Hi Glenda! Glad to see you join in!

Debbie-after I started the intensive body-weight resistance exercises, I naturally started eating more protein. I used to eat around 75 grams when sedentary.

All I can say is—try it. I actually find it hard to gain weight now, between his plan, the exercise, and I sub Fung fasting for his 16/8 IF. It is life changing.

I tried the high fat version of low carb with the Kwasnieski’s optimal diet, very carefully, sustained, over months. I couldn’t keep the little bit of extra weight I eeked off with it over Atkins-style low carb. I just ended up back around 250 as usual (my previous set point).

I started many years ago in my 40s on low carb at 312 pounds. I’m down over 100 pounds. I used to think I would fight weight gain the rest of my life, but it is so much easier now. The IF plus exercise plus high protein/low crap is the trifecta of success in my opinion!

I don’t know where I would be if Dr. Naiman hadn’t taken over my care when my previous doctor left the practice.

Haha I did the Optimal Diet too when it was making the rounds here. Didn't succeed in any weight loss thought I did get my best BG numbers in years while on the Optimal Diet.

Key Tones I love that you broke through a setpoint as that is definitely a huge goal of mine. It was amazing to lose 100 pounds but I clearly should lose at least another 100! Is it even remotely possible? Maybe not, but if I could get lower than I am I'd feel so much better.

May I ask how long you IF and how often? What sort of exercise do you do? I admit exercise is rather a downfall of mine. I jump on my rebounder for a few minutes after day, and several days a week I do some weight training but not with very heavy weights at this point. I'm more than willing to try to take it more protein.

Well baby steps, baby steps. I have to decide which proteins I would want. How lucky you are to have Dr. Naiman as your actual doctor. I hate podcasts and videos but might have to break down for a couple of Dr. Naiman's.

I've been doing the 16:8 or even 18:6 sort of fast for months now without losing any weight so I probably need to change that too.

2/24 212 ketones none; sleep 4 1/2 hours; bp 117/63
2/25 212 ketones none; sleep 7 1/2 hours; bp 109/55
2/26 211 ketones trace; sleep 5 hours
2/27 210 ketones trace; sleep 6 1/2 hours

Thanks!

I used to post my fasting schedule on another forum. One lady with an eating disorder felt triggered, but the admin said fasting is mainstream now, so she left the thread.

I then became concerned that I might be fasting too much and hired the director of the Jason Fung program for coaching/advice. I have a schedule that isn't recommended for general use, since I'm a special case. My mother tried to starve me before I was fully grown because I was fat in the 70s (I swear, when I look at pictures, you wouldn't even think so now, kids now are so much larger, but they were all skinny back then). She found a quack that put me on prescription diet pills when I was 10 years old. I was made to go to weight watchers when I was a kid/teen. I starved the heck out of myself in school and college. I've been on everything - Jenny Craig, NutriSystems, etc. I've done all the diet hacks. I did the potato hack for months on end. I did a fat free vegan diet for 1 1/2 or 2 years plus hours of biking (typically 2 hours) until I got so cold and so much fatigue and brain fog I couldn't even walk up small inclines or drive home without missing freeway exits. I got to maybe 190 pounds then reverted right back to 250 when I had to give up being to ill to go on with it. I have a failed gastric sleeve. It is really terrible. I have even had my hair fall out from trying to starve myself.

My metabolism is really abnormal after all of that, so I don't give out my schedule, and the director doesn't want me to do that either. It is not for general use. I don't precisely use it - I look at it as a guide and try not to go outside of what I should be doing over time when I look at trends over a few months. I also make my schedule highly irregular so that it keeps working (I don't let my body figure out/expect anything).

I also subject myself to regular monitoring. I have standing labs and a communication system set up with my doctor when I do extended fasting, and I keep a list of symptoms to watch for that I have gathered from everywhere (my doc, the Fung program, the Valter Longo program, and others).

You absolutely can lose that second 100 pounds. I used to think I couldn't get below the 250 pounds without tanking my metabolism and making myself sick from fatigue, hair falling out, etc. I don't believe that anymore. I feel good now.

It takes high protein, intermittent fasting, and intensive exercise (body weight resistance exercises/calisthenics as well as intensive, short bursts of aerobic exercise, like jump squats, bike sprints, rowing, etc.).

My mother starved me, too, but that was in the early 60s. No diet pills, just being hungry all the time while surrounded by people eating. We never really recover when the people we trust abuse us.

This forum is a valuable tool because we can talk about our issues with food and find answers to ways to nurture ourselves while remaining healthy. I can't say that Therapeutic Ketosis will fix my mental/emotional issues, but it works for everything else.

Just keep on keepin' on.

Debbie - Yes! You absolutely can lose more weight - even a hundred pounds if that's what you'd like. I would just take things one step at a time. Evaluate what you're doing now that could possibly be causing weight to hang on and then change one thing at a time. Slowly. Let each one become a habit.

For me, IF is great. When I'm in ketosis, I naturally eat in a 5 or 6 hour window. I don't consider that IF for me because I don't experience any hunger at all. So during Lent, I'm not eating anything at all on Fridays. That's a fast I have to push through. I did this last year as well. I was going to stick with it all year, but life happened and I didn't. This year I'm in a different place and I have trouble imagining I'll go off carnivore during vacation, weddings, etc. so I may try to do a day or two of fasting each week.

I have both an instant pot and an air fryer. I use the air fryer every single day, but I don't really cook things in it. I use it mostly to reheat the kids' processed food (like chicken nuggets) or to melt cheese on my grilled chicken. I got the instant pot two Christmases ago but I've only ever used it once to make yogurt.

I don't really use recipes because I mostly eat plain food with salt. If I eat chicken, I usually put cheese and bacon on it. Same with eggs.

Boy, we sure have a lot of similar shared history here! Here is a photo of my with my mom when I was 13, when she was so worried about how *fat" both of us were:


Does anyone else here remember Ayds candies which were supposed to help curb you appetite so you could lose weight? Starting when I was about this age my mom always had them in the house and had us trying to take them.

Later, in my somewhat older teens, my mom and a friend sent me and the friend's daughter to Weight Watchers together! Man that was in the day when you could make a muffin by taking a slice of BREAD and crumbling it up with an egg and baking it. Ugh, and of course we never lost weight (in fact I'm now FB friends with that same friend, some 50 years later, and she is still not thin either!)

Back in the late 90s I started with Protein Power and was one of the founding members of the old usenet alt.support.diet.lowcarb group and was one of the writers of the group's FAQ. That was when I first stalled at around 275 for several years. During that period I tried everything recommended by the group which included:
more carbs, fewer carbs, more protein, less protein, more fat, less fat, more calories, fewer calories, more exercise, less exercise, giving up dairy, giving up AS - none of which helped me lose an ounce. IF was not on the radar 20 years ago so that was not a thing I tried then.

But in the last few years I've tried Fung-style fasting, the 5:2 eating plan, the Optimal Diet, the Potato Hack. I never did weight loss surgery though I did go to a seminar about it some 20 years ago, run of course by doctors who did the surgery. A whole rooom of fat people. I wonder how many did have the surgery?

Okay maybe I do need to think about more high intensity exercise but right now I'm just not up for that, but we'll see. I hope I can make some progress anyway without going there at this point. My aim right now is just to be able to increase how many jumps I can do on my rebounder.

PS, here I am at 11:


I was always rail-thin as a kid, to the point where the pediatrician accused my mom of not feeding me enough! Then puberty hit and that was the end of skinniness for me.

Hey awesome thread! I have been a long time LCHF for years. I actually lost a little over 100 pounds about 11 years ago and kept it off for almost 7 years- no problem. I truly thought I had it DOWN!!!-
Then I had a back accident, lost a job, and found myself in a city where I didn't know anybody and ate my way back to where I am now. I returned to Keto/LCHF- and have been on it for about 5 years now.
I seem to be on a stall. What worked for me "back then"- is not working for me now.
I have watched the work of Fung, Lustig, and Taubles. I don't eat wheat, dairy, or sugar of any kind. I get very ill.

My A1c 5.0 and LC has kept me from diabetes I was close to at one point in my life.
My challenge now is finding my fit and to start losing again. it is very frustrating to stay so close to ZERO carbs and not be losing weight.
I will look up this new Dr. Naiman. I would like to find a doctor who can find out what else is going on with me. I have tried even the carnivore gig and tend to lean that way.
I have given up a lot of useless veggies- that truly were just fillers.

I do like ground beef, I could eat dukes mayo with a spoon straight from the jar!!!! I like crab, shrimp, and tonight I will have scallops in butter.

My goal is to get my healthy body back.
Carb creep is a very real thing and I know it happened to me. Although I will say for me it wasn't a creep- It was a slam dunk- gain of about 50 pounds in 3 months. Thankfully I have not gained back the full 100 pounds. I sure could have.

Glad I found this group. I too am single and I find it a blessing at this stage of my life to live the way I want as I want. I still work- and that can be challenging.
I find it interesting that IF is now making mainstream. I started it 10 years ago before it had a name. It just felt right for one meal a day!

Hi Jaz! Glad you are joining in.

Debbie - yes, my mother gave me Aydes carmels. She was uneducated and could barely read, though, and didn't understand what they did. I read about it later and supposedly they did something to keep you from tasting the food as well. She gave them to me instead of food, not before a meal.

I have never been thin. Even pictures of me as a toddler I had saddle bags on my thighs. I was made fun of for being fat the instant I started school.

On intensive exercise - I blew it off until I started following Dr. Naiman more closely. He posted about how fat exits the body via the mitochondria. Intensive exercise doubles the mitochondria. Think on that for a while-I certainly did!

2/24 212 ketones none; sleep 4 1/2 hours; bp 117/63
2/25 212 ketones none; sleep 7 1/2 hours; bp 109/55
2/26 211 ketones trace; sleep 5 hours
2/27 210 ketones trace; sleep 6 1/2 hours
2/28 210 ketones small; sleep 7 hours

2/24 212 ketones none; sleep 4 1/2 hours; bp 117/63
2/25 212 ketones none; sleep 7 1/2 hours; bp 109/55
2/26 211 ketones trace; sleep 5 hours
2/27 210 ketones trace; sleep 6 1/2 hours
2/28 210 ketones small; sleep 7 hours
2/29 209 ketones small; sleep 8 hours

Well welcome to March everyone. I'm still weighing and measuring my food whenever possible, meaning every meal I eat at home. I've eaten out twice since I started the weigh/measure on Feb. 20 and obviously can't weigh my food there. But the restaurant where I ate one meal (a cheeseburger with a side of steamed broccoli, no bun of course) has all their nutritional info online so I just grabbed that, and had no idea for the smoked sausage I had at the highland games yesterday, but went to Publix today and just eyeballed a similar sausage at a similar size and used that info.

I've been staying under 30g net carbs every day with no real problem so far. I think I've fasted at least 16 hours every day, a couple days 18 hours, one day for 20 hours. I measured my blood ketones today and got a 1.4 reading.

No real weight loss over the 10 days of course (it looks like it since my first day weight reading was 276.0, but I had just gained 4 pounds overnight the night before, which was one of my impetuses for the weigh/measure routine, so for the last 10 days I've just been trying to get back to where I was before my overnight gain, and not there yet).

That is a good ketone reading!

I easily blow up several pounds whenever I have more salt than usual, and it takes days to get it off. That's what makes eating out a wild card for me.

Hi all, Im hoping to join in the near future, .......

More proof that we are each unique.

I have dark purple ketostix and 2.0 blood ketones.

I thought this indicated I'm eating too much fat, but I'm truly uncertain about how to proceed.

My body-fat measuring scale tells me I'm at 23.6%.

I'm almost 75, in maintenance for 2 years.

From my understanding of running on ketones, and based on the tests, I should have plenty. However, last night in class I developed a headache and brain fog at about my regular bedtime. (because I get up at 4am) The headache is probably eyestrain, having to change focal points from book to computer to whiteboard. The brain fog is my concern.

Any thoughts from those using ketogenesis for therapeutic reasons?