The 13 Biggest Reasons Keto Stops Burning Fat

If you’re not losing weight on keto, or you’re stuck on a keto plateau, this is for you. Make sure you’re not making these common keto diet mistakes… they could be the reason why keto isn’t working!

Dr. Berg back again. Today we’re going to talk about why people cannot lose weight on keto or maybe they initially lose weight but then it stops working. We’re going to cover all the reasons why that happens. But what I want to explain is the whole picture so you can really dissect it and get the benefits of keto and what makes keto keto is the lowering of the carbohydrates.

Roughly, it’s below 50 grams of carbohydrates per day, not per meal. Especially if you’re trying to achieve a goal from keto, whether it’s losing weight, reducing some type of chronic illness like diabetes, for example, or just getting energy, or just doing it to be healthy. It’ll make sense as we go through it. The first thing I want to talk about is dirty keto. What is dirty keto?

It’s going low carb but not worrying about the ingredients. Okay? So, if you were going to go to a fast food restaurant in McDonald’s and order some food and you can get the burger and then take out the bun. So, you get a bunch of burger patties with maybe bacon. Quality is not that great, but we’re omitting the carbohydrates.

Here’s some other products that are dirty keto. The Atkins products. Oh my gosh, this is like the worst case scenario. Here we have the Atkins milk chocolate delight. It has only 2 g of net carbs.

So, if you look at the total carbohydrates and you minus the fiber, that gives you what’s called net carbs. And that’s pretty much how people calculate the number of carbs to keep them below 50. And so, they’re emphasizing also 15 g of protein, right? And 1 g of sugar and 3 g of fiber. So, if we look at the ingredients, wow, there’s a huge long list.

That’s what you get right here. It’s keto, but is it healthy? I would say no. Then we have the Quest bar right here. They call it a protein bar.

Birthday cake. Wow, look at that. Less than one gram of sugar. Okay, this has protein blend. We have milk protein isolates, whey protein isolates, poly dextrose.

This is a synthetic sugar, etc. , etc. , etc. I’m going to bet anything if you consume this or this, you’re going to feel bloated. For example, there’s another ketogenic diet called Ideal Protein.

Oh my gosh, this is not only low carb, but it’s low fat as well and very poor quality protein. It’s like soy protein isolates with pretty much everything. And I’ve had people come in my office that use that diet for many months and they lose weight, but oh my gosh, their hair looks all dried out, their skin looks kind of old, they don’t look vibrant, they don’t look healthy. So, this is one reason why you might not be successful on your ketogenic diet. Number two, lack of sleep.

Do you realize that if you get four days in a row of poor sleep, you’re going to have blood values very similar to a pre-diabetic? When you don’t sleep, your cortisol level goes super high. Let’s say, for example, you’re on the ketogenic diet, but you’re not sleeping well, and you’re wondering, why am I not losing weight? Because your cortisol is way too high. Not to mention, you burn most of the fat when you’re sleeping.

you have the most powerful fat burning hormone called growth hormone and that’s activated mainly when you’re sleeping. So here you are on the ketogenic plan not sleeping and not seeing results from the ketogenic plan or the exercise you’re doing. So sleep is a huge piece of the puzzle. And then let’s just go to number three, stress. Now I’ve already talked about cortisol.

Cortisol will block all benefits from the ketogenic plant. So here you are on a low sugar, low carb diet, but the sugar is coming from the liver because the cortisol hormone and other hormones are literally causing the liver to make sugar from protein from fat. This is why even some people have to for some reason take predinazone which is a synthetic cortisol because of the mobilization of so much sugar. And you’ll see too with people that get a cortisol face, cortisol causes fat to go on the love handles, in the belly, on the face, and also around the organs, okay? As visceral fat, and also inside the organs as liver fat.

I want to tell you just a quick story about a patient who came in. She’s trying to lose weight. She’s on the ketogenic diet. She’s doing everything right, but she’s just like constantly stressed out to the extreme. mental stress until a point where I said, “You know what?

We have to handle this stress. Go on a vacation, change your environment. ” So, she did this vacation. She comes back. She lost a ton of weight and she did not change her diet.

In fact, she ate more food. She kept the low carb in, but she was relaxed and she had lower stress. So, keeping your stress down, getting sleep will allow the ketogenic plan to work. And then let’s just mention this number four, overtraining. I’ve had people come in, and I’m not kidding, would work out six hours a day because they’re desperate to lose weight, right?

And still not lose weight on keto because they were overtraining because the benefits of exercise and training occur when you’re recovering and when you’re sleeping. Another lady that I know lifted over I think it was 2 or 3 million pounds at the gym over a course of a year and lost only 1 to two pounds. She was overtraining. I will say she wasn’t sleeping too. These two tie in together, your exercise and sleep have to be at the right ratio.

Now let’s talk about number five. Bile and gallbladder and liver. So your liver makes bile. The bile is something to help you break down fats. The bile comes down a tube called the bile duct and it gets stored in the gallbladder.

And so when you eat, the gallbladder contracts and now the small intestines have this super concentrated bile to help you break down the fats. So then the pancreas can release enzymes to take it to the next level. So now the fat is at the very tiniest level. So, you can start pulling in fats, soluble vitamins, omega-3 fats, and all the benefits that you can get from fat. But if your liver is fatty, your thyroid, it doesn’t get activated if there’s a problem with the liver.

We need healthy bile and and a healthy gallbladder and a healthy liver for the thyroid to work. And so, so many people are trying to fix the thyroid, but really the problem is the liver. So, I’m just pointing it out because if you’re trying to lose weight or you’re trying to do this and you have a fatty liver or there’s some problem with your bile or your gallbladder, going on a ketogenic diet might not help you. Everything’s going to get jammed up down here and you’re going to get like bloating and then the pressure will back up in the liver and cause discomfort on the back part of your upper trap through here or even that refers down to the right arm. And you’re wondering what is going on.

I thought the ketogenic diet was supposed to be healthy. Let’s talk about fat for a second because you can definitely overdo it. If you’re eating three meals a day and eating cookies, you’re not going to lose any weight because yes, you may be burning fat, but you’re burning the dietary fat. I always pair the ketogenic diet with intermittent fasting at the same time because if you’re not eating, you’re going to lower insulin and then that’s going to allow you to go into ketosis. So getting on the ketogenic plan without intermittent fasting, instead you are snacking on fat.

Oh my gosh, you’re not going to see results. So it’s very important to pair the frequency of meals. Cut out your snacks and then cut out your breakfast. What you should notice is your hunger is going to go down. You’re no longer going to crave the wrong things.

This means you’re in ketosis, but it doesn’t mean you’re burning fat. When you start doing this, only eat when you’re hungry and don’t eat if you’re