Stalled weight loss - I know its been asked before

#11

Are you willing to skip a meal. Don’t restrict your calories…just keep a cap on carbs and protein (like what others said above), but eat fat to satiety.

So, the idea is this…pick a meal to skip…like breakfast or lunch. Eat as much food as you would have with three meals a day, but in the two meals only. Do this for a day or two to test your “fasting” abilities. Does it work? Do you freak out in hunger, or are you ok with that? If it felt ok, then plan on doing it for a longer period. Like a few weeks, and see how it goes. This will likely “push” your body into more fat burning mode, because you create a bit of a fasting window, and eating a ketogenic diet forces your body to burn fat, and not glucose for majority of your energy.

Little baby steps. Testing new strategies, and seeing what works, is the best way to outsmart your body.

Good luck with your efforts. I hope you stay in touch and keep us informed on how your are doing.

#12

I’ll try it. I’m fine with eating 2 meals. Many times I eat to get the meal in but am not real hungry. Thank you for the help

#13

Thank you for all the guidance, Great forum!!!

#14

Yikes…if you are eating when you are not hungry, you risk continuing your problem. If you are not hungry, don’t eat. This will allow you to achieve low and stable insulin levels, which then result in weight loss. When we learn to listen to our bodies, we get huge wins. I know their is a stigma out there for eating 3 square meals a day, but it is really not necessary. Eat the meal if you are hungry, and skip it if you are not. And you will likely do very well. :slight_smile:

(Mary 🌹 ) #15

Yes…I AGREE! I even stop eating before I am full!

(Tom) #16

I’d also add that if you aren’t doing tape measurements of at least your waist and neck, it’d be a good idea to start. There will be times when the scale stalls, but the tape shows progress.

Induction using fasting
(David) #17

Absolutely. I second this. My weight goes up and down more than a bride’s nightie, but the general trend is downwards. My neck only went down an inch so far, same on the fat belly-button waist measurement. But my trouser waistband is down two holes and getting even looser.

(Karen Fricke) #18

Your protein is likely to high. Cut back to 75-80 for a few days, if you don’t start craving protein, then 75-80 is enough. 1 gram/kilogram of lean body mass is enough. So for really rough math-----if 220 lbs and 25% fat was the goal, that would be 100kg total weight, therefore 75 kg lean body mass.

(Richard Morris) #19

It’s important to learn to trust hunger/satiation signalling to tell you when to eat, and when to stop.

If you are eating 3 meals a day, because you think you need to eat something at “Breakfast time”, “Lunch time”, and “Dinner time” … and you are not actually hungry at any of those times - then you will be almost assuredly eating too much and falling for the classic myth of “meal times”.

Having anything in your belly stretching it will cause insulin to be secreted, which will switch of the mobilization of body fat and redirect your digestion to dealing with incoming calories. It could take your system 5-6 hours before insulin goes low enough to unleash energy from body fat for use again. If you have 3 meals a day the only time you will be able to burn body fat will be 6 hours after dinner - while you are asleep, and your metabolic rate is lower.

I suggest in the morning when you wake, asking yourself “Am I hungry - RIGHT NOW” and if you aren’t skipping breakfast. You are in a low insulin state while you were sleeping, waking will make a little, but if you don’t eat you will go back to that low insulin state pretty quickly … and then you can ride that state burning body fat for hours until you are hungry. Eat then. Then maybe dinner time one day, lunch time another, and some days you might find you missed eating all together.

If you just can’t get out of the rut of eating 3 or more meals a day for cultural or social reasons … which are entirely reasonable reasons, then you will probably need to count your calories because your hunger/satiety signalling may become non-functional if you are always eating and if you aren’t able to perceive hunger/satiety signals then it becomes hard to eat fat to satiety.

#20

Maybe I’m computing wrong? I’m not disputing, I’ll cut the protein, I’m just trying to understand how it all adds up and what I need to do to follow it…I get it that it is not exact, just trying to get some kind of baseline.

Body weight 368
Body fat mass 43.2% x body weight 368 = 162 lbs
368lb – 162lb = 206 lean body mass

Fat Loss (Active 0.8)
Carbs 20 = 80kcal (4%)
Protein 128g = 512 kcal (25%)
Fat 162g = 1458 kcal (71%)
Total = 2048

(Karen Fricke) #21

Unless you’re 6’8" I think the calculation for lean body mass is off, if it’s right, that’s about 90 kg, so 90 grams of protein

(Jason Fletcher) #22

Hi Zig I am not sure what your over all end goal. There are a lot of different views on the keto diet approach and debate on protein and if you should calculate the number of grams of fat you eat. If you looking for a good calculator I would suggest the ketogains you can read their facts here https://www.reddit.com/r/ketogains/wiki/index. Looking at your calculations for lean body mass your calculations look high. I have know no clue what you look like how tall you are or if you man or a woman. Or if you are a power lifter. But if you are a male about 6’ and have not done much lifting i would guess your lean body mass to be about 150 to 160 pounds. There is also a problem with putting your activity level above sedentary with most calculators because it inflates your numbers. I think it is good that you are trying to get down your macros. This will help in the future not only when you are trying to get to your goal body fat % but also when you would like to increase your muscle and over all strength. I will tell you when it comes to my bias. I believe strength training is the best approach.

#23

Sorry, 6’ Up until about a month ago I was in the gym 4-5 days a week, walking on treadmill 40 minutes then weight training 4x a week, 2 body parts a day, nothing crazy. I do have a large frame. Business took me away last month but I’ll start back up this week. My end goal is to be at 240-lbs and determined to get there. I’ll lower my protein and see how that goes. I feel great.

Thank you for all the input, it’s great to have a source to go to with questions.

#24

Same here. I stalled for a couple of months, then started losing again. Patience is the key…

(eat more) #25

i disagree with this.
TDEE is important to keep your BMR happy…or at least i think so because setting activity to sedentary results in too great a deficit for some ppl…
the beginning of my keto journey was far more difficult and long than it should have been because i listened to that “advice”.
i think the problem is when ppl over/underestimate their actual activity. if you are truly sedentary cool but if you’re actively working out you are not sedentary LOL

are you affiliated with ketogains? (just being nosy because that’s all i see you post…doesn’t mean that’s all you post…just all that i have seen :joy:)

(Jason Fletcher) #26

I Just follow them. I try to point people to their facts page so they can learn more. They have helped me out a lot.
As far as the sedentary or active i suggest looking at this because it could be a factor for the weight stall.

(eat more) #27

as could having too great of a deficit :blush:
too little intake results in the body thinking it needs less.

i don’t remember the ketogains site advocating that everyone set their activity to sedentary. (reddit, yes)
the KG calculator has a TDEE, activity identifier, and a place to add in actual exercise…which i don’t do because there is no way to accurately predict/measure output from exercise…especially not globally and then this becomes about CICO instead of hormones.

setting activity level to sedentary automatically creates a deficit for someone who isn’t sedentary and then a lot of ppl usually take another 10-40% deficit (they get excited lol) on top of it which results in lower BMR…creating a vicious cycle of lowering intake each time there is a stall…so at that point it’s really CICO with keto eating habits.

i like KG 5x5 and use it frequently.
the calculator sets my protein a little high and my fat a little low for what my body currently needs.

as you can see from my signature i am all about eating more to burn more :joy:

#28

I’m not sure. I did try to post in another forums and it never showed up, several times so I moved on and found this forum, luckily.

#29

ehhh I dunno; most studies (of the few there are) and also anecdotal evidence point to the fact that people chronically underestimate how much food they’re eating and overestimate how much work/exercise they’re doing. The recommendation about “set the calculator to sedentary” is usually good advice for most people who wonder why they aren’t losing the weight at the rate the calculator tells them they should be (other than week #1, which I think we should make more of an effort to tell people to ignore) … so it’s not so much a downward spiral of CICO reinforcement, but rather, an acknowledgement of reality: not only do we individual persons have errors in calculating intake/output, but also the food manufacturers and database entries contain inaccuracies, so it’s better to err on the side of underestimating what one’s burn is.
So whether it’s CICO or “calories in + magic = calories out + magic”, we can still affect the calories variable and let the magic do it’s part.

#30

The calculator should be used to determine rough guideline for protein intake. And that’s it. Setting calorie deficits is futile. CICO does not work.

Just determine protein daily grams based on your lean body mass.
Start at 20 grams carbs as a starters template (adjust later).
And eat fat, lots of it, and to satiety.

No calorie restriction.