I’d say up your protein and check your ‘keto friendly’ foods. Instead of the health bar, eat real food, like some chicken, tuna or other protein. What do you mean by “doing keto for awhile now”, how long exactly? Plateaus are common, mine lasted a YEAR till I realized I was eating nearly enough to maintain my lean mass. Do some research, check out Maria Emmerich, she is a wonder in this journey and has so many fantastic recipes. You don’t need to deny yourself to do keto properly, you need tweaking of the things to do correctly. A lot of people will say ‘up the fat’, but I totally disagree as do many ‘keto gurus’. Think about it, you have excess fat on your body that you want to get rid of, right? When you give your body fat, in the form of oils, butter etc, it will happily burn that fat and never need to access the stores you already have on your body! Add protein! Fat is a natural component of most proteins so you will get enough from that. Do not add fat, ie some people advocate butter on their steak or in their coffee. This may work in the beginning to get the body used to the idea of fat burning and also to add to satiation. Later in our journey, we can stop adding extra fat for no reason.
I'm Stuck!
Adding fat may work all our life if we like too lean meats or need the calories. I don’t so I usually don’t add fat. I ate high fat low-carb/keto for such a long time, it just keeps me fat, no wonder. I just have a hard time eating lean (around 60%. I probably never ate less fatty than that regularly, it’s not easy…) so I kept trying various things. Fat fast days actually seem to work so eating a lot of extra fat isn’t necessary bad And if one loves lean items or need less protein or have a high energy need, extra fat may be very much needed. It’s individual.
An advice that works for everyone is extremely rare. We all need to find what works for us. I like that we say different things, it helps telling the message there is no single recipe for all.
By late July I got down to 275… since then, no more weight loss and I’ve even started walking about a mile a day. I may need to look at some other diets
I was just reading an article that claims we should be eating approximately 250 grams a day, to support metabolic functions, so maybe I need to start eating some of the healthy carbs mentioned in this article:
Awesome! congratulations.
The American Dietary guidelines have also recommended that we eat more polyunsaturated fats, and that we get them from “packaged foods.” WTH? That might as well have been written by the processed food industry. As a matter of fact according to a nutritionist who was hired to make recommendations on the early dietary guidelines, she was dismayed when her recommendations were ignored, and the guideline came out recommending about twice the carbs she had recommended from fruits and vegetables - the official guideline was heavy on the grains and bread.She went to the director and said she felt the official guidelines would lead to a rise in diabetes, etc, and was told that the official guidelines would save money on food stamps.
I am not saying you have to cut out all carbs, but 250 gr/day is a lot. I strongly feel you will turn off all weight loss with that amount.
When I do keto, I may eat some berries, and do not seem to limit myself on cruciferous vegetables, and I still successfully lose weight.
I suggest using a pedometer, and walking at least a brisk 10,000 steps per day. B/n 12,000 and 15,000 is probably more optimal. Walking has been shown to burn more fat than shorter term high intensity exercise - keeping large muscle groups active over a long period of time is geared towards burning fat rather than carbs/glycogen. If you do this in cool air of around 60 F, all the better. It will encourage the formation of BAT, which will help you burn all the more fat. In fact in my first year of keto, I even stopped losing weight when I picked carbs back up. Nevertheless, when I returned to my usual diet, and walked around 12,000 steps/day, I began to drop the weight… and lost another 20 pounds. I now believe I had turned my body into being fat adapted, so it was habitually burning fat, which is what it did when I began walking. I did it again this spring with walking, but it was only about 10 pounds this year.
I doubt there is anything better than keto. It allows the body to burn the fat while maintaining most or all of your muscle - which is what is wanted for longevity. My suspicion is maybe reverse T3 has kicked in for some reason. Did you limit your calories? If so, get them back up to at least the 2000 range.
There seems to be an epidemic of circuitous “logic” going around. To wit, a diet of only the whole foods they’ve greenlighted creates deficiencies in the micronutrients (and pufa’s) they say we need. So the obvious answer is, drum roll please, make sure to go on following this most excellent and well thought out diet, but get your missing nutrients from lots of Big Food supplemented products so you don’t get malnourished from it. 🤦