Last updated on April 14th, 2017
Yesterday I consumed 2,086 calories, with 69% coming from fat. I had 58 grams of carbs, including 20 grams of fiber, and 113 grams of protein. Overnight and this morning, I went 12 hours without eating.
Still, I didn’t expect much weight loss, maybe a tenth of a pound. Or I’d at least hold even.
Instead, I gained two-tenths of a pound. My weight this morning was 218.2, up from an even 218.
Admittedly I didn’t do much of anything you could call work or exercise yesterday. But a man of my size and age burns around 2,400 calories a day just staying alive. I know weight gain or loss isn’t a simple matter of calories in/ calories out, but even armed with such knowledge, gaining is discouraging.
Discouraging for a couple of seconds, anyway.
As I suggested in my last post, I think I’m eating too many carbs. Even deducting the fiber, I ate 38 grams of carbs yesterday. I also fell short of the fat percentage I was shooting for.
Further evidence of the “too many carbs” theory comes from my Ketonix Breath Ketone Analyzer. This morning, before breakfast, I blew a high of only 59, down from a 63 the previous morning. A higher reading would indicate a higher level of ketosis, so the trend is in the wrong direction.
OK, I may be on another plateau, albeit at a slightly lower level. I’m not sticking around for two months as I did on the previous plateau.
Today, I am eating very high fat, and very low carb.
Eighty-five percent of my calories today have come from fat. The rest are about evenly divided between carbs and protein. It’s not a way I could eat forever, or even more than a few days. This is about busting the stall.
We’ll see what the scale has to say tomorrow. That will be my official last weigh-in for my “Bust the Stall” week.
Either way, I will keep on eating LCHF.
Know what’s worked for me? Carb-loading (i.e., a carb ‘re-feed’). I know this may seem illogical, but I’ve found that the way to break plateau’s is to pick an evening and feel free to eat a high number of carbs (at least 200g). Then go back to LCHF.
Give it a try. For the following 2 days you’ll feel bloated, then you will quickly go back to your prior weight, and then trend down from there. It’s illogical and is counter-intuitive but it’s worked for me. I’ve been following a primarily LCHF diet for about 5 years now and am at my goal weight. I exercise very rigorously though, so that is also a reason that may contribute to this for me – contrary to some of the ‘experts’ who insist you can get peak athletic performance on LCHF, I have found it simply does not work for me. I have to eat some carbs in order to do highly glycolytic-reducing exercises like weight training and squash. YMMV.
My wife is currently trying a “carb-cycling” approach that is similar to the carb-loading you describe. I do think there is something to be said for keeping your body guessing. Once it adjusts to a diet, the body is good at hanging onto its energy reserves — that is, fat!