Not losing

dazz

Member
Started Atkins 2 weeks ago. I was on dukan for about 10 months and lost quite a bit but my weight became static so I decided to try Atkins. I have been sticking to the rules - never exceed 20g carbs - most days it's around 15 grams (mainly salad greens). The frustrating thing is that I gave gained 1.2 kg since I started. I consume over 100 g fat a day in the form of mayonnaise, cream and meat. I have meat/fish at lunch and dinner. I have switched to unsweetened soya (and include this in my carb count. I am drinking 2 litres of water a day. I do not use sweeteners at all. I bought some keytone strips today and the results are negative. This means I'm not even in ketosis. Can anyone explain to me what is going on because I am becoming despondent?
 
Hi Dazz

Welcome to the forum - there are lots of very knowledgeable people here who will pinpoint the problem.

You sound like you're doing everything right, so the only thing I can suggest is that it's your body adjusting after the Dukan woe.

Maybe cut back on the mayo and cream for a week and see how you get on? Stick with it, low carb really does work :)
 
Hi dazz, do you have any specific daily menus we could look at? It's hard to say what might be up without that.

However, you've just switched from a low fat, high protein diet to a high fat medium protein diet. You wouldn't get the big first week loss, because that's water weight and you lost that on dukan. I'd expect your body to think you're 'cheating'' on Dukan at first - and gain - then drop the weight once it adjusts to Atkins and ketosis.

Not everyone finds the ketone strips show results for them, even when they're obviously in ketosis. Do you have any of the other ketosis symptoms?

Otherwise please post a few specific food diaries, as many as possible, and I'm sure people here will let you know if anything looks wrong.
 
Hi. Thank you for your comments. My food diary for the past 3 days is as follows:
Thursday:
Omelette (3eggs) with cheese
Iceberg lettuce
Chicken mayonnaise
Cucumber
Chicken livers with onion
Coffee with cream

Friday:
Omelette with cheese
Decaf tea with soya milk
Crackling
Mixed salad leaves
onion
Green pepper
Goats cheese
Tuna mayonnaise
Cheese
Decaf coffee with cream

Saturday:
Omelette with cheese
Coffee with cream
Salad leaves
Tuna mayonnaise
Onion
Crackling
Broccoli
Home made meatballs (no sauces, breadcrumbs, etc) with mayonnaise
Cheese
Decaf tea with soya

I make sure my daily cheese allowance does not exceed 114 grams a day.

What am I doing wrong? I am becoming quite desperate.

I will stay off the mayo and cream, as suggested but will need advice on how to get in my fat intake?
 
I forgot to mention that I'm on antidepressants but that this didn't cause any problems when I went onto dukan, as I lost quite a lot of weight. I've been on them for about 18 months now. Is this likely to be a contributing factor?
 
I really can't see much wrong. A little onion shouldn't do much harm.

I'm afraid I don't know re: your antidepressants. Some do have weight gain as a side effect but it depends what type, and we're not doctors here. Considering your loss on dukan though I wouldn't expect them to be a problem for you.

Give it another week, maybe change up your diet a bit - cut cheese to 2oz, cream to 2 tbsp per day (those are the original induction recimmendations). Mayo should be okay - full fat, not low fat. Cook with oil and butter and you'll be able to keep your fat up. Maybe switch around your breakfast now and then. Have some low carb sausages. Add a few different veg from the list. Try and get your carbs to 20g per day if you can, being too low can slow some people.

How many carbs are you counting for your soya milk? My unsweetened alpro only has about 0.1g per 100 ml

Anyway, keep going one more week, post food diaries and hopefully it will kick in for you. I can't understand why it wouldn't.
 
Oh, i think there's also a restriction on offal as chicken livers can be oddly carby? But again I wouldn't think one meal would cause an issue.
 
Thank you for all the advice. I will be cutting down on the cheese too and won't touch livers again.
Where do you find info on carbs in meat?
I use alpro soya and calculate it as .5 carbs, as I don't have more than 250 ml a day.
 
Most meat doesn't have carbs, I think it's just offal and shellfish. I use myfitnesspal and log all my food there.
 
Thank you. A new start tomorrow. I should have asked for advice sooner.
Fingers crossed that I start losing weight soon.
 
I've just tried another keytone strip again and it was positive. I must have got a false negative first time round. Is it true that this can happen if u drink loads of water?
 
Hi and wrlcome:D
I dont bother with strips - can usually tell if in ketosis by listening to your body and they are unreliable. I also sometimes see people use them to "let" themselves cheat - cheat but strip is still showing k. Beginning of a slippery slope!

Stick with the induction foods, get the ratios right and it does work! Good luck:)
 
Kat1e said:
Hi and wrlcome:D
I dont bother with strips - can usually tell if in ketosis by listening to your body and they are unreliable. I also sometimes see people use them to "let" themselves cheat - cheat but strip is still showing k. Beginning of a slippery slope!

Stick with the induction foods, get the ratios right and it does work! Good luck:)

Thanks Kat1e. What signs do your body give off to tell you if it's in ketosis?
 
Manky breath (mine tastes metallic) and stinky pee :)

Sounds bad I know but you will welcome it, cause it means you're body is flushing out the carby stuff :)
 
Recently went into ketosis myself, I think the signs are different for everyone. For me there's a different feeling in my mouth, almost like there's a constant bit of butter in there (really hard to explain!), plus your pee will smell a lot more pungent. People say you know because you have bad breath, I find it really difficult to smell my own breath though! Another good sign is that you aren't that hungry. I had a 2 egg omlette with ham and cheese this morning around 8.30, got to 2pm and i hadnt even thought about food or had any signs that I was hungry
 
Mine very clear - bright yellowy green smelly wee:). Definitely welcomed!
 
Back
Top