in today's video we are going to be talking about what can cause a weight loss plateau
when you're on a keto diet the keto diet can be extremely effective for sustainable weight loss
but sometimes our progress slows down or comes to a halt entirely now of course
weight loss is never going to be linear weight loss is almost always fastest at the beginning
and slows down as you get closer and closer to your goal weight but there are some things
you might be doing that could be causing a plateau and that's what we're gonna get into
today so in today's video i'm going to give you four common causes of weight loss plateaus on keto
hey guys welcome back to my channel if you're new here my name is kait i'm a health coach and i post
videos on a high fat nutrient-dense way of eating if you like this video please give it a thumbs up
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to start your free trial today as i mentioned at the start of this video the keto diet is extremely
effective for weight loss this is because when you are limiting carbohydrates in your diet
as you are with the keto diet your body turns to burning fat for energy instead so this means it
is pulling most of the energy it needs from your fat stores and you end up losing weight but some
people who start the keto diet do not see weight loss right away and other people might be getting
good results the start but then they see their progress slow down or come to a halt altogether
so what gives well there are four reasons that i commonly see that can cause a plateau so let's get
into those now number one hidden carbs this reason is most common in those who are first starting the
keto diet because they haven't fully wrapped their head around what limiting carbs means and i will
admit there is definitely a learning curve when you first start keta the standard american diet
that most of us eat is based around foods that are very high in carbohydrates bread pasta cereal etc
so figuring out and understanding what foods you can eat that are low in carbohydrates
can be challenging but i promise you once you get over this initial hurdle it gets a lot easier
so if you're just starting out don't get discouraged i have another video that i
uploaded a couple of weeks ago on how to eat a low carb diet and how to keep your carbs low without
having to track anything so if you are feeling a little bit overwhelmed and don't really know
what you should eat i recommend you go and watch that video i will link it above and then come back
and finish this video afterwards but even if you think that you have a good handle on what's keto
and what's not food companies are getting very clever with their marketing and with their
ingredients and that might be what's throwing you off for example the ingredient maltitol
is used as a sweetener in a lot of products that are labeled low carb and while maltitol
is technically a sugar alcohol which means it gets subtracted from the net carbs on nutrition labels
it actually shouldn't be subtracted and this is because it causes blood sugar to spike almost as
much as table sugar and thus kicking you out of ketosis and potentially hindering your progress
now the easiest way to avoid the issue of hitting carbs is to stick to eating mainly whole foods
and avoiding processed ones as much as you can the more ingredients on a list
the greater the chance that there are going to be questionable ingredients in there but
if you do want to include some processed food i always recommend tracking total carbs and not
net carbs and sticking to under 50 grams of total carbs in a day number two too much exercise
the next thing you might be doing that could be causing your weight loss plateau is exercising
too much or doing the wrong type of exercise when it comes to weight loss most of the battle comes
down to what we are eating exercise on its own is not an effective strategy for weight loss
and this is for a couple reasons number one is that it makes you hungrier think about it if you
are exercising and focusing on burning the maximum amount of calories of course you're going to
be hungrier afterwards and throughout the day as compared to if you were sedentary during that time
the second reason is that when you increase your exercise energy expenditure there is a point where
you get diminishing returns when you reach this point your body decreases the amount of energy you
burn during the rest of the day when you are at rest so you're basically cancelling out the extra
calories you are burning now i'm not saying that we shouldn't exercise exercise is very important
for our health especially as we age but it is not an effective strategy for weight loss and your
goal with exercise should not be to burn maximum calories instead focus on building strength doing
resistance training either with weights or just with body weight and doing low intensity cardio
such as walking can be beneficial as well number three undiagnosed insulin resistance now if you
are not new to my channel you will know that i have a whole bunch of videos on insulin resistance
but if you are new or maybe you haven't seen these videos insulin resistance can be a big cause of a
weight loss plateau on keto insulin resistance is when the cells in our body stop responding
to insulin correctly and insulin is the hormone that transports excess sugar from our bloodstream
to our cells to use as energy so when you are insulin resistant your body is not managing blood
sugar effectively and this can lead to difficulty losing weight now low carb diets such as keto are
definitely beneficial at improving our insulin sensitivity and reducing insulin resistance
however combining these diets with intermittent fasting can be even more powerful and intermittent
fasting is when you don't eat for periods of time every day the time period you don't eat
can range anywhere from 12 hours to 20 hours generally usually with my clients i find
that a 16 to 18 hour fasting window is the sweet spot so this means that if you eat your last meal
in the day at 6 pm you do not eat again until 10 a.m to 12 p.m the next day during this time it is
best to consume only zero calorie drinks such as water coffee tea and electrolytes and yes
the time you spend asleep does count towards your fasting window when you are in a fasted state your
insulin levels in your body will be low and this will build up your sensitivity to insulin again
now before i get into the final reason that you might be experiencing a plateau
on the keto diet i'm going to take a quick moment to tell you about today's sponsor
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thank you again to squarespace for sponsoring this video number four poor sleep quality and the final
reason you might be experiencing a plateau on the keto diet is that you are not getting good
quality sleep even just one night of poor sleep can mess with our hormones that impact weight loss
insulin which we spoke about earlier increases and we can become temporarily insulin resistant
of course if we are already insulin resistant the problem is only exacerbated the problem here is
that when insulin is high in the body we store more fat because if insulin is high our bodies
assume that we have high levels of sugar in our blood which we can use for energy and if that is
the case of course our body wants to use this energy before it taps into our stored body fat
but if we are insulin resistant our cells are not accepting the blood glucose correctly so you can
see the problem here but beyond insulin a poor night sleep also messes with our hunger hormones
ghrelin the hormone responsible for stimulating appetite goes up and lectin the hormone
responsible for signaling satiety goes down and both of these mean you end up feeling hungrier
than usual and i definitely notice this when i sleep poorly my stomach is like a bottomless pit
prioritizing your sleep could be the missing link if you have hit a weight loss plateau on keita
and those are the four most common reasons that i see people hitting a weight loss plateau on keto
so to recap number one is hidden carbs number two is too much exercise number three is undiagnosed
insulin resistance and number four is poor sleep quality let me know in the comment section down
below if you think any of these reasons could be causing your weight loss plateau on keto
or if you have hit a plateau in the past and were able to break through let me know what you did if
you liked this video please remember to like it comment and subscribe all of these actions show
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about building a website make sure to check out squarespace and i will put the link with the promo
code in the description box down below if you did like this video you might also like that video on
how to eat a low carb diet without tracking that i mentioned earlier i will link it here if you want
to catch up on my most recent upload you can find it here and if you want to check out my keto diet
and carnivore diet coaching programs you can find them here thanks guys i'll see you next time bye