Hi everybody! I’ve been lurking on here for awhile but decided to take the plunge and join. I had a few questions that hopefully some people can help clear up. First a little background, I’m a 33 year old man who in January stepped on the scale for the first time in years. Needless to say it was eye-opening (and depressing!). After some research I found Keto and decided to give it a try. It’s been great! Down from 196 in February to 153 as of today. As I’m getting close to where I’d like to be my question is about transitioning out of ketosis. Obviously I’m not going back to my old eating habits but after following the strict guidelines of Keto, and finding the structure and rules to be immensely helpful, I find a general ‘healthy’ diet to be intimidating and confusing. Anyone have any suggestions or things that have worked for them? Tracking macros was comparatively so easy! My other question is what helps tighten up skin? Some say fasting, others say working out, etc. I just don’t know what is the better choice. Thanks for taking the time to read and for being awesome in general!
A few questions for the more experienced on here
Why do you want to transition out of Keto? Are you planning on reintroducing healthy carbs like sweet potatoes? I am at my ideal weight, but would never stray far from Keto again, as that is what got me to my healthy weight. I occasionally try adding in carbs, such as milk. I test my ketone levels with a blood monitor, and one single tortilla kicked me out of ketosis for 12 hours. I’m back in, but plan on staying on the (mostly) straight and narrow for life. Some people can handle 50, even up to 100 grams of carbs, but obviously I am not one of those. In my opinion, keto is a general “healthy diet.” And big congrats on your weight loss. Please don’t stray too far. If you start introducing more carbs you run the risk of completely abandoning the lifestyle. That’s what I have figured out, after five months on Keto.
Many people have reported skin tightening with fasting. I don’t fast, so I guess my next stop will be my dermatologist’s office!!
Congrats on 5 months! I plan on introducing healthy carbs again, as great as Keto has been I can’t tell it’s not a lifelong thing for me. I miss sweet potatoes, beans, etc! It’s worked wonders without question but I want the option to have a carb once in awhile without having to worry about being kicked out of ketosis. Nothing set in stone yet but if keto has taught me anything it’s to make sure I have a plan before I make any changes.
Beans are great! I actually gained all my weight on potatoes and bread, so beans may work for you. Are you monitoring ketones in any way?
You are about to get some sage advice from an expert. @Baytowvin
I do miss bread. Mostly though it’s the old junk staples like a sub and Doritos that I miss. sweet sweet carbs haha. I was using the urine strips at first but focused more on food/macro tracking. Now i can feel if I’ve gone over before even checking my macros!
Fasting can help with the skin issue.
To the bigger question; for maintenance, assuming there aren’t metabolic issues you need to continue to repair, stick to whole and real foods. I’ve always figured if I ever to make it to maintenance, I’d probably lean more towards a keto/paleo hybrid, basically paleo with dairy.
I believe someone starting from a healthy state can maintain health by simply avoiding processed foods and the pitfalls of the SAD.
I was tortured yesterday by my husband’s half-eaten bag of Cheetos! I considered how far I had come, and just said no.
Awesome! Thanks for the input. It’s still surreal to have lost the weight, I hit 180lbs in my early teens and just accepted that was my body type. Turns out it was the eating almost exclusively Chinese takeout for a decade was a mistake haha.
Thank you - you’re a Paleo with dairy type of guy. I could never eliminate dairy!
Honestly, people here will disagree with me. I was keto three months before I ever realized you could measure ketones. The strips were useless - apparently I was not in ketosis or trace. I have since started using a blood monitor. My fingers are sore as hell but at least at some point every day I am in ketosis. If I want to cheat, a day later - zero ketones. Which doesn’t mean I would necessarily gain weight. But I like the checks and balances the blood ketone meter gives me.
Actually Regina at thee months you were MOST likely in ketosis and here is why. Once you start your transition to ketosis your body begins to make the ketones beta-hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate in equal portions which are both oxidized by the muscle. After a few weeks your muscles stop using both the ketones for fuel and only use acetoacetate which they in turn reduce to beta-hydroxybutyrate. So the dominant form of ketone circulating in your body is the one the brain loves most (beta-hydroxybutyrate).
The problem with urine test strips is that they ONLY test for the presence of the ketone acetoacetate, not the ketone beta-hydroxybutyrate. So if your muscles are using all of the acetoacetate to make the form of ketone your brain thrives on, then there will be none or very little to spill into your urine. So the longer you are fat adapted, the less effective the urine test strip. After a while they are essentially useless, that is of course if you are fat adapted.
BTW, I never monitored my ketones for the first 18 months that I was on keto. I only check mine now when I am fasting for more than a couple days, and I use a Keto Mojo blood ketone monitor.
Thank you TGAMEL62. I train very hard and I have yet to see the ketone stick ever be dark. What you state makes total sense!
Anytime, just to elaborate, I started on my two day weekly fast yesterday at 1400 (2PM) so I am about 18 hours into my water only fast. My blood ketones this morning on the Keto Mojo was 2.3mMol so definitely in ketosis. Just because I have them, it used a urine test strip around the same time, and guess what it was negative for ketones.
The reason being of course no acetoacetate in my blood. Because type 1 diabetics have high levels of acetoacetate when they are in diabetic acidosis, these strips are designed to test specifically for acetoacete. Anyway glad I could help, I know many new to the ketogenic lifestyle get discouraged when they starts seeing no results on urine test strips when they are working hard on adjusting to this new way of living.
I just finished a 6 day fast and blood ketones got up to 4.8. I only measure when extended fasting too!
Btw, I just finished a 62 hour water fast and my blood ketones were 3.1mMol on my Keto MoJo blood monitor. The urine test strip was of course negative for ketones. Yes urine keytone strips are cheap, but after a a few months of being fully fat adapted, they are practically. Or at least in my experience they are.
My philosophy on this:
Stay away from processed foods and eating too much sugar even if you do not do the ketogenic (diet) lifestyle, that is the reason some people look older than they actually are; is from eating too much sugar and less fat soluble Vitamin A (retinol) in the diet or look younger than they really are; is that they eat more Whole-foods and less sugary foods and processed carbohydrates!
Another thing is to get more sunlight on your skin, ultra violet radiation will not harm your skin, it is the eating of the too much sugar problem and processed carbohydrates combined with the UV radiation spectrum that causes premature aging of the skin including melanoma skin cancers!
Footnotes:
- Grass fed meats & butter have the fat soluble form of vitamin A (retinol) what gives the skin it’s smooth appearance, the lack of this fat soluble vitamin will make the area around the eye sockets look like dark circles and sunken in!
- “The term “chronological age” should really be associated with excessive glycation (AGEs) exposure time?
- Bone broth makes your skin thicker too, as you age your skin gets thinner, tears and bruises more easily! …More
- “…In addition to environmental factors, intrinsic factors such as glycation-induced aging threaten to diminish the skin’s youthful appearance. Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) are formed when sugars react with proteins such as collagen, an essential component of healthy skin …” …More (I hate using this link as a reference because it really sucks, the scientific research on this is really scarce!)
