Zero weightloss this week

#1

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This is my weeks macros averaged out.
My bmr is 1750. I have not exercised but I am on my feet for 10 hours a day and walk dogs.
I have been very strickt and recorded eveything.
I lost 4kg in first week and a half, bit nothing this past week. What’s happening?

(Megan) #2

Hey Rusty,

Please don’t take this the wrong way but I hate you lol. (and all the older women on the site shout “Amen!”)

#3

Pretty sure that was all water weight.
I had 4 points of beer and loads of really bad food the night before I started my diet and weighed myself for the first time. So the real number may have been tiny.

#4

Weight loss is never linear. Lipolysis, how weight loss happens, is a complex function. Fat gets teased out of the cells in the presence of ketones, the fat molecule gets broken into three fatty acids, you metabolize them for energy or poop them out. In the meanwhile, water fills the fat molecule temporarily to keep it “stretched,” if you will. The fat molecule is, in effect, thinking “I’ll probably get refilled soon, so I’m keeping space for the new fat the insulin always sends me.” The next day, it is asked to release another fat molecule or two. It fills with more water. Finally, it gives up and admits the insulin is not bringing it goodies three times a day any longer. And whoosh, out the water comes, and the scale weight changes. But not every day or not even every week or not even every month as you go along. The fat goes every day, every hour even, but the bathroom scale won’t reflect that.

This week you were losing fat all along. This is why the scale really doesn’t tell you much on a daily or even weekly basis. Also, if you’ve chronically undereaten protein and saturated fat, as the body takes some in to repair starved muscles and organs and your brain (thank heavens, I can plump up those myelin sheaths! your brain is saying), you can even gain weight as you put on healthy, metabolically active tissue. Not a bad thing! That’s good.

I haven’t weighed (except once at a medical facility) in 22 years. All weighing ever did was make me crazy. There are many other ways to tell if you’re losing. Have a pair of trousers that is tight on you right now. Put them on every Saturday morning They’ll tell you far more than the scale. When that piece of clothing is so loose it’s ridiculous, find another tight pair (you may have to buy one).

Or just take a picture of yourself once a week. You’ll see it in the photos (for some reason, seeing it in the mirror is harder–our perceptions fool us more.)

And start focusing on non-scale victories. Is your skin healthier, your fingernails firmer, your mood better, your sleep better? Is an achy knee less achy? If all you focus on is the scale, it’s going to be harder to stick to this way of eating forever. “We came for the weight loss; we stayed for the vastly improved health.” Note all of that.

It might be that you need more calories. I don’t know your age or sex or anything, but If you were a 65 year old woman about 5;2", 1450 calories would be fine. If you’re a six-foot-tall male of 40, you’re undereating by a good bit, and that can cause the body to hang on to fat when you undereat, particularly if you have yo-yo dieted in the past. it has been through famines, it understand them, and it’ll cling to fat to help you survive through the coming famine. So don’t give it a famine.

Finally, if “all” you lost was 5 kg per month for the next six months, is that better or worse than staying the same or letting the weight creep up another kg?

#5

Great points. Thank you so much.
I can’t make quotes so I’ll make a few points and hope you understand which of your points I am referring to.

I’m 5’6 male, 90kg. 38yrs
My BMI is always going to be quite negative because I am very broad for my height. Even when I was in my early 20s by BMI was obease. Evern though I had abs, because I have thick legs, wide shoulders etc.
So based on that, I’m not sure if I should trust exactly the normal calorie calculators. They say my BMR is 1750, but I’m not sure of its more or less than that.
I can’t afford to have more in depth testing.

Wonderful info about how weight on the scales and fat loss are related. Thank you.
I have not been working out, but generally I don’t care about the ‘number that I weigh’. I have been using the scales as a guide to how well I did yesterday. Actually I would quite like to weigh 90kg, but have less body fat and get stronger.

My #1 goal is to get fit as I struggle to do any type of exercise. I even struggle on hard days at work. I have been blaming my weight for this, but now I understand that it is more to do with how my body deals with energy.
So I started keto hoping I would have the energy, to then use the energy to get fitter.

Fingernails have gone crazy thick. They actually grow a lot slower, which is no bad thing, but way stronger.

And yes, the trousers… I bought a pair of work shorts 3 years ago that never fit. Even though I havnt lost any weight this week, I am now wearing the shorts which didn’t fit last week.

(Allie) #6

Trust the process, there will be ups and downs along the way, that’s just how it works.

#7

No. They just guesstimate something. They never worked for me. I got some tiny number for maintenance, laughed at it, started to eat significantly above and lost fat easily (and slowly but I am not good at more than small deficits. and slow fat-loss is AWESOME. I usually stall).

1 week is nothing. 1 month is more but things happen. Though I would think about slowing your metabolism at that point, you eat quite little…

I am not envious about the first week loss as it’s probably mostly water. But why I can’t have strong nails? Mine are exactly like before, even after more than a decade of low-carb and much keto times… Sigh. But keto brought about zero changes (fat adaptation being the only significant one), it’s my life. And carnivore is much better anyway so I can’t complain. Maybe one day I lose some fat too, would be nice after my 10(?) years of stalling on low-carb IF! :smiley:

So you lose fat at a pretty steady pace. You really have zero reason to complain. I saw heavy girls not losing anything without (from my viewpoint) extreme fasting and sacrifices… Poor souls. Once I met a heavy man with difficulties, it’s individual. But you seem to lose fat just fine, lucky!

There are times when you don’t see weight-loss on the scale despite doing everything right. It’s normal and okay.
Our bodyweight tend to fluctuate anyway, some people talk about very big changes too.
So you just can’t expect seeing a smaller number on the scale every week.

#8

Thank you for the encouragement.
My nails were so thin that they were practically floppy. I would bend them.back all the time. O have always bitten my nails down to nothing and made them bleed.
2 months ago I stopped. No idea how it got the will power as I have tried to stop evey few months for the last 20 years. But one day I just stopped.
Then 3 weeks ago I realised that I had been granted the will power that I had been praying for for years. So I thought I would putvthat new will power to use and go on a diet.
3 weeks in and this is the longest i have stuck to anything.

I started dieting and on day 2 I listened to podcasts, day 3 I found 2 keto dudes and day 4 I started keto.
But almost every day I have found out something new and I have adapted and changed as I learned more. I made a bunch of mistakes but I keep learning and asking. I am only just starting to feel like I understand what I am doing.

(Robin) #9

You might want to set the scale aside for a while. It can fluctuate while your clothes become looser and you lose inches. And numbers on the scale can really mess with our motivation.
Patience. You got this!

#10

Great advice. Thank you.

(Allie) #11

It’s a constant learning process, you learn and pivot constantly because what works for you today may not work for you in six months time. This is a journey with no ending.

(Jane) #12

^^^ THIS

Stop thinking of it as a “diet” that you stop when you reach your goal weight (and gain it all back). Think of it as a lifestyle change. Some people can add more carbs back into their diet once they reach their goal weight (like my husband…grrrr…) but some can’t. You will only know once you get there and experiment.

My motto is “I came for the weight loss and stayed for the health benefits”. I feel so much better on keto than on a SAD diet. Best wishes in your journey!

#13

Thanks for the extra info, Rusty. Definitely this will help you with health and building muscle.

If you’re built broad, like a rugby player, with only 10 kg of excess fat, it’ll probably come off more slowly than someone with 70 kg to lose.

I’m not an exercise physiologist or MD, so always take amateur advice with a grain of sea salt…But yes, more food! Never eat more than you are actually hungry for, but I’d aim 130 g of protein and 130 of fat. If muscle building is the end goal, you want that protein nice and high (but then you should match it with fat, gram to gram. If money is an issue, buy the cheapest cuts of beef you can buy. I think your cuts are named differently than here, but I can get chuck roast and beef back ribs for very little here in the states, and chicken livers here are less than £2 per kilo. Chicken liver pate (basically livers plus butter) is packed with nutrients and tastes great.

You’ve got this. Keep learning.

#14

Mine are still like that or close (maybe a tad better? I am not sure but some are always weak). It’s a bit annoying to keep a thick layer of nailpolish on my fingers all the time (I need to redo them often) but if I don’t do that, I lose my nails to the point it gets painful and my fingers look bad with short nails anyway… Good I am biologically female not like it really matters for a hermit androgyn… :smiley:
Oh and the clear nailpolish is thin, that didn’t work. Sigh. Maybe one day my nails get better, who knows? But probably not. My skin is exactly the same as on high-carb too… Not like I had anything really horrible with that, lucky.
But why I can’t have strong nails and hair? My hair is shiny and silky and colorful and broken.

But if it would be among my biggest problems, I would be a happy one.

Oh you will have such an interesting journey I think :slight_smile: You will learn much more and probably experiment and figure out things, it can be pretty entertaining. I always find things to test and try out :wink: