HELP ME!!!
golfamkia
Posts: 1 Member
Hi everyone,
I'd appreciate your help/response. I started Keto about 4 weeks ago, strict less than 20 grams of carbs, sometimes even less than 15 grams of carbs in a day, I've even managed less than 10 on some days. Since day 1 I have been counting my macros using Carb Manager, scanning and weighing everything. I wasn't counting calories for the first 2 weeks and recently have started to keep calories at 1200. I'm finding it hard but I'm trying. I also use ketostix and in the beginning I was at "low to moderate" and now I'm at "moderate to high". I'm 35 year old female at 5 5'' 155lbs. My questions are:
1. I haven't lost any weight!!! Not even a pound! What am I doing wrong??
2. What do you eat in a day on 1200 calories and feel full?
Thanks!
I'd appreciate your help/response. I started Keto about 4 weeks ago, strict less than 20 grams of carbs, sometimes even less than 15 grams of carbs in a day, I've even managed less than 10 on some days. Since day 1 I have been counting my macros using Carb Manager, scanning and weighing everything. I wasn't counting calories for the first 2 weeks and recently have started to keep calories at 1200. I'm finding it hard but I'm trying. I also use ketostix and in the beginning I was at "low to moderate" and now I'm at "moderate to high". I'm 35 year old female at 5 5'' 155lbs. My questions are:
1. I haven't lost any weight!!! Not even a pound! What am I doing wrong??
2. What do you eat in a day on 1200 calories and feel full?
Thanks!
7
Replies
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I can't tell you about the keto part, because I never did keto.
I started here in 2015 at 5'5" and 154 pounds; 1200 was too low for me. I lost most of my weight at 1400-1600 plus exercise calories.
Feeling full is usually about finding the combination of macros and/or specific foods, along with timing of consuming them, that helps you personally feel full. Since satiation is quite individual, experimentation can be necessary. From observing others who post here, keto seems to work well for people who find fats satiating, or who find that carbs cause cravings.
As far as what you're doing wrong: For most people, not losing at low calories often means there's some issue with accurate logging. Since you only started counting calories recently, you may still be in a phase where water weight (a perfectly normal variable in healthy bodies) is confounding what you see on the scale. At an accurately-logged 1200 calorie intake, you should indeed lose weight.
If you haven't read the "most helpful posts" part of the "Getting Started" and "General Health, Fitness and Diet" part of the forums, that would be a great source for getting advice on how to best use MFP, from actual successful MFP users. (All the posts in those areas were written by regular MFP users, and nominated to be there by other MFP users. There's gold in those posts.)
Best wishes!
11 -
Adding to what Ann said I strongly suggest putting keto on the back burner for now until you figure out what satisfies you at lower calories. Keto is completely unnecessary to lose weight and the only verifiable and reproducible benefit in healthy people is sustainability for those who are satisfied eating that way.
Weight loss takes a long time and you don't want to be miserable because it increases your chances of quitting.5 -
Somebody just posted this on another thread. It's good:
https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/2 -
You're only five pounds above an optimal BMI range for your height. At that point, weight loss happens very slowly. You'll probably need to be as accurate as possible about weighing and logging all of your food. When you're close to your goal weight, you have a very small deficit and it's easy to wipe it out with only a few logging errors. You're almost certainly wiping it out if you have days where you don't log at all.
Keep in mind that keto is simply a preference. It's fine to do it if you want to eat that way, but it doesn't do anything special for weight loss. You lose weight when you eat fewer calories than your body burns, and it doesn't matter how many of those calories came from carbs. Carbs are only relevant to weight loss if you find that adjusting your carb intake helps you feel full.4 -
I agree that 1200 cals is probably unneccessary0
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I say this with the utmost respect, don't make it harder than it has to be my friend. Take a breath, listen to the pros above and you'll do fine. If you love not eating carbs and worrying about ketostix, great. Otherwise, totally unneccesary. Set your numbers to .5 a week, measure everything and if it seems too low to feel comfortable then you can always burn some extra to give you a few more to eat.6
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Hi everyone,
I'd appreciate your help/response. I started Keto about 4 weeks ago, strict less than 20 grams of carbs, sometimes even less than 15 grams of carbs in a day, I've even managed less than 10 on some days. Since day 1 I have been counting my macros using Carb Manager, scanning and weighing everything. I wasn't counting calories for the first 2 weeks and recently have started to keep calories at 1200. I'm finding it hard but I'm trying. I also use ketostix and in the beginning I was at "low to moderate" and now I'm at "moderate to high". I'm 35 year old female at 5 5'' 155lbs. My questions are:
1. I haven't lost any weight!!! Not even a pound! What am I doing wrong??
2. What do you eat in a day on 1200 calories and feel full?
Thanks!
Just to mostly reiterate what's already been posted:- I'm guessing you're probably trying to lose 10-15 lbs? You should be set to lose 0.5lbs per week, and that small loss can easily hide behind water weight fluctuations on the scale, for several weeks sometimes.
- Between changing your carb level, normal hormonal fluctuations on a woman's monthly cycle, and possible digestion changes due to your diet, you were probably experiencing plenty of water weight fluctuations over the first 2-3 weeks.
- Ketosis doesn't make you lose weight, your calorie deficit does. So you may not have been in a deficit for the first two weeks when you weren't tracking.
I started out at 5'4" 145lbs and over 40, I was starving on less than 1400 cals. I lost most of the 20 lbs I lost at 1500-1600 cals, losing about 0.5lbs per week. Make sure you haven't chosen a pace that's too aggressive, make sure your activity level is set accurately, and tighten up your logging - use a food scale for all solids, double check that the entries you are using in the database reflect accurate calorie info, and make sure you are logging everything (beverages, condiments, nibbles, cheat meals, etc).
Be patient and give yourself time to figure this out, good luck!2 -
Somebody just posted this on another thread. It's good:
https://www.aworkoutroutine.com/1200-calorie-diet/
This was a terrific read--thanks!1
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