Help Please
 

new to the forum...I've been on low carb for about a year...I've lost 40lbs which I'm pretty happy with due to alot of cheat days during holidays and vacation. I have been at my current weight loss for about 3 months and can't figure out why I'm not losing. I only take in no more than 25 carbs a day. Also ive been trying the urine sticks to see what level ketosis im in but always get a negative reading which im not sure how because I know I dont take in alot of carbs. Thanks

Hi Kp, Welcome to the forum!

There are a lot of very helpful and experienced people here. Don't be discouraged, it is possible that you just might need to tweak something. Can you start posting your meals in the Myplan tool?

I have learned that I need a calorie deficit in order to lose weight whatever the diet plan I use. However, on very low carb (<10g per day is usual for me), I'm not hungry despite a considerable calorie deficit. I also get some exercise and sweat alot, which helps.

Other people fall out of ketosis if they have carb substitutes, too much fiber (or not enough) or certain sugar replacers. Some go bonkers on nuts. Some people only lose on meat and eggs, or only whole foods (no pre-prepared or fermented or a thousand other tweaks that you can possibly imagine). So go ahead and start describing your meals or putting them in myplan so you can really track them, and that will help you benefit from the collective wisdom of the forum.

Again welcome!!! And stick with it -- you will get through this.

Also recommend that you start a journal.... its good for keeping a history of your experiences and tracking down what works best for you. And please come join a challenge.

I do track but I can also do what you said. To give an idea of what I generally do.

Breakfast
4 eggs with pecorino cheese
6 slices of bacon
3 sausage patties
I slice of ham

According to the labels that is about 8-9 carbs

Dinner is normally meat...steak...chicken...fish...shrimp...scallops...one of those with some steamed Broccoli.

If i have a snack maybe a few times a week 2 tbls of PB....maybe a sugar free ice pop...handful of nuts

Beverages...95% of the time water...maybe 3x a week 1 can of diet root beer...maybe 3x a week Gatorade zero....which has 2 carbs in the entire bottle.

That's basically it for me.

Beware diet drinks - gatorade/rootbeer
Your meals sound right on target
One thing that has helped me is the idea of "eat only when hungry" and "eat as much as you want till you feel full/satisfied."
Then
wait
wait
wait
wait
etc
Good luck

Yeah its not alot of diet drinks...very few no more than 3 or 4 for the week if that. Mostly water.

Hi Kp,

the first thing that comes to my mind is an article by Peter Attia that did the rounds earlier this year, around his concept of there being three levers of weight loss, whereby people choose which combination of levers to pull that best suits them. The levers themselves are:

1. What you eat
2. When you eat
3. How much you eat

When applying these to your situation, it reads to me like you've got #1 covered pretty well, you're staying well on top of the carbs to the point where it's hard to imagine how that could be reduced further.

So maybe it's worth considering the possibilities around the other two. You're currently having breakfast and dinner; could the timing of those meals possibly be brought closer together, which would increase your daily fasting window?

The third one I find tends to be influenced as much by the other two as anything else. Probably the safest way to interpret that one for me would be to just re-iterate what Benay suggested: eat when you're hungry, don't when you're not. Stop when you're full, or possibly just before you're full. Sometimes that feeling can take a while to hit, to the point where I might have a meal that feels filling at the time, but then an hour later I'm actually feeling overstuffed. So there's that, too.

Anyway, I hope you find something here that helps.

I normally have breakfast around 10...dinner no later than 6 generally. As far as eating when hungry I think I do that.

The other thing is in the past month I've started to do the urine stick test and I never read that I'm in ketosis...always shows negative. Not sure as to why.

If you are keto adapted, the ketones are used as guel an no longer spill out in the urine.

The sticks are good when starting the first two weeks.

Also, the amount of protein in the example meal seems high if thats every day fare. Perhaps a bit less.

There needs to be a calorie deficite.....using your stored energy niw that you are fat adapted and less from the fatty meats.

Maybe 1 less patty, or two less strips of bacon.

Also, I learned to stretch out eating time. Chew chew chew chew for an unreaonable amount of time before swallowing. Increases satiety.....body gas time to recognize "full" cues.

We all get stuck at some point...you will over come this.

Oh so because I'm so far along the strip won't work for me? Ok didn't know that and I can try to cut out of few things from the breakfast. Thanks

Hi KP!

The thought that came to mind for me when I saw your food list was lack of veggies in combination with quite processed meats (sausage and bacon,)

Bacon, sausage, salami, deli meats etc are ok for me as a treat but they make me stall. Real meat off the bone (Pork chop, chicken, salmon, etc) and simple veg (bag of salad with olive oil and plain white vinegar) get the scale moving again in about 5 days, even when the carbs add up to 25 or 30 (if they ONLY came from the veg) and the calories are the same.

Just a thought— maybe try that a few days. A really simple whole, unprocessed foods diet with some good fresh veg?

Popping in to see how u r doing....

Using mt breakfast above I cut out 1 bacon strip...1 sausage patty, and 1 egg...I started losing a few lbs so lets see if it continues.

Hurray! Well done. This might interest you:

https://sa.atkins.com/blog/can-too-...l-your-results/

Sometimes trial and error is necessary in order to pinpoint the culprit. The important thing is to stick with the diet.. People so often report a long stall which precedes a quicker weightloss... Perhaps the body sometimes needs to adjust.

Good luck

Try a Fat Fast. Also, if you're not already, there's time-restricted eating (TRE).

[ more TRE ]

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