Gaining weight?

[ThatsNotMyCherry]

Hi
I’ve been on low carb for two weeks now and I’ve gained 3kg! I’m really confused. Admittedly I wasn’t as strict to start with as a few years ago I’ve successfully lost weight just cutting refined carbs so I did have some lentils and a square of dark chocolate every 3 days or so and I wasn’t drinking enough water but surely I should have stayed the same at least and not gained?!? I’ve now become much more strict over the last 3 days and will try to make sure I’m in Ketosis and not having more than 20g carbs but I’m really confused because I’ve down a low carb before where I’ve been having probably 50g of carbs and still managed to lose weight. What’s going on? Is it my age or maybe the fact that it’s post baby weight?

[BIWI]

Sorry - only just seen this @ThatsNotMyCherry.

How are you doing now?

[ThatsNotMyCherry]

@BIWI still not doing great to be honest. Started at 63kg before starting low carb, went up to 66kg suddenly and I’m now 65.7kg. My diet is:
Breakfast: 2 boiled eggs with butter or scrambled eggs with cheese
Lunch: Salad (lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, olives, roasted peppers, red onion) with protein (eg chicken tuna and occasionally chopped up beef burgers) and real mayo
Occasional mid afternoon snack (twice a week) avocado or 5 pecan nuts
Dinner: Fish, Chicken or Steak with a side of vegetables Eg broccoli asparagus or cauliflower
In the beginning I was having 5/6 raspberries as 3/4 blueberries to satisfy the sweet tooth but have completely cut them out now. I do have a square of dark chocolate once a week.
I don’t know where I’m going wrong or if the weight loss is just going to be really slow now because I’m older :(

[BIWI]

How much fat are you eating? From the looks of what you've posted, it could be that you're not eating enough - your protein choices look like they're fairly lean, so this could be one thing to consider. Are you having an oily dressing on your salad? Are you cooking with butter/adding butter to your veg?

Also, how much water are you drinking?

Something else you might like to consider is intermittent fasting - the easiest way to do that would be to drop the breakfast, and only drink plain water, or black tea/coffee (or herbal tea) until you eat your lunch.

[ThatsNotMyCherry]

I have a tablespoon of butter with the eggs in the morning.
I suppose I could add olive oil to the salad top.
I cook the vegetables and meat for dinner in butter.

Do you think I’m eating too much and so should skip one meal through the fasting?

In the beginning I wasn’t drinking much water but I now have 3 glasses at breakfast, lunch and dinner so 9 large glasses every day.

[BIWI]

It's difficult to say if you're eating too much without seeing your portion sizes, but intermittent fasting will certainly help there - and there are other benefits of fasting too.

At your weight you should be drinking a minimum of 2.5 litres of water, so 9 glasses sounds OK - depending on their size, of course!

I'd also look to cut out the snacks - if you're properly fat-adapted then you shouldn't be finding yourself hungry between meals, so they are unnecessary, both in terms of calories but also the impact on your blood sugar.

[ThatsNotMyCherry]

Thanks I’ll see how it goes with skipping the breakfasts. There have been some days recently where I did it unintentionally because I have two small kids and they keep me so busy.

It’s really strange for me as previously if I ever felt my weight was creeping up I would cut out sugar and feel a difference within a week.

[MandalaYogaTapestry]

From my experience of a keto diet, you need to keep under a specific quantity of carbs per day otherwise you will be kicked out of ketosis. And then you will need to go to the very low carb period for about a week in order to get back into it. So you small piece of chocolate may well ruin it for you.

[BIWI]

You might find this useful @ThatsNotMyCherry

[ThatsNotMyCherry]

I’ve just been on holiday for the last few days and stuck to my diet except for on the night of my anniversary dinner I shared a dessert with my husband and had a glass of champagne. I am now 67.5kg! That’s the heaviest I have ever been. It’s soooo demoralising. I’ve not had bread, pasta, rice potatoes etc for over a month now and I haven’t lost a thing! I may as well have carried on eating all those things and having a chocolate ice cream every day like I was before :( I’m so upset.

[BIWI]

OK - I'm calling in the big guns! Hopefully @StuntNun can give you some words of advice.

(Happy anniversary, by the way!)

[StuntNun]

What was your diet like before you went low carb Cherry? Sometimes people do gain weight when they go low carb and it's because there's a healing process going on before weight loss can start in earnest. This could be because of precious dieting, or being unwell, or it can also happen if there's an underlying hormonal issue such as PCOS or a thyroid problem.

Also what is your height? At your current weight you might just be tipping over into an overweight BMI and weight loss can be slower when you're a normal weight.

In your position I would weigh and log everything I eat in My Fitness Pal (it's free) for a couple of days to get an idea of total calories and the proportion of carbs, protein and fat macros. If you're drinking plenty of water then the three possible culprits are: too many calories; too little fat: too many grams of carbs per day. Or, as I mentioned earlier, it could just be that it's going to take longer for weight loss to start in earnest. A lot of people find it harder to lose weight when they go back to low carb than they did the first time round. The other common cause of slow weight gain is too few calories but from your meal descriptions that doesn't seem likely.

As a rough guide your total calories should be around 1500-1800 per day. Your carb macro should be below 5%, protein around 25% (anywhere from 20-40% is fine unless you have insulin resistance and/or diabetes) and fat should be 65% or higher.

[thenightsky]

I find breakfast is what piles my weight on. As soon as I cut that out, it all becomes more manageable.

[BIWI]

Thanks for spotting the bat signal @StuntNun

[ThatsNotMyCherry]

@BIWI @StuntNun thank you!

Before this I had a high carb diet ie carbs in each of my three meals and a bar of chocolate every day. I don’t have any medical issues but I am 3 months postpartum after 2 back to back pregnancies. In the first I didn’t gain any weight as I dropped weight during the morning sickness period and my appetite didn’t fully recover after. In the 2nd pregnancy however after the sickness I started to eat a lot which has got me to where I am now.

My height is 5’5”. One of the calculators I’ve used has suggested my calories should be 1100-1200? I’ve tracked a few days here and there over the last few weeks and I’m generally coming in at around 1500-1800 so if the calculator I used is right I’m having too many calories? This is the one I used and set to 20% deficit
: calculo.io/keto-calculator

I know over here it’s encouraged to eat fats but on another forum I read they’re saying that for people who need to burn body fat it’s best to not eat too much fat when low carbing and instead focus on protein for satiety. I must admit I am a bit confused as that seems to make sense.

[BIWI]

Which forum is that, @ThatsNotMyCherry? And what was the justification for that claim?

[ThatsNotMyCherry]

@biwi it’s the reddit Keto forum. Here’s what it says about fat:
Fat: Since you are restricting the amount of carbohydrates you consume. The majority of the energy your body needs will come from fat. Keto is often referred to as a “high fat” way of eating but remember, if you are looking to lose weight, you are going to want your body to use some of its own stored fat for energy and not just the dietary fat you are feeding it. Let your body provide the “high fat”. You do not need to avoid fat, but you do not necessarily need to target fat either. Your fat macro should be considered a limit.

[PerfidiousAlbion]

For me to lose weight on keto, I have to go down to 900 calories a day and eat fewer than 20g of carbs. Slightly more leeway if you’re exercising/breastfeeding.

[BIWI]

But the thing is, without insulin - i.e. when you're eating low carb - there's little/no mechanism for the laying down of fat anyway. Eating fat doesn't make you fat.

Are you really saying that you feel uncomfortable about eating a lot of fat? I can understand it if you are, as we're so conditioned to avoiding it!

[ThatsNotMyCherry]

@BIWI not really I’m ok with eating fat, i’m just really perplexed that I’ve not only not lost weight but I’ve gained it, despite cutting carbs from three meals and not having chocolate everyday. To me that feels like a big dietary change and I just can’t understand why I’ve had no results. I guess I’m wondering whether too much fat could be one reason?

I suppose it could be too many calories. Maybe like PerfidiousAlbion I need to be on a very low amount of calories.

[ThatsNotMyCherry]

@PerfidiousAlbion If you don’t mind I would love to know what your 900 calorie Keto diet looks like in terms of breakfast lunch and dinner

[BIWI]

Are you breastfeeding, btw?

[StuntNun]

If you're doing true keto then protein is limited so it is by definition very high fat. A lot of modern "keto" diets are just low carb dresses up as keto so they might promote tracking your blood ketone level or taking exogenous ketones. Nothing wrong with doing that but it's not necessary for weight loss. BIWI and I are from the Bootcamp camp as it were so we advocate eating ad ljb from healthy low carb foods and not worrying about counting carbs, counting calories, or tracking macros. The exception is where someone is experiencing a weight loss stall and is willing to track their food a bit more closely to work out how to tweak their diet for better results. In a nutshell this usually boils down to drink more water, eat more fat, or eat more calories full stop. Sometimes all it takes is adding a tablespoon of olive oil per day to get back to losing weight. Or we have people eating 1200 calories a day that aren't losing until they increase to 1500 calories.

In terms of the modern keto approach: protein is the most satiating macronutrient so you want to emphasise that to fill you up. Carbs must be kept low to keep you in deep ketosis. Fat is considered to be a lever that you reduce for faster weight loss. In essence the same thing happens with our Bootcamp approach except that we let people be guided by their own appetite rather that aiming to hit macro goals. In my opinion macro goals can be useful but they can also lend themselves to the "If It Fits Your Macros" approach where someone will make poor food choices but then balance it by tweaking their other foods to match. So they'll have a doughnut and then just eat vegetables for the rest of the day. It's a bit close to the old calories in calories out approach that didn't work for so many of us in the past.

At the end of the day it's up to you which approach you choose. After all the diet that works best is the one you can stick to. I would advise against going for the ultra low calorie 8-900 calorie approach to weight loss. It works for a while but it's hard to adjust to a normal food intake at the end of it. If you want a massive calorie reduction then intermittent fasting is the smarter way to do it and then you get the health benefits such as auto phage and increase growth hormone levels, as well as the weight loss due to calorie reduction.

[StuntNun]

God I hate autocorrect.

[ThatsNotMyCherry]

@biwi nope not breastfeeding

Thanks @StuntNun with your approach what would you suggest for me? I’m drinking enough water, eating enough calories and probably having enough fat too? Just keep going and see if anything changes for another few weeks or just accept that it maybe doesn’t suit me?

[StuntNun]

Would you consider tracking your food for a couple of days to get a better idea?