Weight plateau

(N-anonymous ) #1

Hi
I’m a 32 year old mum of 4 and I need some help from anyone who has been doing keto and know a bit about this topic.
I’ve been on keto for 6 and a half weeks now
I started at 77kgs 169cms tall I do crossfit 5 times a week and also lift heavy weight. 80kg and up back squats power cleans front squats. I train 1h30-2hours per day.
So my question is every morning I test my ketone and glucose well nearly and on average they are around 1.8-2.8mmols sometimes as high as 3.4
The thing is I’m only 2kgs down I lost that in the first week and I’ve basically stayed the same weight since the second week of keto. I don’t break it and I track my macros on my fitness pal
1600 cals
20g carbs
90g protein
120g fats

Sometimes I even put on weight like 500g (1 pound a week)
So what the heck is going on. I feel good, ketones are good, trainings good but I originally started keto cause I put on 5kgs on holiday and I want to get back to 72kgs.
Anyone out there can help me.
I do eat nuts and cheese I’ve read to cut these out? Als all sweeteners?
Could it be muscle from the crossfit sessions been doing crossfit for a 18 months now. Any help please

#2

Especially at your size (so close to your goal), measurements will be much more helpful than weight, so you don’t actually know if you’ve plateaued unless your measurements haven’t changed.

I love movement and different kinds of exercise and am generally an advocate of getting plenty, but that sounds like a whole lot of cross fit on a regular basis! Do you mean cross fit 5x/week AND weight training on the other days? So the 1.5 - 2 hours is every day?! Are you competing? If so, ignore my advice because you need an expert :slight_smile: (who among other things will probably tell you that you’re not eating enough).

If you’re not competing:
Recovery time is when you’ll make your best strength and health gains. Working out itself creates inflammation (muscle tears, etc) which is great as a hormetic stress if you give your body a chance to resolve those and repair when you rest. If you never give yourself chances to recover, it’s just continuous stress. Which, among other things, is terrible for fat loss and body composition.

The recovery time doesn’t need to be sitting on a couch (actually, it should really not be sitting on a couch!) but hiking, playing outside with your little ones, yoga, etc work great on recovery days.

(Ken) #3

You’re doing well, you just need a little tweaking. Your initial weight loss was glycogen, but it was the necessary first step in becoming lipolytic/ketogenic. Any weight gain now has either been due to water retention or muscle gain, it’s impossible to regain fat when following the keto macro.

After six weeks, weight loss stalls can be due to a few things. First, you still may be overeating. You still have to have a caloric deficit to lose fat. Second, your body may have gone into a metabolic conservation mode, as your body trys to maintain your fat stores. Undereating can cause stalls too. Third, your body may have used your fat cells, but there’s some evidence that before getting rid of the fat cells completely, the body temporarily fills them with water before actually eliminating them. If you’re fairly fit, I’d suspect you’re in need of a metabolism boost.

Your macros are off, adjust them to the 60/35/5% lipolytic macro. You need a little more protein, a little less fat.

I’d do two things. Adjust your daily calories during the week to a 500 calorie deficit per day, following the keto macro. On the weekend, flip your macro to Carb based low fat and make sure you eat a caloric Carb excess of at least 500 Cal per day. This will boost your metabolism but will not cause any fat regain. You will gain weight, but it will be water weight due to glycogen recompensation. Try this for a month then see what happens. Measurements are much better than going by weight. One pound of fat loss per week is a reasonable pace.

(N-anonymous ) #5

So would u think it’s over training?
This is the first time I’ve tried keto I usually do healthy eating uno low carbs and fat high protein and I thought I’d try this for training purposes that has definitely worked I have got a lot of personal best and prs since being on keto…
What would u recommend?

Resting more?

(N-anonymous ) #6

Thanks so much for this will try adjust my macros for one month and up protein thank u

(Ernest) #7

You are building muscles. You won’t see much scale movement, you don’t have much to lose.
AND probably over training, plus 4 kids to take care of.
Take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

Calm down and think health wise instead of weight wise.

#8

Yes! But it can be active recovery (as per my post above) - moving your body in different ways and at different paces. You’ll get so much more out of both resistance work and sprint work if there’s recovery time in between.

Agree with Ernest that you should look at the big picture (not sure in terms of the scope of your life, but in time: you want a way of eating and moving and living that works for you in the long term!).

(Ernest) #9

I always recommend a leisure walk on rest days.
Lifting is tearing muscle tissue. Going back to lift some more before recovering is counterproductive.

Exercise is great for general fitness and mental health.
Exercise is not great for weight loss.
Food is great for fat/weight loss.

#10

I would actually not agree with this in the long-term. Exercise shouldn’t be a weightloss strategy but since it’s such a big component of overall health and hormone balance it’s generally an important part of getting to and keeping a healthy weight.
But - yes, using exercise to lose weight, especially so much intensity as in Neek’s case - I would agree, not the best approach.

(Ernest) #11

LOL!! We are on the same page.

#12

@Neeks85
I don’t know if this is the experience of everyone on here - and actually if you’re regularly hitting PRs it might not be true for you at this stage - but here’s Mark Sisson’s take on exercising on keto:

Fat-based metabolisms are great for long, slow movement, quick bursts of speed with rest in between, and feats of explosive strength. In other words, making your way through the world, doing some strength training, going for hikes, playing with kids, running some sprints, and are all tenable on keto. Heavy CrossFit training or anything else that burns a lot of glycogen at a lot of workouts each week, however, might pose issues. Resolve this by either scaling back the training or eating some carbs before, during, or after your workouts.

I think if this isn’t true yet for you, it’s probably true in the long run, and from everything else I’ve read from Sisson, he strongly leans toward the former of the two options in his last sentence (scaling back the training) rather than using carb-loading.

There are probably others on here who do Cross-fit in case you want to do a search and track them down. I’m sure they’d have some good advice.

(N-anonymous ) #13

Yea tru I get so caught up with the damn scale. I’m usually 72kgs and happy there and I just keep comparing myself to before like 5 months ago. I put on 5kgs in 3 months and it was so fast for me so to see the scale not move it’s frustrating.

I’ve lost maybe 3cms but from my waist and belly.
It’s probably right I need to recover more before doing a big weight session probably have some carbs too.
thanks everyone

Would you guys recommend sticking to keto then? Like I feel like I’m stagnant :weary: I just think I’ve invested 6 weeks of counting macros, being in ketosis every day, training it’s hard to my hubby and kids love fast food and there is always chocolate in the house so I feel like man why am I doing this I may as well
Not and be the same weight I was before 77kgs :joy::sweat_smile:

(N-anonymous ) #14

This forum is cool though to be able to talk to people about it and stuff

(N-anonymous ) #15

What should I be eating then? Like do u think it’s my food
I eat 1600 cals a day and from training burn 900-1200

(N-anonymous ) #16

To many nuts to much cheese I’m so confused been reading about if for weeks and I finally found this forum so I thought I’d ask on here

(Ernest) #17

You lost inches, that’s a win in my books.
Forget the carbs, add some Omega 3s. Squats and muscles love Omega 3s
It’s only been 6 weeks, give yourself time.

You are doing it right. My suggestion is to scale back the training.
Lift, rest/walk. Relax.

As as food, nothing specialized. You need good fats and fatty protein sources.
Some people do not do well with cheese/ dairy.
I don’t believe in making cheese the main fat source. I’m a big fan of whole eggs and real leaf lard
Eat what makes you feel great.

(Gabe “No Dogma, Only Science Please!” ) #18

Agreed. I was stalled for 9 months at 83.5kg and I’ve been stalled again at 80kg for the past several months.

6 weeks is nothing.

(Ernest) #19

Yep. Weight loss is never linear. There is always ups and downs and stalls.
Patience is key.

(N-anonymous ) #20

Lol :joy::joy::joy: I need to be paitent then lol

(Ken) #21

If you’re actually trying to lose fat, a couple of weeks or even a month is a Stall. Any longer is Lipostasis. It requires reevaluation and readjustment, often minor adjustments as suggested. If you don’t want to lose fat, be happy the way you are.