Hello, I’ve been on the Keto diet since January 2nd and beside the first 8 pounds that I lost the first week, the needle of the scale has been stubbornly still. I’m 53 years old, female, 5 5’ and I have quite a weight to lose. At least 30 pounds, better 40. I eat for breakfast 2 eggs omelette with 1/2 tsp.of butter an 1 oz.of goat cheese, sometimes I add 1 oz. of smoked salmon, coffee with 1 Tbs. cream. Lunch: 3 cups of salad, 5 olives, 1 pkg.of tuna in water, 1Tbs.olive oil, 1/2 avocado, 5 mozzarella cherries, 1Tbs.sunflower seeds. Snack: 1 oz. Pecans. Dinner: cauliflower with cheese or spinach with parmigian and a piece if salmon cooked in butter or 3 chicken drumsticks. After dinner I NEED something sweet…I eat a fat bomb or a hot chocolate with almond milk, 1Tbs cocoa powder 100% and stevia. I don’t like muck meat and I LOVE vegetables and fruit( sigh!). What am I doing wrong??? Thanks for your help!
Please help, I'm not losing weight
You are doing better than fine. 8 lbs since Jan 2nd. is crazy fast weight loss.
Hello Laura.
If you feel like you have more energy, your cravings are manageable and you have better control of your hunger, you are doing nothing wrong. 
It’s those positives that you should focus on and the weight loss will come if you continue to keep your carbs low and eat protein and fat to satiety. It takes time to sort out the damage that eating poorly for decades has done to our hormones. It might be a few more days or even a few more weeks, but eventually your hormones will get sorted and then the weight loss can begin.
So keep doing what you are doing and try to relax. Stress elevates cortisol and that alone can keep you from weight loss.
Thanks Carl. My cravings are definitively less for all the good fat that I’m eating and I feel less aches in my body. I just wish the scale would moove. I guess I need to be more patient. Do you think what I eat is right? Or too many protein?
What you are eating sounds fine but realize there are some sneaky carbs in nuts and cherries so too much could prevent weight loss. If you are tracking carbs, I recommend keeping net carbs between 20 and 30 per day (20 has been very successful for me). If you are not tracking carbs, I recommend cronometer.com at least until you get the hang of eating this way.
As for protein, I’m going to guess around 40-75 grams per day will keep your hunger at bay and that a bit more shouldn’t be a problem if it’s required to keep you from being hungry.
Oh and about the snacks… not snacking might help nudge the scale along some. The more time there is between eating, the more chance our body has a chance to burn some body fat. If a snack keeps you from relapsing to sweet carby things, then by all means, do what it takes to keep that from happening. I know I had a carb mentality, my first few weeks of keto, to grab a snack because it was a certain time I was usually doing so before, but it’s a habit well worth breaking. If it means you have to eat a little more at meal time, to avoid needing a snack, then by all means do so.
Laura, what you’re eating looks pretty good, especially for the first couple of weeks. Stay OFF the scale. You need time to get fat-adapted. You also need time to “let go” of all the old CICO dogma, the sugar cravings, etc. I know you said you NEED the after dinner sweet, but you really don’t. I promise. 
And this is coming from a sweet tea junkie…I HAD to have my sweet tea…but I really didn’t. So for now, try to replace that sugary thing after dinner with something fatty. Have some pepperoni and cheese, for example.
Personally, I don’t think sweeteners, at first, are a good idea. Yes, they’re low carb, but they still TRIGGER your taste buds. They’ll still have you craving sweets. They can also stimulate insulin just because they taste sweet to you. So if you can take a few weeks of doing NO added sweetness, it helps. Then when you start adding in some sweetness, you’ll need much less and be surprised at how much it’s a non-issue.
The only other advice I have, since you do want to lose weight, is to watch the cheese and nuts. They both have some carbs, but more importantly, it’s really easy to over eat them. Again, while you’re adopting this new lifestyle, don’t worry about it! But maybe after a couple more weeks, try scaling back on those.
My advice… Throw away your scale!!! Or at least lock it in the closest for the time being!!! Focus on how you feel, stick to 20 grams of carbs or less, and pat yourself on the back for staying focused and motivated!!! Keto is great but it is NOT an overnight, quick fix!!! You didn’t gain the weight over night, therefore you won’t lose it overnight! You are doing great, hang in there, have fun with it and have some patience. If you do that, before you know it you will start seeing results that you will be happy with!! Hope this helps…
I think you’re doing great.
I second what others have said about cutting back on certain foods. Maybe you could eat less salad too. I’ve found that eating too much food in general can make me feel hungrier, and then I’m in trouble.
Also, think about why you need so much variety at each meal. I know a lot of ketoers eat lots of extras, but I like to keep it simple. Sure, you can have olives, sunflower seeds, fat bombs, etc., if you really feel the need, but don’t let them distract you from your main focus, which would be animal-based foods.
Keto is this easy (Keto for beloved noobs)
This is for Phase One - the starter phase. It’s still not complicated later, but this is the really easy to explain version which will help you no end.
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Eat under 20g of carbs a day
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Don’t worry about the scale
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Eat plenty of good food - fat and protein - while adhering to 20g/carbs/day. Don’t worry too much about macros and calories EXCEPT carbs. Keep them below 20g/day. (Prioritize the protein - always start with protein in every meal, but don’t panic about it.) Your job is to get fat-adapted, so give your body the fuel you want it to use. Also, your appetite will vary - it’ll disappear, then it’ll come roaring back. Happens to most people, don’t sweat it.
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ELECTROLYTES/SALT - KEEP THEM UP
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Buy the meat you can afford - don’t stress about grass-fed, organic (con), etc… The worst meat is better than the best bread.
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Fasting is a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. Works for lots, not for others. Don’t let tools tell you to use it before you’re fat-adapted and it makes sense.
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This site has a search function (magnifying glass at the top of the page) and a newbies section - use them both, you’ll get a better variety of answers to your questions far more quickly that way. SERIOUSLY, THIS IS VERY USEFUL.[1]
That’s as difficult as it needs to be for a couple of months.
My good friend Terence (being friends with a Kiwi feels kinda dirty, but there you have it, keto makes for strange bedfellows) tells me this thing I have described above is called “dirty keto.” So yeah, do dirty keto, kids!
Lots of Love, THE JUICE
Expanded version is HERE
[1]If you can’t find a useful answer after searching and reading for a while, we can help you a lot more if you tell us relevant data about yourself such as your reasons for doing keto, your weight/height/age/gender, a sample menu plan & any relevant health conditions.
Although this wall of words should be required reading for all newbies - it might work better if you prefix why you are publishing it for each newbie.
- Calories are too low
- Should not monitor scale too much early on
- Eating too many different hyper palatable foods
- Fat bombs might be better after maintenance begins
Otherwise the poster might not get what you think their issues are based on their post.
You are doing fine. 30-40 lbs is not a LOT of weight to have to lose. 100 lbs is a LOT.
I lost a little over 30 lbs on keto and it took me 9 months. I stalled for several months after losing 22 lbs and ending up fasting to break the stall. I had been ketoing for 6 months by then so it was easy.
Thanks everybody! It is a little more difficult for me because I don’t like meat and also my salad helps me to go. I make my fat bombs with almond butter, coconut butter and cocoa powder and stivia. Their have each 7,5 gr fat, 2 gr. carbs.
I feel I’m not eating enough fat and 1 of them might help to reach the daily quota.
Water weight comes and goes if your weight isn’t rebounding you are probably losing fat in balance with a regain of water. Losing fat at 1 lb per week is a great rate. A scale is mainly useful on longer time frames such as a month or more.
Why is so important to drink a lot of water beside the usual 1,5 liter a day? And the salt?
Eating carbohydrates causes the kidneys to retain salt. Fasting or eating keto causess increased salt loss in urine. This is known as the naturiesis of fasting. Higher salt intake to counter the loss is desirable.
I think it is recommended to drink to thirst. 1.5 L per sounds a little low for total fluid intake and drinking a little more beyond thirst probably is fine and might be helpful. Go with what feels best for you.
Often when starting keto muscle glycogen is depleted. Glycogen storage requires a lot of water and as the glycogen is burnt off and not replaced the water goes too. Other proceses such as a reduction of inflammation can also shed water. As people keto adapt and muscles transition to fat as fuel glycogen stores can replenish and additional water is again retained. Water weight can come and go much faster than fat so a scale is fairly useless for tracking fat loss on short time scales.
According to what I read in this forum, some people just eat a lot of oil, butter, coconut oil and bacon . But…I understood that one has to eat a certain amount of calories according to his weight. How do you explain the “fat binge” and still losing weight, when for let’s say 1500 calories a day one can eat 120 gr. of fat?