Keto not working after 3 weeks — what am I doing wrong?

I see this pattern a lot and there are usually a few culprits. Let me ask some diagnostic questions:

1. How much are you eating? Counter-intuitively, some people eat too little on keto. When you're in a severe deficit your body can hold onto fat as a stress response, especially at 47 when cortisol is already elevated. Can you give me a rough idea of your daily calories?

2. Are you eating enough fat? You described chicken breast (very lean) and salads. Keto needs FAT. If you're doing low-fat + low-carb your body has nothing to run on. Add olive oil to that salad, eat chicken thighs instead of breasts, put butter on your vegetables.

3. How much are you drinking? Dehydration can actually cause the scale to stay the same even when you're losing fat. Water retention is real.

4. Are you measuring or weighing your food? "Under 20g" sounds right but many people have 5-8g of hidden carbs they're not counting. Condiments, coffee creamers, certain vegetables — it adds up.

What she said about fat is key. I see "salad with grilled chicken" and I'm thinking: that meal is basically diet food, not keto food. Keto should feel indulgent — fatty meats, lots of butter, heavy cream, cheese. If your meals feel like "diet food" you're probably under-eating fat.

Also at 47 female — hormones. This doesn't mean keto won't work, but it can mean results come slower and in less linear fashion. Many women in your situation see better results measuring with a tape measure than a scale. Scale can stay flat while you're losing inches.

Same thing happened to me in my first keto attempt. The problem was I was terrified of fat (decades of diet culture) so I was essentially doing low-fat, low-carb — which isn't really keto at all.

The week I started actually eating fat — avocado, fatty beef, cream cheese, macadamia nuts — I dropped 4 lbs in 10 days. Sometimes the fix is counterintuitive but real.

One more thing worth checking: MyFitnessPal's carb counts can be wrong. The food database is user-submitted and has errors. For 1-2 weeks, switch to Cronometer which uses USDA verified data. You might be surprised to find you've been eating 30-35g net carbs thinking it's 20g.

Also — are you testing for ketones? If you're not in ketosis you can't expect keto results. Get blood ketone strips (more accurate than urine) and check: if you're below 0.5 mmol/L you're not in ketosis regardless of your carb count.

Okay this is all really helpful. I just looked at my meals differently and I think the problem is obvious now — I'm basically doing low-carb not keto. My fat intake is way too low. Going to switch to fattier meats, add olive oil much more liberally, and get a blood ketone meter to actually verify I'm in ketosis. Will update in 2 weeks!

Please do update! This is literally such a common issue and your thread is going to help so many people who search for "keto not working." Looking forward to your results.