I know I am now hung up on ketosis.
Oh, please don't be! It really doesn't matter that much, honestly!!
I am going away for a week at the end of march and am terrified as I fear that I will put on loads of weight once I come out of ketosis and all will be lost. My CDC gave me ketostix when I only lost 1lb on week 3, the implication being that if I was in ketosis then I would have lost more.
Grrrrrrrrr. And double grrrrr....
If you were doing SS 100% (which I'm sure you were), then you were in ketosis. Sure as eggs are eggs. It's a well known phenomenon (well, it is around these parts anyway) that weeks 3 & 4 are notorious for smaller losses. It boggles my mind that CDCs don't know this because it happens a lot. I'm sure there's a scientific explanation which will almost certainly involve discussion about homeostasis and water balance - in layman's terms though, it's your body trying to maintain the status quo because you're losing weight quickly and it's not sure it likes it... yet.
And ketostix don't always prove very much. If your body's good at being in ketosis (and some folk have bodies that are), you'll use ketones really efficiently and none (yes, none!) will spill into your urine. Which means that a ketostick wouldn't necessarily find any trace of them. But that wouldn't necessarily mean that you weren't in ketosis.
And even if your body isn't 100% efficient with ketones, a lot of them are excreted on your breath (that's why it smells funny
) and still more as perspiration. There might not be enough of them to spill over into your urine.
To be honest I do feel better in ketosis but I would of course lose loads of weight on 450 cals a day even if I was eating carbs. I need to get it in perspective.
If you're on three shakes a day (450 calories a day) and aren't sneaking in any extra food (and I'm sure you aren't) then you're having around 42g carb a day. if you haven't cheated, you will be in ketosis, no matter what ketostix say, no matter what the scales say.
Better?
Oh, it would be lovely if, on this diet, we each lost a steady 3.5lbs a week, every single week. But it doesn't work like that. It's always best to look at weight loss over a course of several weeks than it is to try to gauge how you're doing on a week by week basis.
By the way - if you come out of ketosis for your week away (and you don't have to, by the way - you could choose to eat low carb foods), all that will mostly happen is that you'll refill your glycogen and water stocks (6-8lbs worth for most of us). Within days of getting back on SS, those pounds will slide straight back off again.