Robert,

You still haven't said, but I'm guessing (since you are trying to stay in ketosis) that you are trying to follow the Atkins program.

You may want to revisit the book, since your diet is not what is contemplated during induction. You'll find that fat is not a fearsome thing and that carrots are not on the list of acceptable vegetables for induction.

It is extremely unusual to loose one's state of ketosis from raw low glycemic (carrots are not low glycemic) vegetables. Especially when one is on an exercise regimen such as you describe, it's hard to imaging a couple of veggies putting you out of ketosis for 2 days.

In any event, depending on your frame, you are close to or at a normal body weight already. The closer one is to a normal body weight, the slower the loss.

Do check out the book and try to do induction by the book, including raw and cooked veggies. You may find that you have more success that way.

Give it a try and let us know what happens.

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Yes, Maggie, it's Atkins. The thing that I don't understand is that my ketosis level has been moderate to heavy every day since it first kicked in, with the exception of the 4 days that happened following 2 attempts to increase my vegetables. Though I suppose the carrots could've caused that.

I guess what I don't understand is that it was my understanding that ketones register the presence of byproducts in the blood from fat burning. If the body is producing ketones, then how is it possible that I'm not losing fat. I bought a second set of strips in case the first ones were faulty, but the results are identical. Is there some other way I could be getting a false reading?

Thanks,

-Robert

Robert, I doubt you're getting any sort of false reading, but the depth of your ketosis depends and many more factors than simply how much fat you're burning. In short, darker isn't necessarily better. In fact, even a trace showing on your ketostix is sufficient to demonstrate ketosis.

Running your menu, size and activity level, it appears that you're not eating enough, causing a kind of "starvation mode" where your body's metabolism to makes every effort to conserve energy. Further, as pointed out above a high protein, practically no fat diet, such as what you are currently doing, is very stressful to various organ systems over time.

I've gotta say that everything you've said gives me the impression that you are taking the Atkins Nutritional Approach and revising it into a crash diet, eating in a way that is not recommended and is not sustainable over a lifetime, when the whole point of the ANA is to re-shape one's eating habits in a healthy way that will, over time, normalize weight and maintain it indefinitely.

You might want to consider re-joining the Atkins program, in mid-stream, as it was designed to be followed - as an evolving and ongoing life-style. Expand your menu and begin to enjoy the wide variety of foods - protein, fat and abundant low carb vegetables along with nuts and low glycemic fruits - that make it a way of living. Do that for several months and re-evaluate.

Of course, the choice is yours, and I wish you the best regardless of your decisions.

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Robert - Here's a quote from Jonny Bowden's book Living the Low Carb Life.

start quote:
Why don't my test strips show a positive reading?

There are a number of reasons you may not get a positive reading, and you probably don't need to be too concerned about it. There are three ketone bodies - beta-hydroxybutyric acid, acetoacetic acid, and acetone- and the strips detect only the latter two, which are less than one-fifth of the total ketones produced. Beta-hydroxybutyric acid goes completely undetected. So it's entirely possible that you might not test positive on the ketone strips, yet if you performed a more sophisticated urinalysis, you'd find plenty of ketones floating around! end quote:

High dietary fat intake can cause your ketostix to show positive even if you aren't burning baody fat.

Salt intake can also cause a seeming stall in weight loss. A single dill pickle can cause a pound of water retention. Watch for things like ham and other cured meats.

Have you used a food tracker program like www.fitday.com ?
That is a very valuable tool for analyzing why weight loss has stalled.
Like MAggie indicates too few calories can be as bad as too many.

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Robert:

Ketosis is the not the goal of lowcarbing. Health is.

Your diet, as described, is not healthy in the long term. You need to add vegetables immediately for fiber and other important nutrients - as well as for variety. Then add selected low-glycemic load fruit and some whole grains later on.

I suggest you pick a non-ketogenic lower carb plan, and follow that. Clearly, what you are doing is not producing the results you want. It's time to try something else, with the approval of your doctor, of course.

While the quick weight loss some people experience on Atkins is very exciting and makes people want it for themselves, it doesn't happen for everyone - every body is different!

I commend you for your consistent exercise. Have the patience to experiment with various carb, calorie and fat levels. You'll find what works for you!

Also, have you taken your measurments? You MIGHT be losing fat, but just don't show it on the scale. If you are weight training, you are most assuredly gaining weight from increased muscle mass. But muscles take up less space than fat. And since you are virtually so close to your goal weight, your loss will be slow. I agree with Maggie, you may not be eating enough of the right things in order for your body to not think it's starving. Adding the low glycemic veggies would help with that. The carrots should be eliminated, at least for now (especially if they are cooked), carrots are VERY high in natural sugars.

Also, are you eating any of the Atkins bars or other brands????? If you are, STOP them immediately. Some people's bodies react to the sugar alcohols in them as if they were REAL sugar.

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Hello Everyone!

Robert,

I certainly can relate to your dilemma and how discouraging "sticking to a diet" can be without reaping the benefit of the scale validating your efforts! I'm on day 29 of Atkins, and today - finally - I'm a grand total of 3 1/2 lbs down!!!! I went through Induction (14 days) plus another 9 days without any weight loss at all...how frustrating is that?!? I was just about to give up, but for the past week I've up-ed my intake of low carb veggies (cauliflower, lettuce, red peppers, cukes, etc.), and I've indulged in a slice of high fibre, low carb bread, sour cream and other good lc stuff. I also started to take CoQ10. I don't know which of these did the trick - but, at last, a little reward on the scale. I'm showing trace levels of ketones on my ketostix - the same a when I was depriving myself a lot more. So hopefully I'm starting a new losing trend here!

Barb - I'm off to Wal-Mart now to pick up those weights! I'll join you on the Couch Fauxtato Thread so I can commit to using them, in writing!

Best of luck Robert! And thanks to you all - these boards are the BEST...so encouraging. I've learned so much from you all!

Kat

GREAT Kat!!!!! See you there!!!!

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Small development:

A few days ago, I suddenly got enormous sugar cravings. Now, I've never had a sweet tooth. I like candy alright, but I never eat it.. it just doesn't occur to me. Anyway, I'm practically daydreaming of eating ice cream, candy, this sort of thing. I checked my ketone levels - they were moderate as usual, and my energy was stable. I just had these ridiculous cravings.

I had gotten a bunch of those little 1 inch mini candy bars to give out to kids for Halloween, so I decided to have one. I decided to listen to my body, and it's not like I'm losing weight anyway...

Well, it had no effect on my ketosis level, but the next day the cravings had stopped, and I was 1 pound lighter. That's the first pound in more than a month. So the next day, I had another mini candy bar, mid-day. Next day, another pound. Yesterday I had another mini, mid-day, another pound. Ketosis level is steady.

Now, the problem with anecdotal evidence is that it could be pure coincidence. But it's also true that we don't have as complete an understanding of human physiology as we like to pretend. Maybe there's a reason I had such huge cravings - my body might know something I don't - and they stopped with just the littlest bit of indulgence. It's a complete Atkins "no-no," but I can't argue with results.

If it IS purely coincidence, then what can I say? I get to lose weight AND have a candy bar every day. Who knew?

-Robert

Robert,

That's a weird one. Of course, there's not not too many calories, or sugar for that matter, in those teeny bars. Years ago, when my weight was normal, I was able to indulge in a glass of milk and about 5-6 cookies every night and still maintain my weight . . . and even lose. Of course, I was younger, more active and my metabolism wasn't screwed up.

Yes, that candy is a low-carb WOE no-no on a regular basis. Hey! I think we all might indulge a bit from time to time. And some people even say increasing carbs may even stop a stall. But, the way I see it, you have a decision to make. Go with your new "plan" or try to convert the sugar/carbs that are in that candy bar into LC foods and eat those instead of the candy on a regular basis.

It would seem, at first glance, that you are probably not eating enough to sustain your body, especially with all the exercise you do. Try going here: http://www.room42.com/nutrition/basal.shtml to check your basal calorie rate. This site lets you enter an activity level and will give you a range of calorie rates for gaining, sustaining and losing weight.

I would be interested in knowing how the above guidelines compare to your current level of eating.

Good luck!

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Alida
5'1" ~ 59 years old
Highest weight: 165
Atkins 7/10/2004
160/126/125
RE-DO, January 2008:
167/162/135

robert-actually, getting small losses when you start to eat the candy bars doesn't surprise me if your food intake and exercise level is consistent with what you posted eariler, since i believe the diet you described is too restrictive for your activity level and, in my opinion, likely to kick you into starvation mode.

personally, i'd rather see folks eat their carbs in the form of healthier food like vegetables whenever possible, as it's better for you and more maintainable over the long term. while i occassionally choose to eat off-plan foods myself, i don't operate under a misconception that sugar is the secret to weight loss.

while how you eat is undoubtedly a personal choice, i'd still encourage you to actually read the atkins book if you want to "follow atkins," since the food intake you mentioned isn't really consistent with the atkins plan. there are so many misconceptions about low carb in general and akins in particular that when i see a post like yours, it concerns me. some folks go for virutally no carbs, thinking if low carb is good, almost no carb is better. it's not. not eating enough is as just bad for your body as eating too much.

yes, you're posting losses now, but it really seems like the way you're going about it is giving you much too little payoff for the work involved. you could eat nothing but sugar and still "loose weight" if you didn't eat much of it. for me, being healthy is the brass ring, and eating a well-balanced diet with plenty of healty vegetables is the way to get there.

at least from what i've seen and personally experienced, you can have plenty of healthy food to eat, go without being hungry, and still loose weight. that, to me, is the golden promise of low carb. you don't have to starve or heroically exercise to be healthy. that's the allure.

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EatSmart Nutritional Scale Review

So true Dix, so true!!!!

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Robert, I completely agree with what Dix said about the candy bars. You ate them, and your body was like "finally, some calories...I'm not starving after all...I guess it's ok for me to let the weight go because I dont need it to survive." So, now that you know this, it isn't a license to eat more candy, but rather a signal to up your carbs in the form of healthy choices like veggies, nuts, etc. I think you could also use some fat, maybe in the form of cheese. What you describe sounds very low fat as well as low carb

The cool thing about the atkins program is that the science works so well, but you have to do it the way it is laid out. While reading your above post, i kept wondering "where's the low carb veggies?" Now that you know you were starving yourself and therefore keeping your body from dropping weight, it would be a perfect time to start doing Atkins.

Good luck and remember no matter what it will be slow because you dont have that much to lose.
Good luck!

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Renee
1/19/04
261/220/160
41 lbs off
60 lbs to goal



Race to 199 Challenge
Labor Day Challenge: Focusing on the Journey
Personal Goal: 199 by 12/31/05

The only thing that continues to bother me, and no one's addressed it yet, is how I could've been consistently registering such high levels of ketosis. If it is truly the measurement of fat-burning, and I wasn't losing weight, then what was causing the ketones to be produced?

-Robert

High dietary fat intake can cause your ketostix to show positive even if you aren't burning body fat. At least that's what i keep hearing.

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