Scales won’t move !

[freeway15]

Am completely fed up. Am 53 and now post menstral and can’t seem to loose weight.

I have read all the stuff on here about insulin and follow the principles of keto so no potatoes, pasta, rice or high carb vegetables or fruit.

I have been monitoring my weight every day for 5 weeks now but on a reduced calorie keto style diet and the first days lost 2 kg but since then my weight has stayed exactly the same. It’s fluctuates +/- 0.5 of a kilo despite doing 1 hour walks with the dog and am active around the house and garden.

I have reduced calories to about 1000-1500 a day by either not eating breakfast and lunch and just having an evening meal. Or having something very light like a few boiled eggs or some raspberries/strawberries. I had been having it with full fat Greek yogurt ( keto) but that hasn’t made any difference to my weight.

I am lucky that I generally don’t feel hungry so leaving meals is not a huge thing for me - cup of tea fills me. !

So what do I do. Just completely change and start eating loads of food with keto properties.

What do I need to do to raise my metabolic rate as I appreciate that my body probably thinks it’s in starvation mode now after 5 weeks.

Do Hiit sessions ?

I don’t particularly enjoy running and keep twisting my ankle.

Just need some motivation now as I am trying so hard and don’t eat cakes, biscuits etc. I have even cut down the alcohol - starting to become a boring person to go out with. 😂

I also appreciate that I am fed up generally as my business are not allowed to open and the stress of ongoing rent/end of furlough looming is not helping my stress levels. But normally I lose weight when stressed. ??

[BridgeGirl Administrator 2 stone]

Hi, and welcome back

I'm not sure why you're counting calories if you're aiming for a low carb, healthy fats approach. You sound as though you've done your homework and have a good grasp of where the carbs lie in food. Maybe have a month not counting anything - not calories, not carbs, not anything - but just building your meals around the stuff you know your body needs and avoiding those it doesn't. Eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full.

I'd suggest logging your meals on the Daily Diary where you'll find plenty of members following a similar plan and you can swap ideas. You might like to make it more interesting for yourself by trying new recipes and ingredients. If you do any veg dishes in the next week, take a photo and enter them in Lytham 's Veggie-off.

It's a good while since you were here so do check out all our activities in Pinned Posts healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh... and join in as much as possible.

All the best

[TheAwfulToad Visitor in reply to BridgeGirl]

Completely agree with this.

As you've already noted you're probably "in starvation mode" at the moment, so do what BridgeGirl said (eat to appetite) and see how it goes. Try to get plenty of veg on your plate - that is, make sure you're not just focusing on macronutrients but building tasty meals with plenty of green stuff on the plate.

I'd also add that some people find it takes a few weeks for LCHF to start working, but it does work reliably. Biology, I'm afraid, is conspiring against you (weight loss is less easy for fiftysomething women than for twentysomething men) but that just means it takes a bit longer than you might expect. Remember, this is a long-term healthy-eating switch, not just a diet that you "do" for a few weeks before going back to "normal" food. Keep it up for a few months and you'll see the flab steadily drop away.

We also lost our business during this ridiculous lockdown nonsense (governments don't seem to understand that you can't just switch a business on and off like a light bulb), so I feel your pain. Hope it works out for you somehow.

[freeway15 in reply to TheAwfulToad]

Thank you for the support regarding my business and am sorry to hear that you lost your business. I am fighting to survive but we can’t get any government grants as our rateable value too high. And MPs just ignore us. I see a motion has been tabled for support but parliament won’t be back till September now.

I have been following keto for months and months now and not lost weight. That’s why I went low calorie to kick start myself.

[TheAwfulToad Visitor in reply to freeway15]

Similar situation here - anyone who looks rich enough to fend for themselves is left to fend for themselves. I hope people remember this at the next election.

Can you post a few days's worth of your food menus? I mean an exact record of what you ate/drank in the last few days; and also (if you can remember) what you ate at the beginning? Do you have any deliberate "cheat days"? It sounds like you've done your research, but it does occasionally happen that a single ingredient or apparently innocuous detail is messing things up.

Also, any idea what your current bodyfat ratio is?

[freeway15 in reply to TheAwfulToad]

Will start a diary from today and post in few days time.

Yesterday I know I had some carbs as a cheat day so in total ;

Egg mayo on 1 slice seeded bread / butter

Half rack ribs and large/huge potato chips ( small portion) With a half sweet corn

Piece of cheddar cheese

Two diet cokes

Tea about 5

Walked for an hour 20.

[TheAwfulToad Visitor in reply to freeway15]

Ok, yeah, that's definitely a cheat day

Reason I ask is that cheat days will stop everything dead in its tracks if repeated more than about once-a-month, especially at the beginning. They prevent your body from becoming fat-adapted. The standard routine is to stick to a strict keto plan for two weeks (minimum carbs, consistently, at every meal) and then introduce carby things very gradually, keeping to (roughly) 50-100g net carbs per day. Around month six it's OK to start introducing "cheat days" - that's round about the point where you feel you don't really want cheat days. Anyway, I'll comment further on your diary posts!

[freeway15 in reply to TheAwfulToad]

Thank you. Very useful. Xxx 😘

[freeway15 in reply to TheAwfulToad]

Just trying to find out where the diary posts are. Someone said click on the beach and go to settings and click on digest. But mine are all clicked anyhow ? So where do you enter ?

[Subtle_badger in reply to freeway15]

The daily diary will always be listed as a pinned post

healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh...

Here's today's, so you can go straight to it.

healthunlocked.com/nhsweigh...

[freeway15 in reply to TheAwfulToad]

Hi done a week and a bit diary and still the scales not moved.

Have you got an email address I can send it to ?

[TheAwfulToad Visitor in reply to freeway15]

Sorry - did see your reply a few days back but I only have intermittent internet access at the moment, and completely forgot to respond.

What stands out is that you don't seem to be eating many proper meals. Possibly it's just the way you've listed things out, but it looks more like a sequence of nibbles, and drinks instead of food. Some of your items are sugary/carby - not massively so, but given your general lack of food, they represent a high-ish proportion of your daily calories.

I'm guessing you're one of those unlucky people who has to go really keto to start things off, so I would avoid these for the time being (later on, they won't be an issue):

- bananas and strawberries

- corn and sugar snap peas

Berries can be OK, but probably not in the context of yoghurt-instead-of-a-meal

I would also avoid diet Coke. The jury is still out on whether these 'diet' drinks can affect ketosis; some say yes, some say no. But the main point here is that it keeps you attached to unhealthy flavour profiles.

Most importantly, though, you need to be eating much bigger meals, more consistently. Heap up your plate with a variety of whatever veg you like; if you don't like many, "practice" until you do. Learn new ways of cooking them. I know you said you're not keen on cooking, and honestly, it can be a bit of a chore to learn a whole new repertoire of recipes, but enjoyment of food is key to the process. Man does not live by macronutrients alone. The fish pie sounds great, for example, but you need to add some non-carb bulk to it - say, cauliflower, or savoy cabbage, or possibly watercress. Similarly, egg mayo wants to be part of a huge salad.

The aim is to feel absolutely stuffed at mealtimes. I know that sounds mad, but I'm completely serious.

[freeway15 in reply to TheAwfulToad]

Hi here’s a few days food, exercise and weight as promised.

Monday 66.2

Tuesday 66.7

Wednesday 66.9

Thursday 67

Friday 66.4

Saturday 66.2

Sunday 65.9.

Monday 66.2

Thursday

7-10 strawberries

5 egg yolks

2 bananas

Trout in oil s&p

Corn on cob in butter

Leeks sauted

Sugar snap peas

5 teas

Walk 1 hour

Friday

Tea x 2

Scrambled eggs 3 with butter

1/2 punnet strawberry with full fat Greek you hurt

Handful of nuts

Diet Coke x 1

Mackerel

Spring cabbage in butter

Samphire in buttter

Sugar snap

1/2 punnet strawberries

Cheddar cheese

Diet Coke

Glass wine

Tea

Walk 1 hour

Saturday

Tea x 2

Raspberry bowl and few blue berries with full fat yogurt

3 thick rashers of bacon two fried eggs oil

Tea

Raspberry blue berries nuts sunflower seeds full fat yogurt

Tea

Small wine

Sunday

Raspberry bowl and few blue berries with full fat yogurt with nuts and sunflower seeds

Tea x 2

Burger no bun with cheese

Egg mayo with half tomato

Fish pie with cream no potatoes but sauted leeks and cheese

Small Glass wine

Tea

2 hour walk 30 min hiit session

[freeway15 in reply to BridgeGirl]

Thank you. I had been following the principles of keto for months before and the weight wasn’t shifting so hence I went low calorie too.

I do find it hard to get excited by food and don’t enjoy cooking. Especially as my son won’t eat fish and hate having to do separate meals for him. All he wants are noodle stirfrys.

[BridgeGirl Administrator 2 stone in reply to freeway15]

Most people around the forum just go for a keto level of low carbs for two or three weeks to get them started, then gradually ease to a more relaxed low carb approach. There really is no need to follow a keto plan indefinitely. Have a look at the Daily Diary to see what the low carb eaters are planning each day. Once you start posting your own meals there, you'll get some useful feedback.

You can't force yourself to enjoy cooking and, being realistic, I bet most of us eat a lot of regulars with not a lot of variation. As for your son, how old is he? Old enough to cook his own stir-fries? Cooking two meals must be a real pain when you don't enjoy it anyway

[Food4Fuel 7lbs in reply to BridgeGirl]

That’s good to know BridgeGirl - I didn’t realise you could do it for such a short space of time - I thought it would be about 6 mths! 3 weeks is manageable I think 🤔 funnily enough not eating rice/pasta/potatoes doesn’t both me too much it’s porridge oats and lentils etc that I would miss long term.

[BridgeGirl Administrator 2 stone in reply to Food4Fuel]

I'm not suggesting you could get back to porridge and lentils on a regular basis but it seems to be that strict 2-3 weeks that gets your body on the path of using the body's fat reserves. If you read the exchange between the poster and TheAwfulToad , above, you'll see why/how a big divergence, if it's more than occasional, can send you back to the beginning

The Diet Doctor website offers a free 2 week plan with daily emails. It's not something I've tried but you may be interested. Or you could just use some of the carb counted meals from there, or from the carbdodging website.

For me, the most useful guide was the 'Visual low-carb guides' you'll see around 1/3 of the way down this page. dietdoctor.com/low-carb

If you think this is for you, give it a good, committed go for and see how you feel after 4 weeks, by which time, you'll be venturing out of keto. And my personal tip would be to move away from counting anything as soon as possible.

[Food4Fuel 7lbs in reply to BridgeGirl]

Thanks! I will take a look 😊

[BridgeGirl Administrator 2 stone in reply to Food4Fuel]

And have a look at the LCHF forum, too. You'll find very knowledgeable people there

[Food4Fuel 7lbs in reply to BridgeGirl]

Will do - I averaged 106g carbs per day over the last week and this week should be lower so I’m getting into liberal carb territory + IF - will see how things go 😊 and keep researching!

[sunny369 in reply to Food4Fuel]

not to get your hopes up too much because everyone is different, but the first year I was doing lchf I was really strict at first but once I was adjusted to it I counted my carbs and five days a week when I worked a late shift I had porridge when I got home, which I counted as 40 grams of carbs for, no added sugar of any sort of course. So oats were not a deal breaker for me

Funnily enough I also continue to use lentils, again I count the carbs.

Nowadays I would call my diet lowish carb, under 100 grams on average, up to 120g which definitely has room for home cooked lentil curry or soup, no rice.

I would view ultra processed carbs differently,, even though I could count them, I wouldn't see them in the same light. 40g oats, yes, 40g ultra processed cereal bar, no way!! Since Christmas I have been pretty much maintaining this way.

[Food4Fuel 7lbs in reply to sunny369]

That’s sounds like the perfect balance to me - I’m happy to go without oats and lentils for a time to get into a new way of eating but I know they will reappear again at some point - the odd (non processed) carb shouldn’t throw things off to much!

[Lytham 3 stone in reply to BridgeGirl]

Ooh yes, please do, the more the merrier ! x

[SofaJockey]

I agree with those above. Your body may be fighting for survival. One approach may be to have a baseline week or two. Stick with low carbs, but have a healthy light breakfast, real lunch (protein + veggies) and a similar dinner, add a little light exercise and see what happens.

With a bit of luck, your body will retreat from 'panic mode'. 😄

[freeway15 in reply to SofaJockey]

Thank you. Will try.

[SofaJockey in reply to freeway15]

One final thought to consider, I'm not convinced of worrying about high-carb vegetables as these are really not the problem. Might be worth keeping an eye on all fruit, though, keeping it to one or two portions of fruit max daily (because of natural sugars). 😄

[freeway15 in reply to SofaJockey]

I am only having a bowl of strawberries, rasp and blue berries once every two three days or so . Sometimes I will only have a Banana ( potassium) for breakfast. Some days no fruit at all. I really have limited my fruit intake as used to eat daily and high sugar ones like mango. 😋

This is why I am struggling as I feel I have done all the right things and seem to live on eggs for months now ! 🥺

[SofaJockey in reply to freeway15]

You do indeed have it spot on with regard to fruit. I think we're back to the 'starvation' theory. How are you for healthy fats? I've been enjoying adding a little double cream to breakfast. 😄

[freeway15 in reply to SofaJockey]

Cooking scrambled egg in butter and frying things like steak in butter - and kale in butter ( yum)

Olive oil otherwise for fried eggs

Full fat Greek yogurt for the fruit

Balsamic / oil on salads

Butter on veg

High fat mayo if doing tuna / sweet corn

[SofaJockey in reply to freeway15]

I give in. It's all good. You may be shocking your body by eating too little, or it may be a natural plateau that will give way after a few days. 😄

[freeway15 in reply to SofaJockey]

😂

[BridgeGirl Administrator 2 stone in reply to freeway15]

You've caused a bit of confusion as you said you were following a keto plan but then the examples you gave to TheAwfulToad, above, were way off keto.

I'd suggest going for a whole-hearted 2-3 weeks keto, no exceptions, then very gradually raising your carb level. The Daily Diary can help with planning and can be a motivator to stay on-plan. You'll find it by following the link to Pinned Posts that I gave in my original reply.

Looking forward to seeing you around