Surviving A Weight Loss Plateau or Keto Stall
So I’m just going to be straight up honest as I write this blog post. I’ve lost 58-60 pounds doing Keto, but my scale has been stuck for the past month and a half. So I’m going to say out loud the dreaded “P” word — Plateau, PLATEAU!!! Ugh! Or maybe I should call it a STALL! Whatever you want to call all I know is that it’s very frustrating. So this post is about How to get un-stalled when you hit a weight loss plateau using Keto or a Low-Carb Diet.
What is a Weight Loss Plateau?
So a weight loss plateau is when you temporarily stop losing weight, I’m not talking about not losing weight for a week or two but being stuck for a month or more, some people when at a plateau actually gain weight, and that is frustrating to say the least. The Mayo Clinic describes a plateau as follows:
“Muscle helps keep the rate at which you burn calories (metabolism) up. So as you lost weight, your metabolism declines, causing you to burn fewer calories than you did at your heavier weight…When the calories you burn equal the calories you eat, you reach a plateau.”
So I’ve doing some research on this whole “plateau” or “stall” issue while doing keto and low carb and this is what I’ve learned from my research (I will include links and any helpful videos as I go).
Here are some things to consider when you hit a weight loss “stall” or “plateau”
Don’t Panic!
There is probably nothing wrong with you. Anyone who is trying to loss weight needs to remember something that my fiancé says all the time, “Weight loss is not a linear process!” This is so true, I still use the MyFitnessPal app to track my food intake, and if I look at my graphs of my weight loss, it has not been a straight line of losing 2 or 3 pounds a week. And that is absolutely “ok” and absolutely realistic. Remember you didn’t gain all the weight you are trying to loss overnight, it was a gradual process. So I’m not sure why when we decide to loss weight we have this totally unrealistic expectation that we will just automatically drop the weight off. We all read stories and post about people who drop a lot of weight fast, but I truly don’t believe that is what is normal for most people. So “Don’t Panic!” If your weight loss stalls. Also I would caution you to not get all crazy because your scale isn’t moving, the Keto diet works! You’ve already lost weight don’t get all stupid and do something like “quit!” Like the guys from the Two Keto Dudes podcast say “Keep Calm and Keto On!”
Have You Slowly Began to Let Higher Amounts of Carbs Creep Back Into Your Diet?
Most of us really don’t know the answer to this because we don’t consistently track our foods. Lately I’ve been guilty of this myself. At one point I had a streak on myfitnesspal of almost 500 days of logging (I feel off at 495 days). If you don’t track your foods I would encourage you to do so, it takes some work but tracking it also helps you understand areas of your nutrition that need twerking.
Have You Gotten A Bit Complacent With Your Keto or Low Carb Diet?
Ok, lets get real here, no more bullshit! I’ve lost 60 pounds doing keto, and I’m wearing size 38 or 40 pants, and it feels good. People who see me are always complimenting me and it feels good. I feel much better, I look better and I could easily just stay at this weight, but this is not were I want to be, weight wise or appearance wise, my goal has always been to lose 100 pounds. If I do some honest self evaluation, I’ve gotten a bit complacent. If this applies to you this is an easy fix in my opinion, it just means that you need to refocus. One strategy might be to go back to the very basics of Keto or Low-carb, cut off the sugar free treats for awhile, cut back on the nuts, really monitor your carb intake. You might also want to reevaluate your nutrition macros, if you’ve lost weight they may need to be adjusted (here’s a link to a good Keto MACRO calculator). Also If you exercised at one point and quit, start back up it’s that simple.
Has Your Sweet Tooth Kicked Back In (This Counts for Sugar Free Deserts Also)?
So this is something that I deal with all the time–a craving for sweets even while
I’m doing Keto. I figured out that there are sugar free desert I can buy or deserts I can make with artificial sweeteners. But there is some science and discussions that even artificial sweeteners still have an effect on your insulin levels, and if your super insulin resistant then this could be an issue for you. A few months back my fiancé and I tried to go one week without using any sweetners and it was actually difficult. I still struggle with wanting something sweet after I eat dinner, I heard somewhere that if this happening and your doing Keto that consuming more fat instead of something sweet will satisfy that craving. This is just something to think about if your stalled or at a plateau. Here’s a good article from the folks over at Ruled.me about artificial sweeteners. If you aren’t familiar with Ruled.me, I can swear by the information they provide on there site about how to do Keto. I’ve personally used the materials from the Keto Academy program and hands down it is some of the best and most comprehensive materials on how to do Keto on the web, it’s how I got started.
Here’s a great post from the folks over at the Keto Evangelist podcast and blog.
I also came across this great YouTube video from the good folks at the Diet Doctor.com. In closing the biggest take away from this article should be:
Don’t Quit!