Where am I going wrong?

#1

Hi all, I’m day 9 keto and feeling good now. I was a massive sugar addict before so I’m proud of myself I’ve managed this far.
My trouble is I’ve not lost 1lb yet!!
Could this be due to not eating enough fat? Looking back at my food diary I’m probably 60%-70% fat and sometimes more protein. Sticking to under 40 carbs.
Do I need to be more strict than this?
Ive bought coconut oil and Avacados this week to try and eat more fats.
Any advice would be welcome. Thank you!

(Allie) #2

Patience is the only thing you’re lacking, give your body time to respond, it’s a massive change you’re requesting of it. 40g net or total? If net then it may be too much for some, but considering where you’ve come from, you’re doing amazingly well so for now I would just wait a while longer, let your body get used to doing what you now want it to do (burn fat instead of carbs) and reduce down to a max of 20g carbs gradually if needed.

#3

Thanks, I’m just seeing loads of people loosing up to 10lbs in the first week and it made me think I’m doing something wrong.
Yes it’s net carbs so I’m going to try and lower that slightly this week.
Yes I am proud of myself so far as my diet was 90% sugar before

#4

Not losing 1lb is weird in almost 10 days. What are your stats, what is your activity level, and what are you averaging for Carbs, Fats, Proteins daily. 40g of carbs should still drop a lot of water weight off of you.

It is absolutely NOT because you’re not eating enough fat, that’s not a thing. Ketosis is from lack of carbs, not because of a lot of fat. Also, eating by ratios doesn’t work, also doesn’t make sense in almost all cases, go by grams. If you ate an extra 60g of protein, would you also eat more fat and carbs? You’d need to if you wanted to maintain a ratio! See why it fails?

Either way, 9 day, not even one pound, something is wrong. A normal eating going down to 40g of carbs would dump water. Doesn’t need to be much, but it’d be noticeable, unless you’re overeating your brains out or something, which is why we need your averages.

#5

Definitely not over eating, stopping eating at 6pm and not having my first food till 11am and drinking plenty water.
I am due my period today I’m wondering if it’s hormonal holding onto water and I’ll suddenly get a whoosh in the next few days!

#6

Some of it could be, but the bigger question, are you actually tracking this stuff? Stop and start time in no way has a bearing on whether you’re over eating or not.

If it’s not hormonal, and you’re not tracking, you’ll have nothing to troubleshoot. I’ve been tracking for years, more or less eat the same handful of meals on a rotation and MANY times look at my totals and wonder how the hell I ate so much of one, of so little protein on a day. Don’t assume you’re mentally keeping track, nobody is good at that. There’s literally studies proven it!

#7

Using carb manager app which tells me my ratios is that what you mean by tracking?

#8

You barely started… You even may be losing fat just it’s not visible on the scale yet. I had very okay fat losing times with 11 days when the scale couldn’t show it. It was slow, sure but slow is good.

But keto doesn’t guarantee fat-loss at all. I usually lose nothing as I eat too much fat. We can’t just eat a ton and expect fat-loss, I don’t say it doesn’t happen to some but never to me and my family members and it makes perfect sense.

People say certain items can interfere anyway.

But thinking about tweaking should be MONTHS later. For now you should continue and wait for fat adaptation. That actually may be helpful at fat-loss, it did wonders to my hunger (it wasn’t enough to me but it’s way better this way and enhances my chances).

So, patience!

About your macros, not like I know much about them… 40g carbs may be too much. It is ketosis for me but still too much to expect good things beyond fat adaptation. It is too much for many people even for ketosis.
Percentages don’t matter. Our needs are in grams.
Ketosis doesn’t require much fat - but we need to get our energy from somewhere so we need some. Not too little, not too much.

#9

Wait, not even a little water weight was lost? I always dropped 4lbs whenever I went into ketosis, for years… And it’s an unusually tiny water weight I had. Coming from much sugar you should lose water but it’s not impossible not to I suppose… But I never heard about that.

Maybe you aren’t in ketosis, that would be an easy explanation.

But grats to go down to 40g carbs anyway, it’s a huge drop for you, I couldn’t do such a big jump first, I used 80g net and lost fat that way for a while. Eventually I went lower and lower and things got better and better. (I just don’t lose fat but there are other benefits one can focus on until things get sorted out.)

#10

Not ratios, GRAMS. They are the important stuff as far as macros go. Of course it matters a lot WHAT you eat.
Lots of sweeteners, dairy and other stuff seems to interfere with fat-loss in some people - but it’s too early to think about these things, do keto for a few months first… You barely started and your body may be busy with way more important things than losing fat - IDK how it works, I picked up this from others.

(Diana) #11

This forum is great for help. As many have mentioned confirm your stats (how many grams of carbs/fat/protein are you eating and how many cals per day). This will give the group enough info to help and figure out what may be the culprit.

Hormonal yes could be causing some issues but I’d expect to still see some fluctuation. Do you have any idea how many net carbs you were eating before? If it wasn’t a drastic change this could be why no weight loss?

Try your best to stick to total 20 carbs if you can. It’s a huge adjustment but if you can do it that’s best way to get into ketosis.

(Allie) #12

@Kjan2022 already said her diet was 90% sugar previously and that’s going to take a lot of time to clear before her body can even start losing water weight.

(Diana) #13

Morning coffee not kicked in yet. Lol. Thanks!

(Robin) #14

Welcome! Glad you’re here!
Pre-periods can absolutely be a factor for many of us. And for sure aim for 20 g total carbs or less.
Make sure you are getting enough calories. Too few will sabotage weight loss… crazy, but true.
Can you give us your stats, that will help. Height, weight, age, health issues, your “WHY’ goals.

#15

agree with this.

time and plus OP said hormonal changes hitting now so yup, hold on strong and wait it out.

to the OP…I would not net carbs. Go by total carbs and that way there is no ‘extra guess’ about any carb intake but you are doing great!! Sugar is massive addictive as we all know so you walking down that carby path is a great thing!

bit more time, let us know how it goes down for you! Upping fats is always good too. Day 9 is a young’in on plan, keep on truckin’ and great changes will come.

#16

Thanks for the replies everyone
I’m 160cm 65kg
40years old female had children so main part of weight around my middle.
I’ve got the keytone sticks and I got a trace yesterday so I know I’m definitely not in ketosis. Which was frustrating, so I’ve started low carb at least but not quite enough to be in ketosis

#17

Embarrassing to write but my diet before was sugary coffee, chocolate, Crisps, sweet treats, white bread, I could go days without eating a proper meal and graze like this.
I’ve suddenly changed to 2 proper meals and one afternoon snack, no more coffee and plenty water.
Was hoping for more of a result by now but I’m sticking to it!

#18

To give context I’ve just input the food I had the Friday prior to starting
256g carbs
2200 cals

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #19

Welcome to the forums!

Those stories you’ve heard or read of instant large fat loss are usually about men with a lot of fat to lose. Your user name does not indicate your sex, but I’d be willing to bet from your post that you are a woman.

It is not unusual for women’s bodies to take some time getting ready first, before fat loss starts up. First, your hormonal situation has a big effect on the process. It may take a while for your hormones to re-regularise before you start shedding fat. Second, most women have been forcibly inculcated with the need to cut calories, and many carry this thinking into a ketogenic diet. This hampers progress, because cutting calories signals the body that there’s a famine going on, so it needs to hang on to its reserves, just in case.

Another point you mention is that you are eating 40 g of carbohydrate a day. This may still be too much carbohydrate. Our recommendation is an upper limit of 20 g/day, because it guarantees a positive experience to almost everyone. A few people will need to limit the carb intake even further, because of their degree of insulin resistance. Our level of insulin in the blood is like a switch. Above the threshold, we are in sugar-burning, fat-storing mode. We have to get below the threshold to enter fat-burning, ketone-producing mode. The more insulin-resistant someone is, the more he or she needs to limit carbohydrate in order to keep insulin below the threshold.

So, you’ve done very well so far, but you may need to tweak things a bit further. Do try to drop the carb intake a bit more. A 20-g limit is pretty easy to stick to, if one eats leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables, such as broccoli and cauliflower. (Carbohydrate is not strictly necessary at all, by the way; we can safely live without any in our diet.)

And make sure to eat enough. Plenty of people on these forums have found cutting calories intentionally to be counterproductive, and they found that their fat loss didn’t begin until they started eating more, not less. It sounds paradoxical, but there is biology behind this that the standard advice of eating less and moving more fails to take into account. If you are using one of the many weight-loss apps out there, be sure to set it to Maintenance mode, because Loss mode will stint you too much on calories. Or better yet, ditch the app and just eat to satisfy your hunger. At some point, your appetite will drop and you will be cutting calories simply from listening to your body tell you how much food you need.

And give things another month before giving up. Nine days is just the beginning. Try to think of this not as a crash diet, but as a permanent change to a healthier way of eating.

#20

Around 50% carbs, that’s probably pretty normal (I had way less in percentage while eating more in grams… oh my old seriously overeating days, it’s good you didn’t have those, hard to get used to the tiny food you actually need)… BUT your items. Wow. My main priority would be getting used to eating proper food! It must be a huge change for you already. You can worry about details later…

How do you eat now, after the pretty bad earlier times? Do you eat enough protein, nutrients? Keto doesn’t guarantee one eats healthy, after all. You surely do much better, I am just curious how you do it now…

I don’t wanna argue, just saying that I had to ban cauliflower when I realized that I am unable to eat less than 40g net carbs from it at once if I fry it… 20g carbs are super low, I never could do that on keto until carnivore. I usually fit into 20g on carnivore, not always (it’s too easy to go way above it with some dairy) but it doesn’t bother me like plant carbs.
Carbs easily add up if we have various carb sources and eat much of some of them (it’s super easy to do with vegetables - maybe not with the lowest-carb ones - and certain dairy items but nuts have a shot too).
Especially newbies may need to be careful.

Even better to figure out our needs or just ignore the whole thing and eat to satiation as I do… But this advice sounds good to me. Calculators don’t know our needs and they tend to come up with super little for losing fat…! I looked at my estimated maintenance calories, laughed and ate significantly more and lost fat smoothly for a while on low-carb… They must work for some people, surely they are based on some statistics but if one is hungry, they probably should eat, it’s definitely the case with me…

And keto is a big change, the last thing the body needs to work with is forced calorie restriction on top of everything. It needs resources to work with :slight_smile: Not too much but enough.