Hello!
Hubby and I just started Keto on 8/25/18. He needs to lose a fair amount of weight and get off the path to diabesity both his parents paved for him. I could stand to lose a few pounds, as well, after having 5 kids and leaving my career to stay home and chain myself to the stove for our anaphylactic food allergic children (3 of them!! how does that happen?!).
However, my main motivation in starting this WOE is to lengthen my husband’s life (he doesn’t get a break from raising 5 kids any sooner than I do!) and to address my own increasingly aggressive arthritis symptoms/inflammation.
One of our children developed epilepsy as a toddler and I researched the Ketogenic diet for him back then. We started it and his seizures did stop, but then one of the other children developed anaphylactic allergy to dairy and we had to eliminate dairy for the entire household. (They’re like shark embryos, these children).
Over the interceding years, we’ve been no strangers to extreme elimination diets, gut healing and clean eating with the entire top 8 allergens removed. I knew we could handle hubby and I going Keto.
We cook Keto main dishes and let the kids eat carb-y side dishes along with the meals and we’ve got a great support system in a more experienced couple who re-introduced the diet to us.
I joined this forum and read through most of the material for newbies, including the FAQs. Many of my questions have already been answered thanks to this wonderfully thorough and user-friendly site! Thank you!
Here’s where I’m at and hoping those who are more experienced/knowledgeable can help me with:
In this month of switching to Keto within our loving union, hubby and I:
went through keto flu together starting on day 2,
faithfully avoided all sugar and any carbs past 18 grams daily so far
gagged down greasy fat and mounds of meat until we started to love it,
dragged ass through the fatigue during back-to-school-season with 5 kids (imagine being staked naked and covered in honey to a fire ant hill if the fire ants were fed crack first) that lasted about 2 wks,
entered ketosis (day 6 for me, 2 wks for him) and verified it with pee strips and a friend’s blood meter,
and celebrated renewed and increased energy and mental clarity together (3 wks for me, 4 wks for him)
also - my joint pain is at an all-time low and my endurance for intense exercise is already markedly increased.
Now hubby is testing our marriage by losing weight without me.
I have gotten quite discouraged at every weigh-in, but I just remind myself that I am sleeping better, having less joint pain, more mental clarity and energy…but still, I want to know why it isn’t working for me! Must be the ‘J’ in my intense INTJ! So, here is the only background I can guess might be relevant:
I know i’ve been in ketosis for over 3 wks as I test with the pee strips and my friend tested us with her blood meter. I always show up as ‘moderate’ with a nice raspberry color.
I lost 5# the first week, but knew it was water weight. Hubby’s weight loss continued consistently after an initial 4# loss, but mine abruptly turned into gaining 3 of the pounds back, despite devoted ketoing.I stopped any intense exercise until the last week and a half, when I went back to intense bike riding up the small mountain we live on. (high intensity for maybe 30 minutes about 3-4 days/wk)
My friend did look at my macros on the Keto app (KetoDiet) and realized my allowances were way too high, so I adjusted that about a week and half ago and now my numbers are drastically reduced.
We’re almost a month in now and hubby has lost 10# without even tracking his macros (just cut out the sugar and almost all carbs) and I have still barely lost 2.
Body composition-wise, he’s a tall teddy bear and I’m a brick shit house - can that have something to do with it? in other words, I’m a muscular build and he’s fluffy. If I gain weight, I just get bulky with very little jiggly fat, he’s all jiggle. He could probably stand to lose about 50#; I could probably still hold a dress up if I lost 25#.
Or can it be that not having dairy in our diets for so long and now suddenly eating it like it’s the last food on earth is objectionable to my body? (Obviously my body is smarter than his, that goes without saying and is not his fault, poor dear).
Or…can it be that this diet is screwing me up hormonally? I did read only 2 negative things about this diet that appeared to hold a grain of scientific truth to my untrained mind:
- It can cause hormonal problems for women with underlying thyroid issues. I don’t have any of those but I am a woman of a certain age with a certain life change allegedly looming and I suppose if that isn’t already an endocrinological system in an uproar, I don’t know what is! To clarify: my cycles were fairly regular before, but just starting to get less so this past year and when I started Keto, I was due for my special lady time 2 wks after starting this WOE (some woe with my WOE, if you will, ha!) Well, my special lady time has yet to make its appearance! In its place I’ve been having special hot flash time. Especially every time I eat! Hot enough to wake me up at night sometimes. I was thinking about making an appt with my Dr., but I don’t know how Keto knowledgeable she is and don’t want to get scared off before I’ve given it a fair shot.
2.That going Keto can cause kidney stones. Not that I’ve ever had one or think it’s an issue in my failure to launch, but hubby has a history and I just want to be prepared mentally if he’s going to strip naked on the floor and roll around again, moaning in a cold sweat and vomiting while pretending he is even close to being in the kind of pain that comes close to childbirth.
I also have a hard time getting all my fat macros in, but my protein is gone before dinner. And I’m not ready to fast yet, I’m still pretty hungry at the three mealtimes.
So, to sum it all up, what I’ve gleaned here is that maybe I should give it a little longer, esp. with my macros needing to be adjusted. Maybe I should try to incorporate some fasting, if I might be the type not to lose easily on Keto. I should definitely try to eat more to my fat macros and stretch my protein more.
Assuming you wise ones agree with those conclusions, here is what I still need guidance on:
Can dairy be holding me back b/c I eliminated it for the last decade and my body wants it to stay that way?
Are my hormonal experiences normal for we more seasoned women, or cause for concern?
Does body composition come into play with regards to initiation and/or rapidity of weight loss?
Do ppl who have more to lose, lose more sooner on this WOE?
and
please tell me
what do you reach for when you have fat macros left to eat, but no protein and not many calories? (cutting out carbs is not a problem for me, eating the fat is! So far I go for avocados and make a fat bomb mousse out of heavy whipping cream and sugar free pudding packs, but I need more ideas!)
Thanks!