Dr. Anthony Chaffee, an Americo-Australian neurosurgeon, is that hunger signals feel different on carnivore. He advises cooking some meat, and trying to eat it. If it tastes good, you’re hungry, so eat until it stops tasting good. If it doesn’t taste good, put it away for later. That advice works very well for me.

As for digesting and eliminating, remember that meat is a low-residue food, so you may not need to move your bowel nearly as frequently as before. Dr. Chafee points out that constipation is not the lack of a bowel movement, but rather has to do with the hardness of the stool and how difficult it is to eliminate it.

Infrequent bowel movements are normal on carnivore, he says, and if we do become constipated, the remedy is to eat more fat. He says that the liver makes enough bile to digest all the fat the body needs, and the excess gets excreted and helps “grease the skids,” so to speak. I find that this works very well for me.

Also watch your salt consumption, because eating too much salt can cause diarrhoea. On the other hand, stay hydrated but avoid over-hydrating. Drink to thirst.

Lastly, avoid looking at the scale for a while. That number goes up and down all the time, and if you obsess about it, it will ruin your serenity. Fluctuations are irrelevant, so long as the long-term trend is good. It is also possible to add muscle and other lean tissue while shedding fat, and I put it to you that a weight gain for that reason is a good thing. Put it this way: would you prefer to remain the same weight and look 15 kg lighter, or to lose 15 kg and still look the same?

P.S.–I just remembered, as well, that many people gain some weight when they start carnivore, but if they persevere, they lose it again and continue to shed fat. So don’t worry if the trend is up at first, it will come down.

#9

No problem, eat without hunger then. You should eat a decent amount. But I don’t know how much do you eat now, with the cheese and MCT and everything. Or your needs.
Have as many meals as you need to eat enough. Carnivore is crazy sometimes and I need to eat 5 times… Other times 1-2 meals are enough. 1 is rare on carnivore but with the right meal, I probably could make it happen on most days. But I prefer eating in the way I like and 2MAD isn’t bad.

If you feel fine so it’s not constipation, what is the problem? Not everyone goes every day on carnivore. Some of us do, I like it but the amount is so tiny I would see no problem with a less frequent output.

Nothing, you have lost 13 pounds in 1.5 weeks, it’s great.
Bodyweight fluctuations happen, it’s normal. You can’t expect the number on the scale not going up ever… Some may have it but it’s more normal to have it either way, the trend is what matters.
And who knows what your body is doing? It may just collect the waste, maybe retaining a tad more water for some reason… 0.6kg is minuscule! My scale isn’t even that accurate :smiley: But I had my weight going up and down. If I know I didn’t eat a ton to be it fat gain, I never worry. (I don’t worry anyway just try to eat right again. Worrying isn’t good.)

I just see now, not morning weight? When I weigh myself later, I know it’s not informative and I suppose I have +1kg extra water weight… But I can’t possibly know. And I check my just right pants to see what my waist did… More informative than trusting my scale after drinking :wink:

#10

A person can’t gain much muscle in 1.5 weeks let alone in 1-2-few(?) days between the 2 last numbers. So in this current case nope, otherwise I totally agree, if it’s a longer time, a little can be muscle indeed. Especially if there is proper exercise involved and the energy deficit isn’t too big.
I usually blame the water changes, they can mean even kgs from day to day!

(Mark Rhodes) #11

Not exactly true. What we have is a condition that meets yesterday’s condition. I weigh myself every morning i am home prior to relieving myself. WHat I have is 5-8 hours laying horizontal and no eating followed by rising, walking 5 feet and weighing and then going about everything else.

Weighing daily like this, over time I can make some really infomred choices. To @JustSid point, I can see that my bodyweight went up, my fat weight went down and i can average that out over an 8 year span

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(Robin) #12

Oh Mark, is this our first spat?! :wink:

I also weigh every morning NOW, but in the beginning I got so disheartened when that number went up. So I decided to wait a month, fingers crossed for a decent trend downwards.

These days my weight is more of a routine curiosity.

(Edith) #13

Shinita, I wasn’t talking about one week but over time. :slight_smile:

(Geoffrey) #14

Good grief man, pull yourself together. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:
Weight fluctuations happen constantly and throughout to day. I’ve seen my weight jump up as high as four or five pounds overnight for no reason I can fathom but who cares? I certainly don’t. This way of eating is not supposed to be about losing weight. It’s about getting metabolically healthy and when that happens we get to enjoy the side benefits of losing weight but it’s not an overnight miracle. You haven’t even been doing this long enough to even become fat adaptive yet.
I track my weight just to see the trending patterns but I pretty much ignore the results because there are too many factors that can affect it. The only metric I watch is inches lost.
If you can’t handle seeing your weight naturally fluctuate then you may need to put the scale away and maybe just weigh once a month or so.

(KCKO, KCFO) #15

Some people take up to two months to get and stay in ketosis, two weeks is extremely common. You are just beginning. Scales vary a lot.

For instance, weigh yourself before you pee in the morning, Then weigh yourself again afterwards, I have seen as much as a whole lb. difference when I do that.

As for the poop issue, you will adjust you are using what you are taking in so not as much to remove from your body.

Chill out and just enjoy the ride.

All the best going forwards.

(Sid) #16

Hi Virginia!

Thanks for the input, much appreciated!

I actually didn’t weigh myself before I started dieting so I realize more and more just how little I know about these things, feeling quite embarassed to be honest. :laughing:

I did however weigh in as I usually do this morning and of course everything was in order and on track. :smiley:

Cheers

(Sid) #17

Hey KM!

Thanks for your insights and I totally hear ya, I’m just over-obsessing because I’m a numbers guy and really had no idea about daily fluctuations which is just super logical now that I’ve read about it :laughing:

Cheers

(Sid) #18

Paul, thank you soo so much for this piece of vital intel!

I value this information and will take it to heart!

As we say in Sweden, I just need to “sit down in the buss” (calm down) :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Cheers

(Sid) #19

Hey Shinita!

Thanks for the input.

I realize just how “crazy” I was acting yesterday and that I really shouldn’t worry too much.
I also weighed in this morning as I usually do and I’m ofcourse(:man_facepalming:) on track and even lower again.

I don’t mind not having bowel movement but in my head it was(this is gross, sorry) all… gathering up, causing weight gain :laughing:

And yes, overall I have lost weight so I should just focus on keeping the diet and trusting the process!

Cheers

(Sid) #20

Hey Geoffrey,

I know, I know… new day, pulled together.

I really feel incompetent when it comes to all this stuff, for me it’s so much new information to take it, stuff that are completely logical and obvious but that I just haven’t given a thought before.

I will keep to just weighing in once a week now and just use it to see trend and try not to obsess over day-to-day fluctuations, it’s just plain dumb I realize now.

Cheers