Please help - no weight loss


(L) #1

Hi everyone,

I’m new to here so hope someone can help. I’ve been doing keto for 3 months now. First month I lost 4kg, since then I’ve lost 1kg and stalled completely. For me a typical day food diary is

keto shake - small handful blueberries, almond butter, almond milk e.g.
keto bread and egg or cheese
form of meat or fish with veg cooked in butter

if i snack i have some nuts or some full fat yoghurt. I exercise lightly every day e.g. hour walk sometimes some weight training

I’m looking for help because I am really becoming quite upset about no weight loss - the reason i started was to improve my mental health as I am really unhappy with how I look. I am 25 5ft5 and weight 155lb

Just looking for advice on keto diet itself. I wonder if i should start counting calories but is that possible with how the fat works of the diet? Really appreciate any advice

thank you


(Allie) #2

Not calories no, but carbs. Really berries are not a good idea until you’re properly adapted, nut butters are easy to overdo (almonds also not ideal due to their higher carb count and high omega 6). Keto bread made how, ingredients?

How often are you eating? Are you checking physical measurements? Most important of all, how do you feel?


(L) #3

Hey thanks for responding,

Im always averaging under 50g carbs a day. Ill only use 1/4 cup berry and 1 tablespoon nut butter.
Keto bread is the 90 second bread - 3 tablespoon almond flour, one egg, tablespoon butter, 1/2 teaspoon baking powder. Sometimes I use coconut powder/coconult milk instead of almond.

I eat 3 times a day, between 10-7.

I never feel hungry and I don’t feel the diet leaves me wanting more. But physically in appearance I don’t see changes/ feel I’m any closer to my goal in the past 2 months. The changes I see are minimal so feel somewhat disheartened. Especially now we’re all at home so much more seeing the mirror constantly!


(Allie) #4

Most people find it best when starting out to get carbs below 20g until they’re adapted and then some may want to play around with tolerances and see if they can increase, but as far as I am aware, most choose not to. For some 50g is fine, but these are generally very active people who are able to easily burn through the higher amount.

You’re off to a very good start, just needs some tweaking. My suggestion would be to work on reducing both carb intake and meal frequency, see if you can get down to two meals a day (many find skipping breakfast works well, I prefer to have two morning meals only) rather than three, and I suspect reducing the nuts would help you too.

Personally I like this site but there are lots of others that will go into detail with suggestions of what to eat and what to avoid, another good site with some free content is Diet Doctor which also has paid for services many get benefit from though I have never looked into these myself.


(Marianne) #5

I agree about keeping the carbs (total, if you can), to 20g/day or less. Also, at 5’5" and 155, I wouldn’t imagine you have far to go, so your weight loss my be slower. I’d keep the carb at <20, and get your fat macro and meet or exceed that per day. If you can, try to eat more at your meals so that you are not snacking. An adequate meal should be able to carry you to your next meal.

Good luck; sounds like you’ve done well.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #6

Marianne and Allie have some useful thoughts. I’ll just add that the philosophy behind a well-formulated ketogenic diet is to work with the body’s hormonal response, in order to reverse metabolic disease and obesity. The key is keeping carbohydrate low enough to avoid stimulating an adverse (high) insulin response, since insulin is the principal hormone involved in causing the body to store fat (among its many other duties). Excessively high insulin levels also damage the body in various ways.

So the key to eating ketogenically is not to count calories, but to count carbohydrate. Keeping below your daily threshold is important to keeping insulin low, because carbohydrate causes the largest insulin response. Protein has a lesser effect, and the degree of the effect depends on the amount of carbohydrate in the diet. On a low-carbohydrate diet, the insulin effect of protein is offset by increased levels of another hormone, called glucagon, which helps stimulate the production of ketones in the liver (too much insulin, on the other hand, shuts off this process). Fat has almost no effect on insulin whatsoever, so it is a safe source of calories to replace the energy from the carbohydrate you are no longer eating.

So keeping insulin low allows fat to leave our adipose tissue, but the body will still hang on to its fat store if we don’t eat enough. I call this “famine mode,” because the body will hang on to its reserves for as long as possible, to keep us going through the period of short rations (interestingly, fasting—eating no food at all—has a much different effect on the body). On a low-carbohydrate diet, insulin is no longer interfering with the hormones that regulate our appetite, so that our appetite then becomes a reliable guide to how much to eat. Eat to satisfy your hunger, and don’t eat again until you are hungry again, and you might be surprised at how the fat melts off.


(L) #7

Thanks for the advice everyone! I’ve been sticking to as close to 20g carbs / day. Sadly I weighed myself today and have put weight on :sob: So mentally draining and hard to stick with it. will keep at it and weigh myself In a weeks time so fingers crossed.


(Susan) #8

Keeping carbs at 20 grams or as low as possible (I average 10 or less most days), NO artificial sweeteners -many of us find that they stall us or make us not lose weight, enough water and electrolytes and eat enough calories (from proteins and good keto fats) --is what I need to do to have the scale move. Also -IF (intermittent fasting). I eat lunch at 1pm and supper at 4:30 and no snacking in between (water and herbal or plain green tea in between that time) so my body has 20 hours of no calories a day. I try to avoid any processed foods as much as possible as well.

Everyone’s body is different, but for me, I have to stick to the above for the scales to move. I wish you all the best =-). Once your body adjusts, and gets rid of the Carbage, you will feel a lot better too =).


(L) #9

Hey! Just wanted to thank you all. Since counting carbs per day (and also some calories for personal reasons) I have got my weight down to 150.8 lb weighed today :slight_smile: slow and steady progress all I needed to see!


(Susan) #10

That is terrific, congrats on your progress and I wish you success in your continuing Keto journey.


(L) #11

Hi all I have a quick question!

I have those pee sticks that measure your ketone levels. For some reason I felt this week my weight loss had slowed and when I weighed myself I’d only lost 0.2lb so I measured my ketones and it was very low!

I’ve not changed my food, every day below 20g carbs. Does anyone have any ideas as to why this is? Does it Really matter as long as I’m measuring carbs?

Thank u!


(Allie) #12