Keto & IF not helping

#1

I lost 16 lbs immediately in the first two weeks. It’s been two months! No weight loss whatsoever!

I fast 16:8 daily! I even do a monthly 24 hour fast. Going to be twice this month.

I feel like an annorexic who is fat! I can’t lose weight for the life of me. No matter what I do.

I have reduced my eating so significantly to the point I’m never hungry or even care about food. Not much interest!

I think I need to eliminate all dairy and seeds. Zero snacks.

This morning I had two eggs, bacon and cheese with half an almond flour muffin (4g carbs). Along with coffee but there is sucralose in it! Could this be making me fat and unable to lose weight?

I eat two squares of intense dark chocolate for a snack and twenty small pumpkin seeds.
Then I eat a salad with 6 chicken wings later for dinner.

I don’t eat anything else all day. My calories have to be below 1200 daily. Some days I only eat once Bc I’m not hungry.

I’m either in starvation mode or years of yo yo dieting have ruined my metabolism so bad that I’m stuck in a fat body and have to be eat like a supermodel for the rest of my life.

I’m desperate and thinking I should eliminate all dairy and nuts next. Only eat Whole Foods no snacks. Maybe one meal a day. Do I have insulin resistance? I am not diabetic but I cannot lose a lb for the life of me no matter how strict my diet is! I’m thinking of going to a doctor to run tests. I’m beyond frustrated and have waited this out and nothing seems to be changing. My stomach is still puffy despite how much I don’t eat! I sometimes even do my fasts 20/4 lately.

I am crazy good about my carb content (never over 20 in one day)! Help. I’m losing all confidence and beginning to think that I’m an exception to this keto rule or that I just don’t have a normal body.

(Carl Keller) #2

I wonder if you have a lot of stress in your life? You seem to be doing everything right: reduced eating windows, eating low carb, not getting really hungry so no threat of slowing metabolism. But stress can make all of that be in vain.

The sucralose can cause a spike in insulin even if it does not raise blood glucose or make you fat by itself, it can make it more difficult to lose weight until it returns to a normal level.

#3

I also started keto about 2 months ago. Like you, i hv lost 15 lbs, but have been fluctuate the same weight since the 3rd week. Like you as well, i researched a lot online and trying to see why there is a stall after the first 2 weeks, and there is no shortage of answers from this forum and other places. Here are my findings.

  1. 1st 2-3 week’s weight loss is just water loss

  2. I only want to loss another 20 lbs to reach my optimal BMI. compare to others wanting to loss 50, 80, 100 lbs, obviously my body will say “ok i am going to take my time”. It took me years to get aby 25 lbs over weight, i believe it till take months to loss those I’ve gained.

  3. Keto helps to cure inflammation from low insulin and low sugar. IF or one day a meal helps to get into autophagy, self thyself, self repair. If the body has other highed priorities to repair, lossing fat seems slower. Well, this is my case. I hv HBP and joint pains and I am still dealing with them, but much better since 2 months ago.

  4. Throw away your scale. I weight myself every day and night during 1st month. Numbers didnt change, but i realized my clothes became loose, more energetic, skin got better, not feeling hungry easily…etc. with so many other benefits I am fetting from keto, i have decided to put away my scale as it is my least concern now.

  5. Eat when your body tells you to. I counted every calories and macro in my 1st month, I also did OMAD. But it wasn’t ideal, and i was always cold and feeling very hungry. Knowing that I was actually too harsh on my body which was still being adapting to this new life style, I then stop OMAD, just eat low carb high fat when ever i feel hungry, controlled protein intake. If i still feel hungry after a meal, I’d suppliment with MCT oil and a bulletproof coffee or matcha (eat fat until satiety). Nowadays I no longer being cold, and my body seems ok to tell me when to eat, when to stop.

  6. Eat clean keto. This means don’t do dirty keto. Burgers and bacon and cheese cannot be the main ingredients in your plate… eat more fresh organic single ingredient food. Simple cooking actually works to reserve the nutrient from food, eat more above ground leafy veggies as well. Go less to restaurants, as you dont really know what they put in food…

  7. Check your ketostix, and invest a ketone blood tester. I use ketostix to check if i am still in ketosis everyday, if i see pink or purple, i am ok. If i see a paler color, i chk my blood. Ketone blood test stripes are costly but i find it ok to check just once in a while.

  8. Do not give up. It will take time for your body to become fat adapted and then perhaps start loosing weight. I cannot exactly tell if i am, but who cares as i know I am on good keto diet and I am in ketosis. But seeing all the positive side effects happening on my body, I know I am heading to a good way. Good health should be your goal to stick with keto diet, weight loss… I consider it as a bonus.

Good luck.

(Cancer Fighting Ketovore :)) #4

Just some things to think about:

Are you using an app to track your carbs, or just mentally keeping track?

Do you think there are any hidden carbs somewhere?

Why are you only eating 1200 calories?

What are your actual macro %s?

(Carl Keller) #5

Oh and another thing. Since you could be fat-adapted, it’s possible that your body is running quite fine on dietary fat and has no need to use your body fat. It would be easy to test by reducing how much fat you are eating. As long as it does not affect your energy and hunger, you can try limiting dairy and nuts and maybe eating slightly leaner protein to see if it gets the scale moving.

#6

I am wondering if I have hormonal imbalance or I’m allergic to dairy so badly that if flares my stomach each time I eat?!

I am going to eliminate dairy for a week and see what happens and just stick to meats and veggies and coffee with almond milk.

I feel like I’ve eaten 2000 calories just after two eggs with cheese! This isn’t normal but I’m that full! And my stomach is puffy and I feel like I’ve gained weight just from eating even when I have a few pumpkin seeds!

My fasting is so strict but I’m feeling like the only way I might lose is eating once a week at this point! It’s no joke how sluggish my metabolism is. I’m in my thirties but I’ve got the metabolism of grandma Ethel in her 80s from so much yo yo dieting.

I’m getting to the point where I don’t know what will help! Maybe a 24-36 hour fast once a week along with my daily Intermittent fasting would help and no dairy!

I feel like all this hard work just to look in the mirror and see me bloated and puffy. :frowning:

#7

I measure everything I eat. I am crazy obsessive to the point where my carbs are never over 20 and my net carbs rarely over 10!

I have no hidden carbs I’m insanely cautious. I might be a little low in the fats dept tho! I seem to be daily!

Protein on point. Carbs on point. Fats a little low daily! By 1/3 i would say!

Some artificial sweeteners but not many. Also dairy could be the culprit and not enough fiber? I’ve been constipated lately from lack of calories and fiber? That’s the only thing I can think of changing.

(Carl Keller) #8

Sounds like a good plan. The bloating is a negative reaction to something you are eating. Remove the bloating and your body chemistry will be much less complicated.

I find that some artificial sweetners cause me to bloat. That might be another reason to take a good look at the sucralose as a possible cause of bloating of your you.

#9

Fats are a bit too low as is. Thinking maybe dairy has to go and the sucralose in the morning coffee I have that is 70 calories.

Could eating 800-1200 calories a day put me in starvation mode even if I have weight to lose?

(Cancer Fighting Ketovore :)) #10

What’s your height and weight?
How much protein and fat?

(Carl Keller) #11

I ate like that for 5-6 weeks and I felt great with little hunger… but my body fat was melting so I know it was making up for the caloric deficit. But still, I don’t think you need to eat more if you are not hungry and not losing weight. I would go with your idea of reducing dairy and cutting out sweeteners and see how that goes. Please let us know the result :slight_smile:

(*Tame Those Ghrelin Gremlins) #12

I agree, I only eat 1200 calories a day. Sometimes a barely touch that number because I’m simply full most the time. Adding extra may not be the answer.

#13

I’m 196 and 5’8”. I think i have a lot of muscle tho since I wear a size 10 in jeans and a medium shirt. I don’t workout however. I want to be down to a small and a size 6 in jeans. That’s how I feel most comfortable and healthiest. I don’t have good ankle joints so i can’t workout much and any extra weight on me is bad for my joints and I don’t want any fat around my hips in general or midsection or to put pressure on my joints.

#14

I think you are getting too stress now… this is not helping you to get into healthy keto diet. I also had bloated and stuffed stomach after eating very small amount of food. So, I did a 72 hours water, black coffee and tea fast. I have to say, this 5 days fast really helped me to sort out many things… joints less pain, my body had time to rest and eliminated some “junks”, i felt great after I resumed eating (gradually increase the mount). I do not feel the bloating anymore.

Do not be obssess about counting everything, being too stressful is not doing good…

#15

I had contispation too during the 1st 4 weeks, which is quite normal for a lot of people changing to keto from a normal high carb diet. I went crazy because I just can’t stand it if constipate for more then 2 days! Again, went crazy researching see what went wrong… but the only thing i end up doing was to eat fair amount of veggies and avocado for potassium, drink abt 500ml of fresh lemon juice + 1tsp pink salt mix water everyday, (but do get enough water from other drinks like coffe, soup, broth…etc). Add my magnesium suppliment. Then one day,
Miracle happened a… everything became normal and I no longer have this issue :slight_smile:

(Cindy) #16

Stacie, first, let’s put your weight loss in perspective. You’ve lost 16 lbs in 2 months. That’s 8lbs/month or 2lbs/week.

Now, I know you’re probably thinking “but that was in the first 2 weeks, none since then.” But did you really expect to keep losing either 8lbs/week or even 2 lbs/week consistently? At 5’8" and 196lbs, you don’t have a huge amount to lose, so it’s going to be slow.

I understand that when you feel like you’re obsessively counting everything, weighing, etc, and trying to force the weight loss to happen, that it can be very frustrating and feel like it’s taking forever. But I think you need to live your life NOW the way you want to keep living it. So if you don’t want to meticulously track everything for the rest of your life, then STOP doing it now. If you enjoy your am coffee and only want to give it up to try to force the weight loss to happen, then don’t give it up.

Because the idea that we can “force” our bodies to lose weight on our schedule is just false. Sure, if you want to fast long enough, eat little enough, you’ll eventually lose weight, but that’s NOT healthy or sustainable.

You need to view this as a long-term, healthy, sustainable way of eating. The pounds might come off slowly, but they’ll STAY off. You can’t treat this like another yo-yo diet…because honestly, if the number on the scale is more important than anything else, you’d be better off just cutting your calories to 500/day and staying there until the weight is gone. Of course, in the process, you’ll lose muscle, lower your BMR, and gain the weight back…so really not the best plan long-term.

You might also find that, once you start relaxing into this woe, your body and weight will change because you’re less stressed. And because you’re less stressed and hopefully happier, when it takes a month to lose 3 or 4 lbs, it won’t feel like it’s taking forever.