Keto Plateau & Weight Loss Stall [E06]

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Keto Plateau & Weight Loss Stall Strategies [E06] was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the latest audio-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors. Sonix is the best way to convert your audio to text in 2019.

Welcome to the Ketogasm podcast. I'm your host, nutrition educator Tasha Metcalf. Here to help women like you take charge of your keto eating habits without the self sabotage each week, learn simple but effective tips that you can put into practice to transform your body, health and well-being. We're talking all things keto nutrition, habit change, mindset, self-care, and the behind the scenes of what this all looks like in real life. Let's dive in.

Welcome back to Easy keto with Tasha. I am Tasha, obviously, and today we're going to be talking about keto plateaus or why you're just not losing weight on keto. And I'm really excited for this episode because not only do I have a lot of resources on my website covering this topic already, but I had a listener write in to me specifically asking for help on this. And this is exactly why I started this podcast, because I want to help you guys. If there are people out there listening right now, I really do want to hear from you. I want your feedback. I want your questions. And I want you to help me shape this podcast to make it the most valuable resource for you that it can be. I have a lot of topics and ideas that I personally want to cover, but I would much rather talk about what you want to hear and what would be helpful to you. So I'm super stoked to answer this question. She wrote in, "Tasha, I totally love these podcasts. I've been eating low carb since January 14th, 2019. I've lost 65 pounds and love this way of eating. I appreciate the time you spend putting it all together, but I am currently at a standstill. The weight is not budging. Any suggestions?".

I do have some suggestions for you. First of all, thank you for writing in. I'm happy to hear that you're enjoying the podcast. That makes me feel really awesome. It feels good and reassuring knowing that I'm not just sitting in a room talking to a microphone all by myself. There's actually people on the other end listening. So thank you for the interaction. I love that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Very exciting.

And secondly, congratulations on your sixty five pound weight loss. That's seriously amazing! And I really, truly hope that you give yourself major props and celebrate what you've already accomplished so far.

I know it can be really frustrating to see the scale move quickly and then completely come to a crawl. But that tends to be the name of the game when it comes to weight loss. It starts off really quickly and then it tapers off a little more slowly as you keep going, as you get closer and closer to your goal weight. Your weight loss is going to slow down dramatically and sixty five pounds is nothing to scoff at. So without knowing more details, I have a few ideas about what might be going on.

And before we really dive into the plateau details where you have actually had a keto plateau and nothing seems to be working. The very first thing that I think we need to cover is realistic expectations. Because without knowing more details and background information, I can only imagine what's happening. And a lot of people expect that keto is a magic bullet and that if they're in ketosis, then all of their fat is going to magically disappear.

But that's not really how this whole thing works. OK. While keto may make dieting a little bit easier by suppressing your appetite. Or maybe it's sustainable because you enjoy the food--which it sounds like you do--it isn't inherently faster, quicker, or better than other forms of calorie restriction for strictly weight-loss purposes. OK. Keto works for weight loss because you're eating less, right. Now it sounds like keto has been a dietary pattern that you enjoy and you've been able to stick with it for an extended period of time. And that's what really counts! That's the most important thing with any way of eating when it comes to long term results. So before you give up and go searching for the next best thing or a shiny new diet, let's consider what you've already accomplished and what you've already proved works for you. OK.

I calculated the time elapsed from the date that you started and the date that you sent me that e-mail. It was 10 months and 6 days and you'd lost 65 pounds. OK, sixty five pounds! In weeks, that works out to be 44 weeks and 2 days. OK, so let's divide 65 pounds by 44 weeks. And that's 1.47 pounds per week. That's about one and a half pounds per week since you've started. OK.

That's awesome. I know it's not the linear line dropping down to your goal weight that you want to see. It probably didn't happen that way, it probably came in big spurts and whooshes. But on average, one and a half pounds per week is exactly that kind of ideal, healthy, sustainable weight loss that everyone advocates for. OK. One to two pounds per week is healthy and sustainable. So just based off of the math alone, you're doing things right. OK. So give yourself a pat on the back and take a deep breath and relax. You're doing things right. OK. You're doing things the way everyone says you should be doing it.

I know it can be really frustrating when the scale is not moving fast enough or quick enough, or you've set a goal and it's not really falling into place. Right, like you're not hitting your targets that you set for yourself. But you can't expect weight loss to stay the same rate or even be consistent for a few different reasons. OK. Your body composition is changing, your energy expenditure changes, and your hormones are all changing.

So before you think, "My weight loss has completely stalled out." "I'm not losing weight on keto.""I've hit a major keto plateau!" or worse, if you're thinking, "Keto doesn't work anymore!" Ask yourself how long has your weight actually been "stalled"?

How long has it been since your weight has actually shifted? Because if it's just been a few days or a few weeks even, then you aren't really stuck. You just need to give it time and probably adjust your expectations.

For a realistic view of body weight expectations based on your body weight activity levels and calorie intake, the body weight planner tool that's on the National Institute of Health web site... it's really, really cool. It's awesome and it's perfect for a visual reference. It gives you data points to work with. And honestly, it gives you a more true to life simulation of what you can actually expect for weight loss. So if there's anyone out there listening that's doing keto for weight loss purposes, I highly recommend you go check out this calculator because it can help you course-correct if you're really frustrated with the rate of your weight loss. And it can help you see that you can't really make weight loss go any faster without doing really dramatic, unsustainable, unhealthy things. If you're considering fasting for extended periods of time, slashing calories really low, or doing endless hours of exercise, al la The Biggest Loser, don't. Don't do that because you're not going to be able to make those sustainable changes and you're not going to be able to continue to do that for a long time. And you're going to set yourself up for failure, basically. So anyways, you're going to see if you go check that calculator out. You really can't do a whole lot more than you're already doing if you're already eating at a moderate calorie deficit, doing, you know, realistic, sustainable exercise. So you'll get a better idea of how much weight you can lose in a given timeframe if you go check out the body weight planner. And I'm gonna put a link to the calculator in the show notes so you can test the planner out yourself and get a better idea of what's really going on in a given timeframe.

But if you've been at a standstill for months and you're doing everything right and you're like, what's going on? There are a few things that you may want to consider. And this is when a real plateau might be starting to bubble up. OK, it's just something that happens with everybody. And realistically, you need to take a step back and give yourself like an honest assessment of what your new body is like and what your current diet looks like. OK.

The most common reason for a weight loss plateau on keto or any other diet is that your current food intake is at maintenance level. OK. If you have been dieting for any extended period of time and you've lost weight, what used to be a calorie deficit for you and drove a weight loss for you is no longer a calorie deficit. Because your body is smaller and it's not burning as much energy as it once was when you were heavier. OK.

Another way of thinking about this is that your metabolism slows down as you lose weight. OK. So as your weight drops, your metabolism becomes a little slower, your metabolic rate drops. Now, this isn't to say that dieting is destroying your metabolism, but the smaller you are, the less energy your body expends. OK. And the only way to really overcome this with your diet is by adjusting your food intake.

Now, I'm not suggesting that you dramatically drop your calorie intake, but if you've been eyeballing ingredients or serving sizes, this is where a lot of extra calories can creep into your diet. OK. Recalibrating with measuring tools like volumetric measurements like cups or measuring spoons, digital kitchen skills, are awesome because people really, really suck at estimating food intake. We're terrible at it. We're like, "that looks like a cup." It's two cups, right? "That looks like a teaspoon." It's four tablespoons. We're terrible at it. And especially on keto when we have a lot of high fat ingredients in our diet. Maybe we're eating a lot of coconut oil or butter or--maybe you like heavy cream in your coffee and you're just kind of like dumping it in there. That's a lot of extra calories that add up very, very quickly. Hundreds of extra calories. OK. And I'm not saying go on a low fat diet. But I'm saying that maybe you should start measuring your food intake and keeping track of it. OK.

One thing that was really eye-opening for me when I first started trying to eat healthy was keeping a food journal because I thought that I was eating really, really healthy. And I thought that I was not eating a lot at all. I was like, "I hardly eat anything!" But I started keeping a food journal and I was shocked. I was shocked to see how much food I was actually eating and drinking. And this is before keto. This is a long time ago when I was trying to figure it all out, OK? I was amazed at my perception of my diet versus what was actually recorded on paper. OK. So if you've been doing keto for a while and you're like, "oh, I'm eating low carb, I got this. I can throw ingredients together. I have my meals on lock." Maybe that level of confidence and comfort, you're not really honestly tracking your intake. OK. And I'm not suggesting that that's the case, but it's usually what's going on with most people when they're like, "I am not cheating on my diet. I'm eating only keto stuff." They're not really sure what their macros look like. They're not really sure of the actual quantity they're eating. So combining mindful measurements and actually tracking your food intake can be really, really effective. Whether that's a tracking app like cronometer or my fitness pal, whether you're measuring with a scale or cups, it doesn't really matter as long as you're much more mindful of how much you're actually eating. That can be a big, huge step in correcting a plateau.

And if you have been tracking your macros and you have been eating everything to a T, you're like, "no, I I measure every gram, I log everything into cronometer. And I might I hit my macros every day."

Maybe you should recalculate your macros. OK. Because like I said, if your metabolic rate has declined based off of your weight loss, maybe your macros have changed. Maybe you're not eating at a calorie deficit and you need to recalculate your macros. Because your macros are just a reflection of your calorie intake. OK. So it's just divvying up your calories in a way that supports nutritional ketosis. Right. So your calories are already kind of figured out in there. And if you haven't been losing weight and you have been tracking every bite and logging everything, and you're totally mindful and aware of what you're putting in your mouth, maybe you have to adjust and recalibrate to a calorie deficit based on your current metabolic rate. Recalculating your macros like every month or every ten pounds or however you want to do it. Just periodically touching base and recalibrating to reflect where you're at can be really helpful in continuing to see the progress as you go. OK.

And if you have been doing keto without tracking macros, that's awesome. And a lot of people do that, and I personally don't love tracking either, so I totally get it! But if you don't know your macros and you haven't calculated them and you are just doing carb restriction to get into that ketosis level, taking the time to figure out about how much of everything, and what that looks like when you lay out your food, and map out your food for your new body can be really helpful.

When you're seeing progress based off of carb restriction alone, that can be really effective up to a certain point. But if you're continuing to eat above your body's needs, even if it's low carb, then you won't lose weight. OK, so figuring out how to eat at a calorie deficit, like an intentional calorie deficit vs. more of an intuitive way of eating, if that's what you've been doing, that may help for a little bit, you know. And it's not something that you have to do permanently, none of this is like forever. You have to figure out what is going to bring you to that next level if you want to continue to make progress, OK.

If your body is currently telling you to eat as much as you are eating and it's not it's not leading to weight loss, then you might have to intentionally cut back on your calories a little bit. And figuring out your macros will show you how to do that in a way that supports your body composition, weight loss, and nutritional ketosis.

Ok. I have a calculator on my website for females. It's only for females too. So if you're a guy listening. Don't use the calculator. on my website. There's lots of keto calculators out there, but this is specifically for the female body on Ketogasm dot com. If you'd go check out the macro calculator there, it will set you straight and you can adjust your calorie deficit and customize it in so many different ways. But that is a good step to help you fine tune your efforts.

Another thing that I feel is really important to consider. If you're trying to lose weight and you're making lots of effort to lose weight, then there's a really good chance that you've been incorporating some kind of physical activity into your routine. If you've been exercising while doing keto, especially if you're kind of like new to physical fitness, there's a really good chance that you've been building muscle while simultaneously losing body fat. Okay. And when this happens, when your lean body mass goes up and your body fat goes down, this can cancel each other out on the scale. Okay. So the scale is not the best measurement tool for your progress by any stretch of the imagination. Because increased lean body mass, in my opinion, is never, ever, ever a bad thing. Increased muscle increases your metabolism. So the more metabolically active tissue that you have, like your muscle, the higher your metabolic rate is.

OK, it's like the more muscle, the better. You're going to have an increased metabolism with more muscle mass and that's not going to be reflected on the scale. All right. So one way to measure this is by getting your body fat percentage measured. If you do a DEXA or a bod pod, any kind of scan that measures your body fat percentage and your lean muscle mass, you can get your overall body fat instead of your weight. And that's a lot better way to track your progress than just stepping on the scale and being frustrated that the numbers are not changing while your body is actually transforming and improving your body composition and your weight. They're kind of related, but your weight is just not a good not a good thing to focus on. OK. The other way to do this, if you don't want to invest in a DEXA scan or a bod pod thing, go with the cloth tape. OK. Just do the measurements around your body, you know, measure your waist circumference, different things like that. Because fat loss is going to be reflected in your measurements around your body as well in a way that wouldn't be reflected on the scale either. Because muscle is a lot denser than fat is, so pound for pound muscle takes up a lot less room. And you could be getting a lot smaller and shapelier than you were before and you could be the exact same weight.

So you could have lost sixty five pounds and completely transformed your body in the last couple of months, you stayed at the same weight, and your body fat percentage dropped, your muscle mass went up, and you just look like a total smokin' hot babe... and your scale is making you feel like you're not accomplishing anything. OK. So I hate scales. I really don't love them. I think that if you can, go invest in a body composition analysis and pay attention to those numbers versus stepping on a scale and letting that dictate your progress and how you feel. OK. Don't pay attention to the scale if you really want to transform your body.

Depending on what's going on in your world, there could be some other things happening. OK, so it's not just about your body composition. It's not just about how much you're eating. Sometimes hormones can affect your weight. Hormones may be the reason why your weight loss is stagnant. So if you have been doing everything I already mentioned, let's say you have been recalculating your macros every so often. Let's say every bite that you put in your mouth is measured meticulously and you're very, very aware of it. Let's say you've been measuring your body composition and you're not just relying on the number on the scale.

Maybe there's some underlying medical condition, or health issues, or some kind of hormonal thing going on that your health care practitioner can help you investigate. And that's beyond what I can offer you in like a 20 minute podcast, right? That's something that's going to require investigation into your medical history. I am not a doctor, I'm not here to do that for you. But I can suggest that is a possibility, and if it's something that you're concerned about, it's worth having somebody who's qualified look at that for you. OK. So I know a lot of women experience thyroid issues and they can't really be corrected with just their diet. Maybe you need some kind of medication. Your practitioner can help you figure that out.

Your cortisol levels are also something that could be at play here. OK, so when you're you're dieting for an extended period of time, you're eating at a calorie deficit or restricting carbs like you would be in keto. Your cortisol levels are usually elevated after a period of doing this. And it sounds like you've been at this for a while. So anybody who's been dieting for an extended period of time, their cortisol levels are usually elevated. All right. Now, if you add this elevated dieting-cortisol to potentially like high stress life events or any kind of stressful situations. I don't know what your personal life looks like. Or anything that's happening around this time of year might be stressing you or whatever, those elevated cortisol levels actually cause you to retain water. OK. And that's also not going to be reflected on the scale.

If your cortisol levels are high enough that it's causing water retention and promoting fat storage, then that is something that could be inhibiting your weight loss as well. Okay. And if it's water weight, then don't worry, it's just water weight. You know, that's not body fat necessarily. It's just your body holding on to extra water. But it can influence fat storage. It can mess with that. We have so many high stress situations going on in our lives, whether it's work or your relationships or your crazy commute back and forth to work. There's tons of different things. Maybe you're stressing about your diet and that's causing you to freak out and elevating your cortisol, right. Maybe your stressed that you're doing all of these things right and you're not losing weight like you expect. Right. There's a lot of things that can contribute to high stress and how you perceive the events in your life. Right. So I would suggest targeting those things that are stressing you out and trying to shift your perception. Right. Try to shift how you react to those things. Meditation, mindfulness, breathing exercises, tapping is really popular to reduce cortisol. There's a ton of different techniques and finding what works for you is going to be critical to reducing chronically elevated cortisol levels.

But just being aware that is a potential contributing factor to something that's affecting your weight loss--maybe that's reason enough to take a step back and find ways to engage in that de-stressing self-care kind of routine.

And last but certainly not least, is inflammation related to food intolerances, hyper sensitivities, allergies, you name it. There's inflammation that can be contributing to fluid retention and weight gain. All right. One thing people start to uncover as they improve their eating is how their body responds to certain foods. And there may be something in your diet that's contributing to inflammation. Of course, I don't want to assume this and you shouldn't either. That's why I left it for the final suggestion. OK. But if you take an honest assessment and everything else seems to be lined up, your hormones are totally balanced. Your eating is on point and your body composition is stagnant as well. Then you might want to consider looking at the foods that you're consuming and seeing if they are triggering inflammation in your body or not. Going on an elimination diet as a way to encourage weight loss is usually my last suggestion because I don't really love adding more restrictions to a diet. Right. But for some people it's absolutely critical and necessary because these foods aren't playing well with your body.

And if you're eating stuff that your body does not like and does not respond to well, then eliminating it sometimes is the only way to navigate that issue. OK. So it's worth investigating if you suspect that you might have a food sensitivity.

All right. I hope that helps provide some clarity and insight about what could be causing a keto plateau and what to actually do about it. Okay. I know it can be incredibly frustrating to feel like keto just isn't working anymore. And you might want to start trying some new strategies and give up completely. But I can assure you that this is really common on every possible diet, right? It's not exclusive to keto, and the best thing that you can do is get some perspective on what you've already accomplished, how this has worked for you in the past, and what you can do going forward to have realistic expectations. That's usually the best thing you can do in these situations. Be patient, stay the course and don't give up because look how far you've come already. You're amazing and you can totally do this. You've already proven to yourself that you got it down, you know you can do this. I know you can do this. And all you have to do now is just readjust your expectations and reactions to how this all plays out going forward.

Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of the Ketogasm podcast. You are awesome. I really hope the show has added value to your keto journey. Making big changes to your eating habits can be a little tricky, but if you're taking the time to listen and learn about keto, you're well on your way. You got this. Be sure to visit Ketogasm dot com for the show notes with full transcripts, references and resources to help you out, including a totally free course called Hello Keto. It's helped over seventy five thousand people start keto with confidence. I'll see you in the next episode. Bye!

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