I have been eating LCHF with recommended ratio for Keto and fat adaption for 3 weeks now. 70 F, 5 C and 25 P.
I used to track caliories, but it made me feel sluggish not being able to eat as much as I felt like in terms of fatty foods.
When in this phase I have heard that you should not restrict calories as long as you keep carbs under 20 gr a day and moderate your protein.
Is it ok to eat more calories than Keto Calculators suggest as long as I follow this ratio and under 20 gr for carbs?
In addition I have heard that people in early stages should eat a LOT of fatty foods to train the body to use that for energy.
I work out very hard every day at Barry’s Bootcamp and I am very lean already and have the body composition I want, so I want to go into ketosis for other reasons than weight loss.
Adaptation and restriction
Yes, don’t be concerned with calories during the initial adaptive phase. It’s more important to hit the macros.
Carbs under 20g is the only thing to concern yourself with at this point.
Keeping carbohydrate under 20 g/day is practically guaranteed to get you into ketosis, which will eventually lead to fat-adaptation, the real goal. Restricting calories intentionally usually leads to problems with the metabolism slowing down, which makes weight-loss harder. Eating to satiety usually circumvents this problem, because the body knows how much to ask for in order to be able to metabolize both the dietary fat and any excess stored fat the adipose tissue may contain.
It’s fine to eat as many calories as your body is calling for, regardless of what any macro calculator might say, but don’t eat past the point of satiety. If you have excess fat to get rid of, you will find yourself restricting calories naturally; and of course, once you have gotten rid of all the extra fat, your appetite will rise to a level that will allow you to meet your energy requirement from the amount of food you eat.
There is at least one documented case of a study participant losing fat while eating 3,000 calories a day, but the usual experience is that people eat far less than that when eating to satiety. Sam Feltham documented an experiment in which he ate 5,000 calories a day for thirty days, during which he neither gained nor lost weight, but did lose a bit of fat.
A lot of this is going to be irrelevant to you since you are already lean, but the ketogenic diet is not really about weight-loss, but rather about weight-normalization, so you should still find it a highly beneficial way of eating. Certainly, getting enough protein and enough calories will promote health and might even help you gain muscle, if that would be something you’d like to happen.