Oh, I know what you are saying, and it’s not the only metric. I track body fat. That hasn’t changed much at all. And the whole “don’t worry about the scale” further breaks down on the extreme sides. It’s a fine philosophy for someone looking to loose the last last 20, or even 40 lbs. Some with 120-140 to loose should see some progress.

But honestly I’m not stressing. It’ll come off, not worried about it.

Ive lost 54.
Another 20 to go and i'll be back to my weight when i was a strapping youngster.

On clean/healthy keto, and intermittent fasting since January.

I'm kinda to the point if I eat a lot of bread on an off meal, I get really sick.

I'm also noticing if I drink a beer or two, or have an off meal, I still show ketones. No biggie.

If I take a whole day off, I get kicked out pretty good. Have to start over and get the "flu" for a day or so when my glycogen depletes and I dump water.

I'm holding steady at about 65lbs lost. I'd like to drop another 15-20, but have been where I am for several months at this point. I've had to completely replace all my uniforms and vest, down from an XL shirt to a medium. 38"-40" waist pants to 32".

It's a comfortable and maintainable weight, with intermittent fasting and strict keto, and it's going to take a different physical routine (which at this point is damn near zero) to get any leaner.

Haven't quite found the motivation yet.

I'm 3lbs off from being half the man I was. 375 to 190 has been a trip.

quote:

Originally posted by smithnsig:
...

If I take a whole day off, I get kicked out pretty good. Have to start over and get the "flu" for a day or so when my glycogen depletes and I dump water.

That's interesting. I haven't experienced "carb flu" symptoms since the one and only time a couple years ago when I changed my diet. I can eat lots of carbs for days and not get the "flu" symptoms when I go back to low carb or fasting.

That said, depending on what and how much I'll pay for it digestively though...

Maybe it has something to do with exercise? I am running a gazillion miles these days so I deplete my glycogen pretty darn quick!

quote:

Originally posted by smithnsig:
If I take a whole day off, I get kicked out pretty good. Have to start over and get the "flu" for a day or so when my glycogen depletes and I dump water.

If I maintain a "decent" diet, and go easy on the highly-refined-carbs junk food and the alcohol, I'll start dumping water even with a single intermittent fast, sometimes.

So I suspect I'm on the bare edge of ketosis nearly full time, recently.

Now, what I mean by maintaining a "decent" diet is cutting out nearly all "unnecessary" carbs. E.g.: No sugary or salty (chips, etc.) snacks or drinks. No alcohol. Real food made with natural ingredients. Nothing between dinner and a breakfast bar the next morning save maybe a small handful of nuts during the evening--and often not even that.

I still do my one meal a day, it's permanent now, and simplifies life greatly. I'm still staying away from all the stuff I originally talked about.

I'm 220 now and have been losing slow and steady. I would expect to bottom out at 200, as there is a lot of me that's muscle. My son is learning to ride a bike, I expect to add that as some cardio.

Still hitting the heavy bag at least weekly.

I started 397 down to 262.

2 angioplasty (5 stints) set me back with any kind of exercise but I'm slowly working into physical activities.

I figure I'll slowly cruise down to 200-210. I wont change my eating habits, it has become second nature to me now so I figure I'll get there when I get there. But I don't think I'll want to go lower then 200. Eventually I'll have to eat more then I do now, but I'm in no rush.

I know I sound like a kook, just like anyone who has adopted a given technique, but yinz need to give one meal a day a try.

This "carb flu" business, I don't want that, I just eat what I want and controlling one meal a day is cake, even if it is cake.

I'll say this. Whatever nutrition plan, diet, or lifestyle you ascribe to, the problem is blood sugar spikes and valleys. The "crash" that a lot of people feel.

I always struggled with breakfast, I was that weird already. I believe I mentioned earlier in the thread the struggle to find a satiating lunch that didn't crater me in the afternoon.

I also have heard plenty of people tell me I'm damaging my body with one meal a day... My sample size is small but they are wrong.

It takes some weening or training, but I have to tell you that one meal a day, the advantage is no peaks and valleys in the energy. I work construction, so my activity fluctuates, but it's never casual.

Learn, experiment, do what is right for you.

Arc, forgive me as I imagine you’ve already answered this somewhere, but I don’t follow this thread that close.

What does your single meal look like? Do you do any snacking aside from it?

single meal a day aka omad (one meal a day), aka time-restricted eating (TRE). TRE is a way of life for me. keeps my insulin down. prevents build up of harmful visceral fat around my organs which are breeding grounds for uncontrolled growth (re: cancer). inches around your gut is one of the main symptoms of metabolic syndrome which leads to nothing good.

quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder76:
I know I sound like a kook, just like anyone who has adopted a given technique, but yinz need to give one meal a day a try.

That's not particularly unusual. There's even an acronym for it: OMAD. It's essentially a form of intermittent fasting (1).

OMAD would not work for me. My workouts are pretty intense (for a 68-year-old guy). I need the ready fuel. Just as I need the protein shake directly after, dinner that night, and my breakfast bar the next morning.

Intermittent fasting only works for me on days I'm not working out and that don't follow a workout day.

quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder76:
This "carb flu" business, I don't want that, ...

So-called "carb flu" only happens if you're carb addicted and suddenly cut down to a very minimal carb intake. I've never experienced it--even when I went on a heavily carb-restricted diet two years ago for a fat loss challenge. Got down to a daily average of under 50g/day. No problem. (Other than the effort of sticking with food to stay in that range.) But I'd been minding my carbs for years by that time.

(1) For those just joining us: Intermittent fasting, of which there are several variations, works by depriving the body of easy energy, thus forcing it to begin tap your fat reserves to get it (2).

(2) Burning fat produces water as a by-product. That's why people who go into ketosis from a non-ketosis state tend to dump a lot of water.

Back in January the wife and I decided to make a change. She read and read and studied different ways of eating. She ended up on the ketogenic way of eating. We both got the "keto flu" but we didn't quit as we had committed to at least 2 months.

We searched for online support and ended up on reddit. There's a lot of argument there and stating that something may not be "keto friendly" gets the response "if it fits your macros, it's keto". I take exception to that as weight loss isn't our only reason for making the change. It turned out to be a waste of effort to be a member there.

Sure, I was a fat hunk of garbage (I got up to 230 @ 6'2" by January 2019) but the other benefits are why I'm making this permanent. Not only have the migraines gone away, so has the arthritis in my feet and knees. Oh, breathing issues and heartburn while sleeping is also fixed.

Regardless of all that, I surpassed my original goal of 200 lbs and to fit into my 34" pants. Intermittent fasting helped my plateau to go from 200 to 195. I stuck there for a while and then added MCT oil to the mix. It seems that there is something to it. I got down to 186 lbs and 31" pants.

I've been hovering between 186 and 195 with 188 being usual. At 51 years old, I'm satisfied with that but I will continue with the keto and IF as the other benefits far outweigh the weight.

Being fat adapted has changed my attitude toward food. If I'm hungry I eat until I'm not and it takes a lot less now. It also lasts a lot longer. I'm probably going to move to one meal a day for many of the reasons arcwelder76 mentioned.

Being pain-free has changed my attitude toward grains and sugar. The "If It Fits You Macros" crowd is wrong (for me). The biggest issue with avoiding them is that they are in everything. There's sugar in chicken (Perdue brand doesn't list any on the package so we've been sticking with that). There's sugar in cured bacon. There's wheat in a lot of the low carb substitute prepared foods. There's dextrose and maltodextrin in everything (even the stevia and monkfruit sweeteners). We check everything now. It's worth it.

congratulations Mark123. It's known that the "keto flu" is due to electolyte imbalance. In that you will need to supplement salt (up to 5gms per day) in addition to additional magnesium and potassium (which we are probably low in anyways). I lost about 30 pounds in a few months and felt like I had had a lung transplant. the anti-inflammatory properties are amazing. I do believe your brain will thank you in 20-30 years when everyone around you is going into memory care facilities. the weight-loss is a very small part of the Ketogenic WOE.

quote:

Originally posted by thumperfbc:
Arc, forgive me as I imagine you’ve already answered this somewhere, but I don’t follow this thread that close.

What does your single meal look like? Do you do any snacking aside from it?

My one meal is dinner with the fam, and it is a variety of typical foods, somewhat limited to what a 5 year old should and will eat. We don't get fancy, just always try to have a meat and a veg of some kind, we don't sweat pasta or other "bad" food too much.

I don't snack during the day, when I was working up to it, I had a mix of nuts that I'd made. Cashews, Pecans, Almonds, Peanuts, a few others. From the nuts area at whole foods so I could pick the mix and salt level. If you buy mixed nuts, there will be filler nuts... Nuts are good food, and as long as you watch the salt they are good for you. A handful goes a long way.

The ease of managing one meal, and no "crash" at any point that so many buoy with caffiene, is the real benefit. Not buying expensive break/lunch foods is also great.

As far as working out, you can do that too and eat once. I do.

I've always heard that multiple small meals is the healthiest.
I recently adopted the Dash Diet of sorts and eat more times with lower portions.
I used to eat no breakfast except coffee, an average lunch and a big dinner.
Now small breakfast, mid-morning fruit smoothie, mostly veggie lunch or with a half sandwich, mid afternoon fresh veggie juice from my new cold press juicer, and a moderate dinner.
More veggies, less (red) meat, more fish.
Goal was not to lose weight although I have lost a little under 10 lbs but I was not overweight (was 175+ and now 166).
It was for high BP and high cholesterol.
Also kicked up the exercise, less alcohol and caffeine.
So far so good.
I do miss the red meat so now it is a luxury but not going to eliminate it but for now it is on the back burner until everything gets under control.

quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder76:
As far as working out, you can do that too and eat once. I do.

That doesn't mean it's optimal. For both weight training and cardio it has been shown that refueling soon after a workout is important to making gains. (N.B.: How soon is "soon" is a matter for another discussion. But 1/2 to six hours is the range.)

Fueling-up before the workout is also important, so you have ready fuel on tap.

But eating too frequently creates a different problem...

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
I've always heard that multiple small meals is the healthiest.

That's old school, now

Part of that theory rested on the fact that, when you eat, your metabolism is temporarily elevated as your body works on digestion. Keep the metabolism running hot, right? Makes sense.

Then a flaw in that thinking was discovered: That also keeps a steady supply of carbs in your system, thus the body never sees the need to burn fat stores for energy.

Oops!

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
Also kicked up the exercise, less alcohol and caffeine.

+1 on the exercise and alcohol. Caffeine, unless it creates problems for you, is generally a non-issue.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
I do miss the red meat ...

What is your reason for limiting red meat?

Look up "eat fat to burn fat" sometime.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ensigmatic,

Exercising in a fasted state is better for weight loss. Glycogen levels are low and don’t need to be burned off before the fatty acid dance starts.

Yes, you may be surprised what you can do while fasting. The farthest I've ran in a fasted state is 20 miles, slow trail running.

I've also done a 5 day fast and did body weight strength training and 2-3 mile runs everyday.

When I was a personal trainer I preached the "5-6 small meals per day" mantra to clients as well. It isn't correct though. The worst time to eat and increase your blood sugar causing an insulin dump is in the morning! Just as your body is about to enter a truly fasted state and enjoy the fat burning and health benefits you ruin it with a fat storing hormone and go back into a "fed" state having never even fasted.

The notion that small meals increase metabolism and breakfast keeps your body from going into "starvation mode" is also bunk. Metabolism actually increases during a fast. What decreases metabolism is a severely calorie restricted diet.

The reason the old school 5-6 small meals works so well...is that quite frankly anything would work well with these sedentary eat like crap populations. Simply starting to do something and eating "better" is going to make a big difference, especially early on.

You could also do OMAD with post-workout nutrition. Just either time it so the big dinner is your recovery meal or have that recovery shake/whatever after the workout and then the big dinner meal soon after that.

I'm glad people have seen fit to bump this thread.

There are a bunch of ideas in it, that remain controversial and probably will continue to.

If you haven't read through it, I'd recommend it.

Because something in it will work for you. I don't agree with a bunch of what has been posted, and folks continue to disagree with what has continued to work for me.

The human body is a mystery. Much like the clitoris. We all have one, but don't understand it.

You need to listen to the Divinyls, and get in touch with yourself. What works for you, may be one of the "systems," but frankly, I don't think any one of them is the right idea for everyone.

The best any one of us can say, is "This worked for me." I do think there are some uniform rules, such as avoiding corn syrup, particularly in the form of soda. I don't think carbs are the devil. Sugars of any kind, and what fat can do, are obfuscated by the major media.

Food is delicious, habit forming, and addictive, because we are all built that way. You need to recognize that the effect of food on your brain chemistry is EVOLVED. We've been here as a species for many thousands of years longer than abundant food and refrigeration has been a part of our lives.

Food is as addictive, if not more, than a whole lot of other things. We are built to survive, and it is not simple to overcome in a world where survival is all but guaranteed.