I eat low carb but not keto. (I did lower/keto carb for a while but it wasn’t really for me.) I do a lot of fasting though, which works great for me. My fasting insulin is low.
But once I get lower than 20% body fat (54yo female), the weight loss is excrutiatingly slow. Which is OK. One reason is I’m not comfortable doing super long fasts without having more body fat. But I’m wondering if a short period of pure Keto might really help to get rid of that last amount of body fat. Has anybody found that to be the case?
I’ve had the same issue. The last few pounds are tough. I am not a faster. I have tried it a couple of times but each time I feel as though I am watching the clock, thinking about food, etc. So, for me anyway, I just try to keep the pedal to the metal, in the sense that I keep exercising and make sure I consistently burn more calories/eat less calories each day. There is no question your body is fighting you as you get lower. You do not lose the weight as easily as you did in the early stages. From all that I have read this is quite natural. So, for me, continue to work out, burn more calories than I am consuming, usually by at least 500 per day and more typically 1000 per day. The pounds come off but slowly.
Maybe the biggest realization I have come to terms with is, proper weight is a journey, not a destination. We never arrive. We are constantly moving toward something. You may get to your weight goal but it is fleeting. You may be there for a while. You may go lower but sooner or later you will move higher. No big deal. Just keep on moving. Be sure to enjoy the journey.
While I’m not going to discount CICO out of hand, I don’t believe it is a strict calculation because your body compensates by adjusting your metabolism (just like a calorie of sugar isn’t the same as a calorie of fat). For 8 weeks I recorded every bit I ate and was in big calorie deficit, and I did not lose weight during that time. Extended fasting works differently for me, and I do lose weight. I have to make sure to eat plenty on days I eat to make sure my body knows I’m fasting and not overall restricting calories. Fortunately I love to fast. It generally is easy for me, and I feel great while fasting.
I’ve been weightlifting a lot and would like to see my muscles more. Look more “athletic.”
I would like to not look overall skinny, but still have fat hanging over my waistband.
I want to see if by losing the last few pounds I can get my skin to shrink. Fasting is supposed to help that but some people also say the skin won’t shrink a lot until body fat gets lower than 20%. I’m getting older every day so my skin will never be more elastic than it is now so I figure now is the time to try.
Fair enough. I was going to mention how much trickier it gets as we age & our hormone levels decrease & suggest weight training might be your best bet but you seem to be all over it.
PaulL
(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?)
#10
I though women were supposed to have around 23% body fat. If that’s correct, it’s not too surprising that you would have trouble at a lower level.
I have a feeling that it was a guy who came up with this notion. Men’s percentage of body fat is closer to 10%. I suspect that you, as a woman, would see autophagy at a much higher percentage. Check out the Obesity Code podcasts the Dudes did with Dr. Fung and Megan Ramos. My understanding is that autophagy is pegged more to the length of time spent fasting than to body fat percentage.
I’m at a similar point in the journey as you. I’m a few years younger but perimenopausal. I don’t believe in losing weight slowly. I chose to lose weight quickly then focus on keeping it off.
Right now I’m “treading water” by eating daily or every other day depending on my BG response. I’m doing weight training and HIIT on alternate days. This allows me to maintain my weight and build muscle. If I wanted to lose weight slowly, I’d decrease/eliminate gym workouts and follow a 42-46 hour fasting regime.
Long term, I am below the weight (150 lbs) I’d prefer to be, but above my desired 18% body fat level. In order to have that, I’d need 123 lbs of muscle. On my last DEXA, I had 115. I’ve been looking into (online and at the gym) how to do this. The consensus seems to get below 18% then start gaining weight, which will mostly be muscle if I adhere to a strength training regime and eat at my carb tolerance.
I weighed 165 at my last DEXA, I’ve since lost 20 lbs, so I need to get a new DEXA and RMR to dial down precise numbers before firming up my plan. Fasting has been my tool thought out this journey. Unless the DEXA results throw a monkey wrench at me, I’ll do one extended fast (based on past experience, this will take 10-14 days) to get down to 135 (and maybe 15% BF ). Then via experimentation, I’ll find an IF protocol that allows me to slowly gain weight (aka muscle).
@4dml I love data and was planning to get a DEXA but then I read up on how poor their accuracy is. To me, it doesn’t make sense to look for small changes (between 17% and 20% body fat, for example) when they can easily be that far off just from measuring inaccuracy. And if someone has a huge change, do they really need a DEXA to tell them that? So anyway, just remember it’s and estimate and be careful about depending on it too much.
Why “decrease/eliminate gym workouts during 42-46 hour fasting regime”? I work out fasted all the time, and I do build muscle while losing fat.
I’m also curious about your comment that you eat or not depending on your BG response. I’ve never heard anybody say that. What do you mean by it?
I have read the same regarding body fat. One scale puts me at 20%, the other at 16.7%. For me, it is how do my pants fit around the waist. Wish I had the patience you guys have regarding IF. But don’t think that is ever going to happen. When I fast it seems like there is too big a void. Too much of my day revolves around preparing and enjoying food.
I’m not data driven, I thrive on feedback. To the extent that data provides measurable results, its useful to me, because that’s what keeps me motivated.
Its my understanding that the DEXA scan, while not perfect, is the gold standard when it comes to body composition analysis. Error can be reduced even further by always using the same machine. DEXA provides more information than any other method. Including, bone density, visceral fat, and muscle distribution by region. For example, when I lost 65 lbs, my visceral fat decreased from 2 lbs to 0.23 lbs. That’s important information to know, and only available from DEXA. Going forward, I’ll be using it to track the muscle mass increase in my legs and arms to give me the results of my resistance training regime.
I lost weight using block fasting. I found that on days when I worked out, my weight loss the following day was less than my average. That’s what I based my comment on. I could be wrong in applying it to an IF regime. During the time I’ve been doing IF, I haven’t been trying to lose weight.
My primary health goal is to decrease my insulin resistance. One of the ways I’m doing this is by trying to maintain a low basal insulin level. Since that’s not easily measured, I use BG as a proxy. The optimal fasted BG range is 70-85 mg/dL. Every morning I measure my BG, if its above 85 then I don’t eat that day (unless life plans dictate otherwise). I fast until it drops below 70. Depending on what and how much I ate, this takes 1-3 days; when I eat within my caloric and carb tolerance, I can eat everyday, when I eat too many carbs or calories, it takes longer for my body to “process” the food. As my insulin sensitivity improves, what I can eat and how frequently I can eat will increase accordingly. I like facts, anytime I can eliminate arbitrary I do so. That’s why I eat according to by BG rather than follow a arbitrarily defined IF protocol.
I’d like to believe what you’re saying about DEXA but that’s not what the research says. It says it’s only valuable for testing groups of people, because the errors average out.
As far as weight loss after exercise, my weight always goes up after exercise (which in my case is mainly weight lifting), on average 2 pounds. I believe it is due to inflammation, and it always resolves over the next couple days.
Your fasting based on BG is interesting but I’m not sure it’s relevant. Your body makes glucose from fat, so many people who have low insulin and high levels of ketones still have blood glucose in the 80’s. (Personally after a couple days of fasting my BG drops. It goes down to 50 by day 5, as my ketones rise. But I’ve seen a lot of things that say that’s not always the case.) The proof is in the pudding, so hopefully you’re measuring fasting insulin periodically and just making sure it’s dropping. If you’re fasting, however you decide which days to do it, it probably is. I’m just not sure if you’re accomplishing any extra by basing it on BG.
I don’t care about research, I only care about what’s applicable to me. I’ve shared how I use the information a DEXA provides. If you don’t think a DEXA scan would be useful to you, then don’t get it.
Its absolutely relevant. I didn’t invent the concept of using BG as a proxy for insulin. There are exceptional circumstances, but generally, low BG is correlated with low insulin levels. Millions of diabetics use BG to determine their exogenous insulin dosage. That’s in essence what I’m doing, except that my insulin is endogenous.
Insulin is an anabolic hormone. High levels are associated with weight gain. That’s why traditional body builders try to spike their insulin levels. When BG levels are low, the pancreas releases glucagon, which is catabolic and promotes lipolysis. So I want my BG low for extended periods of time. At this point in my journey, I no longer do proactive fasting, I only do it in response to high BG (aka insulin) levels.
The gold standard for measuring insulin sensitivity is the OGTT with insulin, which I will get annually. Even without that, I know what I’m doing is working because I do a DIY OGTT every few months so I can see the changes. Here’s a good explanation of it:
). Then via experimentation, I’ll find an IF protocol that allows me to slowly gain weight (aka muscle).