Are you in ketosis but still not losing weight?
Watch this video to find out what is going on and what you can do about it.
Hey Carb Dodgers! My name is Dr Dan Maggs. I'm so glad you've landed on my channel.
I help people achieve sustainable weight loss through low carb real food diets.
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So you're on the keto diet and have
importantly managed to get into ketosis but you're still not losing weight.
Now, there could be a number of factors at play here.
So stay tuned to the end of this video and I'll make sure to take you through
all of the reasons why this might be.
Most commonly it's just a mind a bit of tweaking that is needed.
and I've helped loads of people get over this hurdle in their keto jig.
So, let's get started!
Firstly, I want to get one thing clear
everything from this point on assumes that you've confirmed with some sort of
testing that you're in ketosis and you're not just relying on symptoms, okay?
Now, I've got a whole playlist about the different ways to measure ketones so go
and check that out if you're not sure how to do this.
That playlist is linked at the top in the corner here.
Making sure you're in ketosis before we start
is important because if you're not in ketosis then what you actually need is
my free troubleshooting guide "Why Am I Not in Ketosis" which you can download
from my website and that is going to be linked along with all the resources that
I mentioned in this video down below in the description.
So we've established
that you're in ketosis before we can understand "what is really going on we
have to understand what does being in ketosis actually tell us?"
All it tells us is that we're burning fat as our primary source of fuel.
The problem is that it doesn't tell us "WHERE" that fat is coming from and it
could be from one of two places; our stored body fat or fat that we're consuming.
Dietary Fat
Well, it's true that fats are nothing to shy away from while
you're on the ketogenic diet. It's not just a free pass to consume as much fat
as you want and I want to take a second to dispel a really common keto myth and that is that..
"You can't get fat from eating fat."
and that's simply incorrect you can gain
weight from eating too much fat. There's a very efficient transport system that
takes dietary fat from your gut to your fat cells. It's not just about carbs and insulin.
Just Google chylomicrons if you want to learn more about that process
and this brings us to the most important reason why you can be in ketosis but not lose weight.
You're consuming too much fat.
Now one of the amazing things about
the ketogenic diet is that people tend to feel a lot less hungry on it and
therefore eat less naturally. Off the back of this many people slip very
easily into a pattern of intermittent fasting as well and that helps, but there
are certain fat sources that can sneak up on us in our daily consumption and
just tip us over the edge into over consuming fat and yes you'll technically
be in ketosis but you won't be losing weight.
So first don't go nuts.
Nuts are a prime example of a fatty food that very quickly makes our daily calorie intake
higher than our energy expenditure. Whilst many nuts are low in carbs they
are in fact very energy dense. Meaning they contain a lot of energy or calories.
Take this 100 grams of walnuts, it's probably just a little bit over a
handful and it only has seven grams of net carbs hydrates. So depending on what
else you're eating in the day it may well be low enough to keep you in
ketosis but it also contains about 700 calories and that's just in this small pot here.
Now, I don't know about you but I could easily get through these in a
day if I was snacking on them and if that was a bowl of peanuts that were
salted, yeah, very easily...
Cream is another really
common place I see people making a mistake and that's why they're both
added into food but very commonly in coffee. So if you're a cream in your
coffee kind of person and you're drinking several cups a day it can
easily add up to consuming quite a lot of fat over the course of the day.
Cheese is another one which can be really quite easy to overdo and your final loads of
keto recipes out there which rely very heavily on cheese. Cheese is also a
really easy thing to snack on and then we've got things like keto coffees or
bulletproof coffees or butter coffees and fat bombs and these are basically
just pure fat. Now they do have their place especially in the early stages of
getting used to burning fat as your primary source of energy but they can be
an easy way to over consume fat if you're not careful.
So if you're definitely in ketosis but aren't losing weight
I suggest cutting back or eliminating these things from your diet until you
start to get the needles moving on the scale again.
And finally, I just want you
to be wary of the amount of fat that you're adding to your food.
Butter, mayonnaise, olive oil other things like that and whilst I'm not saying you
shouldn't add these to your food at all it's just that some people go a bit far
with the adding butter to stuff thing. It tastes amazing but you can overdo it.
So if you're struggling to lose weight and you're not doing any of the stuff
that I talked about earlier just be sure to check on how much fat you're adding to your meals.
I just want to quickly mention snacking, I mentioned that some
of the foods like nuts and cheese are very easy foods to snack on
but you shouldn't really feel the need to eat between meals whilst on a
ketogenic diet, not if it's properly formulated anyway, if you feel the need
to snack between meals either; you've not eaten enough at your last meal in which
case make sure you've eaten enough to satisfy your hunger or you're simply
snacking out of habit rather than out of hunger which is something that I
commonly see, in which case try replacing that habit with something else. Why not
try having a glass of water instead.
Now, whilst we're on the topic of snacking,
do you find yourself needing to snack much when you're in ketosis if you do is it
out of habit or out of hunger let me know in the comments down below
just type HABIT or HUNGER.
Now let's dispel another keto diet myth and that is that...
"If some ketones are good then more ketones must be better"
and some keto professionals would argue that when it comes to weight loss
"The higher your level of ketones the faster you're going to be losing weight"
and that you should simply add more fat in order to achieve this.
Having a higher level of ketones
unfortunately again doesn't tell us if your body is burning fat from your body
fat, the stored fat or from the fat you're consuming through your diet.
It's possible that you've just got higher levels because you're burning more
dietary fat and so long as your readings on a blood ketone monitor are between
0.5 and about 3 you're in a reasonable level of ketosis and it's probably not
necessary for weight loss to increase your blood ketones anymore.
Just doesn't really make sense when you think about it.
For more on this check out my video on the ideal ketone levels for weight loss which again is
linked up here and down below in the description and I go into ketone levels
and a lot more detail in that video.
So, let's talk in practical terms,
"How do we find out if we're consuming too much fat"
Well option 1, keep a food diary.
It's enough for most people to simply keep a food diary for a few days.
This can either be in paper form or simply just take a photograph of everything you're
eating, include all drinks and snacks in there. This simple act of recording
things can bring awareness to those small additions that may just be
sneaking their way into your daily consumption and will promote a more
mindful approach to eating.
Option two is calorie counting.
I'm not a massive fan of calorie counting because calculating your energy expenditure is
generally pretty inaccurate unless you're in a lab and food labels aren't
much better either, but if all else has failed it occasionally can be useful to
help you know if you're way out on your calorie balance and to help you identify
problem areas within your diet and there are a number of apps and trackers
available I quite like using the MyFitnessPal app and website and also
watch type tracker to look at your energy expenditure over a day.
I just urge a bit of caution with the numbers because calorie counting can turn into a
major headache if relied on too heavily due to all the inaccuracies and trying
to keep track of all the numbers. It's also pretty time-consuming but let's
finish up this video by looking at some non diet related reasons why you might
not be losing weight.
Stress
Yes, stress could be stopping you from losing weight.
If you're someone who experiences daily stress in your work or personal
life this be seriously impacting on your ability to lose weight.
Now nature's develops stress as a survival tool putting our
bodies into a state of stress to essentially freeze the nutrients that we
Currently, have in our bodies in the event we won't be able to access food for a while.
As a survival mechanism stress is great.
But nature hasn't developed a less drastic way to cope with the type of
non-threatening life stresses that we experience in the modern world.
Now stress doesn't only impair us from losing weight it can also negatively
impact the way our body's used our nutrients.
Increasing daily movement has been proven time and time again
to be an effective stress reliever as exercise releases endorphins.
A feel-good hormone.
You may also wish to try something like yoga.
Yeah guys that means you too, which will not only be far more physically
challenging than you might expect, it can also be great for stress relief too.
And sleep nature wants us to sleep for about eight hours a night with
various sleep stages each just as important as the other and I think the
less than seven hours of sleep a night has been shown to cause some serious
health concerns and if you think you can function perfectly fine with six hours
or less of sleep then the reality is this may cause issues for you in the future.
Not only do we make bad food choices when we're sleep-deprived.
We also consume a lot more with an extra two to three hundred calories consumed
each day for people who sleep six hours or less.
Catching those Z's can help you
avoid weight gain and help you make better choices on what foods to consume.
So go on, get to bed.
Actually, hold on a second we're nearly done with this video.
Don't go anywhere.
Now I know some of you will be saying to
yourselves I'm already doing all of this stuff if you are and you're still
struggling to lose weight it might be time to go and see your doctor who may
wish to consider doing some blood tests in order to check whether you have a
medical problem that may be hindering your efforts to lose weight.
Hyperthyroidism or an underactive thyroid is one very common health issue
that may be impacting your ability to lose weight. It's a simple blood test to
look for abnormal hormone levels and it's pretty easy to treat too.
So that's it for today's video if you liked this video please let me know by liking it
below and sharing it with your friends and family.
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can do that by clicking about here and if you want to know which one of my
videos you should check out next well I've very helpfully left you a
suggestion over there I know nice see you next Tuesday