Hi all,
In the past month and a half I’ve lost 12lbs but have now been stalled for a bit. I started walking in the mornings, hoping that would be a boost, but still the same.
So I was thinking, I will keep walking in the mornings (great so far) but was thinking of trying OMAD for a bit to maybe shock the system into starting weight loss again.
Daily I am under 20g carbs, most of them coming during lunch. For example, today is an omelette with egg beaters, turkey sausage, green peppers, zucchini, spinach, onion & cheddar cheese. (note: the veggies with more carbs like onions, I only put in a small amount). Dinner is going to be smothered chicken - a grilled chicken breast and cheddar. I try to keep the snacking to a minimum, if I do it’s always something like cheese.
Doesn’t sound like that, 12 lbs in 1.5 months? It’s not stalling to most of us even if it happened in the first half… It happens to some, patience may or may not help. But if you suspect the reason and OMAD could help with it or you are just so curious, I really wouldn’t try to stop you… It is good for some and not for others.
I don’t think we should shock our system, mine surely wouldn’t appreciate that but it may be just me…
Do you track your macros? They are sometimes informative, not always, they help me to see what is the problem. My problem is too much food and I changed my food choices first, then I tried and usually failed to do OMAD (when it worked, it was effective but it was very short), now I often do OMAD (as I can, finally…) and it has multiple benefits but I still need my 2MAD days. If you can get your “ideal” macros on OMAD and not with more meals, maybe it is for you.
You can’t really call it a stall until you’ve gone a full 2 months at the very least without losing any weight. So far you have lost an average of 2lbs per week, which is above average and fantastic, but hard to keep doing long term. On average about 1lb a week is the healthiest to shoot for and the most common. But it’s not an even tempo. You may lose 3 lbs one week and then nothing for two more weeks then drop 1lb then nothing for a couple weeks then drop 2lbs a week later. It’s fits and starts because your body is busy and weight/fat loss is just one of its many tasks. Sometimes it puts its energy and focus on fat loss then other times it will back burner that while it repairs a part of your body or works on balancing a hormone, etc. etc.
It’s very common to not lose anything on the scale for a few weeks or more. Sometimes it’s being replaced by muscle weight but the fit of your clothes or weekly tape measuring your body shows it’s still losing.
As for a true stall, take me: I have officially been stalled for a full year now. I started at 198, dropped to 157, and then for the past year I’ve been up and down between 153 and 159. I sit here today still at 156/157. I have 25 more pounds to lose still. But … I’m working out in the gym 4x week and I can tell by the fit of my clothes I’m getting thinner. The muscle added weight so I probably did lose some fat weight. However, not enough as the mirror confirms, so it’s definitely a stall. I stopped tracking my macros and have probably been eating at maintenance not realizing it. I recently tightened my bootstraps to start again and kickstart the fat loss, since that’s what I really care about, losing the fat around my belly.
Don’t worry yourself over stalls so soon after losing so much. Stick to your program and stay true, you will start to lose again - in fits and starts. Lol
12 lbs in 6 weeks is very good. Work the plan you are on. How long did it take for you to put on the excess weight? OMAD is just another name for starvation. Maybe try some intermittent fasting (Fung’s protocol) and see if that helps.
It sounds like you’re on top of your diet, but I find that sometimes keeping a food diary can re-motivate me to stay on track. I am pretty good about sticking to keto foods, but I can get really lax about portion size. I know an ounce of nuts is ok. Somehow my mind eventually works around to considering a small bowl of nuts one ounce (it’s more like four). The “occasional” light beer becomes a nightly treat, then if one is ok, two probably isn’t that bad, and so on. Forcing myself to write it down, look it up and add up the carbs is sometimes startling.
And I agree with you, I think mixing it up a bit helps. Trying some new foods, or a new schedule, gets you focused on what you’re really eating again.
The weight loss is usually not steady and linear. Starts and stops as your body adjusts and changes. Ignore the scales for 2-3 months, then check again.
Even after you have reached maintenance, there will be fluctuations. No,biggie.
Trust the process.
You got this!
Define “a bit”.
As our bodies go through the changes of our new diets it must make adjustments as it goes along and sometimes the weight loss will stop for a time while it goes through this process. When it’s ready it will start back up. Eventually you will reach your goal, if it’s a reasonable goal, but it will happen in your body’s time not yours.
During my weight loss/healing journey I stalled out several times for up to a month or so but I just kept doing everything the same and it eventually turned back on. I wouldn’t mind dropping another five pounds but I’m not going to change anything. I may be at my optimal weight so forcing it wouldn’t be doing myself any good.
Be patient.
Egg beaters? THATS NOT KETO…ahhhh its been so long.Hahaha. Seriously stop that. Turkey Sausage? Why in any god’s name would you eat trukey sausage? between the two your body is saying, like Clara Peller “Where’s the fat?”
Go get some real eggs. Get some real sausage- watch out breakfast sausage is loaded with surgar, I use italian sausage or Sheboygan Brats. and chicken? Chicken is at best, a side dish. I make chicken as my pizza crust or something like this
@Steelerfan2024 I think as a new person you fail to grasp some fundamentals about keto. It is high fat. Good saturated fat. Here is what 4 years of data looks like:
Seing as I have over 8 years in my fat cell turnover is about near 100%, meaning my fat cells have never been insulin resistant. My fasting Insulin is under 1.5 uIU/ml which is enviable. I can eat more carbs but mostly choose not too, the BoHB is to great an asset for muscle recovery, lean tissue sparring and heart health along with the mental clarity it provides.
I am assuming you are new to keto and it might be hard to grasp that saturated fat is not the enemy. TO this I would look to Dr. Nadir Ali, Dr. Bret Schur, Dr Matthew Budoff
finally, weight loss is not linear, but zig zags. I personally step on the scale as I get out of bed. This way I have the same conditions every single day. I have been horizontal for 4-8 hours. I haven’t eaten all night (mostly, sometimes I still raid the fridge) and I have to urinate. the urination usually acoounts for 0.8 pound. WOWSA. Anyway…OMAD will not harm you but will do nothing to improve your health with egg beaters and turkey sausage.
To put it in perspective, here are Dexascans of my body compostition since 2017. I weight lift furiously at the age of 60. You can see my body fat has gone up and down. I have added some captions to help explain it ( you can search my name and Iposted extensively about all of this)
Yeah… I have to jump on the bandwagon with @marklifestyle. You are not actually grasping what a ketogenic diet means. It is low carb (you got that covered), moderate protein (you’ve mostly got that covered) and high fat (you ain’t got that covered) way of eating.
I know it is hard to wrap your head around the fact that fat is not your enemy, but… fat is not your enemy. To make your meal plan more keto, you need to ditch the egg beaters and use whole eggs just like Mark said. In fact, it is the yolk that contains most of the nutrients. Ditch the chicken breast and use thighs. They taste way better anyway. Use fatty sausages. You didn’t mention beef. If you like beef, don’t be afraid to eat it, and when using ground beef go for the fattier (and turns out cheaper) 85% lean.
I don’t know what size portions you are eating, but my concern from what you listed is that you are actually not eating that many calories. Cutting calories does work for a bit, but you stay in the low calorie range, eventually your metabolism WILL slow down.
You mentioned you’ve been eating this way now for a month and a half. You are just starting to get fat adapted. You really need to give your body a chance to finish the shift from carb burning to fat burning before looking into fasting. For many people, once they become fat burners they naturally tend to fast. Don’t force it.
Finally, as also mentioned above, don’t just look at the scale. Look at how your shape is shifting. There are many anecdotal stories here on the forum where the scale wasn’t changing but they were still losing inches. It is possible that may happen with you, especially if you are becoming more physically active. Muscle replaces fat and takes less space. So you can slim down but still be the same weight.
I suppose because it’s tasty and as proper as any other sausage… Though after the egg beater, maybe not? Never found any turkey sausage here, too bad, I love turkey, I would probably like that! I eat pork and chicken sausage, usually the former as that is more proper, tastier, fattier and better quality for its price… But it’s fun to have chicken ones now and then.
The egg beater sounded bad to me too, I think I heard the term before and it’s something bad I guess…? No idea what it is, I am pretty sure we don’t have that here, we have eggs. The vegans have some stupid substitute and that DOESN’T make scrambled non-eggs but people use it for that and the result is horrible I frequent very few FB groups but the “darn ugly vegan dishes” (it’s a tad more vulgar in Hungarian) is hilarious… I never even was vegan but I can make vegan pancakes that stay together but most vegans can’t (The best pancake is a carnivore pancake though, or close if you ask me.)
Everything is keto. Keto itself is all about the carb intake. The health-conscious choosy keto with its blacklist is a keto variant. I ate good things on keto but even without that, it would have been keto if I stuck to the only rule.
Aren’t turkey sausage fatty? Our sausages are all fatty… Chicken breast ““ham”” (lol) is the lean things, sausages aren’t. But I can imagine it’s different in some countries, I saw data about American scratchings and it’s so lean compared to ours… Still fatty though. And I heard about leaner sausages there. But our pork rind has mostly sunflower oil so Hungary has its problems as well where food industry is concerned (well of course. not like people eat the thing, it’s super expensive and doesn’t seem edible, super lean. but the tiny fat is more sunflower oil than lard. I feel insulted in the place of the pig who died for it to happen. and the people of the country too).
What abominations are there sold as sausages…? The worst here are the leanest ones with a ton of water in it but sugar…? Sausages typically have <0.5% sugars here… It’s a SAUSAGE. (And it includes all the paprika the stuff has.)
Even if there are crappy items, we can choose the better ones. There must be nice turkey sausages!
It’s fine for main dish for some people, there is no problem with that, I almost envy them, it would be cheap for me. Totally a very occasional side dish for me, not a substantial thing. And too fatty - except using my air fryer, that was a fine idea… But I still can’t afford much chicken and it’s good as I don’t like it much. Except the crunchy skin, that is great, thanks air fryer.
If doing right. Many people would starve on it (me too, eventually if I stubbornly stuck to it. except if I just had a few tempting fatty bites, it’s ridiculously easy to eat 1000 kcal extra when I am already satiated. but not everyone has this skill and I lack the willpower to force it, I just eat more meals now and then). Many can’t even do IF as they undereat there. I met people who underate when underweight when on keto, no matter what. Surreal but not everyone can eat properly without carbs, apparently.
Of course I totally agree with eating peoper food. Though it is individual what is proper and what is right. I trained myself to eat as lean as I can, it still was too fatty but now I solved the problem. But my lean stuff is normal pork and quark and egg whites. All the processed meats are quite fatty anyway.
Not for some of us, at least. Keto is where one goes into and stay in ketosis to me. It must be quite low carbs and that’s it. Some people do lowish-fat (that’s tricky and has its conditions… not normal for keto) or high protein (I can ONLY do high or very low protein, moderate is impossible. But my protein intake is close perfect at this point IMO and it wasn’t too bad even when it was higher).
No, one should eat the breast if they like it just add enough fat in other items. I dislike chicken breast, the texture is horrid and I can’t stomach lean meats - but some people love it and there is no problem with it. I would be happy to like lean meats but alas, I love the fatty ones (and need high protein) so overeating fat was a huge problem for me on keto and it kept me from losing fat.
We are all different with different needs and tastes. What is a good idea for one may be a bad idea for others.
I agree with most you said but I as a hedonist would never tell someone not to eat their beloved lean meats - if they can have proper nutrient intake and macros. If that is missing, depending on lean meats too much can cause problems, of course.
The point of my comments was to point out that the OP should not fear fat. If he is eating chicken breast because he likes it, sure keep eating chicken breast. If it is because he thinks he needs to eat chicken breasts because they are low fat, that is a different matter.
Okay, I totally agree with that!
It’s odd when a ketoer does it though… It would be starvation without a decent amount of fat!
But certain old thinking can linger I suppose and not everyone knows things so well in the beginning.
OK…so averaging 2lbs a week and what exactly are you calling a stall? How much are you eating daily? Are you tracking? If anything OMAD will shock your system into not losing unless you’re eating a days worth at once, and even then that’s hell on your digestive system.
Look at the numbers: Pork sausage has 290-455 calories and 23-38 grams of fat per link. Turkey and chicken sausage have 140-160 calories and 7-10 grams of fat for the same amount. So if you NEED to up your fat content chicken is really unsustainible. That being sad here is a FB post from a few years back by me:
Egg Beaters are egg whites. " Egg Beaters is a product marketed in the United States as a healthy substitute for whole eggs. It is a substitute for whole/fresh eggs that contains less cholesterol, but it is not an egg substitute. Egg Beaters is primarily egg whites with added flavorings, vitamins, and thickeners xanthan gum and guar gum. Wikipedia"
Ah ha . You have not had a some brats and hot dogs sold at large chain stores. The sweetness is overwhelming and far above 2%. So no, sausage is not sausage. Very few places sell a sausage that is preparred old world.
That is my eaxact point. You have been around quite some time Shinta, why would you limit fat? Maria Emmerich limits fat and she looks next to death. Seriously. When she dies our communityis going to be attacked.
[quote=“Shinita, post:13, topic:121567”]
Many can’t even do IF as they undereat there. I met people who underate when underweight when on keto, no matter what. Surreal but not everyone can eat properly without carbs, apparently.
There are many reasons to not fast. I am responding to @Steelerfan2024 when I said OMAD will not hurt. I have seen plenty of folks damage their body by fasting too much. Fung talked about this at length in regards to calorie restriction in the Biggest Loser Study. My statement stands,in this case OMAD will not hurt this person. Heck an extended fast with proper minerals did not hurt Angus Barbeeri’s fast.
[quote=“Shinita, post:13, topic:121567”]
Everything is keto. Keto itself is all about the carb intake. The health-conscious choosy keto with its blacklist is a keto variant. I ate good things on keto but even without that, it would have been keto if I stuck to the only rule.
[/quote] Oh Shinta…“That’s not Keto” is an old adage and was very common in the early days. And you are very wrong about carb intake. When I ran marathons I had a very high carb intake and still would be in ketosis. It is about controling nisulin and what insulin does, NOT about what you eat. FOR rmost of us, it is easy to think about it as carb control, but that would be wrong. It is like saying diabetes is about sugar control when it is about insulin resistance.
Furthermore KETO does not have inflamatory foods. No seed oils ( they are fats bhuuut) You can lose weight on bad keto and still be unhealthy. Why do you think Phinney and Volek use the term “well formulated ketogenic diet”
I frequent very few FB groups but the “darn ugly vegan dishes” (it’s a tad more vulgar in Hungarian) is hilarious… I never even was vegan but I can make vegan pancakes that stay together but most vegans can’t 
