Upping your calories to lose weight

kiknitwite

Hi guys, I've been keto for about a month now, and I'm trying to work through the kinks! I'm looking to get to a regular losing state, like 2 pounds a week on average or at least a steady consistent drop.

To sum it up, I started with a fat fast, lost 5 pounds in about 3 days, did a lot of research and decided to make a lifestyle change. Prior to that I was already eating "low carb" for about 3 weeks and had lost about 14 pounds. Since switching to keto, I've lost 5 pounds, in total for a whole month. In fact, I stopped losing and gained 5 pounds over a not so great weekend... I lost 2 of those pounds in one day. I was eating about 1000-1100 calories and I was STRONGLY encouraged by the keto community to up those. I redid my macros and now I'm at 1565 calories, 75% fat, 20% protein and 5% carbs. I regained 2 pounds and then lost those 2 pounds 2 days later. The long and short of it is, my lowest weight over 2 weeks ago was 255, since then I've gone up and down but have never seen that 255 again. My last weight in was Wednesday, about 5 days ago, and I was 258. (Down 2 pounds since upping my calories). I used to weigh in everyday and I was told to NOT weight for 2 weeks. So I gave my friend my scale and I'm not weighing in until August 5th.

My questions for you guys is, has anyone one else had this issue and then up their calories and then start losing consistently? I'm really trying to get out of feeling like I'm racing, I'd be ok with a steady loss, because everyone's body is different. I'm disappointed because I've never seen that HUGE beginning drop like others...

kristafb

I have found my body gets bored fast. what I mean is that if I stay with lower calories or higher calories for too long I don't lose. Generally I stay around 1500 but I'll have days of 1700 or days off 1300. I'll often see a loss after higher days and gains after lower days. There is no rhyme or reason really. I was told initially not to worry about calories, concentrate on getting your macros right, get lots of fat & keep your carbs under 20g, but after a certain point calories are important too.

My weight loss has been pretty slow. I lost my initial 15lb in the first month & half, the rest has been a roller coaster, up & down the same 2 or 3 lbs, gradually going down a little each month. Not as fast as I'd like but despite this, I feel a lot better, clearer headed and more energy, so I have to weigh the good with the bad.

FIT_Goat

I made a conscious effort, this time around, to not bring my calories low. In fact, my lowest average over 10 days was 1,600... and the usual average is between 1,800 and 2,200. So, I can't tell you about how increasing them will effect your weight loss.

This is a marathon not a sprint. Give it a few weeks, at least, and see how much you're losing. Don't be upset if it's not 12 pounds a week. Seriously, it's perfectly fine to lose between 0.5-2 lbs a week. And, all numbers in that range are equally good. Higher is only better if you have a very large amount to lose.

Leonidas_meets_Spartacus

Like Frob said, it's a marathon, the weight will fluctuate. I have seen 7-12 LB swing depending on what my work out routines were, I ate ton of food and had no problem losing weight consistently. There were weeks I lost o.5 LB of fat and there were weeks I lost more than 3 LB of fat for that week. Also scale doesn't know if you are losing fat or not, your body weight can go up and down because of water weight fluctuations. May be weigh yourself every two weeks.

missyyclaire

Gosh, it's hard to say without knowing exactly what you're eating. I've certainly done a lot of experimenting with my diet to see what works best and this is what I've found to be effective

I don't eat a breakfast til late morning, like 11am or 12pm. When I do eat it's super high fat, like 2 whole eggs cooked in pork renderings, bacon grease or butter- and lots of it, like 2 tablespoons at least. Then I'll add 2 pieces of bacon, or lately I've had pastured organic pork belly and lard and I'll pan fry that stuff up (OMG, delicious) The pork belly is new to me, and when I pan fried the leftover of it, it gave bacon a super run for its money! So crispy and delicious. I can't wait to buy more and make it again! Sometimes I'll add guacamole, or like this week, I'll have a bowl of red cabbage that's been cooked in butter and bacon grease. I've even added 2 T of beet sauerkraut. And, this week I've started drinking a big glass of water with breakfast with 2 T of Bragg's apple cider vinegar in it. Not delicious, but I hear it's good for me...I've got to research exactly why it's good for me

I don't snack, not from a conscious decision, but simply because I'm not hungry. There's so much delicious fat with breakfast that I'm full for 6-7 hours

I eat dinner around 6pm or 7 and it's a good bit of food. It varies, but there's always a non-starchy vegetable and a good chunk (like 8 oz approximately) of either a grass fed hamburger patty cooked in 2T of kerrygold butter, or like last night, I made a huge pot of Lamb curry with a really fatty lamb rib and lots of coconut cream.

And that's it. I stop eating and am not hungry til the next day around 11am or 12pm. It seems my body is really happy with that break from food. Perhaps not eating on a full stomach is helping me, it seems to be as weight is consistently coming off again after a YEAR of stalling.

One last thing, I don't eat any sugar. No cheats no nothing. I can't. If I start, I won't stop, so I don't. What's happened is my taste buds are super sensitive now. A friend brought me a bag of her homegrown cherry tomatoes and they were delicious...and so sweet they tasted like candy, which I think is partly due to me not eating sugar anymore.

Do some experiments. Take like a 3 week section and try a specific thing and see if it works for you. I did that by eliminating cream and cheese and found my weight began to come off, but when I added it back it, it went back up. So, not cream or cheese for me now, not til I get to goal, which is 40 lbs from now.

Best to you!

croooz

Think of caloric intake in terms of weeks not days. So instead of sticking to a strict 1565/day think of more of 10955/week. Some days you eat more than 1565 other days you eat; it balances out. You could then "bank" your calories from a few days to eat more on others as in eat more on the weekends than during the week.

You may also be too high with your protein. Best to start at a very high fat percentage ~90% then work your way down till things stop and then you'll know what your "sweet" spot for keto is. Read "The Art & Science of LowCarb Living" by Phinney and Volek for a thorough understanding of ketogenic dieting.

SisterMable

Echoing missyyclaire below, getting rigorous about not having any sugar and keeping those carbs super low really helped me start moving along again. I had a year-long stall on low-carb, and then switched to keto, and have said goodbye to another 20 lbs of pure fat since March. I know that a lot of people have really big steady losses, but I know for me, hormones, thyroid, age, activity level, stress, sleep, and other factors play their own role. My work keeps my on my *kitten* most of the day, and even though I walk 3km every morning, it's really not the same as an active lifestyle during the day.

Right now, I feel lucky if I lose 1-2 lbs a month. And I've got another 50-60 lbs to lose. But... I was nearly 400 lbs for most of my adult life. As long as I'm consistently going down, no matter how slowly, I'm thrilled.

If you're going to compare your success/weight loss to other people, may I gently suggest you include all of us, the wide range of successes, in your comparison I too have a bit of envy for those dumping huge amounts of weight, but it never happened to me. I know you've set your weight loss goal at a certain level. But it's almost impossible to calculate that accurately based on all those cool numbers they throw at us. Those calculators don't know you - they know basic information about energy and activity, and can give you excellent feedback for beginning your journey. And you'll tweak your own path thru this way of eating based on your beginning.

Also, there's more than weight loss to "gain" here (lulz). Please consider celebrating (DAILY!) all the other amazing changes you're probably starting to experience by staying away from the foods that caused you problems in the past - lowered inflammation, extended life, clearer thoughts, clearer skin. Even if I wasn't losing weight, I'd be overjoyed by the fact that my skin is incredible for my age and my friends are telling me I look ten or more years younger over the past 5 months.

BTW, my macros are at 85/10/5 - 1600 calories or thereabouts, and I aim for 20 g or less of carbs a day. If you want more friendsies and another diary to stalk, feel free to add me (that said, I went to Austria for a week and didn't log a damned thing, so you'll have to stalk back a week to see what I really eat)

kiknitwite

Think of caloric intake in terms of weeks not days. So instead of sticking to a strict 1565/day think of more of 10955/week. Some days you eat more than 1565 other days you eat; it balances out. You could then "bank" your calories from a few days to eat more on others as in eat more on the weekends than during the week.

You may also be too high with your protein. Best to start at a very high fat percentage ~90% then work your way down till things stop and then you'll know what your "sweet" spot for keto is. Read "The Art & Science of LowCarb Living" by Phinney and Volek for a thorough understanding of ketogenic dieting.

Thanks! Heard that about my protein twice now! i'm still working my way through. I need to work in butter, cream and oil into meal to up my fat content, because I usually eat a little meat with meals and lost of eggs which keeps my protein up. I'm eating what the calc told be to, but I will start aiming for lower proteins! Thanks

MikeEnRegalia

Think of caloric intake in terms of weeks not days. So instead of sticking to a strict 1565/day think of more of 10955/week. Some days you eat more than 1565 other days you eat; it balances out. You could then "bank" your calories from a few days to eat more on others as in eat more on the weekends than during the week.

Another way to put this is do a combination of alternate day fasting and keto. I am going to, starting next week. I tried alternate day fasting before, but on a moderate-carb diet it was hard. It should be much easier on a ketogenic diet because on the fast days your body has easier access to its fat stores. The ultimate advantage compared to constantly lowering your calories should be that the "feast days" keep you metabolism from falling, while the fast days create a big caloric deficit.

BTW: On the fast days you should still eat the same (optimal) amount of protein. So basically, on a ketogenic alternate day diet on a fast day you eat only lean protein with veggies and a little bit of fat (for satiety, around 600 kcals per day total), and on a feast day you eat a little bit more calories than you expend, keeping carbs very low and protein constant.

croooz

Calorie manipulation is for those who are leptin resistant. When one is leptin sensitive calories on a ketogenic diet don't matter. Plus with the leptin reset there's built-in intermittent fasting after the first week. I'm losing bodyfat eating a 1500 calorie breakfast with another 1500 for dinner...BUT time will tell.

Kinitwite another approach might be to up your fats instead. However I would definitely recommend the leptin reset so that your calories as a ketogenic dieter are inconsequential...naturally this isn't a license to overeat but that when you do it isn't anywhere near an issue. I'm discovering that having hormones in check is THE answer and not metabolism because the former dictates the latter not the other way around.

Naughty_ZOOT

Calorie manipulation is for those who are leptin resistant. When one is leptin sensitive calories on a ketogenic diet don't matter. Plus with the leptin reset there's built-in intermittent fasting after the first week. I'm losing bodyfat eating a 1500 calorie breakfast with another 1500 for dinner...BUT time will tell.

Kinitwite another approach might be to up your fats instead. However I would definitely recommend the leptin reset so that your calories as a ketogenic dieter are inconsequential...naturally this isn't a license to overeat but that when you do it isn't anywhere near an issue. I'm discovering that having hormones in check is THE answer and not metabolism because the former dictates the latter not the other way around.

Croooz, can you give a bit more detail about the leptin resetting process, please? Thanks! I have tried upping my fats and it did nothing. I have tried a 3 days lower, 1 day higher, 2 days lower, 1 day moderate in caloric terms and shifted a few pounds over 2 weeks but still trying to break a plateau since April 12th. I have tried just about everything but would like to hear what you have to share, please

MikeEnRegalia

Leptin Reset - that's this completely unproven out-there concept invented by Jack Kruse. Take that with a huge lump of salt ... personally, I don't find his argumentation convincing. Especially with croooz negating the law of thermodynamics. Maybe you can alter your body composition an eucaloric diet by changing macros, but saying that "calories don't matter" in a weight loss context is always wrong.

croooz

Its lawS of thermodynamics not law. It never fails that those who live and die by calories in/out fail point to the first law but somehow it escapes them about the second law. Our bodies are not bomb calorimeters that work with 100% efficiency. Our gender, age, fitness level, and hormones play a major part in our body composition. If you reread I said when one is leptin sensitive calories don't matter. If manipulating hormones with diet is an out there concept then what exactly do you think you're doing by eating? Anabolism/catabolism are protein processes and hormones are the proteins that dictate what is going on and when.

Naughty_ZOOT you sound like what my wife has gone through. Weeks on MFP calculators had her gaining weight. Dropping had her stabilize and then gain weight. Going ultra-low had her maintain but no appreciable fat loss nor change in measurements. I was at my wits end and began scouring for the answer because like Mike I just knew without a shred of doubt that it is all and absolutely only about calories in/out...but my wife and cousin were very disciplined and yet the weight wasn't moving. I remembered from biology that hormones have more to do with metabolism than anything else so I started to look and read up on them and found out about leptin and then found Dr. Jack Kruse's Leptin Reset protocol. I can honestly say I could care less about Kruse's argumentation because he didn't invent this for anyone but something he stumbled upon, applied it to himself, and it worked. So my wife and I started to try it out for ourselves and then decide versus the alternative of assuming we know it all and not experiment for ourselves.

The protocol is simple. Eat 50-75g of protein within 30 minutes of waking up, six hours later eat lunch, and then six hours after that eat dinner. The goal is that you'll only actually eat breakfast and dinner because you won't be hungry during the day. There is absolutely no snacking during the day. So what I do for breakfast is make sure I get ~20% protein and the rest fat so it's ketogenic. You should not get hungry until till dinner time and then you eat dinner. There are zero cravings during the day or night and no bingeing. That part alone amazes me because the cravings would drive me crazy even on keto. Now this is not a weight/fatloss protocol but a reset of the hormone leptin which is noted to be resistant in us's who are fat. It takes approximately 6-8 weeks for things to reset and then after that eating a paleo/primal or ketogenic diet is advised. For me even on keto the cravings were there when I ate breakfast but not with this massive breakfast. I would definitely be hungry come lunch time when I'd eat a massive breakfast of protein, fats, and carbs so there's something going on. I'll let the bro-scientists and pseudo-scientists argue about the theory while I continue the experiment. Heck just the fact that cravings have been zapped is enough to continue this protocol indefinitely for me and my wife. If you google Jack Kruse Leptin Reset you'll find his site and forum with tons more info.

Naughty_ZOOT

Its lawS of thermodynamics not law. It never fails that those who live and die by calories in/out fail point to the first law but somehow it escapes them about the second law. Our bodies are not bomb calorimeters that work with 100% efficiency. Our gender, age, fitness level, and hormones play a major part in our body composition. If you reread I said when one is leptin sensitive calories don't matter. If manipulating hormones with diet is an out there concept then what exactly do you think you're doing by eating? Anabolism/catabolism are protein processes and hormones are the proteins that dictate what is going on and when.

Naughty_ZOOT you sound like what my wife has gone through. Weeks on MFP calculators had her gaining weight. Dropping had her stabilize and then gain weight. Going ultra-low had her maintain but no appreciable fat loss nor change in measurements. I was at my wits end and began scouring for the answer because like Mike I just knew without a shred of doubt that it is all and absolutely only about calories in/out...but my wife and cousin were very disciplined and yet the weight wasn't moving. I remembered from biology that hormones have more to do with metabolism than anything else so I started to look and read up on them and found out about leptin and then found Dr. Jack Kruse's Leptin Reset protocol. I can honestly say I could care less about Kruse's argumentation because he didn't invent this for anyone but something he stumbled upon, applied it to himself, and it worked. So my wife and I started to try it out for ourselves and then decide versus the alternative of assuming we know it all and not experiment for ourselves.

The protocol is simple. Eat 50-75g of protein within 30 minutes of waking up, six hours later eat lunch, and then six hours after that eat dinner. The goal is that you'll only actually eat breakfast and dinner because you won't be hungry during the day. There is absolutely no snacking during the day. So what I do for breakfast is make sure I get ~20% protein and the rest fat so it's ketogenic. You should not get hungry until till dinner time and then you eat dinner. There are zero cravings during the day or night and no bingeing. That part alone amazes me because the cravings would drive me crazy even on keto. Now this is not a weight/fatloss protocol but a reset of the hormone leptin which is noted to be resistant in us's who are fat. It takes approximately 6-8 weeks for things to reset and then after that eating a paleo/primal or ketogenic diet is advised. For me even on keto the cravings were there when I ate breakfast but not with this massive breakfast. I would definitely be hungry come lunch time when I'd eat a massive breakfast of protein, fats, and carbs so there's something going on. I'll let the bro-scientists and pseudo-scientists argue about the theory while I continue the experiment. Heck just the fact that cravings have been zapped is enough to continue this protocol indefinitely for me and my wife. If you google Jack Kruse Leptin Reset you'll find his site and forum with tons more info.

Thank you croooz, I will scope out Dr. Kruse today. I research daily and have a research attitude that basically says that I will read everything, pro or con, and then make a personal common sense based judgment call and you sound similar in that regard, too. I want to know all of the available information that is out there which takes time because it is so extensive and complicated. Just like my diabetes, there is a lot of flow chart "if this, then that or that or that" kind of research going on.

I started my permanent lifestyle adjustments in January when I went very low carb per Dr. Bernstein to try and get off of my diabetic meds and lose weight for glucose control and lifetime health improvements. Type 2 is highly prevalent in my family. I got off of the meds at the end of March and continued on with his protocols until mid-May when I switched up to LCHF after my initial 20lb loss had stopped by mid-April. I want to lose a total of ~80 lbs. I lost all of that weight and eliminated other health issues simply by dropping all grains (Wheat Belly) and the VLC was what controlled my glucose even after 12 years of meds. After mid-May, I have had even more energy on LCHF which I love but the weight loss stalled until I tried experimenting with getting a few more carbs via vegetables at each meal. I was anything but regular in those months with exercise and that is another puzzle piece I am now correcting. I did a berry challenge this week and even thought the results were far better than before, they are not good enough yet to return them to my diet. That was designed to test my insulin sensitivity level and there is progress there which is encouraging. Exercise will build new muscle receptors so that will help, too.

I have not had any craving issues except occasionally for veggies so I started to vary them even more and that took care of those. Hunger has been a complete non-issue on very low carb or LCHF and I was never a big eater anyway so if anything I was eating too little but I also was quite sedentary. Snacking has been pretty much a big fat zero for me since about February and was driven by carbs and sugar back then. I do not eat any type of sugar any longer.

I have not used the preset MFP calculators and do custom mode since they seem to be "conventional wisdom" in regards to the macros which would totally mess up my glucose with the carbohydrate recommendations. My goal all along was to gain mastery over my glucose levels and lose weight as a sideline while improving the overall quality of my life for now and the future.

I get a bit antsy about too much protein and try to space it out evenly during the day due to gluconeogenesis because I have had liver dumps in the past. That may be improved by now, too. I will however challenge it tomorrow since I am reading this too late for the 30 minute window today. I have been up 2.5 hours and eaten nothing yet. I test new things in the daytime so that I have time to respond to any spikes with exercise in order to return my glucose levels to normal since my liver issues always included a night time drop and then a liver dump which always resulted in high fasting morning numbers when I still consumed “normal” carbs. I choose to control my glucose this way if a test goes awry and that is also how I learn what I am sensitive to. I know I am extremely carbohydrate sensitive to grains and most dairy; even raw.

My normal days from mid-May until 2 weeks ago always had less than 20 carbs and were typically an 80f, 15p, 5c ratio with the protein being limited to what was adequate because of the dumping concerns. I started learning about benign fatty liver disease while researching plateau causes and got some milk thistle/silymarin to help with that in case it is part of the equation; especially with the liver dumping. I do think that it is all a very multi-faceted puzzle and I am slowly fitting the pieces together. I will do the course of the bottle and then I have some artichoke extract to do after that which acts similarly. Since benign fatty liver is very common in obese people (and diabetics) and the milk thistle was safe I decided to give it a whirl even though I don't have any known liver issues or a diagnosis.

In the last two weeks I started to make more effort to get some low carb veggies in all of my meals for the calorie shifting experiment (with some small success) and especially at breakfast which was lacking in that area so I typically add greens. I can shift those to later in the day or go back to the Bernstein protocol for a while if need be. Being ketogenic is very easy for me to achieve which is why my husband can't figure out why he is shedding pounds (48 total, 37 just since Father's day) at only a blood reading of .5 and mine weight just sits there unmoved at 3.0. Just shows you how unique our physiology really is and he has the male advantage and he is not freshly menopausal either, lol. That said I have had weight issues since puberty hormones hit so I am not considering menopause to be much of a cause here at the moment. Rather, I consider hormones in general to be the root of all of my lifetime health issues including insulin. I had them measured a few years ago and all come back in the normal ranges so who knows. Obviously something is out of kilter.

My husband’s success in fringe ketosis coupled with Sisson's Primal Blueprint theory about that being the “sweet spot” (and the fact that I sometimes, but not always, I seem to lose when my ketones are lower not higher) led me to add back some veggie carbs in the last 2 weeks which is hard for me because of the food volume. Partly it was also based on a desire to eat more veggies. I have had my blood ketones over Eenfeldt's "sweet spot" of 1.5-3.0 with zero results but he says that there is no point on going over 3.0 because you get no better results. I agree. I have done fat fast days with nothing but eggs and coconut oil but zero change other than to drive my ketones up over 3.0. I had crazy energy though, lol. Pure fasting does that to me, too.

I also am increasing my slow long exercise per Sisson's Primal Blueprint and will be adding my lifting exercises now that my darling hubby has the weight equipment all set up here at home. I am eager to do that.
Have you read Protein Power by the Eades'? From what you are describing, that may be a similar idea to Kruse's. They advocate a high protein/moderate fat/low carb protocol. Personally, that is what my husband gravitates toward but I seem to gravitate toward high fat/moderate protein/low carb. I have not read the Eades’ book yet but it is in the pile. I am finishing up Volek and Phinney today (which I now realize should have been read months ago) but I have a big pile of books and I read them or get in some internet support research daily. Anyway, sorry for the verbosity (I’m ¾ Irish) and thank you for the reference to Kruse.
Zoot

MikeEnRegalia

Its lawS of thermodynamics not law. It never fails that those who live and die by calories in/out fail point to the first law but somehow it escapes them about the second law. Our bodies are not bomb calorimeters that work with 100% efficiency. Our gender, age, fitness level, and hormones play a major part in our body composition. If you reread I said when one is leptin sensitive calories don't matter. If manipulating hormones with diet is an out there concept then what exactly do you think you're doing by eating? Anabolism/catabolism are protein processes and hormones are the proteins that dictate what is going on and when.

Wow - it's interesting that you assume that manipulating hormones with diet is an "out there concept" for me. If so, then why should I be on a ketogenic diet?

I'm just not agreeing with calorie deniers such as yourself. Qualifying it with "only when you're leptin sensitive" doesn't make your position more reasonable - the point about functioning leptin is that it makes you less hungry when you've eaten food, and increases your level of activity. But if you were forced to overeat (fat) and move less, even with functioning leptin you would gain weight.