Keto Stall - Help!

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(Carl D Black) #1

Ok…been at this for 6 months and have lost some 55 lbs. But I have slowed to a crawl if not stopped altogether. I have read and read and read and watched one video after the other trying to figure out how to get things moving again.

I am fluctuating around the 220 lb mark. (218-222). Been like this for a month. Keto Mojo is showing 0.6 with a fasting BS of 96-98. So, I’m BARELY in ketosis, if at all.

I’m eating OMAD and it consists of about 1 cup of almonds, cheeses and, usually a large sauteed veggie thing with 6 slices of bacon, maybe some sausages, mushrooms, medium onion, bell pepper, serranos/jalapenos, kale/spinach/chard/beet greens…I’ll eat some hummus here and there. But I don’t so this every day. Some days I’ll just eat some sardines for my protein, cheese and nuts…other days just a big salad with some chicken or something, but very low fat to enhance burning my own.

I have done EF, 6, 42, 48 and one 68 hour. But I had a bad experience with passing out so I quit EF for a while.

I REALLY want to hear from those of you who have been through this, have ACTUALLY done something to break through and have actually attained your goal weight. I am approx. 220 lbs and I NEED to get below 200 at the very least. 175 would be ideal, but I’ll live with 195 if I need to.

Is there anyone who has had success getting through this and could advise me? Thanks in advance!

(Cathy) #2

Congratulations on your excellent progress to date. Losing 55lbs. in 6 months is pretty amazing!

I believe the idea of keeping your fat low confounds things. When you consider that you have 3 macros in which to eat from, which are fat, protein and carbs - you kind of have to have at least one of them being the ‘high’ in the mix. Clearly carbs should stay low and too much protein is not great.

When I first started keto I had a large weight loss over the first few months, I thought I could do better and do low carb and low fat. I hit a stall of about 2 months. For the first time, I incorporated C.O. into my daily menu and I began to lose again. Could be coincidental but I guess what I learned was that fat was necessary and so was patience and perseverance.

(bulkbiker) #3

Sounds like you’re not eating enough?
If you are producing ketones then you are in ketosis so 0.6 is fine.
Too many greens ,… try a week of carnivore mainly beef to see if that helps?
Definitely skip the hummus.

(Carl D Black) #4

What is C. O.?

(Jill Carpenter aka space coast spinster) #5

I second that.
Here’s the thing. Skipping things like hummus doesn’t have to be a “forever I will never eat this again” but more of a test/experiment for yourself of “if I don’t have this for a month will it help me make progress to my goal.”

Cheese and nuts can stall me if I go overboard in calories.

Here’s another thing, as you lose weight, your calorie intake should be adjusted. It takes a lot more calories to maintain 250lbs than to maintain 200lbs.

Rate of loss slows too the closer one gets to goals.

Also, take into consideration, do you have more mussles? Mussle weighs more than fat, so consider taking actual measurements. The weight scale is not the only sign of progress.

But fantastic job on your current progress!

#6

My keto mantra is “Minimal carbs. Adequate protein. Fats as needed (for satiety).”

While it’s true that you have 3 macros to eat from, those are not the only sources of calories. Unless someone is at their ideal weight, stored body fat is a fourth source.

“High” is relative, not absolute. I eat far fewer carbs, fats, and proteins now than I did before keto.

Your body needs proteins, and it’s hard to get too many.

(Carl Keller) #7

Coconut oil.

Cutting down on dairy and nuts really put my weight loss into overdrive. I would trade out most of the almonds and cheese for more of a fatty protein. Low carb nuts and cheese do offer some positives to your diet and you can still eat them in small amounts. I was eating a few tablespoons of cheese and no more than a dozen almonds per day.

There’s a lot of debate on this. Even PHD’ers can’t agree how much is too much but my N=1 says that letting my hunger decide how much protein I eat has allowed me to lose weight. Not only that, protein seems to get me fuller quicker and keeps me from getting hungry for a greater amount of time.

#8

Ketosis is driven by carb restriction. Weight loss is driven by caloric restriction (which is slow and non-linear). For many, ketosis just makes caloric restriction easier because hunger is no longer being driven by carbs and insulin.

Most short-term weight fluctuation is going to be a simple change in water retention and digestive tract contents, which can be large early on.

The overly simplistic “rule of thumb” is that a pound is equivalent to about 3500 calories. So it would be very difficult for a quick gain (or loss) of several pounds to be due to calories. And you’d need to walk about 35 miles to burn up that many calories. So, whether through diet or exercise, it’s going to be a slow process.

You are either in ketosis, or you’re not. Having a higher ketone reading isn’t better, at least in terms of losing weight. A lower reading could just mean your body is getting more efficient at generating the right amount of them, after transitioning from using glucose.

#9

I think that’s the best thing about keto. Sugar carbs and insulin are no longer creating a false sense of hunger, so hunger is a more natural gauge

The seems to be the case with many of us, but not all. I’m sure there are a number of factors involved.

A lot of research seems to be indicating the microbiome makes a huge difference between how individuals process the various macros.

(Susan) #10

There are different reasons we can have a stall on Keto, watch this:

Welcome to the forum =)

(Carl D Black) #11

Watched that vid a couple of times. Thanks.

(Carl D Black) #12

Well, not exactly. Think about it this way: what causes lipolysis/ketosis when you fast? You are restricting everything when you fast. Keto is nothing more than a partial fast: fasting carbs. I think it has more to do with low insulin than about the number of calories. Don’t you think?

(Carl D Black) #13

Yeah, been told this before. You may be right. I threw it all into Carb Manager to see where I was…not too shabby. If I keep the almonds to less than a cup a day I’m fine. But they are my carb creep food source for sure lol. God I love almonds! :slight_smile: I break every fast with them.

Also, I have been seeing a real possibility of a BS spike in the morning with the artificial sweeteners: stevia, erythritol and sucralose (+ maltodextrin). I’ve dropped the source of the last two leaving the stevia/erythritol (Pyure) and will test my BS again in a minute to see if there was a spike. Ok, just did it. It definitely spiked a little, from 89 to 94+. Sooo, maybe drop all sweeteners altogether for a while…

(Carl Keller) #14

Reducing nuts and dairy meant I was eating about 200-250 less calories per day and it didn’t affect my hunger one bit. That worked out to about 12% less food per day. This could be the difference between holding steady or burning a few ounces of fat per day.

Another problem that artificial sweeteners can create are a rise in insulin levels. High insulin takes us out of fat burning mode and puts us in fat storage mode. Not only that, at least one experiment showed that rats that ate AS, ate more food at meal time than rats that had no AS. So it would appear that AS intereferes with hormonal signaling and can cause us to eat more than we really need.

(Carl D Black) #15

Well, I had kept taking it in the morning coffee as it wasn’t interfering with weight loss. But now…since my body seems to be readjusting (or worse, my RMR/BMR has dropped to counteract) I’m willing to avoid them altogether if needs be. My wife has promised to quit smoking when I hit 200 lbs. Well, I’m at 218.3 this morning…got a bit more to go…hopefully by the end of summer perhaps.

(Carl Keller) #16

I will confess that I use stevia in my morning coffee but I was willing to give it up if I stalled out with a lot of weight to lose. How AS affects us may vary from person to person and fortunately, you have the option of lowering your nuts and dairy to get past this stall.

(hottie turned hag) #17

Nuts and cheese stall me and trigger binging on same.
Carnivore broke my stall. Then I reintroduced cheese and veg 2 weeks ago and then BINGED on nuts. Am going carnivore again to get re-set.

Erm…ya. This is what effed me up. Had to keep them and pecans out of the house entirely.

#18

I’m sure insulin is a factor, but the fact that I have to work at restricting near zero carb, high-fat foods like bacon, sausage, cheese, and butter tells me that calories are far more important. I could easily regain all of my lost weight on keto if I let myself eat all of those that I wanted, even though my insulin and blood sugar levels would still be well under control.

I have never lost weight without restricting calories. The difference between keto and other diets, for me, is that restricting calories is so much easier. That is where the lower insulin production enters into it, and makes it a sustainable diet. Every other diet led to feeling of deprivation, then small cheats, then binges, then right bad to the old habits.

I still sometimes do the small cheats, but they don’t lead to binges. I have far more control than I used to.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #19

1 cup almonds. 14 net carbs

medium onion. 2 1/2” 8.5 net carbs

The almonds and onion would kill your daily carb allowance right there. All the other foods in this list also contain carbs. Either you’re not carefully tracking or you are going with a much higher carb count than the majority of us. If so try 20g. net carbs. Even eggs have carbs.

I think if you want to include many these foods daily you may have to be careful about portions. If you don’t want to give up nuts how about keeping them to a handful daily instead of a cup? Cheese, same deal about a 2 oz. serving per day. Cut back on vegetables. Eat more meat and eggs.
Hummus :no_entry_sign: not if weight loss is a goal!

There’s a lot of experience and good advice in this thread and you want some help past your stall. If you aren’t willing to change your daily eating routine I don’t know what to tell you.

If I want something, I do what I need to do to get it is my approach. There’s no food that I would be unwilling to give up for a while to see if it made a difference for me. Currently that’s HWC. Doing without knocks a few hundred calories right off the top of my day. And I LOVE :heart: espresso with cream in the morning, I’m drinking it black now. Because my goals are more important than a little pleasure from a food that I enjoy.

We all gave up tons of foods to get where we are, yourself included. The hardest part has already been done. Think of food as medicine for your body and give it what it wants to continue the recomposition and fat loss. And to get your wife off tobacco!

:cowboy_hat_face:

(Khara) #20

Double :star::star: for finally mentioning the 1 cup serving of almonds and while giving up HWC.:nerd_face:
Good luck!:cowboy_hat_face: