Plateaued already? Please help

newbies
#1

Hi,

I started going to the gym 2 months ago (never gone regularly before and now 2 cardio/weights classes every morning) and noticed more fitness but no weight loss. So on the 26th of August I started keto.

Day 2 and 3 I was nauseas, and I had to cut down to one gym class a day for the first 1.5 weeks because I was too fatigued, but then got my energy back. Week 1 I lost 4lbs (not as much as I’d hoped but still good), week 2 I lost 2lbs (less good) and this week I’ve lost none.

I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. My fitbit says I’m burning around 2500 calories a day and I’m restricting food to 1350 so that alone should mean weight loss, surely? I’ve been sticking to <20g of carbs per day so I do not know what I’ve done wrong.

The plan for this coming week is lowering the calories and carbs further, but I’m feeling super disheartened. I’ve got a holiday in 2 weeks and, when I started keto and it was 5 weeks away, I really thought I’d be much slimmer for it!

Also, it’s not the “muscle weighs more than fat but you might have lost inches” thing (as my colleagues keep saying) as I don’t seem to fit clothes any better. And it’s definitely not a plateau because I don’t need to lose weight - I’m 5’2" and 12 stone so I definitely do.

Has anyone had this? Does it pick up? Can anyone see any glaring mistakes I’m making?

(Allie) #2

You won’t even be adapted yet, give yourself time, and eat! This is NOT a calorie restriction diet, the whole CICO thing is a myth.

(less is more, more or less) #3

For the uninitiated, CICO means “calories in, calories out,” which is a pernicious lie that must die. Burning 2400 calories, but consuming 2300 doesn’t mean you have a deficit and will necessarily lose weight. It means your body will adapt over time and make changes, since our bodies doen’t want to starve and die.

Vigorous exercise will change the dynamics of your metabolism. Regardless, calories don’t matter, though portion size, food quality, and amount of food does. When we say this isn’t a calorie restriction diet, true, it isn’t a green light to gorge, either.

Carbs: I’m a firm adherent to 20 TOTAL grams of carbs. Not net. My using net carb measurement under Atkins was one reason I left Atkins, unwittingly. Don’t count macros, don’t count calories, although journaling what you’ve eaten and how you feel help you understand your body better. Eat to satiety. If you over-eat, face it down. Learn why and what you can do to cut that out.

I wish you all the best!

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #4

It’s not that the calories we eat and the calories we expend are totally irrelvant, but that hormones play an important role in deciding what our bodies will do with food. Insulin is the fat-storage hormone, and it is greatly stimulated by eating carbohydrate. Insulin must be low in order for fat cells to give up their stored fat. There are other requirements, as well, but nothing will happen in the presence of insulin.

Protein stimulates insulin at about half the rate of carbohydrate, but in the absence of carbohydrate the body responds in a way that still permits the mobilization of stored fat, if there is an excess. Fat in the diet stimulates insulin a little bit, but the effect is negligible, when compared with the other two macronutrients.

Fat cells secrete a hormone called leptin that is intended to tell the brain when there is enough energy on board that we don’t need to eat for a while. High insulin levels prevent the brain from receiving this signal, however, which is why we are hungry all the time when eating a lot of carbohydrate, and why, when our carb intake is low, we can rely on our satiety signaling as a guide to how much food to eat.

The upshot is that the causality is reversed from what proponents of “calories in, calories out” or “eat less, move more” assume. In fact, if the body is in fat-storing mode, we are going to be hungry and have to eat; whereas in fat-burning mode, our food intake satisfies us, and we automatically eat at the right level, without having to count calories.

(Amy Ramadan) #5

My recommendation is to relax!!! Stop stressing so much. You have changed your diet tremendously, and have become more active, so focus on that!! Those two things are HUGE! I say just keep doing what your doing, stop stepping on the dreaded scale so much, and trust the process!!! You didn’t put the weight on in a day and you won’t take it off in a day!!! And it’s a proven fact that most people who lose a ton of weight at all once tend to put it right back on and then some!! Slow and steady wins the race!!! Sounds to me like you are off to a great start and doing great things for your health, keep up the good work!!