Getting frustrated
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rkufeke
Posts: 73 Member
So I've been on this WOE for about 5 1/2 weeks, and I'm down about 10 lbs from my starting weight. I feel like I've been good about staying on plan, I track my food/calories, and get a little light exercise a few days a week...
But I have been losing and gaining the same 2-3 lbs for the last 2 weeks now. I started at 185, had gotten down to 172, and have been going back and forth from 172-175.
What is going on? It's frustrating to be following the plan but not having anything to show for it... What can I do to start losing again?
But I have been losing and gaining the same 2-3 lbs for the last 2 weeks now. I started at 185, had gotten down to 172, and have been going back and forth from 172-175.
What is going on? It's frustrating to be following the plan but not having anything to show for it... What can I do to start losing again?
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Replies
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Both your 10lb in 5 weeks, and your week 6 "stall" are pretty common.
The first couple of weeks, the losses are mostly water weight as your body burns through its glycogen stores in an effort to continue burning sugar as its primary fuel source while it (re)builds the "machinery" to burn more and more fat. After a while, glycogen's no longer an option at all, and it's forced to rely solely on fat (or very nearly so). This usually happens around the 4-6 week mark. At this point, the body has some of the fat-burning "machinery," but it's reached a point where it needs more, so it's working on building that. Additionally, the body has less weight than it did a month ago, so it's basically "taking inventory" of things and adjusting to the new weight and various associated needs.
As a woman, keto can also change how your cycle behaves. So, you may be retaining more water at this time in your cycle, causing you to hang out at a weight for right now, and masking any fat losses you may be experiencing.
So what do you do? Stay the course. Weight loss is not linear. You're going to have "stalls" along the way once in a while. Just keep doing what you're doing, and it will very likely start moving downward again.0 -
my weight can fluctuate several lbs. day to day just from random factors like water retention, my cycle, regularity, etc.
i get a lot more peace of mind by only weighing once a month, at exactly the same spot in my cycle.
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How big a deficit are you running, and how confident are you in the accuracy of your weighing & measuring?0
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My BMR is about 1450, I aim for 1200/day unless it's a day I exercise, then it's usually 14-1500. I measure everything pretty much in order to keep track, and if it's something I don't know the exact measurement on then I will round up. I'm also drinking usually 80-100 oz of water/day.0
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Did I miss something, or isn't the BMR the number you NEED to be OVER, flat out? TDEE is the one to be below. BMR is supposed to be the number you need just to breath and exist on any given day... Or did I mix that up?
If that is the case, and neither you nor I have the numbers mixed up, the reason you aren't losing simply could be eating below that number keeping your body under constant stress, and therefore not allowing you to lose anything because it thinks it needs to hold on to everything!!!!
Please make sure you check into this.0 -
When in doubt, weigh and measure all your food and drink more water. Whatever you think you are drinking, drink more.
Most importantly, don't be hard on yourself. Trust yourself, be kind to yourself, stay strong, give yourself all the support and time you need.
All of this takes time and patience.
I've had stalls. Most of them are normal, but some were my own fault usually caused by wrongly estimating my food. Whenever I stall I immediately go back to measuring and weighing everything diligently and logging and preplanning everything. I also had to cut artificial sugar things like drink mixes because for whatever reason they seem to make me retain water like crazy. This is just me though.
I weigh most days (not every day anymore) because I'm a bit of an excel nerd - I LOVE keeping an excel sheet of weight and measurement changes and graphing it out. Graphs are so satisfying to me. This habit has taught me to give fluctuations and stalls a lot less importance because I've learned my body's normal patterns. I know I'm heavier at night, I'm heavier in the 4 days leading up to my cycle, heavier still during it. It also helps me attribute sudden gains to certain foods. For some people, this kind of number crunching drives them crazy, so your mileage may very. Everyone's weight can fluctuate several lbs based on what and when you last ate, how much water you are drinking (or not), even how much sleep you are getting.
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So I think I'm going to increase my calories to 1400/day for a week and see what happens... I'm not hungry at 1200, but after looking into it more I think it could be why I've stopped losing. I honestly don't know much about "dieting", other than what I read in Women's Health or Fitness or whatever magazines I used to read before I had kids, and I thought that 1200 was a fairly standard number of calories for someone about my size to eat to lose weight...
I weigh first thing in the morning after I use the bathroom and before I have anything to eat or drink, and I tend to keep track of everything as much as I can. I make recipes on here for my lunches or dinners that have multiple ingredients for multiple servings, and measure out the servings (I have kids and a husband who all have the opposite problem that I do and need to GAIN weight, so it helps to have an idea of how many calories I am feeding them, too). I'm a pretty detail-oriented person so keeping everything recorded does help me I have tried to stop weighing every day though because it was getting so discouraging... I'm following this plan for more than just losing weight (I haven't had a migraine since the first week on it!), so at least that helps me not just give up because the weight has stopped falling off! 0 -
http://www.flexibleketogenic.com/
Is a good resource.
There's another calculator www.ankel something, but my computer won't let me get to it anymore.
Those places are good ones to start, @rkufeke Also, check out the launchpad on the low carbers daily group. There's some good keto info there, too.
http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/394-low-carber-daily-forum-the-lcd-group
All this will help you figure out what numbers you really need to be starting with!! Best of luck.0 -
If your BMR is 1450 and you are only eating 1200, I'd up your intake, esp. since you are exercising. What are your stats? Age, height, weight?
the link that KnitOrMiss was referring to is
http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/0 -
I'm 30, 5'4", and currently 172 lbs. I don't exercise a ton, I do a cardio class (it's a free one at a church with mostly ladies who are old enough to be my mom!) one day/week and a yoga class (same church) one day/week, and walk about 1.5 miles maybe twice a week (with 3 kids, so not super fast). Otherwise I spend most of my time sitting at my sewing machine...0
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*Generated by [Keto Calculator](http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com) 8.5*
50/F/5'4" | CW 172 | % BF | Lightly active
BMR = 1389 (necessary for life functions w/o exercise or anything else)
TDEE= 1910 (for maintenance of current weight)
* 1452 kcal Goal, a 24% deficit. (NaN min, 1910 max)
* 20g Carbohydrates
* 85g Protein (68g min, 111g max)
* 115g Fat (NaNg min, 165g max)
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