Impossible to lose weight 😐

[Regina]

Weight loss can be slow. It took me a year to get to where I want to be. I only had 20 pounds to lose, but it still took a year. And all my bio markers have improved.

[PetaMarie]

I’ve been keto for a year and haven’t lost any weight or inches. But I’m maintaining and I have a healthy relationship with food for the first time in my life

This is an excellent point that I personally forget to talk about more often but it’s also true for me. Thanks for the reminder!

[PetaMarie]

Also, I’ll add to the OP that I have a history with disordered eating and an unhealthy relationship with food. It’s soul sucking and exhausting to obsess about food and body image all of the time. Eventually I got tired of it and threw my hand up and said, fine, I’ll be fat! Guess what happened, I started losing weight. I truly believe the stress I was accumulating around every food decision was keeping the weight on. I lost weight on SAD without even trying when I just agreed stop sweating it.

[Don_Q]

I’ve increased them a little. I’m going to go get my rmr tested next week and talk to a physical trainer that specializes in keto. I’m hoping this helps!

I like this idea. I think everybody should know their RMR, not because I think CICO is valid, but because it gives you a baseline of how your metabolism is running. If it’s extremely low relative to normal, some thyroid testing might be in order. If it’s normal, well it’s one thing to cross off your problem list. Most importantly, if you check back in a year and it’s running higher, it means your body is really happy running on keto. Hang in there and let us know how it goes!

[cw2001]

I’ve done fasting since day 1 and stick to 16-20 hours a day.

This really isn’t keto, Stacie. Usually, it takes several weeks to become fat-adapted. Once you are, then it’s easy to do intermittent fasting because your hunger decreases. Jumping into IF immediately is simply a calorie-restrictive diet.

You need to eat when you’re hungry, don’t eat when you’re not, and quit trying to FORCE your body into an arbitrary weight loss number. The extra walking won’t even necessarily help because it can cause more hunger and stress, which are counter-productive to weight loss.

I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but you need to give this TIME. Relax, quit the “extreme” thinking, try to fuel your body and let the process work.

[MooBoom]

You look very slim in your profile pic. How much do you weigh, what’s your height, what’s your goal weight? Are your goals reasonable?

Personally I think there are 3 major actionable things for you to do.

1.) Get a FULL thyroid panel done. Not just your T3 which is what most doctors order. Watch this vid for more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kCS5lEBv4Q&list=PLVvpmV0CZ4yFUOEyThEx8QTzniqGuebCP

2.) Stop restricting your eating to a tiny window. Start to nourish your body again, EATTTTTTT!!!

3.) Make a decision to stop stressing and second guessing. That’s a sure track way to spike your cortisol and send your thinking into a negative spiral, and that’s counter productive to the results you want to see. You’re a baby keto-er. 2 months on keto is NOTHING. And you’re throwing a lot at it, trying to hack your success. Forget all the hacking and go back to basics! Keep your carbs under 20g net a day. Eat when you are hungry. Stop when you are full. Forget literally EVERYTHING ELSE (except staying on top of your electrolytes).

You may also benefit from seeking the support of a keto/LC dietician. Feng-Yuan Liu is magnificent and last I checked she offered Skype consults so you don’t have to live in the same suburb (or country) to access her support. http://www.metrodietetics.com.au/

[Iwanttobelieve]

These are great tips! Thank you!

I’m going to consult someone for sure! Yes I know I need to eat more and I have an apt w an endocrinologist to rule out medical conditions.

I’ve always been pretty healthy and all my friends would say to me if I ate like you, I’d be 90 lbs. I’m 195 lbs and no I just have a skinny face. I don’t have a ton of body fat tho on my body but I need to lose 40 lbs so I can feel better. I don’t feel good with any excess weight on me. After 20 lbs I will feel like my work is paying off. 40 and then I will have met my goal.

[Iwanttobelieve]

I forgot to tag u on the message above! Thanks again my friend for the good advice!

[MooBoom]

I’m so glad you’re going to see someone, an endocrinologist is an awesome start and a low carb/keto dietician will benefit you enormously too.

The thing with this Keto caper is, so much of it can’t be prescribed- it must be experienced. What works for one person may not work for another. I’m not remotely kidding when I say it’s a journey. I’ve been doing this for near on 2 years now and I’m still learning what does and does not work for me. I have learned that it’s a long game, not a fast game. More than anything else I’ve learned to just be patient and not demand things from keto. They all happen in their own good time. You remind me so much of me when I started keto which gives me deeeeeep wells of empathy for how you’re feeling right now.

Your number one challenge will be allowing keto the space it needs to work for you. It’ll take time and patience, but you’ve got no end of support in this community!

[Kris86]

I accidentally ate 10 strips of bacon, a bag of pork rinds and 4oz. Of cream cheese reading through this thread.
Chill out, eat during your window. If you’re body knows the food is available, your metabolism will crank.
You know you’re not eating enough and are expecting different results…

[stokiesgoneketo]

Make sure you are getting enough sleep. If i am under 8 hrs i stall or gain. Damn cortisol levels…

[Regina]

Just eat when hungry. For me that is four times a day.

[Karim_Wassef]

I don’t think you list you protein to fat to carb ratios. Many times, the fear of fat has been so deeply drilled in that you may be consuming more protein and denying your body the dietary fat it needs for real adaptation. Eat your fats.

Also, the body is sometimes unconvinced that you’re not going to go back and eat again to replenish the fat. This will cause it to retain water to displace the lipids lost. This may even increase your weight temporarily. You need to stick to it long enough for your body to accept this as a way of living, not another yo-yo diet. Then it will clear out and really start the burning.

[KBG]

the body is sometimes unconvinced that you’re not going to go back and eat again to replenish the fat. This will cause it to retain water to displace the lipids lost. This may even increase your weight temporarily.

A couple years ago on this forum this was a popular topic. There was link to an interestingly informative video. I believe it was being referred to as the “woosh” or something. My understanding was that the body fills fat cells with water and then eventually lets it go all at once. I’ve experienced this phenomenon multiple times. It is so strange and, perplexed, I’d tell people I lost weight overnight. It seemed unbelievable but the video gave me an explanation that seemed to match what I’d experienced. I’ll look for the thread…

[KBG]

Here’s a recent and old thread on the woosh. I don’t know for sure if the science is valid. All I know is this is how my body loses weight. Seriously, overnight. This is the only explanation I’ve ever seen that comes close to explaining why.

Sudden woosh

From my understanding, you can have a woosh at anytime. This is a video I watched some time back, but it was recently posted to my wife’s thread, so it just reminded me where it was. Hope this helps…

How does a "woosh" work?

[image]

[Freefall_Doug]

Stacie, can you stick to one thread so that anyone giving you guidance can see what the backstory is? You’ve gotten so much great advice so far but it’s scattered among all the threads - isn’t this the third or fourth thread with a similar title? (and this title isn’t even accurate, because in fact you have lost weight, right? it’s just not at the rate that you think it should be?)

Amen to that.

Stacie I don’t want this to come across as negative because I can read how frustrated you are and how committed you are but I think you are approaching the weight loss with the same veracity as your posts on the subject have been. More posts, across multiple threads, and maybe we will get the magic answer.

I had the same impression, and replied as much, about your approach to the weight loss. You are tackling it with a number of different angles all at once. “Eat less walk more” CICO approach, plus hormone regulation through the keto, and nutrient timing on top of that with the time restricted eating.

The body has a number of feedback loops, for example prolonged calorie restriction results in the body lowering your RMR. TRE with a small eating window can double down on this feedback loop. Dieting, exercise, fasting are all stresses that can increase cortisol, and the body doesn’t like to lose fat as well when cortisol levels are high for prolonged periods of time.

Some of your difficulty may come down simply to trying to do too much, too soon and all at once, and doubling down when you aren’t getting the results that you want. Sometimes we are fighting ourselves by throwing too much at our bodies.

You have the most important aspect down, the desire, but it may be time to trade some effort for some strategy.

You are getting your RMR tested which I think will be a very important piece of information to base your strategy around. Once you get that my advice would be cut back to just keto, and make sure you aren’t in a calorie deficit for a while, that would include calories burned through exercise. Let your body get sufficient input so it gets the signal that it isn’t starving.

[Ilana_Rose]

If I’m reading you other post correctly, you’ve lost 20 pounds in less than three months and are still losing albeit more slowly. you say you have another 20 to 40 pounds to lose which really isn’t that much. Everyone’s weight loss slows down eventually. Just be patient. If you get to a point where you lose nothing for two months then revisit your macros, adjust your feeding window, introduce real fasts, or cut food types that sometimes interfere with weight loss. But not all at once!

But right now you are stressing out which is terrible for weight loss, and flailing about trying to do everything at once. @Freefall_Doug is correct, you are likely making your body fight the weight loss that you are too aggressively trying to force upon it.

It just isn’t that quick a proccess, but sticking to slow-and-steady keto is what will heal your metabolism and keep you off the counterproductive yo-yo roundabout.

Keep calm and keto on.

[cw2001]

Sometimes we are fighting ourselves by throwing too much at our bodies.

It’s a given in the science world that the preferred state of “being” is homeostasis. Biology wants everything to remain the same. So any added event, even if healthy in the long-term (like exercise, weight loss, etc) is upsetting homeostasis so it’s viewed, biologically, as a stressor. And our bodies have mechanisms to protect against stress.

It’s only after you’re doing that “new thing” for a while that it becomes the new norm. That’s why weight lifters continue to increase weight. Keep the weight the same and nothing changes after you’ve acclimated.

I think when people bounce from one thing to another in a desperate attempt to lose weight as quickly as possible, it might appear to work for a time because of the increased stressors (less calories, more exercise, etc), but all the while, the body is working to offset those stressors. Then, unfortunately, the new NORM becomes lower calories or more exercise and the body is acclimated to that standard, which means staying that way for the rest of your life or the weight comes back on.

I’d much rather “stress” my body with no carbs and added fat so that the new NORM is using my fat for fuel…that’s a homeostasis I can be happy with!

[Iwanttobelieve]

Thanks everyone for the good advice. Just going to go get my RMR tested on a machine and also see an endo for hormone imbalances.

I’ve been tracking all my macros on an app, fasting daily and everything is on point for my weight and age and height. I thought adding exercise might help me lose but it hasn’t changed anything.

Two months with no changes in body or weight. I do notice though I get bloated stomach, phlegm and sometimes a runny nose in the morning after my two cups of coffee with heavy whipping cream. I’m not sure if eliminating dairy from my diet might cause the last 20-30 lbs I need to lose to come off or if too much dairy over the years has caused leaky gut and that needs to be fixed. I’m not sure.

I do know that something is wrong with my hormones or gut/metabolism or it’s a dairy intolerance so it’s basically a matter of eliminating what it might be at this point. It’s been a frustrating journey and two months with zero weight loss and exercise and a huge lifestyle change has really made me quite depressed and hard on myself.

[sandycream]

I hear you, this is a discouraging situation.
Maybe your body would adopt to regular calorie control diet better than keto diet?
Have you tried it?