11 Reasons You are Not Losing Weight on Low Carb

Starting a low-carb diet can be exciting!

If you're like most newbies, you've listened to several success stories about ketosis or heard about the drastic weight loss experienced during the first 2 weeks.

You might have checked out some of the scientific research, glanced through a low-carb book, or read a couple of low-carb articles online.

You went into your low-carb diet with a strong, determined attitude:

“If others can get to a healthy weight and easily maintain it by switching to a low-carb diet, then so can I!”

But sooner or later, you run head-on into a stall.

For reasons unknown to you, you are in ketosis, but not losing weight.

You believe you're doing everything right, so you feel confused, depressed, anxious, and just want the diet to start working.

What is going on?

Why has your weight loss stalled?

The reasons for stalls and plateaus vary, depending on where you are in your low-carb journey.

If you're frustrated because low carb hasn't produced the weight loss you expected, you're not losing as quickly as you were losing before, or you aren't losing any body fat at all, here are 11 potential reasons why you're not losing weight on low carb.

1. You're Not Actually Stalled

The definition of a stall or plateau is that you haven't lost pounds or inches for an extended period of time.

The key word here, is “extended.”

Many low-carb newbies begin dieting with false expectations.

While it can be frustrating to run into weight-loss issues during the first week or two, it's best to not concern yourself with weight loss unless you haven't lost anything for 4 consecutive weeks.

This is a great standard to use throughout the weight-loss phase.

In the beginning of a low-carb diet, water retention is common. It's best to give your body a little extra time to adapt to using the alternative metabolic pathway.

I generally recommend that you wait at least 2 months before tweaking anything because previous dieting experiences, basal insulin levels, metabolic damage, and adapting to ketosis all play a role in how fast your body is willing to give up its fat stores.

Even if it's been more than 6 to 8 weeks, you still might not be stalled. A true stall or plateau requires that you do everything right. When new to low carb, mistakes are very common. Especially, if you haven't read a low-carb book.

2. You Don't Understand the Principles of a Low-Carb Diet

I first became involved in low-carb diets back in the mid '70s when I ran into Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution book at the public library. That original Atkins Diet (today referred to as Atkins 72) was very strict but simple to follow.

Throughout the years, many low-carb plans have surfaced and faded in popularity, but the Atkins Diet, the Protein Life Plan, and Dr. Phinney's Keto diet have all withstood the test of time. Each of these plans work reasonably well if you follow them as they are laid out in the books.

Unfortunately, a lot of people try to implement a low-carb diet without knowing what is allowed, and why. High-glycemic fruits, like bananas, will keep your basic insulin level elevated.

From the dozens of emails I receive each week, asking for personal help with weight loss, I've learned that one of the major problems people have with low carb is a lack of knowledge. Many newbies don't take the time to learn about what makes a low-carb diet work.

Instead of reading one of the popular diet books, they try to put together a few diet menus based on what they believe a low-carb diet is.

As a result, dieters ignore their insulin resistance, eating typical low-fat diet foods (like that banana or an apple) and continue to struggle with weight loss.

A low-carb diet is different from other weight-loss plans. It works for a different reason.

3. Insulin Resistance

Insulin is a hormone that is essential for life. It's secreted in various ways by the pancreas. What you might not know is that your basic level is like a drip system that squirts into your bloodstream every few seconds.

The amount of insulin the pancreas releases has to do with your daily diet. What you eat consistently, on a day-to-day basis, determines your basal insulin level.

In addition to basal insulin, the pancreas also stores and releases extra insulin to handle your carbohydrate load.

It does this in two different phases.

Phase 1 immediately releases what the pancreas has stored. The pancreas estimates how much insulin you're going to need to handle your meal. The amount stored depends on what you ate at your last meal or two. It doesn't store more than it thinks you're going to need.

When your metabolism is healthy, your phase 1 response provides plenty of insulin to take care of the rise in glucose, so your glucose level drops to normal quite quickly.

If your glucose level doesn't come down, there's a backup system known as Phase 2 that manufactures and releases extra insulin to take care of a higher carb load.

If you're consistently overeating carbohydrates, your body can become resistant to the extra insulin. When that happens, it takes quite a bit of additional insulin to bring the glucose back down.

While your insulin levels are elevated, the body assumes it has plenty of glucose for fuel, so dipping into your fat stores isn't necessary.

A low-carb diet brings down your insulin level, enabling you to burn fat more often. However, this doesn't happen quickly. It can take several weeks before your body becomes more sensitive to insulin.

During that time, weight loss can be slow.

Very slow.

So the best way to handle this problem is patience. Give your body the time it needs to heal.

4. Scale Weight Can be a Day or Two Behind

Most people who have carefully recorded their food intake have discovered that what you eat today won't show up on the scale for a couple of days.

It works the same way in reverse.

If you haven't lost weight in a few days, it doesn't mean that you haven't lost body fat. Fat losses are often hidden due to water fluctuations or undigested food.

Try not to make the scale so important that you need to see weight loss happening every day, or even every other day. Weight loss isn't linear. What matters is the downward trend which manifests over time.

5. Water Retention – The Scale Can Lie

The average person loses quite a bit of water and glycogen, the storage form of carbohydrates, during the first 2 weeks of a low-carb diet. Daily carbohydrate totals are quite low, so the body has no choice but to use up its carb storage for fuel.

As a result, the perceived dehydration causes the body to panic.

Since the body is hard-wired to survive, when any system becomes unbalanced or stressed, the body moves quickly to correct the problem.

In this case, the body can decide to stuff water into your empty fat cells so it doesn't have to shrink them. You might be deceived into thinking that your low-carb diet isn't working, even though it is.

You are still losing body fat, but the excess water makes it seem like you're not.

It takes about 6 to 8 weeks for the body to calm down enough that it feels safe to release the extra water.

If you've been on a low-carb diet before, or if you have a history of experimenting with a variety of weight-loss diets, water retention can also be a result of body memory.

6. History of Yo-Yo Dieting (Including Low-Carb Diets)

If this isn't the first time you've gone on a diet, the body might have caught on to your dieting patterns.

Dr. Michael Eades, author of the Protein Power Life Plan, assures his blog readers that if you're eating a nutrient-dense diet, which a low-carb diet provides, the body might not fight back as hard as it would if you were eating a low-calorie, low-fat diet.

However, that hasn't been my experience.

The body can strongly rebel on a low-carb diet. It doesn't like to shrink fat cells if it doesn't have to.

Each time you go into calorie and/or carbohydrate deprivation, the body perceives the reduced food intake to be a famine. It remembers what happened the last time you dieted and prepares for when the deprivation will be over.

Unfortunately, if you do this enough times, you will train your body to recognized the famine-recovery pattern and react accordingly.

During famine:

• The metabolism slows down
• Your hair falls out
• Body systems not essential are put on hold

This famine-recovery program can be so ingrained within your subconscious mind that losing weight on low carb can be difficult. For that reason, Dr. Atkins warned dieters not to abuse Induction because the body will adapt to that level of carb restriction as well as the pattern you use to move into and out of a low-carb diet.

This makes it difficult to lose weight permanently.

The ideal situation is to never go off of your low-carb diet. Instead, make it a complete lifestyle change.

7. Not Drinking Enough Water

Did you know that your body is composed of about 60 percent water?

Drinking enough water throughout your low-carb diet, and beyond, is essential for your health and well-being.

The liver uses water to metabolize and break down fat, and your body uses water to bathe and shape your cells. Most of your blood is made up of water, so getting enough can actually make a difference in your quality of life, as well as your weight.

Dr. Atkins always recommended that you drink 64 ounces of water each day, but most health authorities recommend you drink at least half of your weight in ounces.

8. Mindless Eating and Calories

If you don't pay attention to what you're doing, and why, your prior eating patterns can spill over into your new low-carb lifestyle.

Although, restricting carbs can help increase insulin sensitivity, and lessen your chances for heart disease, if mindless eating continues, you end up eating far too many calories for weight loss.

Take a moment and think about the way you used to eat before going low carb:

1. Was eating in front of the television or computer a normal part of your day?
2. Did popcorn and soda go hand-in-hand when going to the movies?
3. Are you used to tasting your food as you cook?
4. Do you stand up and eat when you are in a hurry?

All of these habits can transfer to low-carb foods like bags of pork rinds and dip, cans of mixed nuts, homemade cheese chips and salsa, or even an entire recipe of hot wings before you realize how much you have eaten.

Although, you don't have to count calories when following Atkins, Dr. Atkins, Dr. Eades, and Dr. Phinney repeatedly stress that calories do count.

This is where journaling the food you eat and recording the emotions you feel at the time can be especially helpful.

Take a moment to remember your old food habits.

Are you doing the same thing today with low-carb foods?

Journaling can help you gain a better idea of where to start looking for mindless eating and get the jump on carb creep.

9. Carb Creep – Not Counting Your Carbs

A surprising number of low-carb dieters believe that just eating low-carb foods is all that matters.

They see counting carbs as a nuisance.

Maybe, you've been eating a low-carb diet for so long that you believe estimating your carb count is good enough.

That may, or may not, be true.

If you're losing weight as quickly as you want to, and this not-counting method is working for you, then there is no reason to do anything different.

However, carb creep can catch up with you when you are not looking. Carb creep occurs when you eat more carbs than you realize on a regular basis.

You might have stopped measuring the amount of heavy cream you're using in your coffee or tea, no longer keeping track of the amount of cheese you're eating, skip the limitations on sugar substitutes, or don't see the point in tracking the minute carbs in herbs and spices.

Fruit can also be problematic when it comes to weight-loss stalls.

You might be eating more carbs per day than you think.

While that isn't a bad thing, it's always best to know how many carbs per day you're eating. That way, if weight loss slows down, and stops, you'll know where to look for the problem.

10. Overlooking Hidden Carbs

Hidden carbs has to do with the carbs in processed foods.

Some people honestly do not know that herbs and spices contain carbs or that most sugar substitutes are not carb free.

Labels can be miss marked or rounded down for the manufacturer's convenience.

Common low-carb foods like deli meats, eggs, cream, and bacon all contains carbs that need to be counted in your daily total. For example, a low-carb breakfast of:

• 2 scrambled eggs
• 3 strips of bacon
• 2 ounces of cheddar cheese

is often thought of as containing no carbs.

But it's not.

It actually has about 5 carbs, and if you put heavy cream in your coffee or tea, there's more.

Sugar-free soft drinks, such as Crystal Light, have a significant amount of carbohydrate if you drink several glasses per day. Carbs can also hide in low-carb tortillas, breads, shakes, and bars.

Manufacturers have gotten particularly talented in hiding the correct number of carbohydrates, but you can find those carbs by doing the math yourself:

• Protein and carbohydrates each have 4 calories per gram
• Fats have 9 calories per gram

To find the correct number of carbohydrates, multiply the number of protein grams on the package by 4. Multiply the fat grams by 9. Then subtract both figures from the total calories listed.

Take the calorie number that is left over and divide that by 4. That number is the correct number of total carbohydrates in the product. If you're doing net carbs, subtract the fiber grams from your total.

11. Not Active Enough

On the Atkins diet, exercise is not negotiable.

You need to implement a good exercise program that will enable you to increase your daily activity, but traditional exercise might not be your only problem.

Most people have sit-down jobs.

Washing machines, cars, time-saving kitchen appliances, and lot of other modern-day conveniences have whittled down the amount of calories you burn each day.

Even a hundred years ago, people were burning hundreds of calories more per day than we do; yet, we insist on eating a large dinner before sitting around and watching television, reading, participating in social media, or surfing the web.

Activity increases your sensitivity to insulin and helps your body deal with stress.

However, activity isn't just exercise.

Activity includes fidgeting, jiggling your foot, getting up and pacing the room, or other activities and mannerisms you're unaware of. Thinner people are unconsciously more active than those who are overweight, but you can purposely do the same thing.

Just how most people underestimate how much they eat, people also tend to overestimate their activity level.

Don't just assume you're active enough.

If you're not losing weight, get up and move more!

When I switched from being a cook and culinary specialist to writing online, it cost me 300 calories per day in activity.

What you do doesn't have to be strenuous. A few extra cleaning chores or fiddling around in the garage can burn extra calories throughout the day.

Pick up a new hobby, walk around the store a bit, or spend some extra time with your kids.

You just have to move more than you currently do.

What You Can Do About a True Stall or Plateau

Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. advises that if you've doubled checked yourself against all possible mistakes, such as the 11 reasons listed above, looked into potential physical problems, are not taking conflicting medications, and don't have any underlying health conditions, the best thing you can do is just wait it out.

The body often takes weight-loss pauses.

I have a sister-in-law who underwent weight-loss surgery a few years ago and she agrees with that. The body is going to do what it's going to do. You only have so much control over how fast the fat comes off.

There are times when you have to accept that your goals are just not obtainable.

A lot of low-carb dieters stop losing weight before they reach their weight-loss goal. It's quite common, actually, so make sure that the weight-loss goal you've set for yourself is realistic for your age and height.

Check things out.

Make sure that you aren't doing things that are interfering with ketosis and celebrate the health benefits that low carb has given you so far.