How To Break A Weight Loss Plateau
You’ve lost a lot of weight, but your weight loss has hit a plateau. What can you do to restart your weight loss? Here’s an interview with the physician and low-carb expert Dr. Eric Westman. Table of contents 0:27 Things to consider if your weight loss hits a plateau 1:15 The definition of a plateau 2:02 The importance of calories 4:08 Don’t eat when you’re not hungry 5:23 Protein amount 8:47 Physical activity 10:21 Drugs and weight 12:03 Other causes of plateaus Transcript Continue reading >>
6 Things That Can Break A Stall
If you’ve ever tried to lose a significant amount of body fat, you’ve likely experienced a stall or a plateau. For the sake of this articles, I’m going to use the term “stall” to mean nothing to do with the scale, because scales are for suckers (and they’re horrible measure of any sort of success…ditch the scale). Instead, when I’m talking about a stall, I’m talking about a period of time when your clothes are not getting looser. Pants, shirts, heck, even shoes. As you lose body fat, the stuff you put on your outside should fit differently. But sometimes your clothes don’t cooperate. Sometimes you go through periods where your clothes fit just as tight as before. That, my friend, is a stall. And it’s frustrating. Of course, a lot of the frustration has to do with the expectations you place upon yourself and your progress (that’s a whole separate article), but suffice it to say that the frustration is real. So what can you do to overcome or break a stall? In general, here’s a list of possible things. Cut out dairy A lot of people have trouble digesting dairy. The kicker is, many of them don’t even know that they have the problem. But, whether you have a dairy issue or not, eliminating dairy is a simple and easy way to break a stall. Lots of people say they could never give up cheese, but the reality of the situation is: If giving up cheese (even temporarily) is a way to get back on track to achieving your goals, then the cheese has to go. No excuses. Not negotiable. Sure, cheese and cream are great, fatty, keto-friendly foods, but they are not more important than your goals. So try cutting out dairy for a few weeks and see how your clothes start to fit differently. Cut out nuts Lots of nuts are very high in fat (I’m looking at you…you gorg Continue reading >>
Breaking A Weight Loss Plateau
I know all about how annoying a low carb diet weight loss plateau can be. In 2008, I began to change my eating habits in order to address some serious health problems. I also wanted to lose the excess weight I had accumulated over the years while eating a poor diet full of processed junk food. It took several years and I still struggle with my weight, but then I'm a work in progress. The Most Common Causes of a Weight Loss Plateau Here is my opinion, born of my individual experience, on the most common causes of a weight loss plateau. If you are following a ketogenic diet, and not losing weight, or the weight loss is inconsistent (going down one week and up the next), here are some of the most common causes: Eating more carbohydrate than you think (fruit, nuts, and yogurt are the particular culprits here). I call this carb creep. Eating more calories than your body can handle without storing (this is usually the result of a very high fat intake - for me, too much dairy). You want to be burning your stored fat, not excess fat from your diet. Eating large amounts of low carb foods that elevate insulin. Dairy protein (hard cheeses, yogurt and whey protein in particular), sugar alcohols, and other artificial sweeteners are culprits here. Eating lots of coconut, coconut oil or MCT oil. Coconut oil has a lot of medium chain triglycerides in it. This type of fat can't be stored, so your body has to burn it first. Again, the goal is to burn your stored fat, not fat from your diet. Not exercising in a way that increases insulin sensitivity to the muscles. (The problem is that for people with a broken metabolism, long, slow exercise doesn't work well - it has to be high intensity exercise, which uses all the glycogen stored in the muscles, and makes them more insulin sensitive. T Continue reading >>
Using A Ketogenic Diet And Intermittent Fasting To Break A Fat Loss Plateau
* The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this Website. By using a ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting together you may find that you can break through weight loss plateaus and jump start your fat loss efforts. This is what I am tying to do. What is a Ketogenic Diet? The ketogenic diet (often termed a keto diet) is a very low-carb(less than 20 net grams per day), high-fat diet. It involves drastically reducing carbohydrate intake, and replacing it with fat. The reduction in carbs puts your body into a metabolic state called ketosis. For me it just makes sense and the science is there. My own family doctor follows a keto diet and is a huge proponent of this way of eating. That says a lot. How Does Ketosis Work? As mentioned, the diet limits carbohydrates (sugar and starch). When these foods are digested, they are broken down into blood sugar (glucose) in the body. More carbohydrate intake results in higher blood sugar. If we reduce carb intake and instead eat more fat and protein, it results in a switch in metabolic pathways from using sugar as a primary fuel to burning fat instead. As more fat is burned, some of it is converted in ketone bodies. As blood glucose and insulin level drop and ketone levels rise, the heart, muscle and brain switch to using more fat and ketones to fuel themselves. This state of “nutritional ketosis” has some powerful benefits. I Have Lost Over 40 Pounds in 4 Months With A Ketogenic Diet You can read the entire chronicle about my ke Continue reading >>
Not Losing Weight On A Low-carb Ketogenic Diet? Don’t Give Up And Read Further
The ketogenic diet is not only known to be one of the most effective weight loss tools, but has proven to have many health benefits. Ketosis is a state at which your body produces ketones in the liver, shifting the body's metabolism away from glucose and towards fat utilization. Unless you can check your blood ketones, using Ketostix is an easy way to detect urinary ketones. It's not the most accurate method, but may be good enough to find out whether you are in ketosis. In some cases, weight loss may be difficult even on a low-carb ketogenic diet and there may be a few possible reasons for weight stalling, which I have listed in this post. If you want to know more about the ketogenic diet and how it can help you lose weight, have a look at my Practical Guide to Keto Diet which is freely available on my website also as PDF. 3 free diet plans to help you kickstart your diet, lose weight and get healthy Recipes, giveaways and exclusive deals delivered directly to your inbox A chance to win the KetoDiet app every week Top Reasons You Are Not Losing Weight on a Keto Diet 1. Carbs are Too High Your carbohydrate intake may be too high. Try to decrease your daily carbs limit. Also try to include coconut oil in your diet. Coconut oil consists of MCTs (Medium chain triglycerides), which are easily digestible, less likely to be stored by your body and are used for immediate energy. MCTs are converted in the liver into ketones, which helps you enter ketosis. If you want to know more about carbs, check out this post. For more about ketones, have a look at this post. 2. Protein is Too High or Too Low Your protein intake may be too high/ low. Protein is the most sating macronutrient and you should include high-quality animal protein in your diet. If you don't eat enough protein, you Continue reading >>
Busting Through A Keto Diet Plateau / Stall – Tips & Tricks
Now, listen. I said MIGHT. If you’re googling a keto diet plateau and ended up here, chances are you’re simply being impatient and need to KCKO (keep calm and keto on). However, stalling on the keto diet isn’t uncommon and sometimes after a long stall you need to make changes to your diet or exercise routine to break through a plateau. For reasons unknown, our bodies sometimes like to stay a certain weight. This is called homeostasis. Even if you’re on a keto diet which certainly helps with regulating fat cells, you might find yourself stuck. The science behind plateaus on the keto diet This thing called Glucose tolerance When you put on the weight you’re now trying to lose, your blood sugar was probably consistently high. It’s is more likely than not that you have some sort of glucose tolerance problems going on after years of eating a high carb diet. The problem is two fold. First of all there’s insulin resistance and second of all there’s glucose sensitivity in your cells. These lead to your glucose tolerance being impaired and therefore, even small amounts of carbs may lead you to reaching homeostatic weight. Another thing called Visceral fat (it’s dangerous) When your body is sugar (carb) burning instead of fat burning (ketosis), you seem to gain more fat in the mid section. This is called visceral fat, which is associated with a plethora of health issues. If you have a lot of visceral fat, you’re at higher risk for developing insulin resistance, which can lead to glucose intolerance and type 2 diabetes. Then there’s over-nutrition (too many calories) Then there’s the good old calories in, calories out. Being in keto does not mean you’re on a magical diet and will lose weight if you eat too many calories, sorry. Lowering your calorie intak Continue reading >>
Weight Loss Stalls And Plateaus
Is It Really a Stall? Possible Causes Helpful Suggestions Resources on the Web Is It Really a Stall? A stall or plateau refers to an extended period of time during reducing efforts where there is no weight loss according to the scale AND no loss of inches according to the tape measure. So if you've been following your chosen low carb program to the letter, and it seems that the bathroom scales have become permanently stuck, take your measurements. Also notice if your clothes are getting looser, or if you can now fit into formerly tight garments. Chances are, you are continuing to lose FAT, but your body is adding lean muscle tissue, especially if you have been doing weight-training exercise as well. And muscle is less bulky than fat for the same amount of weight, so your body will be smaller and leaner. If this is the case, you haven't stalled at all; your body is just recomposing itself. This is why it's so important to record your body measurements at the very beginning, so you'll have a reference as you progress. Don't just measure chest, waist and hip. Other key areas to measure are neck, upper arm, thigh and calf. And yes, having some "skinny" clothes hanging around helps too. It's a great feeling to have a pair of jeans that previously wouldn't come past your knees to make their way up past your hips, then be able to do them up (with pliers, while lying flat), then be able to do them up while standing and be able to breathe at the same time .... and so on! It's normal for the body to go through adjustment periods while you're losing weight. A plateau lasting 3 or 4 weeks is no cause for alarm, nor is it a reason to QUIT. Check your measurements as noted above, and stick with your program. Low Carbing is about making permanent, lifelong changes; a few weeks is just Continue reading >>
Breaking Fat Loss Plateaus
This is a summary/extract from The Ketogenic Diet by Lyle McDonald. 1. Improve the nutrient quality of the low carb week The nature of the ketogenic diet is such that most individuals tend to consume a lot of saturated fats while on the diet. Substituting some of the saturated fat intake inherent to the ketogenic diet with unsaturated fats such as fish oils and vegetable oils, may increase thermogenesis (the burning of calories to produce heat) and increase fat loss. Many individuals report a significant amount of bodily warmth following a meal high in unsaturated fats, probably due to increased thermogenesis. 2. Eat the day’s calories across fewer meals Although this strategy is purely conjectural, some people have reported better fat loss by eating the same daily calories across fewer meals. In theory, this could allow greater fat loss as the body may be required to draw more energy from body fat stores in between meals. 3. Take a week off the diet Although this goes against everything most dieters have been conditioned to believe, sometimes the best strategy to break a fat loss plateau is to take a week off of the diet and eat at maintenance calories. Some individuals choose to remain ketogenic, simply increasing their caloric intake, while others prefer to return to a carbohydrate based diet. The body ultimately adapts to anything including diet and calorie levels. Taking a week off of the diet can help raise metabolic rate as well as rebuild any muscle which may have been lost. However, fat gain during a one week break is generally minimal as long as individuals do not overdo caloric intake. 4. Cycle calories throughout the week Many individuals have found success by cycling caloric intake while on a ketogenic diet. If we use a rough guideline of 12 cal/lb as an Continue reading >>
Why You Aren’t Losing Weight On Keto And What To Do About It
Have you hit a weight loss plateau on keto? Do you think you’re doing everything right and the scale still just won’t budge? Well don’t worry, you’re not alone. Many people have trouble losing weight on a ketogenic diet. This is because everybody is different. While the majority of people may do well on conventional keto diet advice, there will always be outliers who don’t respond as well to the same generalized guidelines. This article will outline the most common culprits of stagnating weight loss on a ketogenic diet. Hopefully, by addressing each of these possible areas of concern, you will be able to overcome your weight loss plateau and reach your ideal weight! Are You Actually in Ketosis? Believe it or not, most of the time people aren’t losing weight on keto because they aren’t actually even in ketosis! This is why it is so important to measure ketone levels. When the body runs out of stored glycogen (glucose) and begins burning fat and creating ketones for energy, these ketones circulate through the blood. This is why the gold standard for determining whether or not you are in ketosis is by measuring blood ketones. Ketosis is usually defined as a blood ketone level between 0.5 to 3.0 mM. However, for those who are not ready to invest in a blood ketone meter, there is the cheaper and more convenient option in ketosis urine strips. Ketosis strips are not quite as accurate as a blood ketone meter. This is because they only measure ketones that your body was unable to use. This may be a good way to indicate ketosis when you first begin a keto diet, but once the body becomes more efficient at burning ketones for fuel, less ketones will be excreted in the urine creating a false negative. The Carb Creep Once you start testing ketone levels it can be a lot Continue reading >>
11 Reasons You Are Not Losing Weight In Keto
An important part of a weight loss journey is realizing that it won’t happen overnight as it requires dedication, motivation, and effort. But, after a few weeks of months of sticking to a healthy low carb/ keto diet your scale decides to stop moving. Not seeing results may become frustrating and overwhelming. Here are a few tips & tricks that will help you get past your weight loss plateau. Here are 11 reasons why you stopped losing weight and how to get the situation under control. 1.SWEETENERS It’s fantastic to treat yourself with something sweet now and then. Sweeteners are safe to use for most of the people, but for some, it causes intense cravings for real sugar. As I love to experiment on myself first and then show my results, along with following strict ketogenic macros, I ditched all the artificial sweeteners from my diet for a few weeks (including diet sodas, which yeah I know contain aspartame that’s very harmful, but oh well, we’re humans). I can relate that I didn’t have sugar cravings anymore, my headaches were gone, and I dropped a few pounds even I didn’t want to. Every person reacts different at sweeteners, and I recommend you to limit your daily consumption and focus on real food. 2.TOO MANY CALORIES I know you’ve heard that on a low carb diet like a Ketogenic Diet and Atkins Diet you only have to stay under the daily limit of carbs and eat as much protein and fat as you can. Fat is twice more dense caloric than carbs, so therefore the calories add up quickly. No diet in the world recommends unlimited calories for weight loss. So if you are not losing weight, you should consider finding your ideal macronutrients (look online for a keto calculator) and stick with them, because calories matter even on a low carb diet. 3. NOT ENOUGH OR TOO MU Continue reading >>
Not Losing Weight On Low Carb? Try Carb Cycling.
Carbohydrates are just as addictive as nicotine, if not more. The first time I quit smoking after fourteen years, I quit it for two years. Then one night at a party I was offered a cigarette by someone I hadn’t seen for a while and I, figuring I was “cured,” lit it up. The next day I bought a pack and jumped right back into smoking a pack a day for three more years before I finally quit again (2.5 years now!) When it comes to carbohydrates, I don’t see a difference. Last year on my birthday, after doing keto for a solid six or seven months, my wonderful fiance got me a doughnut cake as a cheat day treat. A doughnut, the size of a cake. I figured hey, it’s one day, one doughnut. But it wasn’t. The minute carbohydrates were back in my system it was as if they were never gone. And suddenly we were ordering Dominos and drinking Coca-Cola. And again. And again. In fact, I never ate pizza regularly or drank soda until that moment. It’s like one big doughnut was a gateway drug to everything bad, even things I didn’t eat before. Eight months and 20lbs later we were able to get the will power together to quit them again. Losing Weight on a Low Carb Diet If you’re on a low carb diet, you don’t need me to tell you the benefits. Some do it for weight loss, others for mental clarity, and others for illnesses like cancer and alzheimers. But remember, quitting carbs doesn’t mean quitting real food. Every day I eat grass-fed meat, organic greens like spinach, and even berries. If you choose to drink diet coke and processed things loaded with fake sugars, with a block of cheese for lunch, you’re not making yourself healthier, you might even be damaging your body rather than helping it. One thing I’ve learned from quitting carbohydrates and then falling off the Continue reading >>
13 Tips For Losing Weight On A Ketogenic Diet
Ketogenic diets are all the rage these days. Many people think that an all meat diet where you can eat as much as you want sounds appealing. They miss out on the nuances of the diet and don’t quite understand how it works. It’s still important that you watch what you’re putting in your diet to maintain ketosis. It doesn’t stop there, however, as a full lifestyle change is necessary to drastically promote weight loss. Here are 13 ketogenic diet tips for weight loss success. 1. Weigh Your Food Accuracy is important when trying to reach your weight loss goals. Investing a good food scale can really help you monitor your carbohydrate intake with precision. While many may think they can measure by just “eyeballing” servings–the slightest error can have you think you’re consuming an 8 oz. portion though it may really be a 12 oz portion. These errors add up! Avoid the guesswork and use a scale to calculate your food intake. Look for scales that allow you to measure in grams and ounces. There are even scales that connect to apps and websites for even more intuitive food tracking to help you reach your goals. 2. Drink Water Staying hydrated is one of the most important rules of any diet, not just a ketogenic diet. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in our daily routine that we forget how much water we’re taking in throughout the day. While on a ketogenic diet, begin your day by consuming at least 8 to 16 ounces of water. This will allow your body to rehydrate immediately and begin its natural cycles. Throughout the day, you should aim to drink about half of your body weight in ounces. A 150-pound individual should try to drink at least 75 ounces of water during the day. That may seem like a lot but it’s less than 10 cups. When you look at it like that, it doesn Continue reading >>
Keto Plateau: Why Weight Loss Is Not A Linear Process
If you have been on a keto diet for a few weeks strictly without cheating and seeing the scale number going down steadily every day and then one day it suddenly stops for a few days or even goes up a bit, you’re wondering what you are doing wrong. Well, here is the answer: Nothing. Nothing is wrong. First of all, you need to understand that weight loss is NOT a linear process. Most people think if you follow a diet strictly, your body weight will drop consistently every day, that means the number you see on the scale today should always be smaller than yesterday. This is not often the case. It is very normal for your body weight to fluctuate up and down by a few pounds. Some days you may lose, while other days you may gain a little bit of weight. During your first week of keto, you’ll drop a lot of water weight. This is because your body burns through the glycogen (complex chains of glucose stored in your liver and muscles). Each gram of glycogen is stored in the muscle with at least 3 g of water (1). After the first couple of weeks, your body will start to adjust and find a new balance, and your glycogen stores refill. Yes, your body can still refill some glycogen stores in muscles through a ketogenic diet. This means a bit of water will also be restored again. That explains why you see a few pound gain or the scale isn’t moving. There are many other reasons why the scale doesn’t go down or even increases a little compared to the last time you weigh yourself. Here are just a few reasons: You may be carrying more food in your digestive system, especially when you are constipated and you haven’t released the wastes for a few days. You weigh yourself after eating a meal or drinking a glass of water. A standard glass of water contains 240ml of water, which is app Continue reading >>
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Managing A Weight-loss Plateau
Most of us like to think of weight loss as a nice steady elevator ride going down from “too high” to “just right.” Or at least, that’s what we wish would happen! But in the real world, that weight-loss elevator is more like a theme-park ride: it goes down, it comes jerking to a halt and then zooms back up for a while, it suddenly drops six floors overnight…and sometimes, it even stays in one place for a while: the dreaded plateau. Nobody likes a plateau, but the first thing to remember about them is that they’re perfectly normal. After all, bodies are not machines, and they don’t always work in totally logical ways. Many people find that after a week or so at the same weight, they simply start losing again with no further effort required. They don’t know what caused the stall, but it doesn’t really matter because it passes quickly and weight loss resumes. On the other hand, some people hit a weight that just won’t budge – and after a month or so of this, it’s time to officially dub it a plateau. This review found that people tend to hit that plateau around 6 months, and other studies have confirmed this: 6-8 months is the typical time of the first plateau (although there are exceptions). So what causes this, and how can you fight back? Plateaus can happen for any number of reasons, but this study focuses on two of the most common: metabolic adaptation and diet creep. So take a look at what they are, which one might apply to you, and what you can do about them. Two Potential Causes for Weight Loss Plateaus Culprit #1: Metabolic Adaptation The first thing that comes to everyone’s mind when they’re wondering why they’ve plateaued is their metabolism. And indeed, metabolism is important! Calorie balance matters, but in real life, 3500 calorie Continue reading >>
How Do I Break A Plateau In A Ketogenic Diet?
Breaking a plateau can be done in two ways. The basic strategy is to create a significant caloric deficit. Working out extra doesn't really make a significant effect in the sense that it really isn't worth the extra effort,because the amount of calories you burn are replenished in just some bites of your next meal. So to create the caloric deficit, you can either track your calories and reduce them to boost your fat burn or you can go for intermittent fasting. Common intermittent fasting methods involve daily 16 hour fasts, or fasting for 24 hours, twice per week, but of course, you can modify it to suit your needs and will power. :) Continue reading >>
