Tough Love: Why Keto Isn't Working for You (Protein, Greens, Tracking and Patience)

2018-06-15

People in the group asked for a tough-love broadcast, so in June 2018 I did one: 39 minutes on the mistakes I kept seeing in threads from people who were months in and not getting results. It isn't on YouTube. The short version is four things first, everything else later.

In this recording

[0:01] Tough Love, for people who want a shake by the shoulders. Losing weight is hard and boring, and the longer you have to do it, the more the basics matter.
[1:26] Mistake one: piling on exercise before the diet is handled. Exercise is great for health, but if your shopping, meal prep, weighing and tracking aren't done, you don't have time to exercise yet.
[3:29] Keto is protein-driven, in my opinion. First job: work out your protein for your height, sex and activity, and hit it. Muscle isn't only for lifters; I talked about falls in older age and having the leg strength to catch yourself.
[6:01] Are you weighing and tracking protein, taking a multivitamin, and sourcing electrolytes? Hungry? Where are your greens?
[7:07] Stop treating the scale as the authority. I went up three pounds one morning after losing 3.6 the day before. Use string measurements or a cheap impedance scale that tracks against itself.
[8:51] Don't let perfect be the enemy of good: no need for exogenous ketones, collagen peptides, or debates about trace maltodextrin.
[11:10] Think of protein sources by protein-to-fat ratio: tuna and chicken breast are lean, ribeye is fattier, bacon, eggs and ground beef roughly one to one.
[12:00] Beginners: the week-one water drop doesn't repeat, and the benefits tend to arrive around weeks four to six.
[15:09] Slip-ups: no two-day fast, no reset, no cleanse. Your next meal is keto. Find one keto meal you like and build from there.
[18:46] If the scale isn't moving, too much food is going in, usually from untracked oil, butter or peanut butter. Make decisions, not mistakes.
[21:24] Protein, not fat, is the most satiating nutrient. Protein, fiber, a multivitamin and water: if those four are covered, I find it hard to believe you're still hungry.
[22:29] I did the Stall Breaker plan at about 1,100 calories while lifting and kickboxing and had to force the last of the broccoli down (live QPOU6932).
[24:39] My basics recap: taper carbs, 20 net, protein targets, fiber, then fat by phase. Olive oil gets a mention; none of the special fats are needed.
[27:42] Exercise: start simple. Walk the block, do counter or wall push-ups.
[29:19] Hormones and cycles mostly move water and mood; they don't make magic calories, and neither does ketosis.
[30:48] Aim for about a pound a week; half a pound a week is still a lot over a year. Build skills and habits.

The claim worth unpacking: protein first

My numbers in this Live were 80 grams for a shorter woman, 100 for taller, plus about 20 for activity and 20 more for men. I gave the same ladder in more detail in the December 2019 reboot video (live PWNM7222).

Here's how that sits against the evidence pages. The US adult RDA is 0.80 g/kg/day (National Academies, 2005), a floor for preventing deficiency. For a 70 kg woman that's 56 g, so my 80 is above the RDA, not a high-protein extreme. On satiety, the strongest single trial on the page raised protein from 15% to 30% of energy with carbs held constant, and people ate 441 fewer calories a day on their own and lost 4.9 kg over 12 weeks (Weigle et al., 2005, doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/82.1.41). That supports what I said at [21:24], though that trial was 19 adults and held carbohydrate constant rather than cutting it.

The falls point holds up too. In the Health ABC study of 2,066 adults aged 70–79, the top protein quintile lost about 40% less lean mass over three years than the bottom (Houston et al., 2008, doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/87.1.150), and the PROT-AGE group recommends 1.0–1.2 g/kg/day for adults over 65 (doi.org/10.1016/j.jamda.2013.05.021). I said cardiovascular fitness is the best predictor of longevity and cited a dietitian-tracking study; neither is on the KB's evidence pages, so treat those as my claims, not checked numbers.

If you have kidney disease, talk to your doctor before raising protein. The page's kidney meta-analysis covers adults without kidney disease only.

What I'd say differently

The multivitamin. I said it at least four times as one of the four non-negotiables. The evidence is mixed. The US Preventive Services Task Force calls evidence for multivitamins preventing heart disease or cancer insufficient (I statement, 2022, uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org). But there is a specific case for a restricted diet: in the A TO Z trial, the Atkins group shifted toward inadequate thiamine, folate, vitamin C, iron and magnesium at eight weeks (Gardner et al., 2010, doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.2010.29468). So as cheap insurance on a narrow diet it's defensible; as a reason you're hungry, my "deficiency" line was a guess.

The "no magic calories" line at [29:41] holds up. In a metabolic-ward study, switching to keto at the same calories raised energy expenditure by about 57 kcal a day, and body-fat loss slowed after the switch (Hall et al., 2016, doi.org/10.3945/ajcn.116.133561).

Tone. "You're probably lying to me somewhere" is the tough-love register people asked for. The point under it still stands: most of us under-track oil and butter.

If you've had an eating disorder, skip the tough-love framing and the weighing advice and talk to your doctor or therapist first. The same goes if you're on medication for diabetes or blood pressure, since cutting carbs can change what you need.

Key points

Protein, fiber/greens, a multivitamin and water before anything else.
Hit a protein number; lean sources move the scale faster than fatty ones.
After a slip, your next meal is keto. No fasts or resets.
Weigh food you think you're tracking; untracked fats are the usual leak.
Measure your body, not just the scale, and aim for about a pound a week.

Tough Love: Why Keto Isn't Working for You (Protein, Greens, Tracking and Patience)

In this recording

The claim worth unpacking: protein first

What I'd say differently

Key points

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