Keto and physical appearance

(Steaks b4 cakes! šŸ„©šŸ„‚) #81

Congrats for reaching your goal! :hugs: same here Iā€™m a bit under too (still figuring out what to do next haha) but itā€™s nice to know Iā€™m not the only one struggling through fasting nowadays.
I stopped it a few weeks ago to see if it helped with the keto hair loss and Iā€™ve noticed a massive difference in how much better I feelā€¦the only days now I notice considerable hair loss is after fasting and HIIT.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #82

@JulesyMcJulesface @ClareBear I discovered fairly early on that maintaining is primarily an exercise in observation. Losing weight was not my primary intention when I started keto, however, I thought: ā€œwhy not lose those 15-20 excess pounds while Iā€™m doing this?ā€ Mistakenly thinking my DEE was probably around 1800-2000 calories I ate 1500 for the first few weeks thinking I was being fairly conservative. Oops! I dropped 2 - 2 1/2 pounds per week for a couple months. I then proceeded to try to stop the loss by increasing calories a by a couple hundred each week or two. This worked, but I continued to lose weight only more and more slowly. Finally, after I had dropped from 175-180 to 150 and had got to 2500 calories per day, the loss stopped. For the next year my weight stayed at 150 +/- a couple pounds. If I ate less than 2500 calories I lost, if more I gained.

A year later I landed a full-time job that upped my DEE. I started losing again. So I upped my daily calories to 2800 and stopped the loss. Eventually, I went down to 2700 which is my current daily target. Again, if I eat less I lose, if more I gain. Iā€™ve dropped to 140 as of this morning due to a couple of things. The first is that I havenā€™t eaten my daily 2700 for a few days. The second is that about a month previously I played around with raw whole ginger root for about 3 weeks. The raw ginger root speeds up the metabolism, and in conjunction with slightly reduced calories (1-200 less per day), resulted in my losing 7-8 pounds over the course of a couple weeks! So I stopped that.

Iā€™d like to get back up to 150 and I know I can do it easily by upping my daily calories to about 28-2900. But I also would really like to do it with upper body muscle mass, so Iā€™m working on that instead of just eating more.

Hope this helps. :slightly_smiling_face:

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #83

BTW and for what itā€™s worth. I donā€™t eat for about 8 hours each night so I consider that 16-8 IF. I ran that concept past a friend who is a serious IFer (Jason Fung and the whole ball of wax!) and she concurred. If you think Iā€™m wrong, please explain why. Thanks.

(Karim Wassef) #84

A fast is a fast.

But here is what I do.

Fastingā€™s potent effects start to kick in after about 12hrs. So each hour after 12 hrs is more significant and each one following that is worth even more.

So the 13th hour is like hour 1 for me. If I fast for 14hrs, thatā€™s hour 2ā€¦ and is effectively twice as long as 13 hoursā€¦ etcā€¦

Thomas DeLauer made videos on fast duration, so did Siim Land. Check them out

(JJ) #85

Thank you for your reply, yes I find that absolutely helpful and comforting to know that I am not alone in my struggle to maintain. Seriously the last problem I expected to have!
My caloric intake over the course of my journey somewhat resembles yours. I started at 1500 after calculating what I thought was my TDEE, I lost 19lbs in the first month keto, then lost the remaining 20lbs over the next 4 months. At that point I upped my calories to around 2000 (sometimes will eat a bit more or less depending on appetite) which was over my calculated TDEE and seemed a lot for a small woman like me. Upping my calories actually sped up my weight loss and I accidentally lost another 8lbs this month.
I suspect I was restricting calories too greatly at 1500 and after the first month doing it, my body compensated and the weight loss slowed to a more reasonable pace. 2000 is clearly not enough for my TDEE either given my unwanted loss this month so will try increasing as you have done, until I find a sweet spot with it all.
On that note, just ate some macadamias,its 4 am on night shift here in Australia and normally do not eat at all at work.

(traci simpson) #86

Before starting and during the early days of my KETO I drink tea with fresh ginger and turmeric and ACV with black/green tea. No weight loss whatsoever. Truly we are all individuals and what works for one may not work for others. I wish I had to fight to not loose a lot of weight! : )

(Edith) #87

I would say that, too, but I do believe in ā€œbe careful what you wish for.ā€ If I started losing weight without having to struggle it would probably mean I was dying from some dreaded disease. :joy:

(Karim Wassef) #88

I wish journalists were held accountable to some of the garbage they spew the way other professionals have to.

Iā€™m all for free speech but an opinion should be clearly identified as suchā€¦ not represented as scientific fact.

(KCKO, KCFO) #89

Be sure to join in over on the Maintenance forum. Congrats on getting to goal. Strange having to struggle to not lose more isnā€™t it? Great problem to have IMHO. :innocent:

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #90

@Diygurl19 No doubt we all react individually to various nutrient inputs. While playing around with ginger root, I discovered it was not the root alone that caused my weight loss but in combination with a 1-200 calorie daily deficit. If I ate my daily total I did not lose weight. When I ate the root, my weight loss seemed accelerated (3-4 pounds per week) over what I would expect with just the slight calorie deficit (1-2 pounds per week). I think it was @atomicspacebunny who suggested trying apple cider vinegar along with ginger root to see if it boosted the affect. In my case, it did not. In fact, they seemed to cancel out. So two nutrients which apparently taken individually boost metabolism, when taken together did not - for me at least. When I get around to doing the ginger experiment again, I intend to do apple cider vinegar as well.

Many posters in that topic suggested various alternatives to eating the ginger root raw and whole. In tea mostly. My thinking is that may be another experiment to try. But my original contention was that eating the raw whole root all by its lonesome is what has the effect. There is a fair amount of science to back up the claim. A lot of people in Asia eat raw ginger root specifically to lose weight. Most also eat it for its other nutritional goodness, but thatā€™s a different issue.

I am currently trying to convince my non-keto brother who is 50-60 pounds overweight to give ginger root a try. He recently returned from his doctorā€™s office with some serious incentives. So maybe he will. He has cut his carb intake way down, not to keto levels, but way lower than heā€™s been eating all his life so far.

In your case, I suggest you try the raw whole root rather than diluted in tea. Also, there may be essential components that are not water soluble that you wonā€™t get from tea. It wonā€™t hurt and maybe it will help. You might even like it. It didnā€™t take me long to like it. I miss it since I stopped eating it simply because I didnā€™t want to lose more weight.

(traci simpson) #91

Thank you for taking the time to write that. So you basically chew the ginger? I like the taste of it.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #92

Yes. You can slice it into thin slices until you get used to the spicy heat. If spiciness is that not a big issue to you, just bite off a piece and start sucking/chewing. I found 10-15 grams per day sufficient. I first started using it as a cold preventative since I work in a big retail store where Iā€™m exposed to sick people all the time, both fellow staff and customers. Purely by accident I discovered I was once again losing weight and so began to investigate.

(traci simpson) #93

Iā€™ll get some this weekend. I have some in the freezer, might be easier for me to chew.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #94

Do you eat right before bed and as soon as you wake up? Because if thatā€™s not the case youā€™re fasting more than 8 hours. Technically not eating for any period of time is a ā€œfastā€. Skipping a meal without snacks is a fast. But autophagy requires a longer period of not eating so thatā€™s why people donā€™t talk about an 8 hour fast because thereā€™s no real major benefit other than keeping insulin low a few extra hours. Real autophagy benefit happens after 16-18 hours without any food/calorie consumption.

(Bunny) #95

An easier way might be to chop it up in a food processor or use a cheese grader and if your a salad person; just sprinkle it on a salad, I do the same thing with lemon peels.

I usually put the chopped or graded ginger in my apple cider vinegar water with some graded lemon peel along with lemon juice, all organic.

It also makes a great digestive bitter if you have acid reflux and helps stimulate the production of hydrochloric acid to fully digest and extract the nutrients in your food your eating and helps stomach to keep the esophageal sphincter valve closed (PH balance) when the pancreas releases sodium bicarbonate along with the digestive peptides; enzymes amylase, protease and lipase. The sodium bicarbonate released by the pancreas makes the stomach too alkaline sometimes, so the esophageal sphincter valve stays open or is controlled by PH signaling and then your choking on stomach acid etc.

(Karim Wassef) #96

I add two spicy tablespoons of ginger juice to my morning coffee concoction that includes ACV, MCT, raw cacao and pink salt. Zestyā€¦

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #97

@Diygurl19 You see how quickly the alternatives enter the discussion! Please just eat the stuff as Iā€™ve discussed so that at least you and I have a common denominator. Thanks.

(Karim Wassef) #98

Hey hey heyā€¦ donā€™t crowd us out :laughing:

Maybe she wants to try what weā€™re doing!! :joy:

(Bunny) #99

Oh I see you are doing a straight Ginger root experiment, sorry about that!

What Bunny teeth are for? :rabbit:

(Dirty Lazy Keto'er, Sucralose freak ;)) #100

A year ago when my GF lost about 13 lbs, going from 119 to 106, after going Keto for a couple months, I thought she looked freaking great !!! She did complain about having more wrinkles, but I didnā€™t pay much attention to that. I was too busy checking out that hawt booty :grinning: To me it was a great trade.
As for myself, I was never pretty in the first place. Even before my back injury 5 years ago, I was amazed by my body, but I tried to stand in front of a mirror that was low enough to cut my head off :rofl: lol
The one in the Under armour outlet was great. From the neck down, I looked as good as the Under armour models. But from the neck upā€¦ Next :grinning: lol

All things considered, I think health is much more important than a few wrinklesā€¦ But then again, my livelihood doesnā€™t depend on my looks, so for someone else, maybe this is a bigger deal ?