Didn't notice how good I felt--til I took a break
Hi everyone,
When I was in the midst of going 3 months on a ketoish diet (I calorie count and don't do a lot of oils as they break me out, I rely on natural fats, like from salmon, chia, avocado, etc and not extremely low carb) I was reading how lots of others felt amazing on keto.
I just felt lighter. Like I lost weight like mad, but I just felt lighter. Not better or amazing.
Well, it's 9 months now. I took a bit of a break, ate some things that aren't the best and felt sluggish and depressed afterward. Not so clear in my head. On my ketoish diet, holy moly, energy plus, my family says my face glows. I'm feeling more than just lighter now.
People compliment me and say I'm looking good, and say I must feel better. Months ago, I'd shake my head and say, "I just feel lighter", but now I notice the difference. I feel better. It took 9 months to get here. I've lost 25 kilograms.
So if you don't feel good yet, modify things that you can to suit your needs and keep at it. If you take a break, just notice how you feel during your break.
Posted Jul 19, 2020, 11:54 PM UTC
Did you calorie count on your break and maintain the same intake or did you put on weight?
No calorie counting, but logging the foods, and yes I maintained the same weight.
Some days I ate more, but other days I ate less. I'd been IF so some parts of that method, I guess, became muscle memory or something. Like I would follow my body's cues to eat and if I wasn't hungry I wouldn't eat.
I ate chips, lollies, cakes. But it was a case of eating that stuff for 3 or 4 days of the week and other days I fasted and I know from doing calorie counting for 9 months that I was fasting on those days. I stopped craving sweets after about 2 weeks and am back on track...but to be honest, it feels like I've never left the track at all, like taking a break was part of the track.
I maintained my weight for 2 months this way. I guess you could call it calorie shifting if you want to research it and on the days I ate more calories I indulged a little, like 2 cupcakes. I did log the foods I ate for research purposes and the ability to look back in a scientific way to analyse trends, but there was no shame that I felt in logging those foods.
I'm losing even more now.
Interesting findings, good job maintaining the weight through that. I would imagine it would be challenging not going into surplus eating more calorie dense and less nutritiously filling foods.
I've been in maintenance for a few months now so am trying different things based around my training. It is interesting to see how the body responds to different things at different times and in different volumes.
I was surprised I'd maintained.
But I never ate the same amount of calories per day even before my break. I did this deliberately to ensure my metabolism wouldn't plateau. On the days I was more active, I ate more. On rest days, less.
But I've also discovered with my 9 months of logging on Carb Manager that a reset makes me lose heaps as well.
I am taking notes and trialling things so that when I hit a weight where I have better mobility and no pain, I can enact the plan. So far, it's calorie shifting, and IF.