16/8 IF and Keto

#1

I am still on my first week of keto. I now understand that instead of CICO, I should keep carbs under 20g and eat protein and fat when I’m hungry. I’ve never been a breakfast eater. I naturally 16/8 intermittent fast. But now it’s been 12 hours since I had dinner (bacon cheeseburger w/o bun and spinach/tomato/cucumber side salad) and I’m so hungry! Is it better to keep fasting or to eat when I’m hungry? Specifically in the first month or so.

Some background; I’m trying keto to lose weight initially but understand it’s a lifestyle change. I’m a 35-year-old female. 5’2" 180lb with a target weight of 150lb. I’m also actively in the keto flu stage. My body ached last night and my stomach was cramped with GI pain.

#2

Hi and welcome @angdilla

I would listen to your body and eat especially as you’ve got Keto ‘flu.

Hope you feel better soon.

#3

Agree with above.
I tried intermittent fasting when I started and found that I couldn’t eat enough total calories in a day. I was really under eating.
Fine for the first few days, then it really caught up with me and I got very sick and dizzy.

On paper, fasting and keto go really well together. But in practice we are all different.
I think one change at a time is the best method.
As long as you are eating enough calories over the day, eat them when you want.

#4

I believe this is totally avoidable. You just need more water and electrolites.
LOTs more
And then more and more.
Keto flu is just dehydration.

#5

How do you recommend getting electrolytes?
I’m a huge water drinker. I usually have a Liquid IV after a workout, but they are full of carbs so I’ve cut that out. I don’t like Gatorade. What’s your go-to?

#6

I use lots of ways of getting more salt.

Also note, that if you already drink loads of water, that may be an even bigger cause of keto flu, because you are flushing out even more salt from your body.
But don’t drink less, just add electrolites.

I take salt tablets. I also carry a pot of nice cornish sea salt flakes which are very nice. I just dip my tongue in the pot before every gout or water.
Apparently, when salt tastes good, you need it. When I starts tasting bad, you have enough.
I kind of follow this, as I do not measure my salt intake.
You can make your own ketoaid, loads of recipes here and on YouTube.
But I can’t be bothered to make it so I use high 5 zero tablets that you drop into water.
I also take an electrolite pill.
Shop bought electrolites have sodium, potasium and magnesium.
Potassium and magnesium are obtained from meat anyway, but I take them as it is easy.
Sodium is the main one.
Get a nice salt so you enjoy the taste.
You can eat too much, but I believe the first month or so, no harm will come of you go overboard.

#7

Thank you @Rusty! I ate 2 eggs and 4 pieces of bacon and feel much less stabby.

#8

Less stabby = good

(Robin) #9

You’ve gotten good advice. Eat when you feel like it and eat enough, add some salt to your water.

#10

Eat when annoyingly or strongly hungry, always, if you ask me. Before my hunger went over very drastic changes (waay after fat adaptation after 7 weeks on keto, I think I even needed carnivore first), “I eat when I get hungry” was my number one rule regarding eating. I even did EF with that rule, not very long or often though… And plenty of OMAD days.
Forced fasting doesn’t sit well with most of us, I am totally against it unless someone has some huge reason they are willing to sacrifice comfort for, there are so many extreme cases and circumstances…

By the way, one may badly need to eat even without any hunger. Hunger isn’t that very reliable for most of us. But we may have other urges to eat and that’s helpful.

You are new, no wonder your body doesn’t work as it did before. Keto is already a huge change, don’t burden your body with unnecessarily staying hungry too. It wants food, it probably needs food.

And don’t think the relationship between keto and fasting is so simple and similar for everyone especially not in the very beginning but we are different longer term too.
My fasting abilities are best on high-carb and worst on extreme low-carb despite my hunger is tiniest and softest in the latter case. But my mealsize tends to be smaller with more satiating food, not surprisingly. And that doesn’t last that long. So I even see the logic. But what I get is the opposite of the norm. It still happens. You aren’t like the typical ketoer, you are exactly like you, at this point, on your current style of keto. So it’s easily possible that your experiences won’t be typical and it’s fine.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #11

For now, eat when you’re hungry. When you find yourself skipping meals because you forgot to eat, that’s the time to explore fasting.

(BuckRimfire) #12

This is one of the things I like about low-carb: skipping a meal becomes inconsequential.

Pre-keto, I would always become hungry between 10:30 and 11:00, no matter how big a breakfast I ate (and I ate plenty!) If we had something important to do mid-day, we’d always go to lunch before to avoid getting too confused and hangry.

A little over a year into keto, we had a real crunch-time at work for a few months. We had to finish a certain set of experiments before a scientific meeting at which we were doing a presentation, and it wasn’t going well. We had to do the same thing over and over with some tweaking, and the days were pretty hectic. Often, lunch was just a couple of handfuls of walnuts. When I was particularly busy, there were several days in which I realized that it was pushing 5 o’clock and I hadn’t had anything except black tea since around 8 AM. While I was certainly interested in dinner, I wasn’t desperate or feeling crappy.

#13

I needed several years and plenty of carni times to have this relaxed about skipping meals, physically at least (I still like to eat, with or without hunger and need. but I am improving there too). And it only works when well-fasted. But then it’s nice, I can wait hours and my hunger doesn’t get worse and worse and worse and then painful and I always got home soon after that… I wonder if I could get a strong hunger if I stopped eating for a longer time than comfortable, I guess not. It’s even weaker now than with being freshly fat adapted and that was cool too. I just had to eat when hungry, soft hunger or not.
Now I can choose and wait and it’s super convenient… I didn’t have this on mere keto.

The time between my meals never got bigger, only smaller and tiny meals still make me hungry.

But I am glad with what I have - I even tolerate my occasional 5+ meals a day on carnivore way better than in the beginning but I think I can make them super rare soon.

Oh, indeed, that changed too. In the past, if dinner was my first meal of the day (I can do second and third dinners if needed), I felt… Starved in some way after taking a bite? It ruined the joy of eating too… It’s way more normal now. I still don’t like waiting for super long, it still affects my food joy but I don’t feel starved. But it’s not optimal so I tend to want to start my day eating wise after 5pm, that’s good.

IDK how it would sound for someone who didn’t have these changes but they are great for me. Even losing my strong, sharp, annoying sudden hunger I often had on high-carb was great but the new changes are even more helpful.