Hi all. I started keto 20 days ago and have been consistently in ketosis (I test every day with urine keto sticks). Before starting it I had been doing IF for over a year…my fasting time varied between 14 to 20h, depending on the day.
Since started keto 20 days ago my weight dropped from 78kg to 74.4kg and I was amazed. I am visibly leaner but for the past 5 days the scale has actually increased to 74.7, my measures are also stalled. I track my macros closely and always stay under 20g total carbs. According to My fitness Pal my daily caloric intake should be approx 1440 cal, but very often I stay at around 1000.
I have a smart scale and my body composition has not changed for the past 5 days… i know I am too anxious and that 5 days is not a stall, but I just wanted to know if you’ve had a similar situation, and perhaps shed some light if I am doing sth wrong. Thanks!
Keto at around 1000 cal a day
Welcome Bruna. It’s normal. Here are some links from the forum that should answer your questions:
https://www.ketogenicforums.com/search?q=post%20induction%20stall
Welcome to the forum, Bruna. Plateau’s on any weight losing adventure are normal.
Keto on, and look at the links that PetaMarie posted =).
Simples, sounds like your not eating enough and your body is thinking its starving and must hold onto every lil bit it can. Keto isent a calorie restriction way of eating.
Going from 74.4kg to 74.7kg (= less than a 1 lb difference, for those of us stuck in Imperial weights) is virtually a rounding error in the scheme of things.
Your body can swing by up to 2kg throughout a single day. That 74.7kg you were citing as your recent low point might have simply been one of those “low tide” moments in your diurnal H20 rhythms.
If nothing else, this illustrates how frustrating (false hopes and false disappointments) await those of us who keeping running to the scale.
If you continue to feel great and sense you’re making progress along the slow trajectory towards being leaner, more fit, and more energized, then don’t let your precise weight (which is simply how much the earth’s gravity is tugging on you) get in the way of feeling great about the wonderful progress you seem to be making!
Try doing a “carb up”. Increase your carb intake one evening (like eat a sweet potato) and cut down on the fats for that meal. Sounds counter-intuitive, but this can really help. I would forget about counting calories, but you might want to re-instate time restricted feeding.
@bschibly just gave you the worst possible advice. NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO CARB UP You need to eat more and keep your carbohydrates under 20 net grams for a couple of months at least until you become fat adapted. I don’t know how long you’ve been eating keto Barbara but it doesn’t sound like you understand how keto works at all. Eating extra carbs 20 days into keto will help no one become fat adapted. 
I get it, but in the end if you eat too much fat then your body will only use this exogenous fat as fuel, not your own reserves. Besides, my understanding is that since my body is using fat as energy, it does not matter if it’s the fat from food or from my own generous reserves ;p
Metabolic slow down is common when restricting calories on a cab based diet, but I didn’t think it happened in keto as well…
Thanks David. I think I read somewhere this advice Barbara mentioned. Think it was in an article abour the so called “whoosh effect”.
I appreciate all the comments. 
Maybe just semantics, but how can it tell how many calories you need to EAT? At best, it can give you a guesstimate of your BMR or TDEE. It would have no idea how many of your calories can be satisfied with stored body fat, or how variable your activity is in a given day.
Simply:
- Weight loss TDEE = Carbs + Proteins + Fats + Stored body fat
- Maintenance TDEE = Carbs + Proteins + Fats
And, for many, “Maintenance TDEE” would be higher than “Weight loss TDEE” as more activities become available and are participated in.
My take on macros is “Minimal carbs. Adequate proteins. Fats as needed (for satiety).” That “satiety” level should automatically change as the body naturally moves from being overweight to maintenance.
For me, the biggest advantage of keto is the “for satiety” bit. I’m no longer ravenously hungry all the time. Carbs and insulin are no longer driving an artificial sense of hunger.
You won’t burn significant body fat before the fat adaptation has occurred, 6-10 weeks into your keto journey. Right now exogenous fat is what you need to consume for that to happen. Follow these simple steps and you will get results. There’s lots of confusing information on the web concerning KETO and a lot of it is just plain misinformation and not helpful, like telling people to eat sweet potatoes during the induction phase to fat adaptation.
Also you are way too early into keto to have any kind of stall occur. Things don’t work that fast, a stall is at least 6 weeks without a change in keto and you haven’t even been eating keto long enough to be considered stalling. You lost a bunch of water weight while depleting glycogen stores and deflating fat cells. Actually loosing fat is a slower process, 1-2 lbs per week is average losses. More than that is very unusual.
It wont burn any of it if hasent yet learned how to burn fat properly, instead of sugar. And that takes time. Calorie restriction just tells your body its gonna die if it dosent hold onto everything its got. You want your body to think theres plenty of food available so it doesn’t need to conserve energy and it can boost your metabolism to burn all the extra energy.
I lost over 4 stone* eating average of around 3,000 calories a day (F, 44, 5’9”).
(*around 60lbs I think)
My understanding is that this is looking at the problem from the wrong end. It is not eating less that puts us into weight loss mode, but rather it is putting ourselves into weight loss mode (by eating properly) that causes us to eat less.
If you eat in such a way as to reduce your serum insulin level low enough for your adipose tissue to be able to release its store of fat, you can still cause your body to hang on to its reserves by eating too little. This triggers what I call “famine mode,” and ultimately results in metabolic slow-down that requires further caloric restriction, which causes further metabolic slowdown, and so forth.
The cure is to give our body enough calories to trust that it is safe to shed excess stored fat. Once insulin drops low enough, the signal from our fat tissue begins to register in the brain again, and we stop being so hungry all the time. When this happens, we can trust our appetite to guide our eating. When we have excess fat to metabolize, our appetite will automatically cause us to stop eating at a caloric intake that permits both dietary and excess body fat to be metabolised. As all of the body’s extra fat is burned off, our appetite will naturally rise, to make sure that we continue to get enough energy from our food, since it is no longer available from our fat store.
This will be true once you are fat adapted but you can still slow your metabolism shooting for low daily calories. You need both high days (to keep your body convinced it shouldn’t slow down to burn at a rate to meet a low daily caloric intake) and some low days (to burn body fat).
The non-caloric way to think of this is that, once fat adapted, you’ll feel fine skipping a meal - that is when the body uses its reserves. Do that 5 to 8 times a week and the weight will drop off without slowing metabolism along with you being able to eat to satiety - instead of monitoring and trying to cut off at a specific calorie count. Also, specific calorie counts tend to give you the wrong ideas “Oh - I have 240 calories left today - what should I eat?” - even if you are not hungry, you’ll be eating - bad for Keto.
I don’t have a big appetite and am often at 800 calories. Don’t fret - I am still losing weight. 15 months keto.