Lost some weight, then gained it all back plus some more! xD

#1

Just started up keto again a few days ago. I have been walking/sprinting and just in general moving more.
I am doing 10-12k steps sometimes over 20 floors around the house doing laundry and things, etc. Every night I am going to bed EXHAUSTED from the extra walks and intentional increase of movement to burn calories.

I have done keto before but typically I dont pair it up with exercise because i am hella lazy whenever possible. but this time I want to lose weight and keep it off, I want a new life style and I want it to be healthy. Plus I am a massage therapist and it took me 6 months + to build up the muscle i needed to do work and it is ALL GONE, I do not want to go through the agony at work again lol so I am trying to prep for this.

However, I suddenly noticed I went from losing weight, down 4 pounds… to gaining weight, up 5 pounds. I am actually heavier than where I started. I am not sore at all from my work outs i do have a little bit of minor water retention but it doesn’t seem more today than it did yesterday. I am aware that most of this IS probably water weight because i went from 166 to 171 in a day… lol but this is fairly worrying and discouraging. should I cut back on exercise? should I cut back on Keto for a bit?

I would prefer not to blow up with water weight. The only thing that has been worrying me is I have my calories restricted to 1300 but I am eating back calories that are subtracted from exercise. Not all of them though because I know that exercise often over estimates calories burned. My Fitbit has been keeping me on track but I worry that eating back the calories might be sabotaging me?

Maybe not, maybe I am just worrying about nothing, but I am getting dangerously close to the heaviest I’ve ever been and I’d prefer not to go off the deep end again and try to fast for a week or two out of desperation and self hate, lol.

#2

You’re right that it must be water weight for a 5lb increase overnight so I wouldn’t worry about that fluctuation, but my two cents from reading your post:

exercise/movement/activity are absolutely amazing. I think they’re often undervalued on this forum because they can have such powerful hormonal effects

BUT

if you’re suddenly moving more and intentionally restricting your calories and the whole thing feels like a calorie game instead a long-term shift in hormones… that’s not a good set-up for success.

Can you focus on getting back to Keto for now and add in the sprints later? lots of walking is ok, but I wouldn’t make that the main goal. One goal at a time to really let yourself fully adjust to it and normalize it.

#3

Crikey Yaz. What a stew.

Keto, calorie restriction and, possibly, excessive exercise. It’s not a good combo. It may be even more bad than good.

Exercise is good for many reasons, but not for weight loss. It will help change body composition. But don’t be surprised if you don’t lose weight or even gain weight with exercise. Your body responds by building muscle, if it has good nutrition, amino acids, micronutrients and hormones to do that.

If you want to build muscle and strength you should feed your body, not restrict calories. Restricting nutrition under the guise of restricting calories will stop weight loss. Feeding yourself well is good for mental health and promotes body fat loss in a low insulin, or insulin sensitive internal environment.

Keto does mix well with exercise. The effective approach appears to be resistance training and/or high intensity training. The sprints that you do should be enough without the need to add 10,000 steps. Or do the 10,000 steps, but not bust a gut doing the sprints By over doing exercise stress hormones can be released too often or continuously and that will hamper weight loss goals.

The really good thing about exercise, as well as timed feasting, is that will reduce stored glycogen in your liver increasing better blood glucose regulation and reduced deposition of fat. And whoosh, there goes the water bloats weight.

A nutritious whole foods based ketogenic diet without calorie restriction. Focussed exercise, but not too much. Plenty of sleep. And time restricted feeding is the current best combination for health improvements, increasing strength, and the side effect of excess body fatloss.

My thoughts.

#4

My reasoning for the exercise is a few things 1. I am a massage therapist I have lost all my muscle mass during the covid stuff so I really really need to get it back before things re-open and I am finding myself in a crappy position where I am unable to keep up with the demands of my job. 2. prior to this attempt at keto, every other attempt has been mild weight loss followed by a really rough plateau that lasts for months. I have actually never seen myself get past it. I usually get down to about 145-148 and the weight loss jsut comes to an absolute grinding halt. The longest I remember sitting there was probably about 4 months. It was so disheartening. I was doing everything right, keeping the carbs withing 15-17g a day, drinking tons of water, sleeping at least 8 hours a night (Actual sleep) i was even meditating and trying to be as positive as possible thinking maybe it was stress, but it just refused to budge. So I am building up some muscle first this time around to help boost my matab a bit and see if this changes anything.and 3. my boyfriend now lives with me and he has a very unhealthy lifestyle so for every bit I do he does about 10% of what I do. The more active I am and the healthier I live, the more in influences him. He want’s to lose weight and get in shape but his job is very sedentary and he works more than he should. So if I am going on walks 2-3 times a day there is a chance he will come with me once a day or once every other day. At current he wont live to see 60 if he doesn’t change his habits. He’s got a resting heart rate in the high 70s (he did before we started) he’s about 50 pounds over weight, and has high blood pressure.

As for diet, my boyfriend supports us financially and we are very food secure which is something new for me and exciting lol So we are going the healthy route… grass fed meats, high quality eggs, organic this and that, etc.

At the end of the day I want my pants to fit well, I want to look and feel good, I want to get stronger, faster, and leaner. I have the will and the means, I just need my body to follow suit xD

So far my weights been a roller coaster the last week going from 170 > 168 > 166 > 171 > 166 > 168 (the last bunch of days I have weighed myself) I expect it to flux but when its going several pounds in a day it makes it really hard to track and this is basically always the case. I can gain or lose 3-5 pounds in a day and it makes it really hard to keep track of my weight and make a decision if something needs to change or not.

#5

yeah i think i over emphasized the calorie restricting. I am eating plenty i just have a goal as more of a reminder to not go crazy and snack all day

#6

Give the body weight scales to someone you do not like.

Eat well to your hunger. Do not calorie restrict. Do not calorie restrict. Carbohydrate restrict.

You have solved the measurement challenge. Base it on clothes fit.

Have a series of clothes that are sized to an acceptable and realistic goal.

That’s awesome that you partner responds to incremental improvements in health.

My wife is a yoga teacher. She practices and teaches for at least 6 hours per day. Totally addicted. I work on a computer, and when the surf is good, I go surfing. My wife rarely goes in the ocean, maybe a summer swim. My other exercise is walking, tree planting, homestead chores. Like you, build activity into house work. My wife is mainly pesca-vegetarian low fat eater. I’m a keto-carnivore. Occasionally I’ll do some yoga. We are both whole foods low carb. We still seem to like each other after a few decades married but different approaches to eating and exercise.

Enjoy and make best use of the high nutrition foods that food and economic security brings.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #7

Yaz welcome back. I was going to post advice but @FrankoBear and @Madeleine hit the nail on the head. Good luck and try their advised changes. :cowboy_hat_face:

(Bunny) #8

That is normal and I experienced the same. 5 and 10 or even 15 pound fluctuations are really nothing but gaining muscle mass and bone density (from fasting and ketogenic eating) may have something to do with it also besides water retention?

Around the torso area for me which I thought was fat but it was really loose skin but at the time I did not know that (now I feel stupid when I think about it for not realizing that) and became extremely frustrated I wanted pull it off with my fingers ( …lol) but it went away with time and time restricted eating.

I later learned from reading Dr. Fung’s writings that you can in-fact catabolize loose skin through fasting.