Beginner keto help?

leolion77

Hi everyone - was hoping someone could help.

I started Keto nearly 3 weeks ago and have lost 7-8 lbs (mostly in first 10 days) but I am still not in ketosis and seem to have hit a plateau already. I have faithfully measured and weighed every bite and ingredient that has gone into my mouth but I'm obviously doing something wrong.

I'm male, 5ft 9inches and currently 17st 10lbs.

I take medication for blood pressure and cholesterol and understand the potential risks of Keto but eating so many foods that I thought for years of as bad for me is a concern if I dont lose weight?

I usually also take some Alpro plain greek yoghurt with 30g of blueberries and generally havent exceeded 20g carbs per day

A typical days food is as below

Any suggestions what I can do?

Thanks in advance

collinsje1

You're eating more calories than your burning.... your goal is 1500 hundred and this particular day you ate 1700 and change.

Also, your chicken entry for dinner is wrong, you have it logged as 2 breasts. That could be 2 3-ounce breast or 2, 10 oz breasts.....you need to weigh everything on a food scale.

collinsje1

Same thing with the ham and egg from your lunch.

I would say that your logging isn't as accurate as it needs to be.

yirara

Keto is no magic for weightloss. One thing it does: it makes you dump an awful lot of water when you start out. This is water normally bound to glycogen, which your body stores when eating carbs. No carbs, less glycogen, less water. It's not bodyfat, but it does show on the scale. That's the main reason why you lost so much weight in the beginning. Now not much happens. Two reasons; not logging well and you're in fact not in a deficit, or your body is storing a tiny bit more water again while you're losing fat. Hence no change on the scale. Give it time. 2 weeks or so is nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Also, I recommend two things:

use a food scale and use database entries of meals you made, not of meals of other people.

possibly reduce your weightloss goal. As a male you give 1500 calories if your chose goal is too big. You will not lose this quickly anyway. In order to reach your goal you'd need to eat less than 1500 calories, which is not healthy, hence MFP gives you the minimum still kind of healthy amount of calories.

leolion77

Hi guys
The 1500 calorie figure was there by default from previous diets and everything I had read to date stated not to go by it.
So effectively I still need to cut calories to a max of 1500, measure and weight better and stick to 20g carbs?

AnnPT77

leolion77 wrote: »

Hi guys
The 1500 calorie figure was there by default from previous diets and everything I had read to date stated not to go by it.
So effectively I still need to cut calories to a max of 1500, measure and weight better and stick to 20g carbs?

If your only goal is weight loss, you don't even need to stick to 20g carbs.

And we don't know whether 1500 is right for you or not.

At 17st 10 (248 pounds), it's possibly unnecessarily low.

If you're age 30, we'd expect you to need maybe 2400-2700 calories per day to maintain your current weight, if sedentary.

An accurate 1500 would be expected to result in something around 2 pounds a week of weight loss (on average over 4-6 weeks), maybe more. That's probably not dangerously fast at your current size, but fairly fast.

7 pounds in 3 weeks is about what we'd expect. I agree with yirara that the seeming stall is probably water weight rebalancing, and that you'll see a drop soon.

I'd say: Log more accurately, and be patient. 3 weeks isn't enough to get a clear trend.

leolion77

Thanks Ann

I'm 49 and my goal is to lose weight to look better and it helps keep my cholesterol and blood pressure in step.

I had an operation last winter and put on weight while recuperating. The operation was on my abdomen and I have had to change my job and have moved from an active job to an office job so I am much more sedentary than I used to be and would like to be in better shape for my daughters wedding next summer.

rileysowner

I do keto as well, and even though people on say Youtube will say calories are not important, for weight loss they are. If you listen carefully, you will find that while saying calories are not important at the same time they will say things like, when you eat this way it triggers hormones that make you feel full, ie you eat less which means less calories consumed. Your calories do matter, and the danger with keto is if you have a history of disordered eating and eat quickly, you can easily blow past your calories before your satiety hormones kick in. Eating slowly, and not getting seconds for at least an hour can help, but even on keto I still log and pay attention to my calorie goal.

Second, how do you know you are not in ketosis? If your logging is accurate and you are at or under 20 grams of carbs per day you are likely in ketosis. As mentioned above, your logging might not be as accurate as you think.

AnnPT77

leolion77 wrote: »

Thanks Ann

I'm 49 and my goal is to lose weight to look better and it helps keep my cholesterol and blood pressure in step.

I had an operation last winter and put on weight while recuperating. The operation was on my abdomen and I have had to change my job and have moved from an active job to an office job so I am much more sedentary than I used to be and would like to be in better shape for my daughters wedding next summer.

At 49 & sedentary, maintenance calories might be around 2400-2600, so 1500 would still be around 2 pounds a week for the average sedentary guy your size.

Are you saying a lower weight helps keep your blood pressure and cholesterol in step (it does that for me)? Or are you saying keto helps your blood pressure and cholesterol?

Keto can have benefits, including appetite reduction for some. Purely for weight loss, it's not universally necessary. (I lost 50-some pounds eating 150g+ carbs daily, and my BP and cholesterol normalized around half way through that loss, at age 59.)

leolion77

rileysowner wrote: »

I do keto as well, and even though people on say Youtube will say calories are not important, for weight loss they are. If you listen carefully, you will find that while saying calories are not important at the same time they will say things like, when you eat this way it triggers hormones that make you feel full, ie you eat less which means less calories consumed. Your calories do matter, and the danger with keto is if you have a history of disordered eating and eat quickly, you can easily blow past your calories before your satiety hormones kick in. Eating slowly, and not getting seconds for at least an hour can help, but even on keto I still log and pay attention to my calorie goal.

Second, how do you know you are not in ketosis? If your logging is accurate and you are at or under 20 grams of carbs per day you are likely in ketosis. As mentioned above, your logging might not be as accurate as you think.

Hi Rileysowner - I've been using urine test strips

leolion77

AnnPT77 wrote: »

leolion77 wrote: »

Thanks Ann

I'm 49 and my goal is to lose weight to look better and it helps keep my cholesterol and blood pressure in step.

I had an operation last winter and put on weight while recuperating. The operation was on my abdomen and I have had to change my job and have moved from an active job to an office job so I am much more sedentary than I used to be and would like to be in better shape for my daughters wedding next summer.

At 49 & sedentary, maintenance calories might be around 2400-2600, so 1500 would still be around 2 pounds a week for the average sedentary guy your size.

Are you saying a lower weight helps keep your blood pressure and cholesterol in step (it does that for me)? Or are you saying keto helps your blood pressure and cholesterol?

Keto can have benefits, including appetite reduction for some. Purely for weight loss, it's not universally necessary. (I lost 50-some pounds eating 150g+ carbs daily, and my BP and cholesterol normalized around half way through that loss, at age 59.)

Not specifically Keto, my BP and Cholesterol all normalise when I'm around 14 - 15 stone, however I get there!

rileysowner

leolion77 wrote: »

rileysowner wrote: »

I do keto as well, and even though people on say Youtube will say calories are not important, for weight loss they are. If you listen carefully, you will find that while saying calories are not important at the same time they will say things like, when you eat this way it triggers hormones that make you feel full, ie you eat less which means less calories consumed. Your calories do matter, and the danger with keto is if you have a history of disordered eating and eat quickly, you can easily blow past your calories before your satiety hormones kick in. Eating slowly, and not getting seconds for at least an hour can help, but even on keto I still log and pay attention to my calorie goal.

Second, how do you know you are not in ketosis? If your logging is accurate and you are at or under 20 grams of carbs per day you are likely in ketosis. As mentioned above, your logging might not be as accurate as you think.

Hi Rileysowner - I've been using urine test strips

From my reading, they can go bad quite quickly if not stored properly. I considered getting them as they were by far the least expensive option, until I started looking into them and saw the number of people who would buy them and get inconsistent or no results because the seller had not stored them properly. I personally would not trust that they are accurately reflecting whether you are in ketosis unless you have seen noticeable change over the time you have been using them. That is a personal opinion based only on things like Amazon reviews and google searches, so take it for what it is worth. If you are getting zero ketones, they are probably not working because while it is conceivable you are not in full blown ketosis, it is highly unlikely you are not in ketosis at all.

neanderthin

cancelled.

neanderthin

rileysowner wrote: »

leolion77 wrote: »

rileysowner wrote: »

I do keto as well, and even though people on say Youtube will say calories are not important, for weight loss they are. If you listen carefully, you will find that while saying calories are not important at the same time they will say things like, when you eat this way it triggers hormones that make you feel full, ie you eat less which means less calories consumed. Your calories do matter, and the danger with keto is if you have a history of disordered eating and eat quickly, you can easily blow past your calories before your satiety hormones kick in. Eating slowly, and not getting seconds for at least an hour can help, but even on keto I still log and pay attention to my calorie goal.

Second, how do you know you are not in ketosis? If your logging is accurate and you are at or under 20 grams of carbs per day you are likely in ketosis. As mentioned above, your logging might not be as accurate as you think.

Hi Rileysowner - I've been using urine test strips

From my reading, they can go bad quite quickly if not stored properly. I considered getting them as they were by far the least expensive option, until I started looking into them and saw the number of people who would buy them and get inconsistent or no results because the seller had not stored them properly. I personally would not trust that they are accurately reflecting whether you are in ketosis unless you have seen noticeable change over the time you have been using them. That is a personal opinion based only on things like Amazon reviews and google searches, so take it for what it is worth. If you are getting zero ketones, they are probably not working because while it is conceivable you are not in full blown ketosis, it is highly unlikely you are not in ketosis at all.

Yes and it's quite common. I have a blood glucose meter that also can be used to check for ketones and I also have urine strips and have used both at the same time where the urine strips showed either none or very little ketone activity where the monitor showed I was fully engaged in ketone production and it was a common occurrence.

Corina1143

I dont do keto. But I do have urine strips I use for other purposes. They always say I've got extreme keto acidosis. I figure like @rileysowner said, my strips got too hot or something. They still work for my purposes.