WTF - I've gained 6 pounds and DID NOT CHEAT!

retainingwater
(Melissa Feather) #22

You’re absolutely right. I’ve been putting it off but I think it’s time to make the change. Thanks.

(eat more) #23

i love my speed rope!
i hate any other kind of jumping…jumping jacks and burpees are dumb!
ok they’re not i just don’t like them lol

i jump in between kettlebell swing, medicine ball slam, and ab sets…sometimes i even jump between weight sets.
it’ll be fun!
be prepared for some welts when you first start getting your rhythm…speed ropes whip :joy:

#24

I am surprised at the gain seemingly from stopping exercise. For sure exercise will have some impact but I don’t buy that much as a direct result. I will be really interested to hear about your dexa scan results. If you have drastically dropped lean body mass and switched to fat there could be an issue there.

How did you eat before keto? Before when you did weights? During the time you stopped and gained weight?

Have you any blood tests that show any changes? e.g. to blood sugar.

Have you had any changes elsewhere in your life?

  • stress at home, work, personal stuff
  • illness and/or injury
  • sleep problems
  • mood problems

I agree with @Brenda re weight apart from the fact that you have said that is a normal and maintained weight for you and that this current weight is the unusual weight. Some people are simply very slim. My father is the same and has maintained a low end of ‘normal’ weight all his life. He has been referred to as ‘too thin’ and ‘skinny’ on many occasion.

What I would say though is that you are in that group that needs to get enough fat. Yes you want to lose a bit more weight but you are basically very near to maintenance level. If you don’t eat enough your body is going to stall big time and just hold on to every scrap you give it.

As an example, I am very near target weight. In fact, I am now at the top end of my target acceptable range as I call it! I have a tendency to not eat enough especially when I eat less like OMAD. This was the case a month or so ago so I decided to add in breakfast. This is a hearty affair of sausage, egg and mushrooms. You would think I would gain weight right? Nope! I am also currently doing a little n=1 experiment by adding a BPC (actually just the oil because I don;t like BPC!). We shall see what the result is at the end of the week but I will give you a clue

  • scale not changing or going down!
(Alex Dipego) #25

I’m going to have to agree with Brenda here in regards to your energy. You can’t expect to eat the same and not adapt to it. Your body is smart and adjusts to what’s becoming “normal.”

That being said, cardio adaptation is quick because it causes the most weight loss during activities. What I mean is the body wants to be efficient at it so much because it’s a energy burning state. It’s also a state where your metabolism slows down. So with adaptation and same eating you’re not doing yourself a favor in energy balance.

I would suggest strength training to boost your metabolism. Stick to the big lifts and watch your appetite sky rocket along with your metabolism. From personal experience I add 1k calories in that type of training purely from hunger and maintain weight, without feeling that constipated feeling.

Rotate your intake. You don’t burn the same everyday nor should you eat the same everyday. But! I will say if you’re 113lvs at 5"1 with fat to lose, you shouldn’t expect weight loss but weight gain or maintenance. If you’re losing weight I’d be concerned of too little muscle mass. I’ve seen 95lb individuals at the same height and they look like a breeze will break them. Not saying this is you.

#26

I think I am going through this right now. I turned 59 last month (almost 60… how did that happen?!)
My last period was 6 months ago. I have gained weight. Doctor says “weight is perfect…I’m just fat for me”

I was surprised at my weight at last physical (past Dec), but my previous physical was 8 years prior. (when I was grossly underweight looking…before I started eating meat)

(Melissa Feather) #27

Stress is always a factor with my job in tech but nothing out of the normal swings. I recently became a grandma for the 2nd time so that was super exciting/emotional. My sleep is a little wacky but I attribute that to my 15 year old wiener dog waking me up or my hubby. I think I’d sleep well without other interruptions. My mood is 95% happy/cheerful. The other 5% is when I’m at work and get annoyed/frustrated but that usually passes pretty quickly.

(Melissa Feather) #28

I’ll update after lifting for about 60 days. Trust me - 113-115 lbs sounds very small but for my frame it’s not. I’m very petite so it’s a very healthy weight for my size/frame. With that, I don’t care if I weigh 125 lbs as long as the fat is gone. :wink:

(Melissa Feather) #29

It has erythritol.

http://www.jigsawhealth.com/magnesium-products/jigsaw-magnow-tart-raspberry-lemonade/

(Melissa Feather) #30

I like your approach. I’m going to try and only weigh occasionally and track via weekly pics. That’s probably a way better guage for me as well because again, the actual # isn’t my goal…it’s the way I look, feel. Thanks for the tip!

(Todd Allen) #31

I didn’t see anyone reply regarding the water/electrolytes issue and I apologize if someone did and I missed it. I’ve also had an issue with constipation which has improved with increasing intake of sodium, potassium and magnesium.

I still have a slow bowel transit time of roughly 36-48 hours from ingestion to excretion. To check my bowel transit time I swallow a few kernels of sweet corn unchewed as they are easy to spot when they come out. They come out apparently whole so I doubt I’m absorbing much carbohydrate from them.

Before upping electrolytes my stools were somewhat harder and even slower. I might still have an imbalance of electrolytes as I don’t have a good understanding of how to tweak each one but merely have increased them together in proportion to RDA values. I previously restricted salt because I was concerned about blood pressure. Fortunately my bp steadily fell, perhaps due to weight loss or other aspects of being keto, and I then began boosting electrolytes, far more than I would have ever imagined when I used to believe the low fat, low salt advice. Although it seemed to raise my average bp slightly I also experienced a decrease of bp swings both high and low and now see the increased electrolytes as beneficial there too.

While going through this I became somewhat obsessed about all things related such as water intake and adopted a practice of filling an empty gallon milk jug with water in the morning and drawing my water from that throughout the day to track how much I consumed. It was a rare day that I would use the whole gallon.

On one hand, constipation might suggest low electrolytes while retaining water would suggest elevated electrolytes. Perhaps there is an imbalance betweeen the electrolytes though I wouldn’t know which to increase/decrease. A gallon of water per day sounds fairly high for someone of your size and perhaps it is impacting your need for one or more of the electrolytes?

And maybe your water intake is high due to the amount you exercise? Others have suggested not eating enough can slow metabolism and paradoxically lead to weight gain. I’ve read something similar can occur with overtraining causing unfavorable hormonal changes such as elevated cortisol that can impact both weight and water retention. Perhaps in combination with other hormonal changes such as estrogen dropping with age this has become a factor for you when it wasn’t before? The previous comments about incorporating more HIIT or resistance training might be on target though if overtraining is the culprit you might need to make a shift of reducing total training time, especially if you are upping the intensity. I’ve been getting better results by shifting to more frequent, more intense workouts but just a fraction of the duration I did previously, though physically I’m in a very different, much worse, place than you.

I hope you follow up if you manage to sort this out. I’d like to understand this better as I have related though somewhat different issues.

(Melissa Feather) #32

Todd, thanks for the deep thinking. I’ve started to drop again a little (hovering around 116-117) but again, not weighing as often as I was. I did start using my Ketonix more often but that thing really frustrates me so I’m not as consistent as I could be. Lastly, my appetite is always pretty awesome so I’m eating plenty and also drinking a pretty good amount of fat. I stopped worrying about macro’s and am I’m just eating the right foods in any amount I want. I’ve “thought” about IF but not yet taken the steps to move in that direction. I’ve reduced my magnesium to once per day and that has REALLY helped me to maintain a more regular BM. I never expected too much mag causing the opposite effect but it seems that may have been a contributing factor. I’m not drinking as much plain water as I was but I am drinking more sparkling water. Lastly, my gym is undergoing renovation so it’s been closed for 2 weeks now. I’ve elected to “take a break” from the heavy duty cardio and just do some light stretching, yoga and band work. Overall, I’m feeling awesome! I’ll continue to provide brief updates as I go but right now I’m enjoying this laissez faire approach.

#33

just do a fast for a reset and reduce you calorie intake. Couple that with walking and core exercising and it will be gone in 2 or 3 weeks. Probably 2 weeks if you were neoprene.

dont get frustrated or bummed out. Just do something about it

(8 year Ketogenic Veteran) #34

CICO is a myth.

It’s not the calories, it’s the type of food that matters. Fat, protein, carbohydrate.

Listen to the latest 2KetoDudes podcast with Megan Ramos. She speaks of mixing it up by purposefully overeating fat.

Our bodies are regulated by hormones, not calories.

#35

Ok whatever… that myth took me from 220 down to 146 with 9% bodyfat in less than a year.

I keep telling you folks the less fat you have the harder it gets to lose. Your also carrying different kinds of fat. Trick is learning how to get to it.

Not trying to jump on you. I will tell you that for every study there is a counter study. This goes across the board for all types of body manipulation practices. Bodybuilders, athletes etc. etc. You have to find what works and what your capable of. When it stops you change it up. How extreme your willing to go is all up to how bad you want to manipulate your body. Thats where people get riled up. You dont get a body without sacrifice. Keto seduces people in the beginning because you can literally do nothing and eat rediculous amounts of fat and drop weight. Then the hard part comes and they either become content with 20-30 pounds of fat on them, get sloppy and start gaining it back slowly, or they throw in the towel and gain it all back.

I will say this… you cut out calories while fat adapted you will burn storage fat. Your body does not have a choice.

To the OP… if your gaining fat you need to push hard to get things under control as fast as you can. I only allow fat gain when i am trying to create new muscle nuclei spending 3-5 hours on weight training. Then when I have had enough I run massive calories deficets to shead the fat back off. Once gone its back to the weights.

(G. Andrew Duthie) #36

That is simply not so. The other “choice” your body has is to reduce your basal metabolic rate. If you cut calories beyond the point where you are able to support your basal metabolic rate with the amount of fuel you can provide from body fat, then it’s very likely this will happen.

Another post from @richard explains this well:

Your results are not necessarily predictive of what will work for others. We refer to this as n=1, and those of us who’ve been around the forum for a while usually refer to that shorthand when we’re relating what has worked for us, to be clear that it’s exactly that, an experiment with a cohort of 1.

For those with sufficient body fat, reducing calories to 0 can be a great way of making rapid progress, and even fasting with some fat/broth supplementation can have great results, as @ron-coleman is demonstrating daily. But to assert that reducing calories will always work is simply wrong. For some it will, for others it won’t.

(8 year Ketogenic Veteran) #37

We’re not all here to “cut” for a bodybuilding show. Lol

Show me the science.
And no, your body is not the science.
Maybe you’d do better on a bodybuilding forum.

Advise members here to severely restrict fat and overeat protein will lower their ketones, they may damage their metabolism by slowing it down, and make them sweat cat piss too from extremely excessive protein.

We can only burn fat at a set rate.
The peer reviewed science is here:

#38

I am not saying replace fat with protien. i am saying cut calories. If you can fast even better. I do 72hour fasts train as hard as I can. If you dont burn fat like that your not human.

(8 year Ketogenic Veteran) #39

Ok good because exceed 70% protein, and you’re no longer ketogenic.

if you get high enough protein (65% of energy) on a low carb diet, it becomes a regular glucose burning diet and no longer meets many of the other standards of a low carb diet. Of course you don’t make ketones with FFA and insulin at those levels.
Crazy huh??

#40

LOL it works when you actually do it. You cannot fast and drink bulletproof coffee all day then throw your hands up and say it doesnt work.

your body is adapted to running on fat… stop eating to get to the storage you carry. This is not rocket science. This is not bodybuilding… it is body manipulation.

I am not a bodybuilder but I do pick there brains a lot. They are some of the smartest people out there when it comes to actually getting results.

Keto is just the intro. Most people dont start this for health… they want to lose fat. The health is a great side effect. As you continue to get lower and lower in your bodyfat you get more and more health concious… you just have to.

#41

Statements like this show a lack of understanding of the underlying science of obesity and the effects of insulin on lipolysis, or the burning of body fat for energy.

All it takes for the body to preferentially store incoming calories, even when below the level required to maintain energy balance, is the presence of insulin.

It’s unethical to do certain studies in humans, but some rat studies have shown that higher levels of insulin will cause rats to preferentially store energy as fat while their internal organs, including the heart waste away.

In normal individuals, insulin drops to acceptable levels fairly soon after a meal, but in the estimated 3/4 of the population (75%) with some form of insulin resistance, that doesn’t occur, so insulin remains high for an extended period of time, making it extremely difficult for fatty acids to be released from adipose tissue.