weigh your food and track your net carbs (total carbs - fiber).

I did atkins a few years ago, and their recommendation to find your personal balance point is start at 20g net carbs per day and follow that strictly for 2 weeks. After 2 weeks, start adding a few more foods/carbs per day until you start to plateu, then back down a little. I found that to keep losing weight, I really needed to stay around 20g net carbs per day.

seriously, keep to 1200 calories MINIMUM (unless you weigh over 400 pounds and are on a diet recommended and supervised by your doctor). if your total calories are too low (general recommendations are 1200 min!!) this will put your body into serious starvation mode, and drop your metobolism to survive on the low amount of calories that you have given it, thus making it harder to lose - and lower metobolism making you gain more when you go off the diet.

for keto or LCHF, get adequate protein, stay under your carb limit and fill the rest of your calories with FAT. it is easy and yummy to add a little fat to your diet. have high-fat tartar sauce with your fish, add cheese to your burger, sautee some mushrooms with real butter, add real cream to your coffee, have some macadamia nuts or pecans.

your calories are too low. your body has adapted to this and now anything you do is causing a sudden bump in weight as fat is stored.

mettfam wrote: »

Do I continue to try to get 1200 calories or do I drop my calories back down?

Continue at 1200.

Will I eventually start losing again?

Yes. There will be a little wobble on the scale for a bit as your body readapts, then it will start going back down. Take your measurements and watch them every 2 weeks while you wait for the scale to stop being an idiot. Measurements tell the true story.

Are you eating enough fat and protein?

I grew up in the 80s-90s. It is hard to reset your mind after decades of being told "fat is bad". The first time I did Atkins was about 10 years ago, it was called a "fad" diet and I really thought "this can't be very healthy, but it works ok". We didn't understand the science behind it, so I felt this could only be a temporary "diet" and not something anyone would ever want to do long-term. So, we diet, lose weight, stop diet, eat "normally", gain weight, & then gain even more weight.

Now, there is a LOT of research done and a ton of evidence that "low fat, 9 servings of grain per day" is what has caused America's current obesity epidemic. I would recommend that you check out dietdoctor.com or bulletproof.com. They really explain the science behind keto diet in a way that is easy to understand, and that has helped encourage me to feel like this can be a permanent lifestyle change that will improve my health, reduce hunger, help me lose weight, improve my energy, lower my blood sugar, improve mental clarity.

I particularly like bulletproof podcast, as he interviews top people in low carb lifestyle and I listen in the background at work or while I'm driving. https://blog.bulletproof.com/category/podcasts/