Introduction
Many people run into issues with the keto diet, some of them also tend to be very hormonal issues. In this article, we will discuss the issues many people run into in terms of weight loss and hormonal dysfunction.
What is the Keto Diet?
The ketogenic diet, often referred to as the keto diet, is a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet that has gained popularity for its potential health benefits, including weight loss, improved blood sugar control, and increased energy levels.
On the keto diet, the aim is to drastically reduce carbohydrate intake and replace it with healthy fats, which forces the body to enter a metabolic state called ketosis. In ketosis, the body burns fat for fuel instead of glucose (sugar from carbohydrates), leading to weight loss.
Typically, the keto diet involves getting 70-80% of daily calories from fat, 20-25% from protein, and 5-10% from carbohydrates. This often means limiting carbohydrate intake to 20-50 grams per day, depending on individual needs.
Healthy fats that are encouraged on the keto diet include avocado, nuts and seeds, olive oil, coconut oil, and fatty fish. Foods that are high in carbohydrates, such as bread, pasta, and sugary drinks, are generally restricted on the keto diet.
While the keto diet has potential benefits, it may not be appropriate for everyone, especially those with certain medical conditions. It’s important to consult with a healthcare professional before starting the keto diet or any other new diet or exercise program.
Without delaying any further, let’s crack into the top 7 reasons you’re not losing weight on Keto.
#1: You’re Not Calculating Calories Correctly
Believe it or not, calories still matter for most people when they do the Keto Diet.
While there is certainly a large benefit to getting rid of insulin resistance, eating a surplus of calories can still prevent a weight-loss phase. You must ensure that your calories are not too low for sustained fat loss, but also ensure that your calories aren’t too high. Tracking total calories with a food scale is the best tool we have at our disposal to estimate our calorie intake. Combined with a great application or website like MyFitnessPal makes it easy and sustainable to track your exact foods and measurements of the foods.
#2: Lack of Activity and Workouts
One of the common issues I see with people that implement the Keto/Low-Carb way of eating is that they think that the ‘ketosis shortcut,’ means they don’t have to work out. On the contrary, when it comes to what most people end up doing when implementing a low-carb approach, they become less active. Their daily steps or N.E.A.T. (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) may decrease. Thus they burn fewer calories throughout the day. This lack of activity can prevent fat loss through a reduction of daily energy expenditure. This can be a common problem influenced by carbohydrate restriction.
Keep your workouts going as you did before reducing carb intake. If not, what are you doing? Start working out and STOP looking for shortcuts that are taking you one step forward and one step backward.
#3: Ketosis Downregulating Free Testosterone (Boron & SHBG)
This is extremely important because prolonged phases of ketosis, whether through the keto diet, carb restriction, or prolonged fasting can raise SHBG.
SHBG is sex-hormone-binding globulin, which binds to sex hormones as its name implies. If you have more sex hormones bound to this molecule, you will have fewer benefits from hormones such as Free Testosterone. It’s important to know that Total Testosterone hardly matters. If your Free Testosterone is low, it truly doesn’t matter at this specific time if your Free Testosterone is worse than it was previously. Because SHBG molecules are produced in the liver and correlate with the same ketosis documented through those with anorexia, this means that some metabolic flexibility needs to be given back. Thus easing back into eating healthier carbohydrates and or eating more frequently.
In addition to this solution, supplementation of Boron in 6-8mg daily is highly recommended to alleviate this problem.
If your testosterone levels are suffering, it’s not worth it in terms of ‘staying keto.’
This doesn’t mean keto can’t serve you at some point in your health journey, but it may not be a solution in the long term for your most optimal physiology. Once insulin sensitivity is regained, you’ve won. No need to become dogmatic when it comes to a blindsided belief that all carbs are bad, in any amount.
You can become metabolically flexible again and not snap back to eating horrible processed foods. This even-keeled close-to-nature way of eating should serve you best to maintain your health and vitality.
#4: Downregulation of Thyroid Hormone (T3)
When in ketosis, many people who do bloodwork will see a downregulation of the active thyroid hormone, T3. Oftentimes, I’ve seen that people who turn to keto may have some underlying hypothyroidism which has given them the difficulty of losing weight with the traditional methods.
This reduction of thyroid hormone is natural through ketosis because the role of T3 when it comes to metabolism involves carbohydrates specifically. Being carbohydrate tolerant from whole and unprocessed foods is granted to us by healthy thyroid output.
If we stop providing our body with a need to metabolize carbohydrates, our thyroid hormones may downregulate themselves due to the new metabolic conditions we’ve imposed.
Our thyroid hormones still have an important role in regulating our basal metabolic rate, which keeps our calorie burn consistent. So we do not want to wilfully disrupt this balance for too long so long as weight loss is our goal.
Remember, our body will regulate itself and its hormones not to help you lose weight, but our body will regulate itself and its hormones to survive.
#5: Too Many Vitamin/Mineral Deficiencies
Most people may not realize that they already might have mineral and vitamin deficiencies. However, that doesn’t mean that eating with Keto will fix these. One of the most helpful minerals to supplement may be magnesium, for overall energy levels, providing a calming effect and allowing for quality sleep. This tends to be even more important during phases of ketosis but also overall wellness.
Sodium or adequate salt intake is supremely important for many that are not feeling well either, the ability to maintain proper blood pressure is important. This alleviates any lightheadedness that many people report as well.
Potassium is very important as well and is a mineral of concern due to the sources of nutrients being eliminated. Usually being found in carb sources that tend to be nixed when implementing a low-carb approach.
#6: You May Not Yet Be Keto-adapted
There is a keto-adaptation phase no doubt, throughout this phase dealing with sorts of sugar withdrawals is not unheard of. But regardless, it takes a while for someone to be able to shift into burning fat again if someone has not dipped into a larger portion of their fat stores for years. Many people hardly ever get to this shift due to how prevalent processed carbohydrates are and how they affect our hunger hormones.
This adaptation phase also is accompanied generally by a reduction in hunger pangs which can help dietary or caloric adherence.
#7: Keto May Not Be a Long-Term Solution for You Personally
Carbohydrate restriction shouldn’t be the overarching issue, something along the lines of hypothyroidism, or insulin resistance are the real root causes in this sense. Not saying that all carbohydrates are beneficial for everyone, allergies or sensitivities come from sourcing and other compounds.
Conclusion:
Once any insulin resistance is cleared and maintained, a healthy active lifestyle that includes resistance training should be implemented. Gaining substantial healthy muscle mass will also help keep body fat off as well as providing a strong foundation for the body at large.
It’s not weight loss you should be chasing, but it should be what kind of weight do you want to lose. Spare and build muscle while reducing any excess fat.
Carbohydrates shouldn’t be demonized at large, when it comes to the right natural sources of carbohydrates, they can be nutritious on a micro scale but also help reduce our body stresses and serve as a potent energy source to keep us running at a stable and efficient pace.
We want to chase metabolic flexibility, using clean forms of carbs and fats for stable energy that we can tap into at any moment without metabolic gridlock.
We want the calming nature to reinforce proper rest protocols with a healthy carbohydrate intake, to improve sleep and replenish muscle glycogen for maximum strength and endurance output.
All while supporting the natural flow of our hormones like Testosterone to become the best men we could possibly be.
FAQ:
Q: What is insulin resistance?
A: Insulin resistance is a condition in which cells in the body become less responsive to the hormone insulin. Insulin is produced by the pancreas and helps regulate blood sugar levels by facilitating the uptake of glucose (sugar) from the bloodstream into cells for energy.
When cells become resistant to insulin, they are less able to absorb glucose, leading to high levels of glucose in the bloodstream. To compensate, the pancreas produces more insulin, but over time, this can lead to high levels of both insulin and glucose in the blood, which can cause a range of health problems.
Insulin resistance is often associated with obesity, physical inactivity, and a diet high in carbohydrates and processed foods. It is a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other metabolic disorders.
Symptoms of insulin resistance can include fatigue, brain fog, increased hunger and cravings, and difficulty losing weight. Treatment typically involves lifestyle changes such as exercise, weight loss, and a healthy diet, along with medications in some cases. Early detection and management of insulin resistance is important for preventing and managing related health conditions.
Q: What can you eat unlimited on keto?
A: You can eat foods that are low in carbohydrates, foods such as meat, eggs, fish, or fibrous low-carb vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, or zucchini. Ultimately, once insulin sensitivity is achieved through keto, calories still matter. The benefit is, that the calories will matter much more than they did before because any insulin has cleared, and lipase the enzyme that breaks down fat can be expressed fully in this ketosis phase.
Q: Do calories matter if I am in ketosis?
A: Calories still matter if your goal is to lose or gain weight. Weight loss comes down to energy balance and how your body is regulating your metabolic rate. This can be influenced by exercise activity, or non-exercise activity which involves being up on one’s feet much more often. A very basic form of this could be going on low-effort walks, gardening, doing housework, or taking care of errands. If one stops being influenced to do these things and becomes more sedentary, then this difference may be minor but will compound over time and not help weight loss.
Q: Will keto hurt testosterone levels?
A: If someone is obese there is a lot of evidence that shows as long as the person is able to lose body fat they will realize an increase in testosterone and libido. This is mainly due to the estrogen levels being normalized through fat tissue loss. Excessive fat tissue can be highly estrogenic in the case of men especially.
However, if someone is in good standing with their fat tissue from 20% body fat or lower approximately, it is highly likely that sustained ketosis phases long term will hurt free circulating testosterone levels. This is generally the most important factor for testosterone levels. The mechanism of this reduction in free testosterone levels is due to the molecule SHBG.
Q: My weight loss stopped with keto, what do I do?
A: Ensure that you are tracking your calories properly, not reducing your activity levels or stopping exercise, ensure that you are weight training to help keep off body fat, start implementing waist measurements instead of just stepping on a scale, and realize that a lot of the weight loss previously was likely water.
Fat loss should be a slow and sustained process and it wouldn’t be healthy to cut too many calories in pursuit of a number on a scale.
Fluctuations are normal and as long as you’re doing things in a focused and calculated manner, you shouldn’t even have to resort to extreme carbohydrate restriction in the first place.
