Although you may have heard success stories about keto, you may still be frustrated if you are not losing weight. After losing a few pounds initially, your weight loss has stalled. Many people mistakenly believe that being on the keto diet will automatically lead to weight loss. But here are the reasons why you're not losing weight on the keto diet.
Your keto diet isn't providing the results you want despite your best efforts. How about those fat-burning and brain-boosting effects? Don't give up on keto if you're gaining weight. I hope you understand that health is not a race, it is a journey, and you are not losing any ground. There is no linear way to lose weight on a Keto diet. Here are a few things you should know if you've suffered from a keto crash.
If you don't know what steps to take to enter ketosis, the ketogenic diet can be hard to master. Induction and maintenance of ketosis can be difficult. Is it possible to lose weight consistently while following a keto diet?
These are 10 reasons why your keto diet may not be working.
1. Your Body Is Not In Ketosis
The ketogenic diet utilizes body fat as fuel instead of glucose since it contains so few carbohydrates. Ketosis is the metabolic state achieved by eating a diet low in carbohydrates.
When you're first starting out, however, it can be difficult to achieve ketosis.
For ketosis to occur, you must keep an eye on your macronutrient intake, such as how many carbs, proteins, and fats you consume every day. You can actually kick yourself out of ketosis if you eat too much protein or carbohydrates, negating all the health benefits of keto.
In general, 75% fat, 20% protein, and 5% carbs make up a ketogenic macronutrient breakdown.
How to Tell If You’re In Ketosis
You get energy from ketones produced by your liver when you're in ketosis. You can measure ketones in your bloodstream to determine if you are in ketosis. Ketones can be tested in several ways:
Test Your Urine
They're cheap and easy to use urine strips. Nevertheless, the results are often inaccurate.
Ketone concentration in urine is indicated by changing colors on a urine strip. In spite of being the most affordable testing method, it may not always provide the most accurate results.
A urine test only measures the ketones your body didn't use for energy. If you are fat-adapted, you may not experience any ketones at all in your urine once you are in ketosis.
Breath Meters
Measures the amount of acetone in the breath using acetone breath meters. Ketone molecules can be divided into three types: acetones, benzoates, and pyridines. You'll get into ketosis faster if you have more. In addition to being a little more accurate than urine testing, breath testing is also less expensive.
Blood Meters
You can test your level of ketosis accurately using blood meters. Take a blood sample and measure the ketones in your body. Unfortunately, one of the downsides of these meters is the fact that they are quite expensive.
Since nothing can dilute the results, you see the exact level of blood ketones in millimoles per liter, which is considered the most accurate way to test ketone levels.
Even without testing, you can still confirm you're in ketosis by looking at these signs:
- Breath that smells metallic or fruity, called “keto breath”
- Increased energy and focus
- Reduced hunger and sugar cravings
- Maintaining a healthy weight
- Keto flu symptoms such as muscle cramps and cravings (these are temporary!)
How to Boost Your Body Into Ketosis
MCT oils are an essential component of any ketogenic diet toolkit. You can enter ketosis faster due to the fast conversion of glucose to ketones. C8 MCT is four times more effective at producing ketones than plain coconut oil.
MCT oil is especially helpful as you transition to ketosis because it burns fat and boosts energy and brainpower.
2. You are eating way too much food
Keto dieters need to limit their calorie consumption if they want to maintain a healthy weight.
Factors such as your diet, physical activity, and even your hormones influence how your body processes and stores fat. From the type of food you eat to your stress and activity levels, there are a variety of factors to consider. You might be eating more than your body can burn if you're in ketosis but not losing weight.
Proteins and carbohydrates are more calorie-dense than fat. Those who consistently consume more calories than their bodies require can find it difficult to maintain their maintenance calories or even eat at a deficit. In order to get used to keto, it's a good idea to log what you eat. This will allow you to eat more instinctively once you've adapted.
Although the keto diet allows you to eat meat, cheese, and butter, it does not mean that you should eat as much as you want.
A calorie deficit still leads to weight loss (1,200 to 1500 calories is the ideal calorie deficit), so you can reduce carbs to under 50 grams and boost fat. When it comes to losing weight, you should also watch your calorie intake.
3. You are not eating a sufficient amount of food
In most cases, this is not the case if you struggle with losing weight on the ketogenic diet. However, having too few calories can interfere with your weight loss just as much as eating too many calories.
In the case of excessive calorie restriction, your body thinks it's starving. Diets that are extremely low in calories aren't effective. Having inadequate energy levels or excessive exercise may cause your metabolism to slow down when you don't eat enough.
Your fat stores must still be able to cover a calorie deficit you create. You will then start using lean mass for energy, instead.
The body protects its organs and normal functions when there is a large deficit in energy.
High-quality, proportionate food is key to maintaining a healthy weight. Calories matter more for their quality than their quantity. High fats, moderate proteins, and low carbs are what you want. Don't just eat bacon and butter.
The best way to lose a pound per week with a food calculator is to follow a recommended calorie range. Your macro goals can be met with grass-fed butter, organic eggs, and MCT oil.
4. Your protein intake is too high
Again, keto macros come into play. Glucose, a carb, is a sugar that is converted to glucose when we digest protein. (Glucose is a carb, a sugar.) This prevents our bodies from entering ketosis.
Remember, the keto diet is primarily about eating healthy fats (avocados, olive oil, nuts), rather than seeing it as a means of consuming endless amounts of bacon and steak. Reduce your protein intake and eat healthy fats at every meal.
High protein content in Keto makes it look like an Atkins diet. Approximately 20% of protein is required by the keto diet.
By gluconeogenesis, your body converts too much protein into sugar (carbs! ), you can actually kick yourself out of ketosis. Glucose takes the place of fat as fuel.
Eat a moderate amount of complete proteins if you want to lose weight while following a keto diet. Complete proteins include a significant amount of each of the nine essential amino acids. All three sources of complete protein are meat, fish, and eggs.
You don't have to be concerned about your protein intake. You're likely getting enough amino acids if you consume a variety of protein-rich foods. Incomplete protein has many additional benefits, including providing vitamins and minerals to the body and strengthening the skin, bones, and joints.
5. You’re Eating More Carbs Than You Realize
If you don't track your carbs, you can go overboard with veggies, dairy, nuts, and nut butter.
Nuts and dairy should be consumed with caution on low-carb diets. Keto beginners make the mistake of eating too much dairy and nuts when they're hungry, but this can increase your carbohydrate intake and calorie count without them realizing it.
A number of other cruciferous vegetables may contain hidden carbs as well, including cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussel sprouts, fennel, and turnips. As fruit contains so much sugar, you want to limit how much you consume.
Check out the keto diet calculator to discover what you should be eating.
A note about sugar alcohols
Don't forget to pay attention to sugar alcohols like sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol, and isomalt. The carbs in sugar alcohols are uniquely altered through chemical processing, but they are still derived from plant products (fruits and berries).
Because sugar alcohols are labeled as “sugar-free” or “no added sugar” food, people often overeat them due to their low-calorie content. As a result, blood glucose levels can still spike due to their carbohydrate content. It remains your responsibility to take them into account when planning your diet.
Consider using erythritol or stevia, which are not likely to spike your blood sugar or insulin levels
6. You have a hidden food allergy or intolerance
Can't get keto to work? It is possible that you may be allergic to one or more foods. Around 15 million Americans are believed to suffer from food allergies. Milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, soy, fish, crustacean shellfish, and peanut butter are some of the most commonly reported allergies.
Despite the seriousness of food allergies, food intolerances are also something to be taken seriously, and they could be why you're not losing weight on the keto diet. You may see a difference in weight if you have intolerances to certain foods that lead to gut imbalances and inflammation. Your body is trying to tell you something if you are bloated or foggy after eating dairy or gluten.
If you have any questions about whether you are allergic or intolerant to specific foods, talk to your doctor or dietitian. Depending on how your blood test results are, your healthcare provider can determine what steps to take, such as an elimination diet, in which all suspect foods are removed and then slowly reintroduced.
7. You're consuming too much fat
When people begin a keto diet, they tend to think they can eat as much fat as they want. You can eat avocados and bacon drizzled with olive oil, but it's not a high-fat diet plan.
You may not lose weight if you consume too much fat in your diet. Here's how it works: almost 3,500 calories are stored in one pound of body fat. Consequently, it would take a week to lose one pound of weight if you cut 500 calories a day.
Excessive fat consumption can be dangerous, and it could be one reason why you're not losing weight on the keto diet.
It's critical that you keep track of the grams of fat that you're eating and remain mindful of your fat intake since fats contain more calories than carbohydrates or proteins.
8. You’re Not Being Consistent
Keeping the keto diet for a few days and then quitting for a few days isn't going to work just to be honest.
The reason is that your body might be entering and leaving ketosis, so you never see longer-term results. You may struggle with keto but ease into the diet a little. When you start slowly (progressively cutting your carbs until you get to that 20-50 grams range) it will be easier to stick to the diet.
9. You’re Not Sleeping Enough
Sleeping insufficiently can stall or prevent weight loss, an often-overlooked factor.
When you do not get enough sleep, you are more likely to have metabolic issues. Your organ's timing (the internal body clock) is extremely specialized, and disrupting it can negatively affect your health. A good night's sleep is necessary for fat loss.
In addition to hormones, sleep also regulates hunger hormones. Sleep regulates two hormones, ghrelin (the hunger hormone) and leptin (the fullness hormone).
Ghrelin levels increase when you are sleep-deprived, while leptin levels fall.
10. You Have Leptin Resistance
Essentially, leptin helps your body decide when to stop eating by telling your brain when it is full, so your brain can stop eating when you're full. The fat cells in your body produce leptin. This organ is primarily responsible for how your body burns calories and how much fat you carry.
Having a high level of leptin in your body but not being able to process the messages sent by it results in leptin resistance. Leptin resistance is caused by:
- Sleeping patterns that are inconsistent
- Diets that are high in processed foods
- Eating too much
- Feeling stressed
Leptin does not accumulate in obese individuals because they don't receive the signals it sends to their brains. Brains are resistant to satiety signals, causing snacking and overeating habits that result in weight gain.
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Why aren't you losing weight when you're on keto? What's the root cause?
You should remember that everyone's body is different, and each variable will affect it in a different way.
It will take some trial and error to figure out which foods and habits work best for you. Make a note of anything you might have missed in the list above.
