So I am now a few days over 3 months of keto and a little over 1 month of strict keto, no cheating, at all. Last time I posted I had lost about 8 pounds total. I am now holding steady at 9 pounds lost with a couple ounces up and then down throughout the week. I had been tracking and measuring obsessively the last 40 days or so and making sure I did not go over 20 net carbs. I was also eating breakfast, lunch and dinner, not much snacking. Yesterday I stopped the tracking and measuring, I am just being very careful with my portions and I really haven’t been eating much veggies lately. So, my carbs come from mostly dairy and the condiments I use. (dressings, SF BBQ sauce/ketchup) I will also have an occasional square of keto friendly chocolate maybe once a week. Yesterday, I didn’t have breakfast which didn’t seem to phase me so I didn’t have breakfast again today.
What I am wondering is shouldn’t the weight and inches be coming off quicker? Now, I have lost inches and I have dropped a pant size but I would have thought that 3 months in I would see more changes. I am not obsessing over the number on the scale, I am just wondering if there is something I should change? 
Just venting
Not necessarily. Keto is a metabolic normalization process, not a quick weight loss diet. Your years or decades eating a variation of SAD did some damage. Keto begins by fixing the damage and the more severe the damage the longer it takes to fix. Generally, excess weight/fat is a symptom of metabolic disruption and you can expect that in the process of fixing the damage the weight/fat will trend towards ‘your normal’ as well - over time. But it does not progress in a linear fashion. At many points along the way other stuff takes precedence. Plus, it may not end where you had hoped or wanted it to.
Also, different stuff affects different folks differently. So don’t be afraid to try different combos of foods and eliminate stuff to see what happens. In your case the mostly likely candidates for trial elimination would be: “mostly dairy and the condiments I use. (dressings, SF BBQ sauce/ketchup) I will also have an occasional square of keto friendly chocolate…”
Also, I recommend a tape measure and a set of calipers in addition to your scale. Sometimes you will notice changes in fat compo when the scale shows nothing. There are several online calculators to help estimate %BF based on measurements.
So I fell off and its all my fault and I have a question
No, I don’t see any logic in mandatory quick fat loss on keto. I ate a lot on keto so I didn’t lose anything at all, it was very logical to me 
Fortunately I had other benefits and it’s all a long-term project to me. It’s not all about the carbs and we don’t necessarily lose fat quickly anyway. Some people do but I am not even the same as I was 10 years ago, I need to eat differently if I want to lose anything.
Here are some DEXA scans I took over the course of a year. Gained 3.3 pounds of muscle, lost 5.4 pounds of fat, swing of 8.9 pounds, but only 2.1 pounds of scale weight. In a year.
To me, “strict keto” (as a way of eating) means using a kitchen scale to accurately track intake of all macros, keeping carbs low and getting adequate proteins, while using fats only for satiation. But weight loss would require some type of limit on the amount of fat being consumed.
Ideally, that limit is imposed by satiation, because being hungry all the time would mean keto wasn’t sustainable.
Ketosis is no guarantee of weight loss. Ketosis is driven by how many carbs you eat. Weight is driven by how much you eat. For most, being fat adapted makes it easier to eat less because hunger is no longer being driven by carbs and insulin.
Can you make that claim? I thought “lean mass” was a calculated item and also included things like water and digestive tract contents?
Don’t have the rest of my results here, but I don’t believe those are part of lean mass.
Sorry, got interrupted. Anyway, the point is that people who have been on low carb/keto for a short time and wonder why the aren’t losing at some rate (where the rate is typically much greater than one would think is possible) might consider chilling out. It’ll happen. And if if doesn’t, then what?..
It’s interpreted based on indirect measurement. So yes there is no guarantee the change in lean mass is muscle but it isn’t an unreasonable assumption either. Especially considering he has previous data points indicating a trend. Other factors influencing lean mass will cause a small oscillation typically on the order of +/-3% of total lean mass but they won’t produce sustained gains in lean mass over multiple consecutive scans.
As long as all the conditions of the test are more or less that same. According to:
Body Fat Test Cheat Sheet (Literally)
- Your “Before” Measurement
- Glycogen deplete yourself for a number of days by consuming a low carb diet and engaging in glycogen-depleting exercise (like high volume, high rep weight training)
- Keep sodium intake at your typical levels
- Get your body fat test 1-2 hours after waking, but before eating or drinking anything
- Your “After” Measurement
- Carb load for 3 days by consuming an extremely high carbohydrate diet
- The day of your test, consume a lot of food, water, and a high sodium diet
- Get tested in the afternoon or evening, 1-3 hours after your meal
- Get tested soon after doing a “pump” style workout
Based on all of this research I’ve shown you, you could theoretically see around 5 lb increases in lean mass on average, with no increase in body fat. Some people might see even larger increases. This is despite no true change in body composition.
Now, I didn’t write this article to encourage people to cheat on their body fat tests (like if you’re in some type of contest that uses body fat percentage as a marker). Also, you’re only cheating yourself if you are comparing before and after under different conditions. I wrote this article to illustrate the importance of standardizing your body fat assessments, even with a technique like DEXA.
Standardization Cheat Sheet
- Get tested in same clothes for repeated measurements
- Get tested in the morning after an overnight fast
- No prior exercise
- Be hydrated (but not overhydrated…just make sure you’re not dehydrated…use the color of your urine as a guide)
- No recent major changes in dietary composition or calorie intake
- For DEXA, make sure you get tested on the same equipment with the same software, and that they have a method for standardizing your body position on the table
Can you share some more details… calories, fat percentage of food eaten. I think it is not unreasonable to think you should lose more… so maybe time to figure something out. It is possible you are one of those people who will lose slowly or convert to muscle more easily… or maybe it is time to tweak. I found that the fewer times I ate the better I lost… but it could be different for you.
Muscle mass and bone density are probably most of what the scan picks up as lean mass. Brain and visceral organs also count, but as a reasonably small percentage, I believe. Hydration or the lack of it can affect the results, but my impression is that the effect isn’t that great. Perhaps someone who’s had a scan done can corroborate?
These aren’t changes? I would say dropping a pant size is pretty good. You’re obviously losing fat if you are losing inches and pant sizes.
I guess the question to ask is, “Would I rather stay the same weight and look as though I had lost thirty pounds, or lose the thirty pounds but still look the same?”
Since you’re tracking take a look at your weight fluctuations vs intake, you may be over estimating your metabolism. I was for a long time. What’s your activity look like and how much are you eating a day aside from the carbs as far as fat and total calories?
I’ve been getting a scan roughly every 3 months for 4 years. The results correlate well with my other data such as exercise performance logs, body photos, monthly skin fold caliper tests and weekly tape measurements. There are factors which create noise in every measurement but when taken regularly over extended time periods one gets a fairly useful signal even with some imperfections of consistency in procedures.
I may be a little sensitized to it, because we had someone panicking on the Reddit keto group that had DEXA scans that indicated they lost 4 pounds of “muscle” over a 2-week period. They had frequent DEXA scans. Another comparison showed they had gained 6 pound of fat and 6 pounds of “muscle” during a different 4-week period a month earlier.
Basically, someone obsessing over numbers that can have a certain amount of noise. And their numbers were jumping all over the place.
This was an older post on their blog
https://www.bodyspec.com/blog/post/will_drinking_water_affect_my_scan
Follow what @OgreZed said
I personally take my tests in the morning
No hydration
No food
No salt
No workout prior
All tests in the morning as well
Then after tests my coffee time!
Caffeine 
I think that is my next step…to eliminate dairy. So sad though. I love me all kinds of cheese and HWC in my morning coffee.
Yes, that is what I had been doing measuring and tracking every single thing I put in my body. I have taken the last couple of days off. Just to see if taking a more relaxed approach would help.