Hi, Everyone...

So I've been absent a while - again.  Not because I've been doing bad - in fact quite the opposite. My eating has been impeccable lately. But my weight has not BUDGED and I'm SO aggravated and feel just trapped...

At this point, I've lost 80 lbs. total but am still a BMI of 43 (over 100 lbs. overweight still) and my orthopedic surgeon refuses to do knee replacements until I'm under a BMI of 40. I've been stuck at this weight (right around 250) since Christmas! I'm getting SO frustrated. I will drop to around 245 and then sometimes literally overnight it will jump up to 258. About 4 weeks ago now I started doing more of a ketogenic form of low carb - really watching every carb and keeping it usually under 10 grams a day (can you do TOO low?) - and increasing the coconut oils, etc., to usually 85% fat for the day. Also keeping my protein lower at around 70 grams a day. Right when I started doing this, the weight started dropping again - down to 250 - then shot right back up. I'm at 254 today and just about to give up in frustration but I don't know what else I would do... My blood sugar has dropped a LOT since I started the ketogenic style - I'm almost totally off my fast acting insulin and only taking Lantus now and staying in normal range! I'm also in ketosis per my blood ketone meter - averaging around 1.8 - so why on earth would the weight not BUDGE?! I also cut out ALL the sugar alcohols and "fake foods" when I started this 4 weeks ago...

I do have thyroid issues but am taking WP thyroid (a natural dessicated thyroid like Armour) but maybe it's not working...??!!  Is there anything else I'm missing? I wondered about intermittent fasting or a fat fast to see if this plateau would break. I'm just SO desperate to get down to that weight of under 230 so I can get my surgery on my knees - I feel I'm making NO progress at all. Like there's just no hope and I'm trapped in this body and at this weight and there's nothing I can do about it. The fatigue and knee problems make it hard to exercise - I can't do anything that requires getting up and down off the floor and most of the videos I find require this. Or squats or something else I can't do. I'm also allergic to chlorine so going to the public pools is out. I guess I just don't understand how on earth I could be in this good of ketosis and this low carb but still no [url=http://www.fattoskinny.com/]weight loss[/url] after almost 7 months... <sigh> I could understand if I were closer to my normal weight - but I'm nowhere near it.

This past weekend (family reunion). It was VERY HARD - but I for real did not eat even ONE BITE that I wasn't "supposed to" - not ONE. I watched everyone else eat all the goodies, but I found foods for ME.  There were some awesome garlic-marinated cheese slices, burgers (I had no bun), sausages, etc., that made it work. Friday night, though, they were having spaghetti so Gorden and I picked up cobb salads and ate our own food that night. Now mind you - spaghetti is one of my absolute favorites - so this was NOT easy.
But all weekend I kept thinking that maybe I'd get a breakthrough in this weight plateau I'd been on. I don't know what is going on but it HAS to be something medical because it is NOT my eating this time.
Anyway - I was feeling SO happy and FREE that I'd made it the weekend with such a victory - my husband even said he was PROUD of me (and I do NOT hear that very often from anyone -  But the scale showed a 3 LB GAIN. Then another 2-lb GAIN today.  I can't stop tearing up. I feel SO very frustrated. Like there is just NO WAY OUT of this. There is NOTHING I can do that I'm not doing already. But NOTHING is changing for me.
And what's making it even harder is that I was hobbling around on my knees up there and Saturday I missed most of the gathering because I could barely WALK after the little bit I'd walked on Friday and Saturday morning. I was in SO MUCH PAIN and just in tears from it. And I kept thinking well this weekend should be a good start to me getting into the 240's and closer to the 230's so I can get my surgery. But no... Not even that happened for me. I get one health issue under control and 3 more flare up. And all along - the dang WEIGHT is there taunting me. I know I'm only reaping what *I* sowed all those years of overeating. But if there's nothing I can do to CHANGE it any more - what's the point? I just feel like I'm trapped and there's no way out...

Any help greatly appreciated...

- Jacki

Hi, everyone...  After losing up to 87 lbs. as of right before Christmas, ever since I just can't seem to get the scale to BUDGE.  At first I was still eating "correctly" but the more time that has gone by, I'm starting to eat more carbs because I'm so frustrated, in addition to other emotional things going on.  But lately I've realized my biggest issue seems to be as I said in the Subject line - I'm getting more and more into the fake sweets - the ones with sugar alcohols, as well as recipes we're making from the FTS cookbooks that are sweet tasting.  I'm feeling like I'm going to have to stop eating anything that even remotely tastes sweet in order to break this addiction - but then I freak out at the thought and it triggers the next binge.

I'm stuck in a cycle of this and can't figure out how to stop myself.  My weight was 243 before Christmas and since Christmas it has bounced between 251 and 256 and just won't go down any further...

How do you stop this??

“Golden Flax Seed Bread for Everyday Toast”

Excerpt From: Doug Varrieur & Sherri Varrieur. “FAT TO SKINNY!: Low Sugar Low Carb Cookbook.” Doug Varrieur & Sherri Varrieur, 2013. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Can y'all share some of that extra energy with me, please?!

Hey, Umpa!

Your bread recipes call for 1/3 cup of active dry yeast. My husband bought the little packets of yeast you get from Walmart... Are those ok to use? And would you just use one for a loaf?

Just wondering if some people taste the Zero (or Splenda in general) as a bitter taste instead of sweet?  To me it tastes very good - sweet, no aftertaste... love it!  But Gorden keeps saying he tastes an aftertaste and that it tastes bitter

We made some homemade whipped cream with it (heavy whipping cream, vanilla, and Zero) and OMG it's amazing to me!  But he keeps wanting to put LESS of the sweetener because he thinks that's what's making it taste bitter!  But to me it tastes bitter if we don't put ENOUGH!  So which is it?!

Now to ME, Stevia has never tasted sweet - it tastes totally bitter - and I read somewhere that to some people this is the case with Stevia...  Are there other sweetener options - what about xylitol or erythrotol?  But dang, it would be hard to give up my Zero!! 

Thanks, Tony and Umpa!  I guess my point was this kind of spike had never happened to him before - even when we did his "makeshift glucose tolerance test" he only went up to 160. So I guess the question is whether being off carbs can somehow DECREASE your tolerance of carbs (kind of desensitize you to them) so that when you do take a carb hit it spikes you higher than it otherwise would...

BTW!!  Neither of us even realized there was rice in our food until we'd eaten about half the bowl. I kept thinking it was some of the cheese or something because when I placed the order I did NOT ask for rice! It was only supposed to have the steak, cheese, peppers, sour cream, and guacamole in a bowl! So this wasn't even an intentional thing on our part and we got it from a place called "Moe's" - so our new joke is, "No mo' Moe's!"