Total keto fail, please help

newbies
#1

Hi. 11 days ago I posted here. I started this keto journey at 215 pounds (one month ago). When I posted I was up to 218.

I stayed on the diet and tracked my macros after all the advice I received and got to 208. I knew that was water weight but I needed inspiration to continue.

I went off the diet to celerate a friends birthday 2 days ago. I immediately got back on.

Today I weigh 220.

I have done nothing but gain weight since I started this diet, and right now I have to tell you I am ready to quit. I do not understand how this works for anyone. It is incredibly restrictive! Especially when I am still getting conflicting information from everyone (Count calories! Don’t count calories! Watch your protein! Don’t watch anything but carbs! Ignore fat! Don’t go over your fat!)

I’m really disgusted and frustrated right now. If I can’t go off the diet to celebrate someone’s birthday this is not the diet for me - or anyone else.

Also, its incredibly expensive! This is alot ot pay to watch me break my scale.

The only way I am ever able to lose weight is to starve, which is why I can’t ever get more than 10 pounds off. I really hoped this would fix that problem, expecially as I feel so much better on this diet.

I am open to suggestions as I am really discouraged.

(ANNE ) #2

Not sure how to respond the help direct you towards success.
How long have you being trying keto? A couple of weeks or longer?
I found that it took well over a couple months to become adapted to fat, I sort of knew I was there when I could shift to one meal a day without feeling I was depriving myself.
The weight moved off in fits and starts.
Jason Fungs ‘The Obesity Code’ is a really good book about how the food we eat and the frequency of what we eat helps keep us fat.
He reassuringly also says that a pig out on a celebration day is part of our lives.
The overall mood that I have felt when on this forum is just get back on the horse, and keep calm and keto on.
You do deserve to be a healthy weight and to feel well. Be brave, carry on with keto, stick with it, weigh yourself in a months time! Celebrate with your friends and find ways and means to keep it keto somehow. You are learning what your body is okay with, and what it isn’t, it is not a wasted lesson if you keep on with keto.
Good luck

#3

its been over a month trying (and failing while I learned), committed for 2 weeks

#4

I dont understand what this means…?

(Ellen) #5

Hi @Queenv, don’t give up, you can do this. It usually takes 6-8 weeks (sometimes a bit longer) before you’re fully fat adapted, and even then your body will be healing itself as priority, but the weight will start to come off. Keep your carbs below 20g a day, keep an eye on your electrolytes, and remember fat is your friend, fat macro is a guide, doesn’t really matter if you go over.
Also, if you’ve been starving yourself before this, there’s a chance you’ve reduced your BMR so your body needs to get used to having a higher calorie count before it can start healing. I second getting The Obesity Code and having a read of that.

#6

Hi Queenv,

There’s a terrific thread on here that you should read through before you quit: Doing Keto Solely to Lose Weight? Seconding the suggestions to read the Obesity Code as well, but that thread will get you a bit more information.

Fat adapted = that your body gets used to burning fat (instead of sugar) for fuel. It takes many weeks, and generally around then good things start happening! But even so, weight loss will not be linear, and a carb celebration (which many keto folks can handle fine if they’re very occasional) will definitely see you holding onto water for a few days, so you’ll see the scale go up.

Can you decide that you’ll give it three full months from now and be super careful about your macros in that time? Though carbs/celebrations happen, it’s really helpful if they don’t happen in the first 6 weeks or so. In that time, I would only weigh once/week at the most (actually I would recommend taking measurements in the beginning and throwing away the scale altogether but I’m kind of crazy that way :slight_smile: ). Follow the macros, post your meals here for guidance, have a blast with cooking keto meals - they don’t have to be expensive, and there’s so much amazing food that you probably won’t feel it’s restrictive when you really dive in - and then you can really evaluate in 3 months: what are your measurements, how do you feel.

[Also - measurements!!! did I mention measurements? Take a few of them - arms, under bust, waist, hips, thighs - since sometimes there’s a staggering recomposition that happens on keto, so that your body is shrinking while your scale weight barely moves. Those inches will tell you more than the scale ever can.]

Good luck!

(Jeanne Wagner) #7

I was really messed up when I started Keto in Dec '17. And I daresay I still am. I think I have years of healing to do. Type II diabetic, had given up, living on breads, pastas, candy. I was very angry and just didn’t give AF. So I hit my rock bottom, and after reading Wheat Belly by William Davis, my whole mindset clicked over and I sat up and paid attention. I did gluten free for 5 months, then I slipped into Keto. I never had the keto flu. Have you had the keto flu yet? You need to make sure your electrolytes are balanced and it will mitigate those symptoms.

It can take quite a while to get fat adapted. I think it took me almost 3 months. I jumped into fasting pretty quickly, after about 6 weeks, because I know my insulin resistance is so high. I’m just sharing to show you that everyone goes through different things on their keto journey.

I did it for health. When you start to get healthy, you lose the weight as a side effect basically. I’ve lost 30 lbs over a year. Yes only 30 lbs. But I’ve lost inches too, beyond what a 30lb weight loss looks like. A lot of people who haven’t seen me in a while don’t believe me when I tell them it’s ‘only’ 30 lbs…they swear it looks like 50 or more.

What sources are you utilizing to get your information for it to be so conflicting? You know, people say to track macros and possibly even calories in the beginning so you know where you’re at. But macros are meant to be tweaked to find your sweet spot. Then after a certain amount of time it will need to be tweaked again… and again. you see, our bodies are dynamic, not static. They are always in flux.

There’s good advice here for you already. Keep calm and keto on (KCKO). Please be patient, your body is going through a lot and I guarantee there is a lot of ‘non-scale’ things happening, for the better. I am currently in a stall for weight loss, and that is OK. I know changes are still happening in my body, and that when it is ready, it will shed more weight. We have to mix things up with eating times, and getting around to intermittent fasting, but I would just stay the course for now. One of Carl’s sayings is ‘eat eggs and bacon for 2 weeks then call me.’ :wink:

(ANNE ) #8

QueenV hope the above info helps. Stick with it!
All will eventually be well.

(LeeAnn Brooks) #9

The good news is it’s impossible to gain that much fat that quickly, so you’re dealing with mostly water weight gain.

I hate to be so blunt, but if you quit a woe after a cheat, it’s not really fair to blame the diet. I don’t mean that to be mean, but you really have to give the diet a full attempt without cheats to truly assess if it works for you.

As you weren’t fat adapted, you may have set yourself back some, but it’s not insurmountable. There are two phases to Keto. Getting into ketosis. This happens quite fast IF you stick to less than 20 net grams of carbs. You will begin producing ketones within days. The second phase is fat adaption where your body burns fat as it’s promary fuel source. This typically takes 6-8 weeks of strict Keto. Longer for some and even longer if you kick yourself out of ketosis.

But this is where all the good stuff really happens. It would be a shame if you gave up before experiencing this part of the journey.

#10

fair enough. will try all. thank you.

#11

I’ve been at this a month with no intentional cheats other than my friends birthday, and my issue is that I weigh MORE now. I also find that I have trouble keeping my carbs down as I am still learning. I am ususally at either 23 or 15g. Plus I eat too much protein acocrding to my macros, which I am told is wrong also as that gets converted to sugar, So now I have to cut protein also? - and it starts to get really restrictive and frustrating. How am I supposed to eat anything if the “free” food - protein - is now needing to be cut? Cheese has protein too. So I eat butter all day? Hence my frustration.

(Kerin ) #12


Here

(Jeanne Wagner) #13

If you follow your macros - what did you use to get them? Maybe they’re off? - then calculate the protein from the cheese, etc. into it. Maybe you are not including enough fat? Are you eating anything boxed such as a gluten-free bread or cracker? Cut those things out. Stick to real foods only, 3 ingredients (also real food related) or less. Have you checked out Dietdoctor.com, or Dr. Ken Berry’s facebook or youtube channel? Really good information there.

I had been eating salads left and right, using Newman’s Own Olive Oil & Vinegar dressing. It’s Olive Oil & Vinegar, it must be good right? Well, I had terrible tummy problems still. Would send me running to the bathroom after I ate the salad. One day I had just real olive oil and vinegar that I picked up at the store, separate bottles, and all of a sudden the symptoms went away. Yup, the “spices” that were in the bottle of the Newman’s Own dressing was messing me up. You have to be really careful.

And I eat pretty cheaply on hamburgers, pork chops, ribs, (sometimes) ribeye… and I have the leafy greens - spinach, asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, and cauliflower. Mushrooms, garlic, salt, pepper. Keep it simple. Get a block or two of cheese and use your grater or slicer. Make sure your cheeses have cultures in them. Make homemade alfredo sauce. It’s better than anything at a restaurant or in a jar. I have also adopted Lacroix into the mix for a carbonated beverage. I had given up carbonated anything for years, and just drank water and coffee. After 3 months, I have adapted to the Lacroix, and I swear it even tasted sweet to me one time recently. Strange, that!! I am patient. You have to be with this way of eating. I am patient because I know I am still figuring things out and I’ll tweak as I go. This is my way of eating now, not a temporary diet. I am making it as easy and delicious as possible.

#14

100% correct. For me, that’s always been an issue, for any diet. Did you need to eat in order to celebrate? Or is a celebration an excuse to go off plan?

What does a typical day of eating look like for you? Yesterday, mine was:

  • 9 am: “Everything” omelet, fruit cup
  • 4 pm: Large bowl of microwave chili – something like this
  • 8 pm: Breyer’s Carb Smart chocolate ice cream, sunflower seeds
  • 1 am: Corned beef and pepper jack cheese roll-ups

Say what? For $5, I could go to the store right now and buy a dozen eggs, a pound of sausage, and a 2-pound block of cheese. Or I could get 5 pounds of chicken parts. Below is something I wrote up several weeks ago on Reddit.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I sometimes do “sheet pan” meal preps based on whichever proteins are on sale. I usually wait for prices like these (Phoenix, AZ, USA):

  • Eggs under $1/dozen
  • Chicken (whole or parts) under $1/#
  • Ground beef under $2.50/#
  • Pork loin or shoulder under $1.50/#
  • Pork sausage under $2/#
  • Cheese under $3/#
  • Frozen veggies under $1/#

You can also check out any dollar-type stores near you. Or ask the butcher departments when they put on the marked-down meats.

That doesn’t mean I have to eat that particular meal prep item for the next 5 or 6 days. I can put 2 in the fridge, than the rest in the freezer for next week or the week after. After a few such meal preps, there would be a good variety available.

I currently have some with chicken thighs, some with meatballs, some with sausage, some with chicken hearts and gizzards… I was gonna get some short ribs last week ($1.49 per pound), but I don’t have any more room for meal prep containers. :slight_smile:

Lots of choices this week:

  • Pork shoulder butt is $1.49 a pound
  • Pork back ribs are $1.79 a pound
  • Pork sausage rolls are $1.23 a pound
  • Eggs are $1 a dozen
  • Bone-in chicken thighs are $1.26 a pound
  • Shredded cheeses are $4.98 for 2-pound bags (I usually save the cheese for when I reheat)
  • Many frozen veggies are $1 for a 10-oz bag
  • Frozen sugar snap pea stir fry is $1 for a 20-oz bag
  • Fresh Jalapeno peppers are $0.58 per pound
  • Green bell peppers are $0.50 each
  • Cabbage at $0.33 a pound
  • Onions at $0.48 a pound
  • Carrots at $0.64 a pound (they fit my macros OK)

So I could make up a few different sheet pans bakes based on that variety.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #15

This could also be from the oil in the dressing, if it had too high a percentage of omega-6 in it.

@Queenv I found that going keto was expensive only in the beginning, because I was still heaping my plate, the way I always did as a carb burner. Plus, I was hungry and eating “to satiety,” as they recommended. What I found was that after a couple of weeks, my body decided it was finally getting enough energy, and one day, in the middle of lunch, I stopped being hungry. It happened literally between one bite and the next, and it was the weirdest experience, because there was still food on my plate and I didn’t want it. That never happened to me before, not in decades, anyway.

I had to put half my lunch away, and I wasn’t hungry for hours. These days I don’t get hungry till around one or two in the afternoon, and then I don’t eat again till around seven, when I feed the family. I eat an awful lot less, and (apart from sugar cravings, which is a different thing) I am rarely hungry. I lose interest in eating long before my belly is stuffed, whereas before, I could fill up to the bursting point and still want more.

This is a long-term way of eating, not a quick weight-loss program. It is primarily about restoring metabolic health, with loss of extra stored fat as a side effect. If you can stick it until you are fat-adapted, you are going to be amazed.

(Roy D Rushing Jr ) #16

I took 3-4 days off of keto when I went on vacation last month. I put on about 5 lbs during that time, but it disappeared in the following week. I’d say to give it a few days. Most of the weight you will have put on through a “cheat” day will be water weight. It should come off as you deplete your body’s glucose stores.

As far as all the other stuff goes, keto can be restrictive if you make it that way, but it doesn’t have to be. Above all you want to do what works. The most basic form of keto (as the 2 keto dudes explain it) is under 20g of carbohydrates, moderate protein, and high fat. The only one of those that they bother to put a number on is carbs, so I feel comfortable taking that as the only hard and fast rule initially. Eat 'till you’re full, but keep it under 20g of carbs. Easy enough. The only time I would even bother looking at the other two macros is if I wasn’t getting any results. Getting down to 208 initially sounds to me like you were indeed getting results, so I’m not sure I would take it any farther.

Remember, the non-scale results you will see with keto are a real and detectable phenomenon. I’ve been at 205 for a couple of months now, but I am continually getting positive reinforcement in the form of noticeable improvements in how my clothes fit and body looks. I’ve discovered that in the end I don’t really care how my body gets to the place I want. It can do it by making me lighter, or it can do it by replacing equal weights of fat with muscle. I have really gotten leaner without getting lighter over the last two months, and that’s really even better than the alternative.

(LeeAnn Brooks) #17

Wish I could give this more likes!!!

(Ashley) #18

I mean, I’m not really sure what I’m meant to say. If any of that was true I wouldn’t have lost 40lbs in three months including a few times I have cheated and had a carb day. It absolutely works, maybe you need some tweaking. Most of my days I’m meat, cheese. Pretty much it. I eat very fatty meats. I only drink water, tea or coffee without anything in it ( maybe occasionally I’ll have heavy whipping cream) I do have a zipfizz once a day max.

(Ashley) #19

I don’t even worry about protein, I eat fat cuts ( 73/23 hamburger) I’ll eat 3-4 4oz patties a day and lose weight (I am stalled atm, but it does happen, this isn’t a diet for weight loss, it is a side benefit). Your body takes time to adjust!

#20

You’re absolutely right, a HFLC diet is very restrictive. It eliminates several food groups (fruits, legumes, grains, some veggies). Some folks (well represented on this forum) are ok with this. Many folks (most of the general population) are not. If you fall into this camp, then this diet isn’t for you. No adjusting macros, no fat adaption period, nothing will change that. I fall into this camp. I like mac & cheese. I like black eyed peas. I like loaded baked potato. I’ve never met a fruit that I didn’t like…

I read Dr Fung’s Complete Guide to Fasting. It proved there was another way that is just as (actually more) effective than any diet. Fasting is not as hard as most people think. Its not starving. But it takes effort. Just like everything else in life that is worthwhile. Whether or not its right for you is something that only you can determine.