Does this sound like you?
“I’ve been doing low-carb/keto/atkins, for x weeks, but I’m not losing” or even you’re gaining.
You read all the testimonies of people losing weight on a low-carb keto style diet so you ask them what you’re doing wrong.
“Eat more fat” or “drink more water” or “you’re eating too many hidden carbs” or “you’re not eating enough”….
You try all of those things and nothing works.
Personally, I’ve been on the Atkins, Keto, Low-carb even THM diets for a total of over 20 years and I have heard this question over and over, even asked it myself so I decided to write a post about it to help others who are struggling with this question FINALLY discover the answer.
It’s crazy because these “canned” responses come even when “they” have no idea how much fat you’re eating, how water you’re drinking or how many carbs are hidden in your diet. You feel so confused and discouraged you want to give up.
Let me tell what worked/works for me. This is based on MY EXPERIENCE.. I’m not a doctor, dietician, health coach or expert, just someone who has tried it all and is here to tell you what works (and what didn’t work) for me.
HERE’S MY STORY
Experience #1: I was in this low carb group on Yahoo Groups. Yeah, that was BEFORE facebook, even before MySpace.
I was doing basically the Atkins diet. I wasn’t actually counting carbs, but eating the typical low-carb fare, bacon and eggs for breakfast, meat and low carb veggies for lunch and dinner and maybe a sugar free dessert every once in a while.
I was losing weight, but not very fast. So I decided to take the advice I was reading. “Eat more fat” and “eat more food” (you know, that whole you’re body is holding onto fat if you’re not eating enough, starvation mode stuff) so I basically went back to induction and ate as often as I could stand to.
After about a week, I gained 10 pounds. And not only did the scale say I was up, I couldn’t see my feet, meaning my waist line was showing it too.
I stopped and went back to my regular low-carb ways and began to lose again.
Experience #2: Fast forward a few years. My wife started doing low-carb too.
We were both doing the typical very low-carb, high fat regimen and neither of us were losing. We weren’t gaining, but no loss. We ate pretty much ONLY meat, butter, salad and low-carb veggies. What was wrong? We had no idea. We thought about hidden carbs, we were eating plenty of fat three squares a day and drinking plenty of water, but the pounds were not coming off. Side note, my wife is a great cook and made some delicious low-carb foods. More on that later.
Experience #3: I decided to try a “low-calorie” diet, not sure why, but I ate everything all the low-calorie dieters eat. I ate cereal, bread, rice, etc. If it said low calories, I tried it. Eating 2000 calories a day, I was literally STARVING!
Our scale was broken, so I had no idea where my weight was, but I thought surely, as hungry as I was, I must be losing weight.
We finally got a new scale and guess what? I hadn’t lost a pound! Over 10 days of what felt like starving myself, not a pound lost.
Then around that time, we had a family birthday and someone brought a tray of lunch meat. I was so hungry that I ate a few slices. Went to look up how many calories were in lunch meat, to find that they were actually quite low, so I ate more and finally felt satiated. That day I was able to eat 1400 calories and felt fuller than 2000 high starch calories.
What I discovered was that eating less carbs and more protein, made me FEEL FULL and that I could actually EAT LESS calories that way.
Experience #4: I started intermittent fasting.
Now, think about this for a second. If all that canned advice, the stuff that’s still floating around in the low-carb circles today, “eat more fat”, “drink more water”, “you’re in starvation mode”, “you’re eating hidden carbs”, if all that advice REALLY worked, why try intermittent fasting? Because none of that stuff actually works.
Intermittent fasting just means you skip a meal. And guess what, you do that and you’ll lose PROVIDING that you don’t eat too much when you do eat.
When you intermittent fast, you are essentially eating less calories.
WHY AM I NOT LOSING?
Most people have no idea what to say when someone says “it’s not working, what am I doing wrong?”
Low-carbers/Atkins/Keto alike all like to say that “we don’t count calories”, but the truth is if you’re counting fat, carbs, and protein, you ARE counting calories.
When I tried my low-calorie diet, I learned that. If you do the math, you can figure the calorie count.
Fat: 8-9 calories a gram
Carbs: 4 calories a gram
Protein: 4 calories a gram
So if you look at a label that says it has 11 grams of protein, 20 grams of carbs and 5 grams of fat, it has about 169 calories.
Sorry if this is too elementary for you, but it works like this 4×11 grams of protein + 4×20 grams of carbs + 9×5 grams of fat) 44 protein calories + 80 carbohydrate calories + 45 fat calories = 169 total calories.
EAT LESS CALORIES
If you’re not losing weight, eat less total calories.
Don’t eat more fat. Where does all that fat go if you can’t burn it all.
Don’t worry about drinking more water. Actually, drinking more water causes weight gain on the scale. Water weighs allot and you don’t pee it all out every 24 hours.
Don’t eat more. Eating more will simply cause you to gain and you’re NOT in starvation mode, unless you are LITERALLY starving.
But if you’re trying to lose, you don’t want/need to be hungry all day or you won’t last on any diet. The way to avoid that is to make sure you’re getting enough protein.
And no, protein does NOT turn into sugar, not when you’re getting enough to eat. Protein will not cause your insulin to spike and cause you to retain fat. Eat as much protein as you need so that you’re not hungry. It’s better to eat more protein than too little.
Ever wonder what happens to all that fat you don’t burn? It gets stored, so don’t overdue the fat.
So, if you’re not losing, count calories!
Maybe you’re like me, you started a low-carb diet years ago and started losing immediately. Eventually, you started to enjoy these low-carb foods, to find that you’re no longer losing weight.
I said earlier that my wife is a great cook. She turned those boring meat and veggie meals into feasts, to where I wanted to eat and eat and eat. And I did, but quit losing.
EAT LESS CALORIES!
You can live without a ton of carbs, but you can’t live without protein or fat. Eat more protein, to get full, eat fat to feel satiated and eat enough carbs (in the form of low-carb veggies) to satisfy your bowel needs, avoid constipation and feed your gut bacteria.
If you do this, you CAN occasionally eat some fruit. Just remember to count your total calories and don’t do it all the time.
If you’re not losing while eating 2000 calories a day, drop it to 1800. Try that for a week and see what happens. No loss still, drop it to 1600 and try that for a week. You WILL eventually start to lose weight, but the best way to lose is the easy way. Don’t starve yourself. Eat enough so you’re not hungry but DO NOT over eat.
If this works for you, drop me a note in the comment section below.
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