Week One Report
I ended the first week of my Keto Diet Reboot down three pounds. On Monday, September 25, I weighed in at 227.5 pounds. On Sunday, October 1, I weighed 224.6 pounds. So, to be precise, I lost 2.9 pounds.
But hold on — Monday morning to Sunday morning isn’t quite a week. It’s 144 hours. There are 168 hours in a week. One more full day.
The weigh-in that counts, then, is this morning’s, not Sunday’s. How much did I weigh this morning (Monday, October 2)?
I weighed 225.4 pounds.
Yup, I gained back almost a pound in the final 24 hours of the first week.
Officially, I lost 2.1 pounds for the complete first week of my Keto Diet Reboot. I went up and down during the week, for no obvious reason. Yes, my dietary intake fluctuated some, but not in a way that screamed, “You’ll pay for that!”
Consider my carbs minus fiber consumption statistics for the week:
My target for net carbs was 25 grams or fewer per day. For the week, my range of daily net carbs was 15 to 30 grams, with a standard deviation of five grams. Both my daily average and median for net carb intake were under my target of 25 grams.
It could be that the small deviations in my daily carb intake are enough to account for the small ups and downs in my weight loss. The question is, what is a reasonable rate of weight loss on a low carb, high fat diet?
As I’ve said before, this is not my first LCHF rodeo. Back in 2011, when I first began eating low carb, I lost at least 20 pounds in two months. I wasn’t keeping detailed weight or intake records in those two months. In the first month for which I kept such records (May – June 2011) I lost another nine pounds. Figuring an average of 4.3 weeks in a month, my weekly weight loss rate for those first three months of LCHF eating was 2.33 pounds (30 lbs./ 12.9 weeks).
Which is not much better than my weight loss rate this past week. And back in 2011, I was going from a very high carb diet (that is, the typical American diet) to a very low carb diet. I probably cut my average daily carb intake by at least 90%. You’d expect that sort of drastic dietary change to produce results of some kind, and it did.
This time, I’m going from a low carb diet to a very low carb diet. I doubt that I’ve cut my average daily carb intake by more than 40%. The big change is that I’m keeping track, and trying to be more consistent. And, yes, more ketogenic. So, the change may be significant, but it’s not as drastic as in early 2011.
As for calorie intake, I averaged 1,826 per day. Eating LCHF, I could easily drop my daily calories from that level without discomfort. However, my past experience is that such calorie restriction doesn’t help, and may hurt. I can lose weight on 1,800 to 2,000 calories a day. I’ve done it. (I may reduce daily calories via intermittent fasting, but I’ll wait a couple weeks for that.)
The standard view seems to be that averaging a weekly one or two pound weight loss over the long haul is reasonable. Of course, you might lose three pounds one week, and nothing the next.
If I keep losing 2.1 pounds a week, I’ll be fine. That would be nine pounds for a full month of 4.3 weeks. It would be 27 pounds lost by Christmas.
Somehow, I don’t think my weight loss will be that simple and straight forward. But I’ve been through the ups and downs before.
hmm so that’s the normal rate is beyond that not healthy?
https://buffedd.com
Well, my typical rate of loss, over a period of a few months or more, has been around 1-2 pounds a week. I’ve had weeks in which I lost more or less than that, but it averaged out to 1-2 pounds a week in the long run. But that’s me. I’m not an authority on anybody else!