How Quickly Can You Lose Weight?
Take your average guy or gal that decides they’re committed to finally losing that extra weight that’s crept on over the years. They’re going to eat healthy (primally, of course), start working out, and stop all the nonsense they know to be unhealthy. This might be you. A few days go by, then a week. The scale is budging, but barely. “This is going to take forever! How long is this going to take?” We all want instant results, right? Well, what is realistic? What is safe? What is effective? And what can you expect when you attempt to lose excess body fat and reach your ideal body composition? Everyone knows that slow, gradual weight loss produces the best long-term results and fast weight loss is unsafe and unhealthy. People you know have probably clucked “Oh, you’re losing weight fast now with that low-carb fad diet, but just wait a few weeks and it’ll all come rushing back!” And when you go somewhere like the CDC’s weight loss page, they pat your head for “want[ing] to lose it very quickly” and reassure you that “people who lose weight gradually and steadily are more successful at keeping it off.” It’s become an article of faith that slow and steady weight loss wins the race. But is it actually true? I searched the literature for support of this widely-accepted weight loss truth. If folks like the Center for Disease Control were saying it, there had to be some evidence for it. Right? I came up empty. What little evidence I could find seemed to support the opposite contention: that rapid initial weight loss is associated with better long term weight maintenance than slower weight loss. Just look: A 2000 review concluded that “greater initial weight loss” improves long term weight loss maintenance, even when that weight is lost using ext Continue reading >>
Caveman Keto’s 7 Day Keto Meal Plan
Its simple, eat this; lose weight. I feel like I’ve finally amassed enough recipes to create several simple keto meal plans. AKA you print out a couple of recipes, hit the store, and you can know you’ll be doing keto right. If you’re not familiar with keto, its a low carb, high fat, medium protein diet designed to put your body into ketosis. Once in ketosis, your body burns fat instead of sugar and you’ll see accelerated weight loss as a result. The ideal ratio of fat to protein to carbs is 65% / 30% / 5% and you also want to keep your maximum net carbs at less than 20g a day. Net carbs = carbs – fiber. I tried to balance this keto meal plan for the proper ratio so you don’t really have to worry too much to start. For more detailed information visit the keto ebooks section of the site. If you’re just starting keto, check out Caveman Keto’s Kitchen for useful kitchen gadgets. This is the first of what I hope to be several different guides. Generally, I am assuming you are cooking for two people. If not, either eat the same food longer or half the portions. I’m going to post the nutrition facts but I strongly believe that you should configure MFP (My Fitness Pal) yourself and track on your account as well. For the purpose of this keto meal plan, you will be making food for Monday morning through Sunday night. This should provide a full, 7 day comprehensive meal plan for you to follow. On Sunday you will make breakfast and lunch for the 5 day work week as well as the first dinner. Then mid week you will make a second dinner. The weekend is more of a free for all with less set parameters. This is the time to experiment and try new things. I am going under the assumption that you have more time to cook and prepare on the weekend and also that you might have Continue reading >>
Top 15 Reasons You Are Not Losing Weight On A Low-carb Diet
Weight loss isn’t a linear process. If you weigh yourself every day, then there will be days where the scale goes down, other days where it goes up. It doesn’t mean that the diet isn’t working, as long as the general trend is going downwards. Many people lose a lot of weight in the first week of low-carbing, but it is mostly water weight. Weight loss will slow down significantly after that initial phase. Of course, losing weight is not the same as losing fat. It is possible, especially if you’re new to weight lifting, that you are gaining muscle at the same time that you’re losing fat. To make sure that you’re losing, use something other than just the scale (which is a big, fat liar). Use a measuring tape to measure your waist circumference and have your body fat percentage measured every month or so. Also, take pictures. Take note of how your clothes fit. If you’re looking thinner and your clothes are looser, then you ARE losing fat no matter what the scale says. Bottom Line: Weight loss isn’t linear and there’s a lot more to weight than just body fat. Be patient and use other ways of measuring than just the scale. Some people are more carb sensitive than others. If you’re eating low-carb and your weight starts to plateau, then you may want to cut back on carbs even further. In that case, go under 50 grams of carbs per day. When you go under 50 grams per day then you’re going to have to eliminate most fruits from your diet, although you can have berries in small amounts. If that doesn’t work either, going under 20 grams temporarily can work… eating just protein, healthy fats and leafy green vegetables. To make sure that you’re really eating low-carb, create a free account on Fitday and log your food intake for a while. Bottom Line: If you ar Continue reading >>
Weight Loss: Woman Shed More Than Six Stone By Following This Diet Plan
Sharing her before and after pictures to Reddit, user ‘identikitten’ revealed she lost 85lbs in a year and a half, and was finally able to fit into a size XS dress. And the woman, who is 25, followed a simple diet plan to help her get to the weight she is happy with. Writing on Reddit, she said: “I lost the weight by doing CICO! I started at eating ~1700 calories a day, and now I'm eating 1300-1400 a day, depending on how active I've been. “I started going to the gym after losing the first 50lbs, which was about a year ago. I lift weights 3x a week and I run on the elliptical for 45 minutes 3x a week!” There was a specific calories in, calories out programme Identikitten followed to slim down, called “1200 is plenty”. This is another Reddit thread of people showing the meals they eat to ensure they stick to 1200 calories a day - a normal amount for a sedentary, short woman. Discussing her diet plan and use of the Reddit thread, she said: “Yeah ‘1200isplenty’ has been sooo helpful for me”. Initially, Identikitten consumed 1700 calories, and revealed how she slowly reduced her intake to ensure she continued to lose weight and avoided plateau. Incredible celebrity weight loss transformations Wed, June 28, 2017 Incredible celebrity weight loss transformations. She said: “A few months, every time I lost 10lbs, I recalculated my TDEE (total daily energy expenditure). “If you feel hungry all the time at 1200, it may be too low for you. 1200 calories per day is usually only meant for petite sedentary women.” Explaining why she lost the weight over 18 months, Identikitten said she “made sure to go slowly so I'd be left with minimal loose skin”. Describing her loose skin, she said: “ A little bit in my thighs, some on my stomach, and a little bit Continue reading >>
What Is An Egg Fast?
Ever since I had to take steroids this past Spring for my allergies, my system has completely rebelled. My hormones are out of whack, and my body has become completely resistant to losing weight. No matter how strict I am with keto – even counting calories and cutting out dairy, alcohol, etc. I have not been able to drop pounds. Even worse, every time I go off plan for the weekend or some event, additional stubborn pounds creep on. I know that a lot of you are struggling with this same problem, so I thought I’d do some research on ways to break through a weight loss plateau. One tried and true method to bust a plateau and get your weight loss going again is a fat fast. 3 days, 1200 calories per day – almost all fat. Most people just eat an entire block of cream cheese per day, a few ounces at a time. Ew. So much NO. Maybe someday I’ll try it for experiment’s sake, but for now it’s just not for me. Recently I started hearing about the Egg Fast and was intrigued. I’m planning to try it and track my results. I thought you guys might be interested in trying it too, so I’m posting some basics about it here for those of you who have never heard of it. What is an egg fast? It’s a (short term) diet that consists of primarily eggs, cheese, and butter. For each egg you eat, you should eat a corresponding Tbsp of pure fat in the form of butter, olive oil, or coconut oil. You can also eat a corresponding Tbsp of full fat cheese per egg. Doing this will result in an extremely low carb, high fat, moderate protein intake that will kickstart your body into fat burning mode. In my research on the egg fast diet I couldn’t find any scientific reasons as to why it works, but there are a lot of anecdotal cases of people who have had success with it. One of the most popul Continue reading >>
The Biggest Loser Diet – Explained!
This week results of a study were posted showing that contestants from “The Biggest Loser” from several years ago had mostly regained all their lost weight. From the conclusions offered in the findings it would seem there is no way to lose weight. The subjects metabolisms slowed down so much that it was nearly impossible for them to maintain their weight loss. Doctor Jason Fung does an excellent job of distilling what’s really going on here. I suggest you head over and read his article. I’ll wait. This is what is sometimes termed ‘starvation mode’. This is what people imagine happens as their body starts to shut down in order to conserve energy. Basal metabolism (Calories Out) falls and you feel like crap. As you eat less, your body burns less calories, so that eventually weight loss plateaus. Then you feel like crap, so decide to eat a bit more (your hunger hormones are also rising like a spire), but not as much as you used to. But, your ‘Calories Out’ is so low that you get weight regain. Sound familiar? Happens to every dieter out there. What’s unfair, is that their friends and family silently blame the victim of having ‘fallen off the wagon’, or not having enough will power. Actually, the dietary advice – Eat Less, Move More is guaranteed to fail. So don’t blame the victim when they actually do fail. You did read the article right? If you didn’t the TL;DR is: Caloric Reduction as Primary strategy puts you into starvation mode (lower metabolism). The key to losing weight in the long term is maintaining basal metabolism, or keeping ‘Calories Out’ high. Failure rate of Eat Less, Move More is proven to be 99% or so. This remains the diet advice favored by most physicians and dieticians. Actual starvation (fasting or bariatric surgery) doe Continue reading >>
How To Calculate Macros For Keto (plus, A Keto Macro Calculator)
So you’re interested in Keto? Often, there is so much confusion surrounding Macros and how to calculate Keto Macros. Today, I’m going to answer all your Keto Macro questions, including the one I get more frequently: “How many calories should I eat on Keto?” A Ketogenic Diet, also know as the Keto Diet, is a very high fat, very low carb, moderate protein diet that is very popular because it can cause you to lose body fat very fast, and study after study after study has linked Keto with benefits against cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, and more. Eating Ketogenically involves cutting carbohydrate intake from 200-300g daily down to 20-50g daily and replacing those missing carbs with fat. Reducing carbohydrates this drastically puts your body in a state of Ketosis. Ketosis is a metabolic state in which you body uses fat for fuel, rather than carbohydrates. When you eat normally, when you consume more carbohydrates than you body needs to run for the next 24 hours or so, you body turns those excess carbs into fat and stores them as (unwanted) body fat. But if you cut the carbs in your diet drastically, your body enters Ketosis and starts burning that stored fat for fuel, resulting in better health and body composition for you. Read Keto 101 for the lowdown on the Ketogenic Diet. If you’re learning about the Keto Diet, you may be reading about all these people tracking their “macros’ and wondered what that was all about. Many veteran Keto dieters will throw around the phrase “if it fits your macros” to try and help beginners, completely skipping over what, exactly, macros are. It can be completely overwhelming when you’re trying to get started. What the heck are macros even? Why are they important? What is the simplest way to calculate macros for k Continue reading >>
The Ketogains Guide To Alcohol
The Ketogains Guide To Alcohol: What to drink; When to drink, How to drink, And how it affects ketosis. You can drink alcohol in moderation on a Ketogenic Diet as long as you don't have a medical condition that would prohibit you from doing so. Alcoholic drinks DO have calories, and they come from alcohol (at 7 kcals per gram) and from carbs (at 4 kcals per gram). Your body does not have the ability to store the calories from alcohol itself, but it will store the energy from the food ingested along with it. Your body WILL metabolize alcohol before any other source of energy. So while you are metabolizing calories from alcohol, you are NOT metabolizing those from fat. To stay on track with your dietary goals, find out the caloric content of your drink, divide it by 9, then deduct this from your allowed fat grams of the day. Anecdotally, ketosis may lower your alcohol tolerance (1) so you could get drunk faster, there are some theories about the whys (2) but nothing conclusive. Alcohol also dehydrates you, so drink a glass of water along with each alcoholic beverage you consume. Not all alcohol is the same: alcohol is the product of sugar fermented by yeast. Depending on the type of sugar used, you get different kinds of alcoholic beverages with different alcohol and carb content. Straight Liquors are basically zero carb, so mix any of them with water, club soda, or diet sodas to keep them carb free. Pro-Tip: if you use Tonic, make sure it is a sugar free version so it does not contain sugar and carbs! Other liquors such as Amaretto, Jägermeister, Grand Marnier, Curacao, Sweet Vermouth, Limoncello, etc. (basically anything with a hint of sweet) usually contain sugars, so you better avoid them entirely. Although wine is made from grapes and logic dictates it should be hig Continue reading >>
Why Do Stalls Happen Part 2: Introduction: Plateaus Defined, And The Truth About Ketosis
What you are about to read is my quest for understanding of why stalls happen. While most of this topic will be referring to the Atkins Diet. that I have been on, it is still relevant to anybody on any diet. When I first started Atkins, I was quite successful, I lost 70 lbs the first 8 months on the plan, but then the weight loss stalled for the next 8 months. During this time I didn’t lose any weight, and would go up and down the same 5 lbs. This became very frustrating, and I was on the verge of quitting. However, I was lucky, I had the Atkins forum members, my support system, who refused to let me quit. In addition, Colette Heimowitz, Atkins nutritionist, helped save me from myself. She helped me come up with a plan, tweak my program, and explained to me about stalls, plateaus, and set points. With her guidance, I was soon losing again, but I wasn’t satisfied with knowing how to make changes, I wanted to know why stalls happen. Thus, the journey began. I spent several weeks pouring through books, and countless web pages on this subject; the problem was I could never find a definitive answer in one place. Therefore, I had to piece the puzzle together, and as I did, I gained a clearer understanding about why the body eventually refuses to let the weight go, and how to get things moving again. This puzzle is by no means complete; there are numerous medical reasons for a weight loss stall that I won’t be going into. Instead, I will be focusing on how set points affect us mentally and physically. In addition, I’ll be talking about the importance of knowing your Basal Metabolic Rate, (BMR), and the role these numbers play in helping reach your goals. Also, I’ll be talking a lot about starvation mode on the body, and why eating less is not always the right solutio Continue reading >>
Is There A Dark Side Of Ketosis?
I can’t remember what appetizer she pointed to, but the woman sitting to the left of me said this so casually, and several folks at the table knew exactly what she meant, confirming what I’d long suspected: Ketogenic diets have officially gone mainstream – or recognizable at a party mainstream at least – in 2017. Let’s back up and demystify ketosis, which simply means you’re utilizing ketone bodies – more commonly called ketones – rather than glucose as your body’s primary fuel. Just like your car uses gasoline, your body needs fuel. That usually means glucose. But let’s say you’re on a very-low carbohydrate, higher-fat diet. Your body doesn’t get a lot of glucose, which primarily comes from carbohydrate and to a lesser degree protein. That means your liver’s backup glucose (glycogen) also becomes in short supply. Unlike your car, your body doesn’t just shut down. Thankfully, you have an alternative fuel source called ketones. Ketones are organic compounds your liver always makes. You’re cranking out ketones right now as you read this. During starvation or (more likely) when you restrict carbohydrate and increase fat intake, your body uses ketones as its primary fuel. In other words, when your body doesn’t receive or can’t make enough glucose, it shifts to this alternative fuel. Almost every organ can utilize ketones except for your red blood cells (which don’t have ketone-metabolizing mitochondria) and liver. Your liver, in fact, does the heavy lifting. This hardworking organ metabolizes fat into three ketone bodies: acetoacetate (ACA), beta-hydroxybutyrate (BHB), and acetone.(1) BHB is the first substrate that kicks ketosis into action. Among its benefits, BHB reduces chronic inflammation and restores healthy inflammation levels. In Continue reading >>
Keto Diet Weight Loss Plateau: What To Consider And How To Break It
When someone first begins a ketogenic diet, there’s often a dramatic drop in weight. This is mostly water loss as the body lets go of the fluid it’s held onto from all those carbs. But after that, weight loss is likely to happen more slowly as you start losing actual fat. However, what do you do if the weight loss isn’t happening as fast as you’d like — or not at all? A keto diet weight loss plateau can be frustrating, but it’s no reason to get discouraged or give up. In fact, there are some quick ways to troubleshoot a plateau and get yourself losing again in no time. But first, a note on weight loss plateauing: Keto Weight Loss Progress: Patience is a Virtue As we noted above, the initial weight loss on a keto diet is often quick, so it can feel discouraging if the weight doesn’t continue to come off that quickly. But, this is where patience is important. Too much weight loss at once is not healthy. General recommendations are for 1-2 pounds a week, so you might be losing gradually, but you’re still losing. And this can, in fact, be easier on your body. Even not losing anything for a week can be okay. Patience is a virtue in most situations, and this one is no exception. However, if it’s been several weeks and the scale still isn’t budging, read on for some reasons that might be getting in the way of weight loss. Tracking for Weight Loss on Keto The ketogenic diet is all about tracking. Here are some of the main areas you’ll want to look at when it comes to weight loss on keto: Eating Too Many Carbs A general rule of thumb is to start keto at 30 grams of carbs per day and adjust from there. It might be that you simply need to decrease your daily carbs limit. If you feel you’ve already done this but it’s not working, make sure you’re avoidin Continue reading >>
My Transformation: How I Lost 66 Pounds And Gained A 6 Pack In 8 Months.
On June 2016, I was 23 years old, 5' 9" and weighed 95kg. I knew I'd let go of myself. I was a year and a half out of college, and I had no idea how to adult. Putting my professional life first was the only way I knew how to function, but when the fixed duration problem sets of college times became an infinite stream of work, I kept pushing myself further and further. The longer I worked, the more I needed to relax in my downtime. As someone who's always found comfort in friends and food, it was no surprise that it had come to a point where midnight department store runs to pick up chocolates and junk food had become a daily fixture. As the weeks ticked on, so did the pounds. When the snow started melting, the thick peacoats of a New York City winter couldn't disguise my ignorance any more. I had to do something about it. In the next 8 months, I lost 30kg (66lbs) and became the fittest I've ever been. I measured in at 8% body fat and had a 6 pack for the first time in my life. Using data and YouTube videos to guide me, I changed the way I ate and started training while trying to balance a fair share of fun and a full-time job. Originally posted on Reddit's /r/progresspics where it received over 360 upvotes. All body fat measurements are taken on a bioelectrical impedance scale and are likely inaccurate. Left: In my final form. Picture credit: Richard Storm. Right: At maintenance calories for about a month. A newly acquired Adonis belt. All body fat measurements are taken on a bioelectrical impedance scale and are likely inaccurate. Transformation In the beginning, my goal was to religiously do a 12 week training program. I had a fixed end date in mind, and I'd hit the gym and eat correctly until that date. By the time I'd reached that date, I began enjoying the change, 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 >>
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 >>
4 Techniques To Bust Through Your Weight Loss Plateau
When it comes to losing weight and improving body composition, there is always one certainty: the plateau. Moreover, plateaus are easily the number one reason many people abandon their weight loss attempts and never actually achieve the body they want. Typically, weight loss at the beginning of a diet starts quickly but then the diet takes a turn for the worse once weight loss slows or even stops, leaving you confused and frustrated. Despite this unfortunate truth, a plateau is simply the body’s adaptation to reduced calorie intake. This is a survival mechanism that just doesn’t care about your desire to rid your body of that last bit of cellulite. All jokes aside, plateaus happen and you must arm yourself with different techniques to overcome them, if you ever hope to actually reach your goals. In this article, I’ll touch on some of my favorite tips to help you bust through a plateau and continue achieving your dream physique. Begin Keeping A Food Journal In terms of weight loss, managing to create a negative energy balance by reducing calorie intake is imperative. However, if you aren’t tracking calories, it can often be difficult to know if you’re actually reducing calories sufficiently and by how much. Unfortunately, one of the biggest issues people have with traditional, “clean eating” is that initial calorie reductions are either virtually non-existent or far too drastic. In the latter condition, many people restrict far too many calories right from the start. Then, once they plateau, further weight loss becomes very difficult since there are less total calories they can reduce from. By keeping a food journal or even using a food-tracking app, you can begin to understand just how many calories you are consuming and how that relates to your body weigh Continue reading >>
