Suggestions welcomed

Fin1965

Hi, I'm a 50 year old female, weight 153lb and 5'4 tall. I've been below 20 carbs for three weeks. I was on this woe before that, got really scared after bad cholesterol results and tried to go back to a 'balanced' diet, then realised I genuinely liked eating low carb as I feel better in terms of less back ache, not obsessed with food etc. I also read the links people kindly suggested about cholesterol and feel I must give it time for numbers to adjust. I would like to lose about 13lb. No it's not the biggest amount of weight to shift, I realise being female, fifty, not menopausal yet and a background of yo yo dieting can take its toll, but it may aswell be fifty stone!! Weight is not shifting at all. I don't have a sweet tooth at all so don't have yearnings for choc or whatever. My questions are,
Does your appetite keep decreasing whilst in ketosis, mine has a bit, but I read people sometimes lose their appetite a lot on this woe? I've read it should self regulate after a while so I'm looking forward to that.
Secondly, although I haven't lost any weight, clothes are a little better fitting, I also look in the mirror and I think I look a little trimmer. If I am losing inches, that's great, but will the scales suddenly drop or could I get the whoosh later rather than the usual initial water weight loss? Where's my fat gone if I haven't lost scale weight? I think I read somewhere the fat cells fill with water, will they empty, does that cause the whoosh? I'm sticking to this woe, as I've said, I do like it and I'm able to deal with the scale not budging, but I'd like to see a drop soon, even a couple of lbs will do! Thank you for any suggestions or insight.

shawcpang

I'm into my 5th month in ketosis. My appetite did not decrease at all although I do sense that I do not seem to get hungry and many times had to remind myself to eat something. As for your 2nd question, it's all about calorie deficit if you want to lose weight. When I started, I kept to a 1200 cal and that help me to lose a lot of weight and now I have to eat at least 2000 cal so as not to lose any more weight. I was 70kg when I started and now 62kg.

Sunny_Bunny_

Lots of things affect the scale weight including the contents of your gut. It may be a bit less common, though I wouldn't say unusual, to get nothing on the scale in 3 weeks, but it's absolutely possible to be losing fat and have weight stay the same or even go up for that matter.
Did you also start any new exercise by chance? Being 3 weeks in, where are you in your monthly cycle? Water gain for that could certainly be hiding the loss you've actually achieved. There's so much that could be hiding the weight loss part of your success. It will show up. Stick with your plan. If your clothes are fitting better, it's working.
And. Take pics ASAP! You will love comparing them as you go. Very motivating, especially when you don't feel you've made progress and take pics and find out that you actually have!
It can be a bit more challenging to those of us close to our goals because we hear things like losing 1 or 2 pounds a week is possible. Well, not necessarily. And it's actually not even necessary to lose that much to see the physical difference we want. I'm thrilled if I can keep a steady .1 lb a week going right now. But, I get that number by averaging my weight rather than comparing from one day to the next. Or one "weigh in day" to the next.
I like the app Happy Scale for IOS or I think one called Libra for Android is similar. It helps you track your loss trend over time. When you're close to goal, there won't likely be .5 or 1 pound a week losses. And quite often, you will show a gain. But, the longer term picture will show the losses.

Sunny_Bunny_

I wanted to give a visual of what I was talking about.
Here is my trend weight for the month of February. Doesn't look too impressive. The trend has even gone up a good portion of the month and I have a .7 lb loss over the entire month as of today. Last month I totaled .5 lbs lost.


But, if you compare the last 3 months, you can see that I am making steady progress. I added the red line so it was easy to see.

SamandaIndia

At less than 200lbs starting weight, folk in 7-10 week challenges that I have participated in, assuming they stick to the challenge (60%quit the last one), average weight loss of less than 1lb a week.

I support Sunny Bunny's suggestion of trending, measuring n photos. I have a photo I took for my phone's health app- hard to imagine my face that ballooned up only 5 mths ago.

What is your calorie intake and exercise? Good luck.

Fin1965

Thanks for the feedback, yes that's a defo to take photos. I don't know where this calm feeling has come from, I used to fret so badly at the scales not budging, but I now take it on the chin and am happy to have changed from this woe from being a quick fix to a way of life I can feel comfortable with so that's all good. I keep things simple, not doing anything out of the ordinary food wise. I'm mainly sticking to the basics, eggs, bacon, meat and very, very few veg. I think others might think it boring, but I don't really mind at all. I do have bullet proof coffee and although it sustains me, I wake up at seven am and usually have lugged it by half past, it takes me through til about half eleven. I hope this gap will become longer as I go on. I spin twice a week, do one body pump class and one box fit class. I'm afraid I don't count calories as mentally, it gives me a compulsion to be over obsessive and this spills over to other things, hence my diet being plain and simple. I don't have anything sweet, no nuts but use a teaspoon of hwc along with mct and butter in the coffee. I would estimate it's in the 1400 region, but I know estimations can be notoriously off!! I think the photo evidence is a really good idea though. I jump on the scales every morning and I'm 10st 13, then last thing at night I'm 11st 1, this has been the way for a tad over three weeks. I have the egg fast going round in my head and wonder if this might nudge things along?? Anyway, I'll keep you posted of any changes but I do thank you for your help

Sunny_Bunny_

It sounds like you've got a good grasp on how to work your plan to your benefit. I think not counting calories is a good idea if you can do it. I've been counting for over 9 months and I'm honestly a bit afraid to stop. I'm close to goal and it worries me to possibly lose ground when I'm so close. But, it's probably worrying over nothing since I'm having good appetite control. We will all eventually have to stop counting and hopefully maintain our health and weight. It is on my plan to just follow hunger without counting really soon.