Advice on fat loss ?

[Natasia77]

Hey everyone,

I’ve read a bit of the information and resources listed on the site and think that you all may have some good advice to share for my particular situation. So many people here seem to have made huge changes to their body and to their lifestyle and I’m hoping to learn from your experiences and ask for some insight on the program ive started

I’m female, 24 years of age, about 5’7.5’’ and currently weigh 206lb; I think that my body fat percent is roughly 33%. My current goals include losing fat and gaining strength/muscle. I’d like to see my weight hit 165lb.

On march 31 I started a keto diet (at 221lb) and used myfitnesspal to guestimate my caloric needs and to track food. MFP had my caloric needs set at 1200cal/day. After two weeks (apr. 14th) I was at 209lb. The third week I had my period, sry for tmi, and also decided to up my caloric intake to 1400 because of lacking energy. At the end of week three I was at (apr. 21st) 207lb, which seemed reasonable enough. Week four I added weight lifting, (to build strength and also because the thought of loose skin terrifies me) I started following the program outlined in the new rules of lifting for women. I used to lift weights in high school, and actually held some of the female weight records, so I was comfortable starting lifting and enjoy it very much. At the end of week four (apr 28th) I was at 209lb.

Writing all of that out seems pretty good, and ill sound quite silly saying this, but ive been weighing myself nearly every morning and have seen my weight go down to 205 (very exciting) on the 24th, and then back up. I’ve generated a fair amount of unnecessary stress weighing myself daily, but watching the weight drop off the first couple weeks was such a motivator for me. I did take measurements of my body parts on the third week, and have since not seen any change in those numbers. Weeks 3-present my weight has fluctuated from 206-209 and that's been frustrating. I’m going to try and weigh myself weekly only as to quit stressing about it.

I doubt I gained fat since Im eating at a deficit. I’m curious if some of the retention is fluid in my muscles after lifting?? I have gained more strength in just a few weeks than I’d initially anticipated (feels good). My main questions are about my caloric intake, am I eating enough/too much? I feel pretty darn good at ~1400 on non lifting days, and ~1600 on lifting days. I used a calculator on reddit/r/keto at some point and the numbers it gave were nearly identical to the ones I just mentioned. Other questions I have are about when I should see the scale going in the downward direction again? Im trying to be patient, but I also want a better understanding of what happening. It seems very unlikely that I gained 1-2lb muscle in such a short time, but is it reasonable that my body’s holding onto water/fluid since the 21st that im being held in the 206-209 range? I’m leaning towards adding 15-30 min cardio after lifting for good measure and whatnot, though ive read that its not necessary.

I used the calculator in the sticky to estimate my caloric needs to find that my BMR=1725. Determining my activity multiplier is more challenging; I’m lifting 3 days a week but do a fair amount of walking around during the day since I’m a college student and walk everywhere on campus. Using 1.3 as the multiplier yields 2240. A 20% deficit brings the number to 1791.

As far as my diet is concerned, I started out using a ratio of 65/30/3, fats/protein/carbs, when I started keto with my boyfriend. Looking over the past weeks of food tracking on mfp it looks like I eat 15-20g carbs maximum per day and nearly all of those are veggies. I’ve been keeping my protein intake at 100-120g, except on the days where I lift and have a protein shake after that adds 20g more. My fats are ranging from 100-136g. I take a womens multi vitamin, calcium/magnesium supplement, fish oils, and a fiber supplement daily, as well as drink a minimum of 100 oz water per day, though getting in a 4th liter is challenging

Any insight, encouragement, or advice is appreciated thanks in advance

[Kevin71]

If you're worried about energy while on your period, you may need more iron. Granted, this is coming from a background in Anatomy and Physiology and not a background of being a female so I may be off.

As far as weight fluctuation.. Yes, weekly at the most frequent because otherwise you will go crazy.

Your caloric total sounds fine... But are you weighing out all of your foods? Just how accurate are you measuring everything? This could make a big difference. Also, you may want to read up on or ask the female forum about water retention and such during different periods of the menstrual cycle. Could be related. Also if constipation is an issue due to keto then that would explain the weight fluctuations as well.

[Natasia77]

Thanks, Kevin! You brought up some important points.
I upped calories unrelated to my period, I'd noticed that since starting the keto and eating 1200 that I was low on energy. I gave it a couple weeks thinking my body may just need to adjust, it was merely a coincidence that I had my period that same week.

As far as how I'm portioning out foods, I'm using a food scale and portioning things out that way. As a science major, I'm generally a little OCD w that kind of thing so to speak. Haha. Lastly, I'm not constipated, the added fiber supp on the keto diet has kept me in good shape as far as that's concerned.

Thanks for the input! Ill pop in the womens forum and see if they've any extra advice to add

[Phomaniac]

Coming from a hypocrite: don't weigh yourself every day. I weigh myself every day and I fluctuate between 174 - 180 lbs in the morning. You can attribute that to a lot of different things. I notice that I weigh a lot less if I've played ball hockey the night before (a lot of sweat involved). If I don't play hockey the night before, didn't have a good bowel movement the previous day (sorry if TMI) then I'd weigh more. I can handle the swings that my scale delivers, so I continue weighing myself every morning. Most people can't handle the swings though.

As far as some reasons why you might be gaining weight (if you are showing weight gain after 2-3 weeks): Could be that your maintenance calories has gone down slightly since you last calculated. If you are gaining a pound or two a week, you might need to up your exercise and lower your calories again to re-adjust to 1. your calorie level lowering and 2. your body being more efficient at exercise.

I'm not an expert though.

[BoringWesley]

Everyone always says, but no one ever listens.... Don't weigh yourself everyday.

Yes it's true, seeing that scale go down is an amazing feeling, the problem is it won't go down much daily, and sometimes it will go up which makes us think its our diet and make radical changes.

I weigh myself every Sunday morning and can say that because I'm consistent with my diet it usually does go down, but I usually know this already since my clothes will feel looser before then.

The key to weightloss is the same key to being a success at work and/or school...being consistent on following the well made plan you put together.

Anyway that's what worked for me, I'm 10 months in and almost 80 pounds down.

[MrM27]

Congratulations on the weight loss so far.

My first question is why did you choose keto? Is there any specific, like medical reason? Just curious.

Weighing yourself everyday. Many people do this, including myself but my official weigh in is every 2 weeks. I don't make any adjustments is Monday I weight 155 and Tuesday I weight 156, I just like seeing the numbers but it is a real mind fk so don't do that if you don't have the ability to just brush off whatever you see on the scale.

Great job at getting away from eating at 1200 calories per day. There really is no need for that and you personally can get much more than that in a lose weight successfully. 1400 is much better than 1200 and the 1700 calorie number is even better. Feeling weak could have most likely been related to that 1200 number. Have you thought about moving away from keto? You are compensating from low carbs by having to increase other macros and your fat intake seems a little high. You could also very easily try and hit that 130-140g protein daily intake daily, that would be about 1g/lbm. You may find as a lot of other people have found out that going caloric deficit with macro targeting towards .4-.5g of fat/bw and protein at 1g/lbm while filling the rest with carbs or a little more protein/fat will teach you how to eat a more balanced intake/diet leading to keeping the weight off. To answer your question are you eating to much, I'd say no you're not. When you and your bf go out to eat how do you track that? Do you have "cheat" days? Or days that you don't bother tracking?

You can mix in cardio for cardiovascular purposes if you feel like but it's not "needed" for weight loss.

[Natasia77]

Thanks for the replies!

Really we started keto because one if his buddies made great progress losin weight on it and he wanted to expedite his weightloss. Right now he's just ketoing and doing cardio 2x per week.

I joined him on keto cause I do nearly all the cooking at home an also need to lose weight and it seemed like a reasonable plan.

For the time being, is like to stay on keto, I'm not going to stay on it forever though.

We don't have cheat days or cheat meals or cheat whatevers.

I may try lowering my fats, they were usually right around 100; but there were some high days that I didn't want to exclude from the overall range when I'd initially posted. I'm trying to give another week at 1400 cal and chart any progress before making changes. At that point I'm not sure i I'm to increase or decrease the calories since I understand the logic either way.

Although my weight hasn't fluctuated I did measure my body and have about an inch and three quarter loss so far, so that's exciting. I wish I measured where I was on day one, lol oh well.