What the heck am I doing wrong?!

[oooompa]

I've been low carbing since Jan 2019 and have so far lost just shy of 7 stone. I have just over 2 stone left to my target weight but I'm just not losing weight anymore!

I started losing weight again a few months ago when I started calorie counting and keeping my calories low (I tried to stick to around 1400) but was going to bed hungry.

After losing 10lbs from calorie counting I went back to my normal low carb regime as it was so tedious weighing and counting EVERY ingredient (we cook all our meals from scratch) and I've stalled again
I realised that I was suffering from carb creep, having a small bowl of raspberries, yogurt and dark chocolate on the same day so have cut back on the evening treat to just one or the other.

Last weeks weigh in I'd lost 4lbs so was really happy as my cutting down on carby treats and upping fat seemed to work. Did the exact same thing this week and I'm back up the same 4 lbs. I know weight fluctuations are normal but over the past few months its just been up, down, up, down and no downward trend. I measured myself over a month ago and measured again yesterday and I'm exactly the same.

I'm getting married at the backend of 2021 and desperately want to be at my target but I'm losing all motivation and wondering why I'm driving myself crazy and going to bed so hungry I can't sleep if I'm still not losing weight? It doesn't help that DP is happy with his weight loss and is more or less at target so has started to have regular treats and his weight remains the same he had 3 slices of cake on Sunday, if I did that I'd gain 5lbs water weight in a second!

I don't think I eat a ridiculous amount but I don't think I'm eating too little so am getting so frustrated that by bedtime my tummy rumbles and keeps me up! My daily menu is typically something like:

Breakfast: coffee with 75mls cream
Lunch: tuna mayo with some cheese, or more often I'll just have some boiled eggs with mayo or a cheese and mushroom omelette
Dinner: cauliflower cheese/paneer curry/chicken mozarella with creamy vegetables /lettuce tacos
Snack: full fat greek yogurt/85% dark chocolate /raspberries with cream.

Sorry for the rambling post, just hoping someone can give me some tips! I know I need to drink a lot more water, I have to force myself to drink it and then I'm up and down for the toilet. And I have quite a few cups of coffee/tea with a splash of full fat blue milk as I find this helps keep me going until the next meal (and I love caffeine!) but I'm guessing the milk is also not helping!! I'm thinking of doing an egg fast to hopefully help get things moving again but after the first one I did I don't know if I can stomach it

Hi Oompa
Firstly well done on your weight loss so far, that's an incredible amount of weight!!! You should be super proud of yourself already.
I lost a bunch of weight last year (following Dukan not low carb, but v similar), I hit target weight with a fight at the end so I understand your frustration with shifting the last lbs (I've since put it all back on again unfortunately but that's a different story!) I'm not a nutritionist or dietitian but these are my 2 cents...
Firstly remember that in weighing less now than you did, you burn significantly less calories for the same exercise etc than you did several stones ago, simply due to the fact that your body isn't working as hard to carry you around as it was. Same with your calorie intake (if calorie counting) - you'll lose far more slowly seven stones later than you would at the start on 1400 calories a day. You're smaller now so your body burns less to exist. An unfortunate reality!
Again, not an expert but as you lose - and you've lost a lot - your body does as much as it can to slow down the loss (it thinks there's a famine). Your metabolism will slow down as much as it can to try to preserve your fat reserves, so doing a few tricks to kick start it like having a decent sized breakfast (a coffee for breakfast isn't going to kick start anything) and exercising earlier in the day may help.
Looking at your day I'd say you also just need to eat more - of low calorie foods like vegetables, protein, 0% fat yoghurts etc - fill yourself up in a smart way. By feeling hungry again you're telling your body to hang onto its fat reserves which it will do as much as it can to maintain, as ultimately it thinks you're starving.
I'm a big fan of Dukan so if you really want to shake things up it could be worth giving it a shot, otherwise keep doing you. I found half the battle was in the mind, i didn't actually believe my body could/would do it - but it did. Yours will too!
Don't give up, you will get there!!

Hi @Cavagirl thank you so much for your kind reply! I've been reading some of the rules of the egg fast and one is you need to eat an egg no later than 1 hout after you wake up in the morning and then eat an egg based meal every 3 to 4 hours. I'm not sure how that will work with my day and I can't remember the way I did it the first time, but I'll definitely try and have something ready to eat in the morning.

I used to always make time for breakfast but now I never seem to have the time to as I'm too busy sorting the kids out (I do always make time for my coffee though as that is less hassle to prepare 😁)

It's so frustrating as I can accept that I'll not be able to eat all the rubbish I used to love, in order to maintain my weight loss. But the frustrating part is I'm still overweight and my only wish is to be classed as a healthy weight!

I don't think it helps that at the weekend a family member chose to make a few cruel jokes on my size which felt like a slap in the face after I've tried to hard and lost quite a lot already. I felt like I may as well eat all the cake if I'm still going to be made fun of!

I know I definitely need to drink more water and just keep going and hopefully I'll get over the stall soon. I would get DP to hide the scales as seeing the numbers going up really messes up my head, however I'd be worried that without weighing in I'd have nothing to help me keep track to make sure what I was doing was working!

Hey @oooompa

I'm so sorry they commented negatively on your weight. I don't know the person obv but given you've already lost so much (SEVEN STONE!!! I still can't believe that, it's incredible) I would guess it might be coming from someone who prefers you as the "overweight one" in the family and feels threatened/jealous of what you've already achieved. Quite a lot of people don't like it when you prove you're able to make a big change to yourself, especially family - it (in their minds) disrupts a previously established order and means you're not the person you were before. Either way, it says a lot more about them than it does about you - try to put that to one side, and focus on yourself. Do not let this discourage you - you will get there and you have plenty of time to do it.

I was thinking a bit more about your diet and I think there's more fat in there than you might realise...
Cream with coffee
Mayo with your tuna
Full fat yoghurt
Mozzarella or creamy sauce with dinner
Raspberries with cream

Can you switch some of this out to zero fat? Have a zero fat yoghurt with your raspberries instead of cream, skimmed milk in your coffee, etc I know on keto/low carb that's all allowed but it could make a difference if you're plateauing.

Also eggs for breakfast sounds like a great idea - or could you do overnight oats or something similar that you can just grab in the morning?

I know I sound like saleswoman but if you've got any spare money in an Amazon account somewhere I'd really recommend the Dukan Diet book. The long explanation in there about dieting & nutrition etc, really helped me understand how my body was responding to food. It also spends just as much time talking about how to maintain a massive weight loss as achieving it - which will be crucial for you once you've hit goal weight (and you will!!!) It's not for everyone of course, but if you still find yourself stuck in a week or two maybe think about it.

If you're struggling for support as well then maybe a WW group or similar could help?

Just sounds like you need to shake it up a bit, give your body a kick. Keep going, you will get there, believe in yourself and your body, it's not some weird special exception that doesn't lose weight (as I thought mine was haha) you just need to tweak things a bit and it will start doing its job again

Let us know how you get on!!

I’ve been following some of the Keri threads and it seems some people are more sensitive to dairy. A lot of your fat calories seem to be dairy. Try swapping in eggs or some other protein rather than the cheese for a few days. Don’t start low fat yogurt or oats.

I'd say there's possibly too much cheese and cream in your diet.
Try more variety overall and reducing these 2 things as well and see if that makes any difference.

I really seem to struggle to get my fat high enough so cheese has always been the go-to thing to try and up that. When I track my macros fat always ends up being slightly lower than it should. I think I might pick up some avocados in next weeks shop, I always had half an avocado with breakfast which was a healthy fat.

I do snack on eggs if I get peckish (normally at bed time if I get that hunger that I know will keep me awake at night)
I might get some nuts but I have to have the dicipline of a saint not to scoff them all as they're so easy to eat!

Anymore ideas for healthy fats that aren't dairy? We're pretty boring with our meals and have the same thing most weeks, most meals have cheese and/or cream in there somewhere 😩 I could maybe replace cheese in my salad with olive oil, I just hate the taste of olive oil on a salad!

Thank you for your replies 😊

Hey @oooompa, have you tried nut oils if you don't like olive oil? Bloody love sesame oil for cooking or salads. Also for healthy fats you could try nut butters, the good ones (100% nut not full of palm oil) - Meridian do a lovely range - you could use that in your sauce for dinner or as a snack or eat it straight from the jar with a spoon

Don’t let your rude family member minimise the huge achievement you’ve already made. 7 stone is amazing!! If your body wants to have a little rest from it, don’t panic. Maybe give yourself a couple of weeks off and just eat sensibly for a while. And as for your H - men always seem to find it easier to lose weight than women - we are literally shaped to hold onto fat - that’s all our boobs and hips are for - so don’t compare. However, if he starts eating several bits of cake at a time, it won’t last for him!

If you don’t like olive oil (I don’t) try adding coconut oil into meals to up the fat. My mum used to make a lovely salad with chicken and bacon and she would make a dressing from the bacon fat with some red wine vinegar!! Maybe try that as a way to add some fat to a salad. Also a warm boiled egg with a knob of butter, and salt and pepper, is surprisingly delicious!

If you’re doing low carb, don’t start on the low fat yoghurt and oats stuff as that will just confuse things. If you want to hop off the LC thing for a while that’s one thing, but if you’re on it, you need full fat everything, as the fat will stop you feeling hungry and will be lower carb than fat free alternatives.

BIWI on the low carb bootcamp threads would no doubt wield her big stick and tell you that the water isn’t optional - as Yoda would say “Do or do not, there is no try”! And that your veg intake is way too low. Most of your carbs should be coming from a fuck-load of green veg - some can come from dairy but as a PP has said, some people find dairy stalls them (and nuts are dangerous as they’re too delicious, so definitely don’t go there if you can’t trust yourself to ration them!)

I use lactose free milk in tea and coffee as it’s lower carb than regular milk. I have one or two creamy coffees a day (or a bulletproof coffee with coconut oil and butter) and I only have a small amount of milk in tea, but it all adds up.

The most recent bootcamp finishes this week, but there are lots of threads with recipe ideas and meal plans on them, so maybe try and mix it up with some new meal ideas. We’ve been doing intermittent fasting 16/8, alongside LC for 5 weeks and I can honestly say I don’t feel hungry at all. I’m sure that’s down to the fat! I last ate a pack of pork scratchings this evening and I imagine I won’t want anything until 12-1 tomorrow.

Well I've just finished a 4 day egg fast, today was meant to be the last day but I just couldn't face another day of eggs, mayo or butter!

I've done the egg fast once before and lost 5lbs, I honestly don't remember feeling so terrible but this time round it's been hell. Headaches everyday, lethargic and tired and today the headache wouldn't go and my stomach is going crazy.

I have felt starving the entire time but I know I didn't eat ebough fat, but I really can't stomach that much butter, mayo or cheese 🤮 i'm on day one of transitioning back to LCHF and was able to have a small portion of chicken with tea with was glorious except for my stomach turning at the sight of food. All for a measely 3lbs off. I will NOT be doing an egg fast again in a hurry, but hopefully I'll start to lose gradually again.

I'm going to look into switching some of the fat from dairy to other sources and try and do and think of some new meal ideas. I'll browse the bootcamp thread for recipe ideas, but if anyone has any recipes that ideally don't have loads of cheese and cream I'd love some suggestions.

I've also found my large sports bottle so I have no excuse not to keep drinking water!

I think you've done incredibly well! I've been low carbing since this Jan and have lost just over 2 stone so far.

I had hit a wall since Lockdown where for the last 12 weeks I've put on and lost, basically, the same few pounds. Down 1lb, stay same, put 1lb on, lose 2lb, put 2lb on....etc.

The last three weeks I've combined Low carb with 16:8 - and so I don't eat anything til 10.00am and then nothing after 6pm. It seems to be helping. I just drink water before 10 and after 6.

You have done amazingly well - congratulations.
I do know that cream and cheese can stall some people so you may want to try going dairy free for a week? I also eat a lot of cheese and will try to have a day off here and there (but I do struggle).

Try eating protein and veg, and some healthy fats - butter, ghee, olive or avocado oil, and reduce the dairy and the mayo. Maybe give it a go for a week and see if it makes a difference.

How did you find the egg fast? Those rules you quoted are very outdated and nowadays they say you can eat any time as long as you have a minimum of 6 eggs with a tbsp or fat each.

Good luck.

Thank you to both of you, that's so lovely to hear, especially when I've been beating myself up!

I went to Morrisons this evening and came back with avocados and some olive oil so I'm going to cut the cheese down (my stomach can't really face the idea of cheese anyway after the egg fast!) and I'm looking forward to having some fresh, simple meals now!

Honestly this time round I really struggled with the egg fast, I had a headache everyday and struggled adding salt to my food as I don't like it too salty and the last day the headache got so back it made me sick. Sitting with a plate of fried eggs on my lap I nearly threw up. I don't think I'll be doing it again anytime soon.

BUT it has pushed me to re-evaluate the meals I was eating so I can pinpoint meals that aren't quite right, eg paneer curry and the cauliflower cheese are both very high in calories when I added the recipe to MFP so they will be maybe a fortnightly meal instead of a weekly one. I can't face weighing and logging everything on MFP just yet so I'm going to stick to the plan of better fats, less cream and cheese and forgo any sweet treats in the near future so I can get things going again.

I'm definitely feeling more hopeful now and I'm also going to get back to my exercise routines. Whilst my gym has been closed I've been doing weight workouts on youtube by a channel called Hasfit. They don't take long and don't feel like the hardest workout but my god you feel it the next day 😁

Wow - losing 7 stones is amazing!

Definitely don't go down the low fat route. Low carbing isn't about low fat at all.

Why not try introducing intermittent fasting? The easiest way to start is by 12:12 - i.e. you have a 12 hour eating window and a 12 hour fasting window, which in reality means that if you finish your evening meal at 8pm (and no snacking afterwards), you don't eat again until 8am. For most of us, that probably doesn't feel like fasting!

But a more effective approach is 16:8, so if you finish eating at 8pm, you don't eat (or drink anything with calories in it) until 12 noon - so your fasting window is 16 hours and your eating window is 8 hours.

It means that although you can drink in the morning, it can only be water, or black tea/coffee (or herbal tea), as anything else would break your fast.

In the context of being a long-term low carber, you should find this easy to do, as by now your appetite should be well under control

Another thing, as PP have said, is that you might be eating too much dairy, so try to cut the cheese and cream out/down.

Good luck!

Thank you Biwi your low carb bootcamp thread has been so helpful when I first startef LCHF back in 2015 and then again in 2019 after falling off the wagon! I've never joined a bootcamp as I'm normally too socially awkward for such things 😂 but have followed your rules as best I could.

When I started skipping breakfast I was under the impression I was doing a loose 12-8 and fasting in the morning (sometimes my last meal would be after 8pm due to working hours) and THEN I found out that cream in your morning coffee is NOT fasting.

I'll definitely consider doing it properly, but right now I seem to be hungry ALL the time. I don't feel like my body is really fat adapted as I wake up hungry and need to eat. I used to be fine to wait until lunch time, then wait until 7-8pm for tea and then not need food after that, but recently I've been starving since getting up in the morning, having lunch at 12 and then eating tea by 6pm because I feel weak with hunger. And then at bedtime I'm so hungry it keeps me awake.

I'm going back to basics and seeing if the changes I'm making will help. I was starving when I woke up so had 3 medium eggs scrambled and cooked in butter with half an avocado and a coffee with 15mls cream (I always measure this and now won't have more than one coffee with cream in it per day, I used to drink several creamy coffees a day so god knows how I lost weight!)

By half 12 once again I was starving so had a basic salad of lettuce, 3 cherry tomatoes, cucumber, olives, tuna, 2 medium boiled eggs and olive oil as a dressing.

Dinner is homemade burgers so I will ask DP to make mine without the cheese and just have with a salad again. Really REALLY need to drink more water as well!

If you're always hungry that's a sign that you're not sufficiently fat-adapted - so you need to eat more fat! (And drinking water will help too)

Very glad you've stopped lurking

How is your exercise? I’ve been doing the Courtney Black 28 day challenge (currently free on Instagram) and it’s made such a difference! 2 weeks in I’ve lost about 5 pounds and loads of inches. Was previously joe wicks which I found really achievable as a complete novice. I can now eat more food and still stop a few pounds.

Hi you've done amazingly well so far. I'd recommend joining the diet doctor Facebook group lots of great advice on there to get a stall going again. Have you seen their website?

I eat keto and when I'm in fat burning mode I eat one meal a day, I think you might just be having too much food but I'm not an expert, don't listen to any advice to lower your fat, that's the whole point of LCHF which I'm sure you already know