Stalls - Plateaus - etc. Looking back and being 100% honest

#65

I think the obvious sign, that doesn’t require a test, would be abdominal bloating and water weight gain. That’s something I can feel right now due to adding some nuts and seeds back into my diet.

What the 100-lb-loss people typically have is adipose inflammation, and a whole slew of messed up cytokines like IL-6 and adiponectin, which are signals to other parts of the body. That’s not something you could test around very easily, but something that explains why there can be rapid healing in unhealthy adipose tissue as opposed to normal fat cells. Just being overweight doesn’t mean the fat cells are unhealthy or that IR is involved, but it’s more likely.

How the inflammation starts in the first place though… it’s been proposed that it begins in the gut lining, spreads to omental fat depots, and eventually becomes systemic over a long period of time. Factors like gut irritants and the microbiome can play a role in determining sensitivities, and that is the wild west frontier of current science.

Adapting to obesity with adipose tissue inflammation

Insulin-sensitive obesity

(mole person) #66

Oh wow. This is interesting and raises a lot of questions. First, what does the actual inflammation weight consist of if not lipids? Second, would it count to lean mass on a Dexa?

A lot of people seem to fall off the wagon a little bit but then gain more weight from it than seems reasonable. The idea that it’s “just water packed in with the glycogen” doesn’t really wash either though since going back to strict keto doesn’t get you back to your previous weight at all quickly. This would answer that conundrum.

#67

I’m going to say interstitial fluids and all things lymph-related, and it would show up as fat mass because it can’t be separated out at the cellular level by DEXA. Electrolyte imbalance may come into play here too, at the beginning of keto, and be part of the whoosh effect when the body starts releasing excess sodium.

added picture from study above
adiponectin2

(hottie turned hag) #68

Hellyeah ^^^

@FishChris
erm…may I say your photo is a tad swoony? :star_struck:

(Nicole Sawchuk) #69

I have stalled out for at least over a year. My weight and my measurements. Although I am now thin, I still have those pesky last 10 lbs to lose. In that time, I have gone mostly carnivore. I really tightened up in the last 6 months and have pretty much eliminated all nut consumption. I also began increasing my strength training. No real budge. I am at a hard set point.

But I feel really good. I believe I am getting stronger and while I can’t see a change in physique, I am trusting it is happening. But I think at this point in my life, maybe I need to stick at this set point and do some internal healing that I didn’t realize I needed. Or maybe this is it?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #70

This. It certainly sounds plausible. Inflammation is a typical response to damage, especially if there are pathogens in the area. The fluid would be rich in macrophages (leukocytes) and debris from pathogens. Chronically elevated serum insulin is known to stimulate the production of inflammatory cytokines.

(Dirty Lazy Keto'er, Sucralose freak ;)) #71

Ha :slightly_smiling_face: Is their another Fish Chris on here ?
Well, that was 4 1/2 years ago, right before my back injury, but Im trying to get back to 3/4’s of that shape now. I’m actually 10 lbs lighter right now than I was at the peak of my fitness, but about 40 lbs less muscle :frowning: And that is the hard part. Weight loss is so 1a…

(Art ) #72

‘cheats’ as I see it - people trying to find ways - recipes - etc to fulfill some craving from their past sugar and carb filled life instead of just staying focused and disciplined.

It’s obvious they’re not going to think of it as a cheat and sure in the hell aren’t going to put ‘cheat’ in the subject line.

(Susan) #73

I suppose you are including recipes for Keto Pizza, Keto Pasta (that the 2KetoDudes have made, and other foods like that in your comments? Let’s take it further then and include your addiction to Coffee… it certainly wasn’t around in Paleolithic times either, so is not being Strict Keto either…

I think you are being far too extreme here. Adjusting foods to make them Keto is much different then people just randomly eating the carbs and sugars and directly cheating.

(mole person) #74

This is what I’d thought you meant. I don’t agree however with calling them ‘cheats’ although I do agree that they are ultimately deafeaters for most people on a ketogenic diet who are trying to actually get to a lean weight.

This is actually why it isn’t a cheat. If you are to run a marathon and don’t know the exact route or the exact rules but see many other runners, including some of the organizers, taking a shortcut that has fewer hills, you’d be silly to go the other way. I think it’s more like that.

Have you gone to a bookstore and looked through the keto cook books? Good luck finding a single one not filled with these ‘cheats’. Have you read Stephen Phinney’s “A New Atkins for a New You”? The recipe section has many such ‘cheats’.

So it’s really not fair to say people are “looking to find” cheats of the keto diet when they are following the keto diet exactly as they understand it, the way that most people understand it, and the way that it’s presented by the guy who’s called “the grandfather of nutritional ketosis”.

Also, I think it’s important to realize that this version of keto with all these fake SAD foods and flavours does help most people. A 250 pound woman who gets to 180lbs following the instructions and recipes in “A New Atkins” is massively healthier then when she started even if she ends up a bit frustrated that she can’t shed the last 50 lbs. Would this woman have even started keto if she’d thought every sweet and bready thing was off the table forever? Some might, but many wouldn’t.

Lastly, for many, the above style of keto is like a gateway drug. They start on it and lose a lot or even a few pounds that they could not shed before but it’s easy and they aren’t hungry and so they keep searching for what they need to do to really get the level of leaness that they are happy at.

In my own case at my heaviest I was only 133 lbs. I had been a slim young woman and I very slowly put on 15 pounds in my forties and they at 50, boom, ten more practically overnight. I was miserable in my own skin and refused to even shop for myself at that size but COULD.NOT.SHED.A.POUND. I was not a calorie restricter though and only ever really tried giving up sugar for a while. Then my husband heard a Taubes interview. This led me to read his book and to start watching Phinney videos, then I read Phinney’s book.

So I started on this version of keto and lost the first 10 lbs effortlessly. I was super happy. But that was the end of it for me. I wouldn’t lose any of the rest on Phinney’s keto. And I wanted my figure back now that I’d seen the light.

So next came Jason Fung’s “The Obesity Code” and that’s where it all came together in my mind.

I’m very happy at my current size and to me it’s more than worth giving up fake sugar and fake flour products to have it but I don’t think other people who don’t do this are “cheating” unless they are actually trying to do this strict, highly ketogenic (not nutritional ketosis) version of the ketogenic diet. It’s a choice, but the other choice is still a keto diet even if it’s arguably not going to be as powerful.

Anyhow, that’s my two cents.

(Hyperbole- best thing in the universe!) #75

Brava!

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #76

Regarding all this stuff, a lot of it comes down to context. Here are my musings on the subject, for what they’re worth:

My weight has been stable since late 2017. Is that a plateau, or is it my “Phinney weight” (i.e., “the weight you can get to without too much trouble, and when you get there, still have a life”)? Since I adopted this way of eating to stave off full-blown diabetes and have successfully done so, I am perfectly fine carrying around 60 pounds’ more fat than I’d really prefer. Honestly, losing the first 60 pounds, which melted away with no effort on my part, was merely an unexpected side effect of regaining my health (though a delightful one).

As far as cheating is concerned, if a food is fatty, and low-carb, it’s not a cheat in my book. A cheat would be bread, pasta, potatoes, or a sugary dessert; something that would definitely do me harm.

A few extra calories from fat when I’m hungry are hardly a problem, because eating fat doesn’t affect my insulin or my weight. A little extra glucose, on the other hand, risks putting me back into my old metabolic condition and giving me back all the fat I’ve lost (not to mention giving me back all those aches and pains). And when you add fructose to the mix—well, addiction lies down that road. That’s why I do call such things a cheat, because I’m cheating myself of my dearly-won health when I eat them.

The only reason keto substitutes aren’t generally a part of my life is that they rarely seem to come all that close to the taste I’m missing. I have yet to find a keto “bread” recipe that doesn’t taste like fried eggs, for example, and that is not a taste I enjoy.

However, I do find it possible to enjoy certain keto recipes for exactly what they are. Take Fathead pizza crust: it doesn’t taste very much like a real bread crust, but it’s tasty on its own terms, so I like it. I wouldn’t call it a cheat. There are also a couple of sugar-free cheesecake recipes on these forums which I have enjoyed making and eating. Since those reicpes don’t make me fat or ruin my metabolism, I don’t call them cheats, either. Zucchini noodles and cauliflower rice, while okay, just don’t excite my taste buds, yet I’d hardly call them a cheat for the people who do enjoy them.

As for the rest of the food I eat, there is enough tasty real food out there, that I haven’t suffered from lack of interesting food to eat. :bacon: and :egg::egg: FTW!

(Dee) #77

… I use artificial sweeteners with no problem. But I have also found that although keto I too was eating too many calories/fat when I hit my stall. Sometimes you really do have to keep track of calories/macros to know what’s going on.