Quick Intro, Lost 11 pounds 1st week w/ intermittent fasting

(Mike) #1

Hi, 47 year old Male here, struggled with obesity for the last 7-8 years. I was very fit and active when I got married at 25, I am 6ft tall, with a large frame, and stocky build. When I got married, I was 240 lbs, (which I laugh at when I see that was overweight, because I was in good shape, maybe 10-15 lbs over where I could have been). With getting married, got lazy and stopped working out, started eating more, and eating bad stuff, plus I have my mom’s genes, and when she hit her mid 20’s after being thin for her entire life, she began to pack on the pounds. Genes are only part of my issue, most is bad choices, lack of exercise, laziness, and sleeping very little, working late into the night, and snacking along the way. Long story short, I have kids, and I know that this is the last resort for me, I know Keto is what I need. I knew this New Year Day that I was hovering around 400, but I didn’t want to get on the scale to see for sure, but at the same time, I wanted to start off accurate and being honest with myself. Mentally I wanted to be 399, when I stepped on, I was 402 :cry: I cringed…It was a dose of reality. I knew at that moment, that would be my all time highest weight. It was an instant wake up call. I spent 6 hours researching, reading and watching videos about Keto, Intermittent fasting, etc…I came up with a plan, and last Monday, 7 days ago today, I started fasting, 7PM to 11AM drinking lots of water. 1st couple days were rough. My body was angry with me, my stomach especially, the hunger pains and sounds were nuts, you could hear my belly rumble from across the room, I had headaches for 3 days, then…the hunger went away. The cravings went away. The headaches went away. I got on the scale 2 days ago and had lost 9 pounds. Today I weight in again, and lost 2 more pounds for a total of 11 since last Monday. I am pumped, and setting small goals for now. I want to get from 391 to 389, then to 379 and so on. I know it works, I always have and should have started sooner, I was just too lazy, but this was a wake up call.

Before I started Keto, I was tired, exhausted within 3 hours of waking up in the morning, and I took a nap most days at around 10am. Now, my energy level is up, and I am not even thinking about naps! No more hunger pains! Feeling good!

I have read people say “don’t lose too much weight too fast, it’s not healthy”. My reply is, neither is being 400lbs, so I am happy to see it drop off as fast as possible. So far so good. I plan to check in here regularly, and continue to stay motivated. Hoping to add some cardio & weights a bit at a time, but with kids, work, etc, I dont have a lot of time for the gym, but try to sneak there a few days a week. I’d love to hear from people in a similar situation to me, and also from anyone who has advice & tips to offer Thanks

One other thing I forgot to mention: I did Keto for about 5 weeks before, and lost 30 lbs. Started getting heart palpitations and flutters. I stopped Keto cold turkey. After talking to others, and research, I came to the conclusion I likely wasn’t getting enough electrolytes in my Keto diet. Now I am taking a potassium/magnesium supplement, one a day vitamin and Pink Hemalayan Salt in my water

#2

Welcome. Congrats on your new beginning.

(Bunny) #3

I personally would count half of that (11 pounds) as actual fat burned so that would be 5 1/2 pounds of actual body fat lost, the rest I would count as water weight!

(Mike) #4

Forgot to mention, I will miss some of the foods, I won’t lie, I like to eat. I enjoy tacos, cheese steaks, pizza,ice cream, etc. I hope to one day be healthy weight wise and eat those things in moderation but right now, all I care about is losing weight, so those things are not on my mind.

The thing I am suffering most with, my favorite thing…coffee. I love coffee 2-3 cups a day. I used to drink it with lots of light cream and 2 Splenda. I am not crazy about Heavy Cream which I know some people on Keto use, so I went to Black with Monf Fruit sweetener(from all my research, it seemed like the best Keto sweetener) and I HATE drinking the coffee now. Black coffee for me is really, really bad. I do not look forward to it. During my eating hours, if I drink any, I mix butter in and it helps a little, but not much. Eventually, I may break down and add the heavy cream because I just have no joy from the black coffee. I also tried Almond Milk, Cashew milk etc, but it tasted as bad as the black coffee, so I figured, if its gonna be bad, I may as well make it black

(Mike) #5

Thanks I appreciate it

(Carl Keller) #6

Welcome Mike.

It’s not too late to take back your health and congrats on starting the process.

And so it begins. :slight_smile: Life doesn’t have to be such a labor. It will take some time to retrain your hormones and get control of them, but good things are already starting to happen so that should be encouraging.

There are quite a few very large men and women who changed their life for the better with keto. Check out this thread if you want proof and inspiration:

https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/centurians-people-who-have-lost-more-than-100-lbs/27482

(Mike) #7

You are probably right, I don’t care what it is as long as the weight keeps dropping, the number on the scale goes down, and I get thinner. Then I will be happy yo know it’s working.

(Mike) #8

I will check that out thanks!

#9

You can eat taco salads, there is a fathead pizza crust that is pretty delicious and you might be able to eat a cheese steak on a lettuce wrap.

#10

gah same here! go with the HWC…once i got used to the cream (it didn’t take long!) it became my favourite part of the day! congratulations on your results so far. it’s only down (up!) from here.

(Mike) #11

I did eat some cheesesteak in a bowl this week, but man, gonna miss it on the roll. I will try that Pizza too thanks

(Mike) #12

Thanks, I agree, I will just have to suck up and do the heavy whipped cream…I was shocked by how expensive it is though

#13

Look up Fat Head Pizza and Fat Head dough. You can create a pretty darn good replica of pizza. Your non-keto peeps will even love it.

Maybe try this for a keto style cheese steak:

Perhaps you can make these cheese based keto taco shells.

I’ve seen many keto ice cream recipes as well.

You can get creative with your foods. Sure, it won’t be exactly the same as the old stuff. But keto food is pretty darn delicious.

Have you tried mixing your heavy cream with a bit of water? You will have to play with the ratios, but you may be able to get it similar to your light cream.

Congrats on your progress so far. Try to focus on what all you GET to eat, instead of what you think you’ve lost. And every pound you lose will remind you of how what you eat now makes that fat loss possible. KCKO!

(Mike) #14

Awesome thanks! Will check these out

(Running from stupidity) #15

That seems extraordinarily unlikely.

(Ken) #16

For a 6’ tall man with a muscular build, 11 pounds could easily all be glycogen. I’m about the same and can carry around 12-14 pounds of it. But hey, you’re on your way, but things won’t now be as fast. One to two pounds per week is normal.

#17

Congratulations! Sounds like you’re well on your way, and I think small goals are a great idea.

For exercise, you might find it easiest to just work in a bit here and there: an extra walk once a day (which tends to turn into more once it’s a habit), 10 squats every time you get up from the couch, eventually some pushups and some kettlebell swings, playing games with the kids… you can get pretty fit without a really formal routine. But if you do go with a formal routine, you’ll get the most (metabolic and form-changing) bang for your buck from weight training.

For food, I would just focus on the amazing foods you can have on keto. Taco craving comes up, and you tell your brain “yeah, that was good, but at dinner I’ll have — and —, and it’s amazing, plus I feel so great!”

(Roxanne Godoy) #18

Hey, I been on the keto diet since December 28th 2018.
And i been getting heart palpitations all day! And tingling sensations and the back of my head feels kinda swollen and achy. I get random nerve pinching sensation on my abdomen and some kinda twitch on my hand it was like a shock sensation or hot flash it was very weird. Is that normal? I also I get cramps on my sides hurt really bad on my stomach like a nerve pain. Idk. I’m new. And I don’t do the calories count or anything just eat from the book.

(Fred Bartholomai) #19

Mike,

I am very excited for you! Keep it up! Slow and steady. Don’t stop.

I have a fasting recommendation for you, which I planning on doing myself.
I have been doing a lot of research on this. It is called’What the Fast ? (Super Fasting) - Only fasting 2 days a weeks ( then having a ‘super-meal’ at night ) - the other days of the week you do your regular low carb (keto).

Also, I have come across a great Dr Doctor - Dr. Ken Berry - who is very pro low carb (Keto) and practices what he preaches as well ( very rare in my experience). He is also available for online consults as well.

Regards,

Fred B.

(back and doublin' down) #20

Congrats! and welcome!

If you are missing coffee, you might try Teeccino’s Dandelion Dark Roast Tea. No caffeine, very satisfying. There’s several good flavors too. For some reason, this tea does well to replace that coffee fix, with or without cream. Coworkers turned me onto it when I started wanting to give up some of my coffee (breaking away from BPC…though I think the BPC really helped me in the early months of keto). Amazon sells a variety. I love it enough to have it on a subscription basis these days.