Not Losing but Sticking to the Rules HARD

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #25

You’re hypo and on meds for it. I find this statement hard to believe. :point_up_2: There are nearly a dozen different hormones involved directly in metabolic function and regulation and others indirectly. It’s all about energy management - what comes in, what happens to it and what goes out or not. If any of the hormones involved managing energy throughput isn’t doing it’s specific job efficiently (or at all), the whole system suffers. We’re not a lab calorimeter, so energy is not a simple in/out measurement.

(Robert) #26

Hi Christine. I d like to share this with you. I m a 12 plus year carnivore. I was among the early members of ZIOH message board. My diet has been very clean for many many years. My health returned and inflamation went to pretty much zero but all was not perfect. My body was still 35-40 pounds heavier than I should have been. This weight was making my BP run on the higher end. I go back to work researching ( gave up on a Dr ever offering anything useful long ago ) so I come accross Dr Jason Fung. Any type of fasting was shunned at ZIOH. Dr Fung explains it well. My body has metabolic damage if this I am certain. A fasting plan turns out was the missing link for me. I require a little longer period of time between feedings. I think this is because of my damage. This time allows for my insulin levels to drop long enough to use stored fat. It works like magic. At 62 I am at my perfect weight. Most days I have a 4-6 hour feeding window. Fatty meat eggs bacon chicken liver butter ( some dairy plain yogurt cream cheese ) shrimp crabs scallops beef liver. List could go on and on. Every couple months I do a 3-5 day fast to get autophagy benefits. BTW I feel sooooo good when I do this. I hope this helps. I will add I firmly believe you MUST break your addiction to sugar and any sweeteners in order to get your life and health where you d like for it to be.
PS you can eat all the fatty meat you can stomach in the feeding window time frame. No counting nothing. Just eat fatty meat till your body is saying I cannot eat anymore. Do not eat again for the next 20 hours or so. This is so easy you will drop weight and gain health so fast your head will spin. Get rid of the sugar.

(Chris Christine) #27

Oh! Yeah my thyroid. Sorry about that. I’ve been on thyroid meds for soooo long I never think what it it means. I’ve been on them forever and never had a problem losing weight but add in the fact I’m 60…. Poof! Slow as can be.
I really appreciate the feedback here! This is going to be my go to from here in out.
I like the way I feel so I’m going to just move forward and be grateful for such a great responsive forum.
Bonus on the bacon!

(Chris Christine) #28

I gave up all sugar when I started. I do use monkfruit sweetener every once in awhile if I’m craving coffee. I drink it maybe once a week.
I’m doing mainly meats, eggs, some cheese, veg is all green and use butter, olive oil and Mayo. My diet is very boring… nothing fancy at all. I cook to eat when I’m hungry. I’m only hungry twice a day. I will eat almonds or pork rinds if I feel I need a snack. I’m going to do some reading up and also try a fast to see what happens.
I certainly appreciate your feed back. I’m certainly going to try. This is a lifestyle for me that I obviously need to perfect because I do feel good! I haven’t been bloated in almost 3 months!

(Robert) #29

The plan for snacking is exactly what will keep your insulin levels elevated. Snacking most likely means you are eating too often. You cannot trick your body with lowering food intake etc. it has evolved many years to survive. You can work with it by extending the periods of time between eating. It WILL use it’s stored fat if you allow the conditions to allow it.

(Gabe “No Dogma, Only Science Please!” ) #30

My experience may be of interest:

(Chris Christine) #31

Oh it’s very seldom I snack. I only snack if I ate a light dinner and feel hungry. I only eat when I’m hungry which is about twice a day. I didn’t realize it but I also eat within a window. Start at noon with lunch then dinner by 5. Done for the day.

(Chris Christine) #32

That’s so interesting!

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #33

:pleading_face: I mentioned above that I suspect I inherited my dad’s active thyroid before it went hyper and I think that saved me from decades eating SAD. Until the decade of my 60s, then I started to gain weight. Slowly enough not to become a big issue, but steadily. By the time I started keto at the age of 71, I carried about 30-35 pounds of excess. I now interpret that as gradual insulin resistance which is the inevitable result of SAD combined with thyroid slowdown due to age. So, yes, 60 changes lots of things!

You will find mentioned here in the forums that exercise doesn’t really help you lose weight. Technically that’s true because your metabolism simply redirects available energy to cover it. However, ‘moving’ as distinct from ‘sedentary’, benefits overall health in many ways. Even just walking helps if you can’t get motivated for anything more strenuous. If you move enough, long enough your metabolism raises your RMR. Maybe not much at first, but every little bit helps. Being more active also stimulates your thyroid, pituitary and growth hormones as well. Again maybe not much, but every little bit helps. We evolved to move, which is why we have such nice legs compared to our other primate relatives. We don’t ‘knuckle shuffle’ like them - we’re unique in how we can walk and run. We didn’t evolve to sit on our butts all the time stuffing stuff down our gullets.

(Chris Christine) #34

I love the end of that. I am sedentary but do move around a lot. I live in Northern Maine where the temps have been below 0 for over a week. I do walk in the nicer weather. I have a step counter on my watch and do on an average day 2000 steps… a mile! So I’m not completely still. I’m too much of a neat freak for that. I also work from home so that doesn’t help the movement. After reading these great replies to my post I did realize I wasn’t drinking enough water so I added a whole lot more in.
Most of all…. I just love that I found such a supportive forum.!

(Paul) #35

I am really interested in this statement. Would you please provide any studies or papers that document this?

Thanks,
Paul

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #36

At work so can’t respond until later. Maybe someone else can do so sooner.

@PaulL
@ctviggen
@lfod14

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #37

This is basic biochemistry. All carbohydrates (apart from certain sugars) are arrangements of glucose molecules. This is why blood sugar goes through the roof when we eat too much carbohydrate. But we don’t need to eat any glucose at all, because our liver is perfectly capable of synthesising the small quantity we actually need (gluconeogenesis).

The point of a ketogenic diet is to lower insulin sufficiently to get us out of continual fat-storage mode. We do that by lowering blood glucose—by drastically cutting carb intake—and thus making our fat store accessible to being metabolised. For the process to work, we want to eat an abundance of food; otherwise the body assumes there’s a famine going on and hangs onto its resources. The combination of low insulin and abundant intake tells the body it’s safe to part with some of that excess stored fat. So we eat when hungry, stop eating when we stop being hungry, and don’t eat again until hungry again. Between meals, insulin drops, and we can use some of our stored fat to fuel our activities. Insulin prevents fatty acids from leaving fat tissue, so the greater the amount of time during the day that insulin is low, the better off we are.

(Paul) #38

Hi PaulL,

I’m new to forums, so perhaps I missed something…

The quote from me in your last post about veggies wasn’t from me. I’m not sure where it came from.

amwassil’s last post is referencing my previous post:
Your metabolism can only burn a certain amount of stored body fat each day to compensate for reduced energy from your plate. If you exceed that amount, then not only will you not use stored fat, but your metabolism will slow to reduce overall energy requirement making it even more difficult to do so. That’s not a good place to go.

My head hurts now… : )

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #39

The follow up study of the contestants in the Biggest Loser show, which followed each contestant for 2 years or more, determined that every one of them not only regained all their original weight plus more, every single one of the contestants slowed their metabolism by 500+ cals per day. That’s an enormous deficit. I’ll post a link later when I get home.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #40

@dpaulc

Sorry, I misspoke about the Biggest Losers. The study followed the former contestants for 5 years! That’s pretty good for a nutritional study.

Anyway, per your request. Up first: the limitations on how much endogenous fat one can burn:


Our own ‘Dudes’ provide a handy calculator to determine one’s capacity here:

Up next: what happens when you burn your stored fat.

Folks lose fat on mod to high carb low fat calorie restricted diets. No one seriously argues that thermodynamics doesn’t apply. The issue, however, is not simply the initial fat loss, it’s the post loss period where things go off the tracks. Something like 99% of folks who diet with mod to high carb low fat calorie restricted diets regain all the weight - and most gain even more - within 2-5 years. You can’t eat to a caloric deficit forever obviously and when these folks stop the train wreck commences.

Why? Because restricting calories while not in ketosis leads to metabolic slowdown. For example, the Biggest Loser contestants.

In the Biggest Loser, contestants had dropped their basal metabolic rate by 500 calories per day.
…
That reducing calories causes basal metabolism to plummet was already proven long ago in the 1950s by nutritional history’s favorite whipping boy, Dr. Ancel Key. His famous Minnesota Starvation Study was not actually a study about starvation. Subjects were put on roughly 1500 calories per day diet. This represented about a 30% reduction from their previous diet. They were also forced to walk about 20 miles per week. So, this was a Biggest Loser approach – Eat Less, Move More on steroids. What happened to their basal metabolism? They ate about 30% less, and their basal metabolism dropped about 30%. They felt cold, tired, hungry. As they ate, all their weight came right back.


Why doesn’t this happen on a calorie restricted ketogenic diet?

The results of this study challenge the notion that a calorie is a calorie from a metabolic perspective. During isocaloric feeding following weight loss, REE was 67 kcal/d greater with the VLC diet compared to the LF diet. TEE differed by about 300 kcal/d between these two diets, an effect corresponding to the amount of energy typically expended in 1 hour of moderate-intensity physical activity.


And we also know that in ketosis calorie restriction is not required to burn endogenous fat. Dr Bikman explains how that works:

(Kirk Wolak) #42

There is:
What you eat, When you eat, Why you eat

And the real hint, is that this is your second time. I noticed you track your macros, but don’t tell us what they are. I will make 3 assumptions:

  1. You are using NET Carbs (Switch to total carbs)
  2. You are including dairy (this causes many people to stall)
  3. You are not “really” weighing your vegetables

Honestly, remove all dairy, please. Count Total Carbs. And if you are not losing weight, eat more fat/protein, and cut the carbs in HALF (from 20g to 10g). Give it 2 weeks.

Personally, I am at 5g or less, otherwise I do not maintain ketosis.
Also, if I eat the SAME Food in 3 meals, I am not in ketosis the next AM, but ONE meal is fine.

If I want to eat 2 meals, I have to cut that in half (for the day, so 1/4 per meal). Why? Every meal produces insulin.

Finally, if I eat after sunset, I am usually fighting high Glucose and low ketones in the morning! (again, a bigger dose of insulin).

Watch Dr. Boz, and/or Dr. Ken Berry on YouTube. They talk the basiscs.

Don’t laugh about the dairy. Even my stubborn neighbor who was doing fine, dropped the dairy recently, and then dropped 6lbs without trying! (Dairy is designed to make a calf gain 700 lbs)

Good Luck.

#43

If the deficit is too big, sure. We never should do that, not even in ketosis but it’s quite possible our body can handle a bigger deficit there as it access the fat easier… I think.
Many of us experienced that a decent calorie deficit on a carbier diet works well. My family members never saw any metabolism problem related to it (not like we know our energy need but there was no problem with losing and then going back to the more relaxed, higher-calorie normal woe). I accept that it doesn’t work for everyone, I can’t eat little enough normally either (be it low-carb or keto or carnivore. I just eat more than my tiny energy need most of the time in average) but it shouldn’t slow the metabolism. If it does for many, I am sorry for them - except if keto is great for them and they can stick to it without problems. I think many of us are glad to have difficulties with fat-loss and finding a better, healthier woe :wink: (Even if I never could lose much fat with it, I have no regrets.) But some of us never have this problem with calorie restricted carbier diets, that’s sure. Maybe our metabolism is more reluctant to slow down and we don’t do it long enough and even if it gets slower, it quickens very soon after? (And my high-calorie days might have helped too. My SO has no such ones while losing but he slims down quickly because he never has very much fat to lose and he always loses at a steady pace for some reason, his body responds to calorie deficit wonderfully. Even starving is less dangerous if it doesn’t last long but obviously it’s still quite bad.)

We never did low-fat diets though, it was always high-fat :slight_smile: If that matters :slight_smile:

Of course, we are ketoers here (at least most of the time), we can do this so we should use everything, it surely can’t hurt, it’s the opposite :smiley: But it’s not hard for everyone to lose fat on high-carb (or low-carb non-keto) without bigger problems (most people have some kind of difficulties I imagine. I had difficulties to stay on keto for 7 weeks and it was easy and enjoyable enough, just still with some difficulties. I lost nothing though, well that wouldn’t have been pleasant) and never gaining it back. Some people can do it, it’s not a given for the metabolism to slow down just because there is a little less food to trigger fat-loss.

(ALISON PICKERING) #44

Hi - DH and I started ZC on June 4. We have both lost ~30 pounds.

HOWEVER - it has been a journey of long plateaus for me, after the initial ~20 pounds in first 2 months. So - I went almost 10 weeks with ups and downs in the same 3-pound range, but my body was consistently shrinking! I can wear clothes I couldn’t wear when I weighed LESS - so check the clothes, keep track of your measurements (DH lost all over - but a fabulous 7" around his waist - he’s now into 32" jeans).

“Eat meat and wait” is my slogan for this diet. Your body composition will change to less fat, more muscle, and muscle weighs more (and burns more in your basal metabolism).

I’m thrilled, even though it has seemed glacial. I hope the same will be true for you. I look a whole lot better and have had to give away all my fat clothes, even as my weight hasn’t really changed. Woo hoo! All the best to you - stay patient and keep the camera, clothes, or measuring tape handy to track your progress.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #45

This statement by Michael is true as far as it goes. There is indeed a limit to how much energy our body can obtain from fat stores during a day. This simply means that we also need dietary fat to make up our need for energy. As long as we eat in a way that keeps our insulin low (i.e., a low-carb diet), the body manages this seamlessly, and all we need do is eat enough to satisfy our hunger. When we embark on a ketogenic diet and have extra stored fat to shed, we will eat less and use more stored fat. When we have shed most of the fat we need to, our hunger will pick up and more of our energy will come from our diet. When you think about it, this is exactly what we want to happen.