Fat Makes You Skinny? and the reason for my frequent stalls!

So I was reading last night about ketogenic diets, that is what a low carb diet is. Basically the idea is that you get yourself into ketosis so your liver produces ketones for your body to use as energy and these come from your stored fat. That's it in a nutshell. Anyway this site I was reading suggested that on their version of the ketogenic diet your protein to fat ratio should be one to one. I originally thought that was a bit high but I took the premise to heart.

Then I thought about how frequently I have stalled in this process and what I do after I notice I have had a few days of higher than desired fats. I go low carb low fat. Then it dawned on me that perhaps my stall periods coincide with those days of "clean up". So I went back and created a spreadsheet for the past 2 months of what my weight is and the amount of fat I consumed the day before. It did not take long to identify that my periods of low fat coincided with a stall. I was excited that I had uncovered this pattern after just a few days of data. I finished out my 2 months of data and sure enough my periods of significant drops coincided with days of higher fat. Now we are not talking one to one here, but certainly I found a correlation. Since I have been going extremely low fat for the past 10 days I noticed my weight hasn't budged. Today I am uping my fat intake (healthy fats that is) to see if I can get the scale moving again.

Now this is not to say that you are all stalling because you are not eating enough fat. Most of you are stalling because you are not getting enough water or you are eating too many carbs/calories. But I am not I am on track carbs and calorie wise and I get about 100oz of water each day. So I have been baffled why my scale just stares back at me blankly. I may have my answer.

So not you noobz because you don't have enough data yet, but for you vets, could you do a spot check in your data to see if your days of significant loss were preceded by periods of higher fat intake?

I have a personal trainer who is also a real, certified nutritionist.  He prescribes to this high fat theory as well.  He wants the Carbs under 30 or 20, and the only fruit is 1 cup of blueberries.  But, basically, it is tons of Macadamia nuts, super full fat cheeses and Heavy Whipping cream as the dairy, no yogurt, milk or cottage cheeses whatsoever, lots and lots of leafy greens, dense quality protein. You also need lots of salt for balancing the body.  I tried it for about 4 days and got tired of this diet, but I do think I lost weight (then I decided to have WLS and can't lose weight before insurance approval).  I might go back to this the month before surgery.  I don't know how it will do once I get Sleeved, but this guy swears by this way of eating - he says it is like Atkins, but "a better Atkins".

Why did you get tired of the diet?

Lots of reasons.  I missed chocolate and carbs!  I was (and still am) getting approved by insurance for VSG and cannot lose anymore weight (I am on the borderline of the approved BMI of 40).  Also, I was not in the mindset.  Also, it was HARD.  You just feel really yucky after eating SO MUCH fat. Fat, fat, fat...butter, high fat Gouda Cheese, Olive Oil, avocados, nuts, fatty meats (like beef brisket with tons of fat on it still).  I mean. TONS OF FAT!  This is pretty much a zero carb way of eating.  ZERO.  I may try this again to get into Ketosis after my VSG surgery in a month.

Why no yogurt or cottage cheese?

Eating this way is extremely specific.  It is a specific formula. There is no "take what you like, and leave the rest".  There is no messing with it.  It is one way, or the highway.  If you add one thing "wrong" to the formal, you throw a huge monkey wrench in it and it could be disastrous.  It is like doing a chemistry experiment in the lab - one false ingredient and it blows up in your face.

Full fat things generally are lower in carbs.  So, any milk, yogurt (even whole milk), lowfat cheeses and regular full fat cottage cheese will ruin this chemistry experiment. If you follow the plan to a T, and then at the end of the day eat a cracker, or some carbs, all that fat - massive, massive amounts of fat - will go straight to your gut. 

 

One thing - the NUT at my surgeon's office said that these Ketosis diets are not good to be on all the time, or long term, since they damage your liver.

Very interesting, thanks for posting.    My personal belief and what makes me feel best is whole, unprocessed foods with a balance of fat/carbs/protein.  I don't do super high protein/low carb or high/low fat.   I understand how it can work, but it just isn't right for me and the way that I want to fuel my body.

My personal ideal eating is varied, vegetarian (mostly vegan), whole foods, no processed foods or frankenfoods, and lots of colors.

But I really love reading about other methods and the ways people get to goal.  I am now in maintenance but many would say if I ate like you described and cut my carbs way down, I could lose a few more pounds.  Fair enough and point taken.... but me, I'd rather enjoy my fresh strawberries this summer. ;)  To each his own.

 

Thanks again for posting.  I'm very curious to hear if any vets here can "spot check" their data like you suggested.  That would would be very interesting to hear!

Hi Keith -

I am a new B fresh out of surgery so I have no data , but while I was at one of my NUT classes she spoke about weight loss and stalls - she said that in the beginning your going to loose a lot of weight first 3 weeks and then after you may experience a stall , she said you need to make sure your eating enough calories and are including healthy fats in your diet , she said that good fats are essential to our diets and weight loss. She also said that for some people keeping your calories to low will cause you to stall too. My question is and I should of asked my NUT how much healthy fats should we be taking in on a daily basis ?

Thanks !

Christine

I was introduced to the ketogenic diet last year. My son has epilepsy and one of the treatments we've considered is a strict ketogenic diet which was recommended by his neurologist (its been proven to control seizures in childhood epilepsy). It was so strict my son would never have stuck to it, he's already overly picky about his foods due to sensory issues. Anyway, it's interesting because my dietician through my bariatric program encouraged me to eat healthy fats, specifically things like nuts and avocados to promote weight loss. There's so much conflicting research that I applaud you for monitoring your own food so closely that you can see correlations like that in yourself. It's definitely about finding just the right balance. 

I'm in maintenance to take this with a grain of salt.

I don't believe in low fat. I've adapted a whole food approach...most similar to a Primal/Paleo version of eating. No processed sugars, no low fat frankenfoods, etc.

In my mind, we eat so very little, so shouldn't it be the best possible food? If you are going to eat an ounce or two of cheese, why not raw milk full fat cheese? or cheese made from grassfed dairy? Not to mention, it tastes better!

I cook with coconut oil or grassfed butter. I eat bacon a couple of times a week. Most of my meats and seafood are grassfed or humanely raised.

Personally, if you are tracking your carbs and keep them under 40g and aim for super high protein counts of high quality protein, you will do fine. I never ever counted fat. Sure, it was logged on MFP, but I never ever worried about that number.

Good luck!