KETO Diet?

I've lost weight with no problem through this process, though I've done it with an interesting pattern of days to weeks at basically the same weight, then bam several pounds would come off. How much comes off after a mini-plateau has decreased over time, but even right now when I'm taking in what appears to be my maintenance caloric level of about 1600 kcal/day, I'll bounce around the same number for several weeks - some days higher some lower - and then boom I'll drop 2# and then bounce around the new number for several more weeks to a month or more before doing it again.

My carb totals are certainly higher than 100 g/day when my intake is up to 1600 kcal/day but usually under 150 g/day. If I drop my calories down around 1200-1300 kcal/day my carbs naturally drop below 100 g/day because I do still eat protein first and I still have tight restriction. When I do that, I drop weight fine, but still in that fits and starts pattern.

The macro distribution doesn't seem to have a huge impact on my weight loss, but my percentage of calories as carbs has pretty much held around 25-30% of total calories ever since I got cleared for full diet. I've also tended to a higher caloric intake than a lot of the people here advocate. Of course, I'm also taller than average for a woman at 5'9" so it's hard to compare my caloric needs to someone half a foot shorter. :)

Once cleared for a full diet at about 5 weeks post-op, I was getting about 600-800 calories in, and my doc wanted me a bit over 1,000 by about 6 months post-op, which I was. Around 10 or 11 months post-op I was at about 1,200 and the weight loss was certainly slow, but it was steady. My weight loss hasn't been spectacular, it's been about average, but it has been steady. It also got me well below my surgeon's and PCP's expectations. They didn't really expect to see me much below 230# and I'm sitting at around 194# right now. I've mostly stalled out with what I suspect is roughly my maintenance intake, only about 5# lost in the last couple of months or so, but it is still creeping off and I'm within 20# of my lowest weight goal (175#).

Incidentally, my daughter is also having huge weight issues at 20, and also is showing the same low blood sugar issues, and reports that she can't stand being in ketosis either, though I think the longest she's tried is only a few days so she could just have the normal carb flu and no tolerance for it.

I also suffer from several chronic health conditions including auto-immune arthritis (as does my daughter) so I tend to be cautious with things like high-dose supplements though I will investigate the cinnamon you suggested. The chronic conditions have been flaring up recently, which makes it hard to exercise and also make it a challenge to eat well, which is why I haven't really fought hard to stay down around the 1200 kcal/day range to get these last few pounds off.

Right now I have to focus on keeping my performance up at my job and gutting through the last semester of grad school, and that's taking pretty much ever ounce of energy I have. If I can just maintain my weight through this winter, I'll consider it a win, and when things settle down more in the spring if the last bit of weight hasn't come off, I'll do a bigger push again then. It's a balancing act for me. :) I don't know if the chronic conditions (or combination thereof) add to the blood sugar/ketosis issue or not, or perhaps make me less tolerant to variances, it's really hard to say.

Wow not like you have a few challenges in your life or anything. The nice thing about cinnamon is its not some sort of exogenous supplement, you can add it to food and its completely dietary. I put it in a lot of things like coffee chili, etc. I have heard of people taking it in a capsule form, but I have not gone to that extreme.

The autoimmune stuff is an interesting part of all of this too because autoimmune is basically a reaction to something else your body is doing.

Good luck with wrapping up grad school!

Just a note about "natural" or "dietary" supplements and complex medical conditions... I did some research. Cinnamon in the dosages needed to have any effect on sugar can cause serious issues with the liver. And if a person is on medication that has the potential for liver toxicity, cinnamon in those dosages can vastly increase the risk for liver damage. (Most medications for auto-immune are very hard on the liver and patients have to be regularly monitored for liver function.) So adding that level of cinnamon to my diet would be dangerous, even though it's "natural" and "dietary". If you'd advised that to someone who wasn't an RN with a penchant for research and access to a university research library, and they chose to follow your suggestion, they could do themselves serious harm.

I'm not against natural/dietary supplements. And for most people, it falls under the category of "can't hurt, might help". But once you are mixing them with medications and complex medical conditions, people need to be aware of and respectful of the potential for serious harm.

Thanks for the insight. Generally I recommend incorporating it in a diet not really as a supplement as I suggested to you. I don't think in dietary dosages it would be a risk, but I will certainly dig into a bit more as I agree it is probably not sound advice for some medical conditions.

No one ever said "Keto" per say but the way I eat is pretty darn close

My program advocates the usual high protein, low carb, low fat diet. However, I decided at 5 months post surgery to adopt the Ketogenic lifestyle. When I went for my 6-month check up with my surgeon, I told him about the switch. He was all for the change and very happy with my progress. I expected some push back but instead got two thumbs up and a hearty "keto on" from my surgeon and his assistant!