Whelp... took my measurements. Not losing pounds OR inches!

(melinda) #1

_<

Grrrr…

I kept telling myself “It’s okay that my weight has basically been the same since October. It’s probably water & I’m still losing inches.”

Well, I just took my measurements 5 weeks after the last time I took them and they’re the same. One or two went up, one or two went down.

I’ve been keto since the beginning of July. I was losing weight steadily, stalling a bit, the usual. Down a total of 37 pounds… until I decided to stop counting calories. I’ve barely lost any weight since then- about 3 months- and I apparently haven’t been losing inches either.

I’m so upset and frustrated.

I still have plenty to lose. 5’0 27 yr old female. Started at 241 and down to 204. Still firmly obese. Really annoyed. I don’t really eat nuts. I guess I’m going to cut out my coffee? I dunno, but I’m pretty upset. :-/

ETA: I still wake up hungry every day. I still feel the need to eat 3 meals a day though snacking is little or none. Everything I eat is fatty. I don’t track anything, but I stay under 20g carbs.

I really want to cry. :frowning:

(Larry Lustig) #2

Personally, I’m not an advocate of counting calories. But if that’s what works for you, why don’t you go back to that method?

(melinda) #3

Because it sucks :-/

I know I might have to now, but I don’t want to. I thought I was free from that.

(mwall) #4

reaching out is the first step…
Your post sounds like the only reason you stopped losing was because you stopped counting calories. This of course can’t be the simple truth but I bet for my own stall it’s a key factor for me. I’ve never counted calories before though I’ve “watched” them in tracking my macros. Since I’ve let up on the tracking my loss has stopped. I’m basically doing maintenance at 40 pounds over ideal weight. I’m sorting through it without giving up and staying plugged in. The biggest piece I’m learning is about the production of insulin even in the absence of bg spikes. Hang in there and stay connected! :yellow_heart:

(Guardian of the bacon) #5

While counting calories and tracking macros truly sucks, I feel that tracking is the only way that many of us with deranged metabolisms can truly stay on point. It is just too easy for a little bit of this and a tad of that to sneak in and before we know it we are consuming much different quantities than we assume.

Every single time I think “I got this” and ease up on tracking and measuring…I end up stalling. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

#6

What works for me is getting ahead of my body…when I went low carb, it worked, then I stalled. Then I went LCHF. It worked, then it stalled. And then went keto. It worked, then stalled again. I then started with IF, and then extended fasting. This month I’m trying ZC. What’s cool about changing my strategies is that my body doesn’t have time to screw with me and create a stall. I keep it in a state of challenging the metabolic derangement, and driving the insulinogenic response down further.

So, this is what worked for me…not saying it would work for everyone, but just wanted to give another perspective. In relation to what I read in your post, you say you still feel hungry, eat three meals a day, but learned to cope with no snacks. That’s great! To me, that means you are nudging towards opening your fasting window. Perhaps try to intermittent fast by eliminating one meal, it could be either on of breakfast, lunch or dinner. And then, when it comes down to eating, no calorie counting at all. Eat keto and eat to satiety. Establish an eating window for each meal, like one hour only. Once that window is closed, then eat without counting calories, keto compliant and to satiety at your next meal. See how that goes. My two cents.

I really hope you discover what works for you. I know it’s a struggle. It took me years…and I am in continuous testing mode, learning something each day. I’m rooting for you sista. Chin up, you can do it!

#7

Are you counting carbs and protein? Afaik that’s all you really should count. Keep them at or under your determined amounts.

#8

Do you test for ketones? I’m curious about your hunger levels. You might be someone who is more sensitive to protein intake and needs to lower it a bit.

Before keto, I was pretty much gaining weight all the time so I’m stoked to be able to maintain it without being hungry. I’ve lost 35 pounds and have also stalled off and on for months. So I’m in a similar situation, but have a very different perspective.

Do you like the food your eating? I love it so it’s not that big of a deal if I’m not losing weight. I used to talk shit about folks that called their diet a “lifestyle,” but I’m moving that direction with keto.

(Jenn W) #9

We sound exactly the same! Same start same stall…
Whats your why? Is it only for weight loss?
I’m a wanna be lazy Keto girl. I do my best to log my foods and track my macros and calories!! (I track calories to make sure I’m not under eating I have days upon days of 800 cal total… not good when not fasting!) Life gets in the way and I forget or am straight up lazy.
My suggestion is… if you want this you have to work this!
Logging sucks it can be a hassle but so does knee pain when climbing stairs or being tired all the time while taking care of your kids!
Something in your “diet” is off if you have no results at all. Time to start tracking honestly. If you have a bite of anything, log it. If you drink it, log it. Look back and see what’s off and don’t forget to check the actual macros! Not a fat/carb/protein pie chart! That’s just a pretty simple idea of your day. The quick percentage isn’t going to pinpoint trouble for you.
At the same time though…

Which ones went up? Which ones went down?
Make sure you are taking measurements against skin not clothes. Also do your absolute best to get the same spots too!
If your tummy area is getting smaller even the tiniest bit I’d say KCKO!! Your stomach is the hardest to lose! Hawkeye your food journal but this will break eventually!

Most Important:
Be kind to yourself!
This is a hard journey full of ups and downs. Only time and commitment will carry you to the end. Along the way? You always have support here!

#10

@melindotty

I have been doing keto for almost 3 mos. with no weight loss. I just found this great explanation by Dr Ted Naiman on how to figure how much and what to eat for weight loss. I think Im going to try this
https://www.dietdoctor.com/much-fat-eat-ketogenic-diet. Maybe it will be good for both of us.

(Crow T. Robot) #11

Do you mean BPC? Yes, in that case you might. Of if you add lots of HWC. Of course, drinking black is an option. I only add MCTs or HWC when I’m not going to be eating for at least several hours and need an energy boost. If you don’t need that boost, don’t add it, cos if you eat anything else and raise insulin, that fat might very well get stored instead of burned.

Either way, a stall is always a good time to have a reality check and start weighing and tracking again for a few days. This is not “calorie counting”, it’s just a food diary. I often find myself getting blind spots to things that I’m consuming and think I’m being careful, when I’m really not. Good ol’ CRON-O-Meter gets me right back on “track” (ha ha).

(Crow T. Robot) #12

Ted Naiman knows his stuff. He’s the one that first convinced me to go LCHF, almost a year ago now.

#13

That’s good to know. He makes perfect sense…what I have been doing isn’t working…and I think I eat too much fat. Tomorrow will be day one of his advice :blush:

(Kathy Meyer) #14

As someone who is 5’0" inches tall and started at 265 pounds, I also hit a point pretty early on where absolutely nothing I did broke the stall. I had initially lost some weight using a Keto diet, and I really didn’t need to count calories as I wasn’t all that hungry. I tried all sorts of food tweaks when the “big stall” occurred, and everybody had suggestions, but nothing worked. This was the point where I had given up in the past and regained+ all the weight I had lost.

What I learned from reading Gary Taubes and Jason Fung is that I am not only insulin resistant, but probably have a constantly higher basal insulin level – and my body eventually just adjusted to Keto and the high level of insulin kept me from losing anymore weight (I have no tests to prove this, it’s just a typical pattern for insulin resistance).

Only fasting has moved the scale, or the tape measure. I am now down 75 pounds and feel that 2 to 3 3-5 day fasts a month is very helpful for losing a couple of pounds each time. It’s still not all that easy to lose weight, but I feel like I can do it now.

You might want to consider trying some IF to see if it works for you.

(Stephanie Hanson) #15

Try counting your carbs as Total carbs and get your protein down to 50g the rest in fat. That’s what helped me. But what helps me most is IF and EF. If you’re still unable to IF, I’m wondering if you’re fat-adapted. I have to track or I gain. I don’t bother about calories. For me it’s what the calories are made of.

(mwall) #16

Tell us how after your body adapted to the keto and the high inusilin continued did you deal with hunger for the extended fasting. :slight_smile:

(Bart) #17

I have had the best weight loss results when I have counted calories. I know people want to say that calories do not matter, but I, and I want to emphasize the “I” believe they do. I will say say the quality of the calories matter immensely, because they are not all created equally. a 250 calorie peanut butter and jelly sandwich will do different things to your body then 250 calories of steak. That being said if you eat 5000 calorie a day diet of any food you will probably gain weight just as if you eat a 1000 calorie diet of any food you will probably lose weight. Studies have shown this. If this was not the case diets high in carbs would not work. From my personal experiences I can gain weight while keeping my carbs under 20. Also I know I can lose weight easily when I am not exercising so long as I monitor my calories and I can also eat a lot more calories and lose the same amount of weight when I am exercising. Calories in/calories out do matter to a degree but I believe the quality of the calories matter even more. You have to ask yourself what your goals are. If you want to get your body fat as low as possible then calories do matter to a degree, but if you just want to be healthy and having a higher body fat % is not that important to you then pay attention to the quality of the calories you are eating. You may not lose as much weight but your health will still improve dramatically.

Again I want to point out this is my opinion from both my personal experiences and from the copious amount of research I have performed. I am not implying that anybody else’s opinion is wrong or that mine is right. Everyone needs to educate themselves and most importantly figure out what works best for them, n=1. If something is not working for you then it may be time to try something a bit different and see what happens.

Additionally one thing I learned from tracking absolutely everything I ate for 10 months is that carbs add up fast, faster then you would assume. They are everywhere even in leafy greens, eggs, seasonings, vitamins, bouillon cubes, etc. Plus some people may stay in ketosis eating 50 grams of carbs a day and others may need to be below 20, Another reason why it is important to figure out what your body requires.

I really hope this post does not offend anyone, I am not trying to say that anyone’s method is wrong, this simply was what I had to do to figure out what I needed to do to make this all work to meet the goals that I had set for myself.

(mwall) #18

The more challenged to lose and the more metabolically challenged an individual is the more this CICO issue becomes complicated. I’ve been told by several “gurus” I need to eat more calories, especially fat, because my bg and insulin production is still not entirely stable. And then I’m told by several that the best course is extended fasting a couple times monthly and/or IF and/or combos. Then there is the varying recommendations on physical activity at various stages of the process as well. Of course the evidence does seem to support the value to switching it all up to keep the body working to adapt. So getting the “mix”, the “tempo”, the “crescendos” and “notation” maintained becomes a big part of the “orchestration.”

I could not agree more about the nutrient density of the calories. Marty Kendall’s stuff on this is a great resource.

#19

Bart, I don’t think anyone has said that if you have a calorie deficit you won’t lose weight.

What people are saying is, there is also hormonal issues that facilitate fat storage and fat usage and it is possible to eat a diets that take advantage of that knowledge to create a sustainable diet that can keep you at optimum health and weight without constantly having to maintain some CICO balance.

Studies, also show how eating certain types of macros affect the liver, kidneys and heart and also how poisonous high levels of sugar is to the body.

It’s amazed me recently that the “common sense” of eat less fat to be less fat is accepted, but eat less sugar to have less sugar in your blood is not common sense.

(Bart) #20

Thanks you for the feedback. I am sorry if I implied that someone said if you do not have a calorie deficit you won’t lose weight, that was not what I was trying to say. I do hear a lot of people who do not pay attention to macros. My point was simply if someone is not seeing the results they have it may be a good idea to track what they are doing for a bit. From MY personal experience I was shocked when I started tracking how many calories and carbs I was actually eating, and for ME CICO made a difference for weight loss. I believe I pointed out a few things in my post, if you are doing this for health and not necessarily weight loss then don’t worry about it as much, but if you are really concerned about weight loss it MAY be a good idea. Other than implying that I said “someone said that if you have a calorie deficit you won’t lose weight” I agree with everything you said. All I did say was “I know people want to say that calories do not matter” and I have heard this A LOT, on podcasts in articles etc. I followed this up by talking about quality of calories and giving examples of 5000 and 1000 calorie diets and what the results for weight loss and gain may be. From what I have come to understand is one of the reasons keto does work for losing weight is that eating a high fat diet causes satiety more than a SAD diet which leads many people to eat less, which is turn causes a calorie deficit compared to pre-keto. I find that I, all I am saying here is I, can still eat way to much if I am not careful. So I need to be more aware of what I am putting into my body even if it is a real food following a diet that meets all the keto macros.

I apologize if my post was misleading or was worded in a way to cause confusion. I simply wanted to share what I have learned about myself and a few other things that I come to believe to be true, hence the multiple disclaimers I included pointing out that what I was saying was simply my opinion and stressing how people need to do as much research and figuring out what their own body requires.

I appreciate your feedback, discussion helps us all on our journey to live and be healthy!