Tell me what to do differently, please

(Brandi Lacey) #1

Hi, I 'm Brandi, 35 yrs old, Photographer, mom to 3 and new to the forum. I used to be very hypoglycemic. I couldn’t go 3-5 hours without eating or I would shake, think I was starving, eventually become useless and unable to feed myself if I let it go too long and thought I had to have a lot of protein at each meal to get myself through to the next meal, didn’t do well with anything for breakfast except eggs (donuts made me sick and shaky within an hour). I had a myriad of health problems, thought I was becoming diabetic, thought I was arthritic all over my body ,chronic fatigue and chronic pain that I took hydrocodone for as nothing else would touch the pain, and numerous women’s health issues. My dr told me I had fibro, I refused to leave it at that and went gluten free and almost every problem was solved except for my weight problem. I’m not a GF donut and pasta kind of GF person, I’m generally pretty health concious. But for the past 3 years (since going GF but it started before that) my weight has steadily, gradually, gone up. I was 105-130 for all of my 20’s and now I’m 155, 160 before the past two weeks. Most of my weight gain for the past 30 pounds happened after going Gf. I don’t want this number to keep going up.

I started Keto last year for only a month. I lost 7 lbs of water weight as expected the first week. Then never another pound. After a month, I gave up, figuring the high fat won’t work for me. After trying other things and seeing friends have GREAT success with KETO, I decided to dig deeper, make sure I’m doing it right and try again. I’m drinking a ton more water, I do yoga 3 times a week with an added 30-100 sit ups, push ups and squats and am pretty active otherwise. I figured my macros should be between 120-150 fat, 60-70 protein, and 0-20 carbs, with about 120-1500 calories a day. I have no fruit. Changed my coffee creamer to heavy cream and Trim Healthy Mama Gentle Sweet- 1.5 teaspoon a day. Tomorrow marks my 2 week mark of starting and my test strips show that I was in ketosis on Tuesday night and have been every day since then with no carb up days or cheating- aside from one sweet potato on day 6.

I am having a hard time meeting my calories and fat as I am just not hungry. I forgot to eat all day until 3pm one day last week, I had a ton of energy to clean out the upstairs of my house and didn’t want to eat, tried to eat some cauliflower dipped in ranch and it made me nauseated. I feel great, but the scale that initally went from 160 to 153 has now gone back up to 155.4, gradually increasing the past 4 days, and that’s disheartening and I don’t want this to continue for a whole month again and then I give up. I am wondering if I should be counting sugar alcohols, as that would make a big difference in my total carbs, and I’ve hear both sides on that and am not sure which to follow.

Is it just that my fat and calories really need to go up? I’m eating to satiety, and really don’t want anything else. I did make a fat bomb chocolate mouse when my fat was really, really low and doubled up on that, but I guess I need to do more of those? I eat .5-1 whole avocado a day (half with my scrambled eggs and half with a salad or at dinner to increase my fat) and cook with coconut oil and avocado oil mostly, unless the recipe calls for quite a bit of olive oil. I’m struggling to get fat and calories up without getting protein up.

My test strips show me in deep keto, 80-160+ the past several days.

My food days are like this just for a few examples: (of course loose estimates)-
Yesterday 1135 calories, 83 fat, 62 protein, 14 net carbs.
1052 calories, 92 fat, 34 protein, 15 net carbs
1545 calories, 112 fat, 107 protein, 24 net carbs
1115 calories, 93 fat, 42 protein, 19 net carbs

I’m totally willing to listen to your advice and try harder to do this right. I’m trying had to get my fat and calories up today, had sausage and eggs and heavy cream coffee for breakfast, but it’s almost one now and I’m not hungry AT ALL and I think eating would make me feel sick. This wouldn’t be a problem if I were still losing. I am measuring, I went down half an inch on my hips and that’s it so far. What to do? Thanks for any advice!

#2

Well, there’s lots of general advice for stalls on the forum, but one thing that isn’t pointed out often is the difference we’ve seen over time in what appears to be an overall decrease in calorie consumption with the rise in obesity, so I’ll point it out here.

In The Obesity Code, Dr. Jason Fung references the starvation experiment by Ancel Keys (one of the few times he did anything right) and those participants at a normal calorie intake were getting 3,500 calories per day! In other reading, they reported that those getting 1,500 calories and less complained of severe symptoms such as being cold in the middle of the summer.

I understand that the study was done on men who generally consume more than women, but your daily calories are well below those that were considered starvation in the 1950’s.

And there’s the “net carbs”, there’s a good chance that switching to total carbs could make a difference.

#3

Welcome to the forum.

You basically didn’t;t give it long enough the first time round. You lost nearly 2lbs a week for the first month basically which is not to be sniffed at. Weight doesn’t move in a straight line though and periods of maintenance are perfectly normal.

I don’t do calories at all - I see them as a meaningless way to decide how much to eat. The only time it become relevant is to make sure you are eating enough. I am wondering if you might do well on more of a feast and fast regime once you have been ketosis for a while and got properly into it? Have a listen to the latest Fasting Talk where they did discuss someone with wildly varying blood sugar levels (as a note to your mention of hypoglycaemia).

You might find that sweeteners hinder your progress, yes. It varies. Some people test and see a physical reaction to it. Others find that it doesn’t impact at all. Others find that it impacts indirectly by increasing cravings and decreasing sensitivity to sweet things.

Exercise wont have an impact on weightloss but is good for general health and well being.

I am not sure how long you have been keto this time round? My gut reaction is not that long and you are basically expecting too much too soon. This is a long haul, change for life thing and different people get different benefits at different stages. The more there is to heal, the longer things can take to kick in. Some people see huge changes in weeks but most take months at least to really start seeing big changes.

#4

The responses above are excellent.

I’d like to add that when someone starts a keto journey, it can be difficult to understand how to add fat to meals. And it can get boring just using olive oil to do the trick.

Here are two easy tips to give you more adding fat options, and they are delicious:

Get a gravy boat (or even just a bowl will do) like this:

glass-gravy-boat-with-oil-GKJPMD.jpg1300×1145 106 KB

Instead of filling it with gravy, fill it with melted butter. Use fresh or dried herbs/spices too to make it more flavourful…like fresh dill, fresh basil, pesto, diced garlic, chopped chives, etc. Use this sauce to dip or pour on your meals (eggs, meat, fish, vegetables…etc).

Another possibility is to make a quick hollandaise sauce…only takes a couple of minutes, and it is heavenly delicious. Adds lots of healthy fats

#5

Going down a half inch on your hips is an indication of fat loss. My measurements change long before my weight does. I think that decrease is amazing 2 weeks in! I’d be ecstatic to see that big of a change in a month. So many things affect scale weight. I would never make that my primary and only measure of progress. On another forum I follow a woman has not lost weight in a year but has dropped a pants size and her picture shows a leaner abdomen. She’s losing fat,which is the goal.

(Siobhan) #6

Keto is not a fast weight loss trick. You may lose quickly at first and then slow down or stall, and then start moving again, over and over. Considering you are so early in (only a few weeks?) put away the scale. Weigh once a week or, even better, once a month. Considering you’ve lost inches, that’s a good sign you’re losing fat. Weight can vary due to all sorts of factors like hormones causing more water retention, time of day, increased muscle mass, etc.

Another thing to note, is often that when losing fat your fat cells will fill with water to keep them expanded (in case they need to be filled again). The fat cells now filled with water will feel squishy and softer than normal fat. Eventually, you’ll let off this water in a “whoosh” (a lot of weight loss all at once). This will generally be a time when stress is low, etc
So, another reason why weight is not a good indicator of progress!
I’d also focus on general energy levels, and how you feel. Keto has shown a lot of positive benefits for a long of people, and weight loss is the smallest of them in most cases!

Forget about calories. Don’t eat when you’re not hungry. Weight is also not a good indicator of progress! At the beginning, you may often find that you’re not hungry at all: I barely ate for the first few weeks, and I just followed those signs. I gradually got my appetite back and my calorie intake increased naturally. There is absolutely no need to restrict or artificially increase your calories if you’re already not hungry.

It looks like you’re already doing all the right things, you just need the added factor of time for your body to work. Your body is doing a lot more than just burning fat right now. It is regulating hormones, healing any lingering inflammation, repairing damaged cells, etc. Let it do its job!

Here’s a page that talks about whooshes and squishy fat for a brief overview if you’re interested:

#7

I’ll second the suggestion of trying a feast and fast regime. If you’re insulin resistant the weight loss may not come until you go longer periods without stimulating any kind of insulin response. I’ve felt great on LCHF/keto for a long time but it wasn’t until I started IF in earnest that I started to lose the cosmetic poundage. Good luck with your n=1!

#8

Guess what I’m listening to at the moment. :wink:

Sorry for the terse response earlier, but I wanted to at least get you started with a response, and I had to be away from the computer.

I’ll echo that all the previous replies are great and add that keto is about balancing hormones, especially lowering insulin, and the CICO mindset of lowering calories doesn’t address the issue of insulin directly and since insulin is the fat storage hormone, calories become far less important.

On an Insulin Index scale, carbohydrates are at “100” and protein is “50” (1/2 the insulinogenic effect of carbs) and fat is approaching “0”, so fat is on par with the insulinogenic effect of eating rocks. In other words, even if you eat something like rocks, the stretching of the stomach releases insulin and fat has about the same minimal effect, so eating fat is the variable in keto.

That being said, it’s important to know that fat is the substrate for creating our sex hormones (testosterone and estradiol (estrogen)) and restricting fat impairs the body’s ability to generate them. Since testosterone is one of the main reasons men can eat more, it’s important to provide enough fat for even a woman’s body to generate enough of it because when calorie-restricting (and fat-restricting) the body reduces metabolism accordingly.

Dr. Fung explains that energy in and energy out are not independent variables, but dependent on each other in the same way that someone would be determining their financial budget. If income were reduced from $100,000 to $50,000, then spending should decrease accordingly, otherwise you’ll go bankrupt, or in the case of the body, you’d end up sick or die. In other words, eating less leads to be the body burning fewer calories and ends up making weight loss or maintenance harder.

BTW, I love :heart: @Fiorella’s Ghee Hollandaise sauce…

Just slowly add more fat and as your body detects the incoming increase, it should being to “turn on” some of the mechanisms that are normally down-regulated during calorie-restriction and at some point Dr. Phinney’s “fat hunger” phenomenon will likely kick in, and/or you’ll reach the point where body fat is being burned.

If someone is opposed to intermittent fasting, I wouldn’t force it on them, but if someone is open to the idea, I would encourage them to eat a reasonable number of calories so they’re not calorie-restricting in fewer keto meals in order to provide longer periods of time for insulin to drop to lower levels.

When insulin drops below 13 µIU/mL, Hormone Sensitive Lipase (HSL) is able to do it’s job releasing fatty acids from the fat cells where they can be burned for energy, but when it is above that level, HSL can’t do it’s job and the persistently higher levels of insulin severely interfere with losing body fat. Since most people who are overweight are insulin resistant (IR), there’s a good chance that insulin is too high and that’s what’s blocking weight loss.

(Brandi Lacey) #9

Thank everyone! Great advice here. The whoosh stuff makes perfect sense, as weight does seem to fall off in bulk at times after seemingly nothing for a while. I’ll try IF since that works for me already without actually trying most days. I will just keep on keto’ing on , I just needed to know I wasn’t doing anything wrong I guess, or what to improve, from all I have read in the past day or two it seems like it is just perfectly normal I don’t know what I need to pay more to get into now.