Why I Gained Weight Eating Keto & What I’m Going To Do About It

If you’re participating in the Summer Low Carb Challenge it’s time to weigh-in!

You’ll find the Week Two Weigh-In thread in our private Facebook group, or leave a comment here on this post with your weight loss lost since June 25th.

Join us today if you haven’t already! New people join in every single day. The challenge is FREE, just go to: 90DayLowCarbChallenge.com to get details & sign up.

My Weigh-In: 148 pounds

I started this Summer Challenge on June 25th at 148.2 pounds, but yesterday I weighed 149.4 pounds – so I’m going to take today’s drop as a WIN. 🙂

I mentioned in my last post that I gained 10 pounds over the last four months.

I don’t want that to concern you, so I want to talk openly about what’s going on with me.

Gaining 10 pounds in 4 months is a LOT when you’re eating keto, and especially when you’re hardly eating most of that time.

This is not a case of me failing the diet OR the diet failing me.

It’s something else altogether.

I can’t make any specific claims about what caused my recent weight gain, but I’ll share my “guesses” – and I’m seeing my doctor this month for a full workup to eliminate any health concerns (thyroid, etc). Because that’s the smart thing to do.

This is not the first time this has happened to me, by the way. It happens to most of us actually, at one point or another. See:

Mysterious Weight Gain or Stalls While Eating Low Carb

Before I dive into all that, let me show you what I ate yesterday – which wasn’t much.

You can look back at last week’s food diary too, which was under 1500 calories and 16 net carbs.

That food diary and the one below are both good examples of how I’ve been eating most days for awhile now…

My Low Carb Meals Yesterday

For breakfast I made 4 eggs scrambled in real butter with colby jack cheese. I couldn’t eat it all in one sitting, but I did finish it finally – by around 4pm maybe.

I’ve really been struggling with my appetite lately (or rather: a total lack of appetite) so for dinner I went out for this meal since that seemed to work well last time.

It’s the Delmonico Ribeye with roasted broccoli & cauliflower at the Gondola Pizza & Steak House – a Greek/Italian place:

I hardly touched my vegetables, but I did eat about half the steak.

I also ordered a side salad and ate a few bites of the lettuce. As finger food. What I like to call the keto version of chips & dip. 🙂

I packed up most of the salad, all of the vegetables, and the other half of the steak and took them to go – which is what I had for dinner tonight.

Here’s how my macros worked out yesterday…

Sunday’s MyFitnessPal Food Diary

1148 Calories
7 Net Carbs
Protein: 82 grams
66% Fat, 31% Protein
Water: 24 ounces

That’s not enough food, and I am not recommending you eat so low carb or so low calorie. You should always eat enough to be satisfied, stop eating when you are, and definitely eat when you’re hungry. The goal is 20 net carbs max and 70% fat minimum. I’m just in a “food funk” lately so I wanted to clarify that. 😉

How To Get Net Carbs In MyFitnessPal (Free)

LCHF Keto Macro Tracking Made Simple

My 10 Pound Weight Gain

Four months ago when I went to San Diego I weighed 139.8 pounds. Yesterday (July 8th) I weighed 149.4 pounds.

I’ve been as low as 134 pounds, which felt too thin. 138-139 feels really good.

In this post about that trip, I said “I like the way I look now, and I like the way I feel.” And you can tell it in the photos. 🙂

So what happened?!

It was a few weeks later that my weight started climbing. Actually it was fluctuating up and then back down again through late March and all of April. Then in May it just started climbing consistently.

I was just about to tell you that things were going good in my life during those months, until I looked back at this hike in mid-April where I said:

“What I’m realizing is that I seem to have lost my drive, ambition, enthusiasm. I lost sight of my goals, and can’t seem to get motivated again.”

And then something happened (or rather DIDN’T happen) in May that I kept trying to sweep under the rug and ignore, until I finally had a total meltdown on June 7th.

It’s finally time for me to face the obvious fact that I’m dealing with a pretty severe case of depression. That became glaringly obvious over the last four weeks, and I’ve been going downhill ever since – hardly eating, either sleeping too much or having trouble sleeping at all, lethargic and just generally disinterested – in anything.

I know that this all started with me “being sad for a legitimate reason” but I worry that it’s turned into more than that. I do NOT want to try another antidepressant, as the side effects last time were horrible – fast weight gain, loss of my vision, etc.

My vision was permanently ruined from taking Lexapro, which I discovered in hindsight (ha!) is a common side effect. I finally (yes, more than a year later) got glasses – which are REALLY hard to get used to because they have bifocals built in.

This is a picture of me at dinner last night:

What Am I Going To Do About It?

Stress, depression, sleep quality, and yes – even NOT eating, can all cause weight gain. I’m going to see my doctor like I said just to rule out any obvious health issues, have my thyroid tested, etc. But since I’m being totally honest with you, I think just getting HAPPY (or less UNhappy) is what it’s really going to take.

My biggest concern right now is not my weight, it’s my health. The lack of appetite and not eating enough is really concerning me. That’s why I felt exercise would be a good solution – to help stimulate my appetite. And also because exercise is a natural “mood enhancer” that releases feel-good chemicals in your body.

Truth: being SAD is concerning me as much or more as my lack of interest in eating.

I’ve gone round and round about what’s bothering me and what to do about it, and WHY it’s bothering me so deeply and yada yada yada. To the point of exhaustion actually.

Interestingly something happened last night that broke me out of my funk and pissed me off. Can “getting mad” cause you to release 1.4 pounds overnight? I dunno. Getting sad can obviously pack on pounds for some crazy reason – even when you’re eating super clean and VERY low carb.

It seems crazy to be in ketosis (I’m testing, yes) and GAINING weight. That goes against everything I know, everything I’ve experienced personally, and everything I share with you here.

But then, we are not just our weight. We are so much more than that, and it’s all tied together. And I am simply… not well right now. And haven’t been for awhile.

I did something today to turn things around a bit, which I’ll share with you in my next post. I realize I have some work on this ahead of me, and I’m ready to tackle that and get back to a good place.

To be totally clear, I don’t feel like exercise is the key to losing the weight I’ve gained. I feel like exercise is PART of the key to my overall health & happiness – which I feel is the TRUE culprit behind my recent “mysterious weight gain.”

What I’ve been feeling unhappy and unsettled about over the last year is kinda personal, if that’s okay. I prefer not to talk about *that* and instead just focus on solutions. I’ve talked about losing my joy ENOUGH over the last year as it is, lol. *sigh*

How are things going with you lately?

Don’t forget to weigh in today…

Leave a comment and let’s chat!:)

Best,
Lynn Terry,
aka @LowCarbTraveler