Why Have I Put on Weight When I'm in Ketosis and Not Cheating? Wha???

View fullsize

This is my "what's that you say, scale?" face.

It can be frustrating to be doing everything 'right' and have the scale not cooperate. It happens to everyone. It has happened to me. Even when I first started following a ketogenic diet and the weight seemed to be falling off, the scale didn't show a loss every day. (As I wrote here, I weigh every day. It's my practice and has informed a lot of my experience). Over all, though, I saw the numbers move in my favor.

So, what's the deal when things get stuck? Or worse, the scale reads that your weight is up?

This just happened to me. This morning. Ugh. Maybe it's the universe sticking it to me for being full of confidence, was I. "I have this whole ketogenic fat burning thing down pat. Let me share my brilliance with the public",

Bang. Up goes the scale. 3.1 pounds. Three point one freaking pounds! Mind you, my current goal is to lose 7.9 pounds from where I was on August 7th. Cripes. I put ON nearly half of what I want to LOSE in one day!!

Here's the thing, though. I have no worries. Seriously. I did measure my blood ketones just to make sure something weird wasn't going on. My Lovely Mate and I ate dinner out last night and although we're scrupulous about ordering, asking questions, eating only food we can identify (nothing breaded, blended, etc.,) one never knows. I had a Diet Pepsi. I had quizzed the wait person twice to make sure it was indeed diet. Still, mistakes can happen. But my ketones were fine (1.6 mmol/L). That's the ketosis sweet spot, you should pardon the expression.

So, what gives? Very low carbs, delicious fats, moderate protein. And yet the scale is trying to mock me.

Here's what I've come to learn about weight loss on the ketogenic diet: it works beautifully and consistently. It's predictably effective.

Here's what I've learned about the human body: it's vexing.

A benefit of my Massive Spreadsheet and the daily entries of various data points is that I can look back over the ups and downs of my weight and sometimes find patterns. It looks like about every ten weeks or so I'll have a jump like the one today. And it occurs to me that yesterday was a rare day when I felt tired (one of the greatest changes in me since changing to a low carb/high fat diet is my extreme energy). What I'm guessing is that there's something hormonal going on. I haven't had that thing that woman have every month since I was thirty (thank you, first of my three cancer diagnoses) so I can't say exactly *how* menopausal I am, but at 58 years of age it's safe to say I'm well past it. That doesn't mean all my hormones have retired. So I'm thinking the lack of energy I experienced yesterday and weight gain and that fact that these things seem to happen at the same time at fairly regular intervals means that the way of eating is just fine and that there's no reason to doubt. Or to doubt myself.

Sometime bodies be crazy.

Tomorrow is another day. I'm full of confidence that chart will show a down turn. If not... well, let's not talk that into existence. Deal?