Only Lost 5 Pounds in a Month on Keto? Setting Realistic Weight-Loss Goals
A quick morning video, hair not done, prompted by yet another post: 25 days of keto and "only" five pounds. Seven minutes on why that's not a failure, ending with my own weight history.
In this video
- [0:00] Go easy on yourself. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was your body (video Ewo-C_Cc4hU).
- [0:30] When did you last weigh your goal weight? For most of us, years ago.
- [1:00] If it's been less than six months, I wouldn't call it a plateau. After a year, sure, let's talk.
- [1:30] Month one is for getting used to running on fat and losing the sugar habit. Some people add intermittent fasting or a one- or two-day fast once they're settled.
- [2:00] Stay under 20 g carbs; you don't have to "hit" 20 if you only had 8. The "Stop the Insanity" infomercial: the insanity is feeling like you need to eat all the time.
- [3:00] Don't ask how much you'll lose by week three. Ask whether food addiction is what stopped you before.
- [4:00] It's about getting control of hunger, cravings and insulin; the weight loss follows.
- [4:30] A caloric deficit, not necessarily caloric restriction.
- [5:00] Keto flu as withdrawal from sugars and carbs.
- [6:00] My own ladder: about 205 lb at the end of college, creeping up to about 266. The first loss came from quitting sugar and starting MMA; the rest I was doing with keto.
The line that holds up: count back the years
The question I'd keep is the first one. How long ago did you weigh your goal weight? I said for most of us it's five or ten years (video Ewo-C_Cc4hU). Then I gave mine: 205, 210, 215, 220, a stretch in the 230s, the 240s, then through the 250s to about 266. It went on in steps, over years. Expecting it to come off in a month doesn't match how it went on.
That's not a pep talk; it's the shape the trial data has too. In a 2003 trial of 63 adults, the low-carb group lost more at 3 and 6 months, but the difference wasn't significant by 12 months, and a lot of people dropped out of both groups (Foster 2003). Across 13 trials lasting at least a year, very-low-carb ketogenic diets came out about 0.91 kg ahead of low-fat (Bueno 2013). In DIETFITS, it was 6.0 kg vs 5.3 kg over 12 months, not significantly different (Gardner 2018).
Read those plainly: over a year, people on keto-style diets lose weight, roughly as much as people on other diets they stick to. Nobody in these trials lost it all in a month.
Drill-down: "it's not about losing weight"
I said something in this video that sounds backwards for a weight-loss channel: it's not about losing weight, it's about getting control of your hunger, cravings and insulin, and then the weight loss can happen (video Ewo-C_Cc4hU).
Where my position and the literature split, here's both. My position: keto breaks a food or sugar addiction and the hunger cycle, and that's why the weight comes off. The evidence pages don't test "sugar addiction" as a cause. What they do show is that adherence is the hard part. Foster 2003's retention was low in both arms. A diet that leaves you less hungry is easier to stay on, and staying on it is what the 12-month numbers are measuring.
So I'd still say the first month is for learning the new way of eating and seeing whether your hunger changes, not for the scale. If it doesn't change, that's useful to know too. See why most diets fail.
Then vs now
On this one I didn't move, I doubled down. In a live Q&A the same day I said the first 30 days' weight isn't a "key performance indicator" (video xyEZL0HuejI), and a few days later I made a video about how comparing yourself to keto-group posts on social media can do more damage than the scale (video dNUvzMl-OEU).
What did change was the carb number I gave here (stay under 20). I later said 50 (see the MyFitnessPal post for that history).
If your goal or your pace is being set by fear of the scale, or you've struggled with disordered eating before, it's worth bringing a doctor or therapist in before you start tracking anything. The "go easy on yourself" message only goes so far without that.
Key points
- Five pounds in 25 days is a normal start, not a failure (video Ewo-C_Cc4hU).
- I don't call it a plateau inside six months. See stall vs fluctuation.
- Weight usually went on over years; plan for it to come off over months.
- Year-long trials show keto losing roughly as much as other diets people stick with, a little ahead in some (Bueno 2013).
- Month one is for getting control of hunger and learning the food, not for the scale.
- Watch non-scale signs too: see non-scale victories.