persistent belly fat on individuals who work out "hard" (HIIT, cfit) and eat well is frequently a sign of cortisol problems.

stop fasting. it's a stressor. sleep more, work out less.

Let’s start at your heartburn. You may have seen elsewhere that heartburn is a condition of not enough acid in the stomach rather than too little …contrary to what the acid neutralizing commercials on TV say…ie Nexium, Prilosec, etc.

Purchase over the counter, betaine HCL pills to get more acid in your gut. You can also take 3 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar in 8oz of water twice a day to get more acid in your gut along with the HCL.

It appears all your problems are associated with your gut not functioning correctly. Dr Art Ayers at http://coolinginflammation.blogspot.com/ talks about gut dysbiosis…non functional gut.

One of the ways to heal the gut is to eat inulin…things like jicama, artichokes, Jerusalem artichokes, chicory, burdock root. Someone said Burdock grows wild in the East and is a beautiful plant. I have found it once in my grocery store. I chewed it raw and it was rather sweet. Check www.herbco.com for chicory and burdock root. These items are fiberous and ferment in the gut and heal the gut.

The other thing is a good probiotic. I use daily 50 billion cultures ULTIMATE FLORA CRITICAL CARE brand.

And Dr K has said to lose weight eliminate all sources of omega 6 Fatty Acids as well as all dairy products. Some are able to lose and drink milk and cream but some are not able. Any nuts other than the mac nuts should be avoided. All the others are loaded with O-6s

Finally, for some reason your digestive enzymes have not converted from enzymes you used to use to digest the carbs and sugar …over to enzymes that are needed to digest fat. It may be increasing your stomach acid will do you well.

Lets talk about food. Breakfast 4 eggs panfried in ghee or coconut oil, 3 pieces of bacon, microwave a yam to just soft, slice into rounds and panfry in ghee or coconut oil til just brown. In the microwave, put in a chunk of hard cheese and melt and scoop onto the eggs. This will be enough calories to get you through to dinner.

At dinner, make a large green salad with leafy types of lettuce, green and color bell peppers, hunks of avocado, tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese crumbles and for salad dressing, Olive oil and vinegar or balsamic vinegar. I like a blend of both. And I use a lot of pepper on my salad. Never really liked it until I saw Nephropal recommend pepperine being good for the gut…now it accentuates the balsamic vinegar bite.

8 oz of a steak. I really like the recipe for steak and also for my beef liver. http://perfecthealthdiet.com/?p=2775 Salmon wild caught at least once a week. Chicken baked or pan fried twice a week....no skin.

Are you supplementing with Vit D3? 10000IU per day for three months then 5000IU thereafter. Helps your immune system.

Once you figure out why your gut is not handling the fat, you will be a happy camper.

My answer is also right in line with paleonyc. I'm not sure, because you didn't say, but I would guess from your tone that in the past you've been a low-fat/high-carb/whole grains-and-yogurt kind of gal, yes? And you felt like the secret was to "burn off" the fat by over-exercising.

Well that's all wrong. But it still shows through in your aversion (and I say aversion because it's completely learned, not natural) to fat. Your trick now is to retrain your brain into realizing that, "wait a second...fat is actually delicious!" Don't let your old, unhealthy habits get in the way of forming new healthier ones.

Here's a typical day for me:

• wake up after a good 7.5-8.5 hours of sleep.
• make a 3 egg omelet or scramble with some vegetables (mushrooms, scallions, etc..), eat 5-8 slices of bacon, drink some coconut milk
• mid-day I have a black tea, plain, sometimes green tea
• if I'm hungry I'll eat some nuts (but not too many!) or have a coconut milk based shake with some cream, half a banana, cocoa powder or something like that
• when dinner rolls around, if I'm hungry I'll make a big one, if not, a small snack...it all depends on how you feel.

A typical fast/gym day (which is only twice a week at most):

• wake up, drink water
• later...drink water
• more water
• have a tea
• 30 minutes before I go to the gym I usually have a can of sardines
• workout til I'm sweaty (large compound lifts, or isolation depending on goals, followed by Sprint intervals on the treadmill til I'm sweating my ass off)
• go home, make a big ol' 14oz. grassfed steak, some spinach or other greens and big mashed sweet potato with lots of cream and kerrygold. I slather everything in salted butter, or cream, and cook everything in ghee or coconut oil...and NO, it DOESN'T make me want to puke. My body craves that extra fat and carbs...having just depleted all my muscle glycogen at the gym.

My trick is also to not overwork myself. If I exercise heavily more than twice a week, I leave a day between to rest/recover.

Since starting paleo about 1.5 months ago, I've lost about 12lbs. If I find myself palteauing (which I am right now...) I'll go on a 2 day binge, high calories, lots of fat, minimal carbs, lots of protein and then resume like normal. My body says, "Oh we don't need to conserve fat, we're not in a scarcity situation, let's burn some more fat." Ketosis resumed.

My only drawback is the ketosis breath, which no amount of water/carb dosing seems to help.

Sorry bout the novel, hope this helps!

(Don't give up! There's LOTS of things to eat!)

check your 24 hr cortisol just to be sure. and do a la robb wolf and just cut down on the fat in order to use it as fuel. im not saying go low fat, im saying go lowER fat than what youre currently doing. also stop the dairy if youre eating it AND drop the nuts, they are unnecessary and contain lots of lectins and omega 6. gas from the cream indicates gut issues and/or a reaction to the quality of the dairy. nausea to fat indicates either too much fat and/or insufficient fat digestion ability. heartburn indicates lack of stomach acid, which could be from too-high cortisol/stress. acne from fish oil/dha could mean poor quality fish oil and/or its acting on you hormonally and you should STOP. get your omega 3's from naturally occurring fat in grass fed meats. trade the chocolate for starch, get enough sleep, stop any caffeine, really stop the nuts (eat some hardboiled eggs instead), and possibly supplement with some tyrosine to up your dopamine to relieve the depression.

You might need to supplement wit GLA since you're getting acne from n-3 supplementation. It's at least worth looking further into. The fact that you still have what I assume to be visceral fat, you HIIT, and IF, and you're "depressed", it sounds like cortisol might be an issue for you. You could start a lifestyle-diet protocol aimed at that and see how you do or get your cortisol levels checked. It might even be time to increase carbohydrate intake with Paleo food choices to increase the enjoyment of eating and to mitigate that possible cortisol issue. After 3 months of doing something that is not working, it's time to look at other things and possibly make a change.

I think it's been said already, but stop the IFing. Intermittent Fasting is NOT a tool for leaning out. You may need to ease up on the exercise. Definitely make sure you're sleeping 8+ hours a night in a pitch black room.

Eat lots of protein and fat, and throw some non-starchy veggies on the side. Personally, I had a lot of success with switching to fattier cuts of meat (if free-range/grass-fed) and adding avocados, dressing salads with olive oil, etc. Don't freak out about getting "enough" fat, just don't be afraid of it.

If you want to lean out, yeah, it's probably a good idea to drop the chocolate and nuts (and fruit, if you're eating any). It all depends on where you are now and what your goal is. Coconut products are another great source of fat.

You didn't mention alcohol, but don't drink if you're trying to lean out.

In one of your responses, you say maybe 5-6 pounds of fat? Seriously, tighten up the diet and sleep for a month, and you'll get there before you know it. Lowish-carb paleo, not too stressful of workouts, lots of good sleep, and cut out the problem foods that have already been mentioned.

If I were experiencing the issues that you are I would address my digestive problems first. You must have a milk allergy if ghee makes you gassy. Ghee is supposed to have all the proteins removed but those allergic to dairy can still have problems. Heartburn is indicative of low stomach acid production. You might try supplementing with Betaine HCl with every meal to see if that problem goes away. Not only will low stomach acid cause heartburn but you will not be digesting proteins completely allow fragmented proteins to pass through the gut wall into the bloodstream causing systemic inflammation/immune response. There is a book that describes a protocol for healing leaky gut, which might be your main problem. It's called "Gut and Psychology Syndrome" by Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride. Grain-free paleo-friendly...I highly recommend reading it.

A key thing you said is...

" I was fit before, and still am."

Soooo.........How much weight are you trying to lose? What is your weight/height now?

avacados and eating tons of butter (she was eating hunks of it right off the stick occasionally) helped my wife lean out.

HCL with Pepsin. If you have heartburn, chances are very good that your stomach isn't making enough acid. Not enough acid means your stomach doesn't empty properly and you aren't digesting your food completely. HCL is cheap. Take some during a meal which would give you heartburn. If it feels like the devil took up residence in your stomach, then you don't need HCL (and take an antacid). If you feel nothing, then you definitely do need it. Continued usage seems to cause your body to start making more, so after a while you likely won't need to continue taking it (or taking as much).

Check out "Eat Fat Lose Fat" by Sally Fallon

lots of good advice here for you, so I'll just tell you whats helping me, I'm also loosing slowly, but I am loosing! My average is about 1/2 lb per week (sometimes 1/2 lb every 2 wks). So I'm down 20lbs and have the last 10 to go. To do that I'm making some adjustments to help my body get there:

-cutting back on the already limited amount of dairy (am working on getting dairy free)

-only one fruit serving per day, the rest veggies (only blueberries, love love love them)

-i like almonds but cutting those back as well no more than 1 oz per day or 1tb almond butter day

-using fitday I'm able to adjust my meals to make sure that at the end of the day my pie chart is at least 50%-55% fat, 25% protein, 25% carbs.

-I always need more fat, so an avocado or butter on veggies is always needed to find the balance. Generally dont need too much more than that as I use EVOO throughout the day or coconut oil

-review your exercise plan or make sure you are moving all day, avoid sitting if possible (i dont exercise much, but i keep moving all day long)

-review your caloric intake (stay at a healthy range but maybe you need to cut a few?)

-eat real whole foods and it should be pretty balanced, - a few teaks here and there....

i know that people dont recommend counting calories but if you are trying to loose weight it really does help find the problem if you arent currently counting...

Valkyrie, did you ever get this worked out? I'm in a similar boat, is why I ask!