If your mission is to loose weight, step on the scale, write it down and lock away the scale til you’re fat adapted. Don’t worry about weight until you’re there (or ever),
Remember to ask yourself if you’re hungry before eating. If you’re hungry, eat. If not, don’t.
Paraphrasing Roman Mars (99% Invisible podcast), “Always read the label”.
I personally listened to the first 8 to 10 podcasts of 2KetoDudes before I started. These contain a lot of information to get started and have some understanding of the basics.
What I missed in these first shows, or didn’t notice, is the mention of taking some multi-vitamins and/or magnesium tablets. Of course, this isn’t mandatory, but it could be mentioned that it won’t hurt you getting kicked out of ketosis.
Oh, and I didn’t drink enough water starting Keto, got cramps (usually while I slept). Less of a problem now must have been something that went off balance while adapting.
Don’t overthink what you can eat. Stay simple. Food is not for entertainment it is for nutrition. Read every label of every food you pick up before you eat it.
You can ask questions and find encouragement in the Ketogenic forums. Everyone here started at day one at some point. There are plenty of good resources here you just have to search. Not too much though.
Just start…stop thinking about how complicated it sounds and just start one day with an egg and some butter or some chops cooked in butter.
Listen to podcasts - and follow some great pages on FB and web.
Spend some time planning and prepping your kitchen first. Google recipes and have your ingredients on hand for the first week or two, to avoid the temptation of the bakery, cereal, chip and lolly aisles at Woolies!! Know in the back of your mind what you’re going to eat for those first few meals, as it can be a little overwhelming at first - particularly if you’re like me and new(ish) to cooking.
Measure your food and track the macros. You can be way off and easily be getting to many carbs if you don’t measure your food.
This is indeed great advice!
Start with some kind of meal plan, multiple can be found on the internet, and try to stick with it. This has helped me a lot also. Knowing a meal plan is used by multiple people gives some insurance to your concience by thinking “It’s probably a good start.”
Plan on taking time off work the first week, if possible.
Commit to keto for a minimum of 30-90 days. Quitting before then means you did all the hard part and didn’t stick around for the best part.
To just trust your body. Be stubborn and don’t give up. Change gears and keep tweaking to find what works for your individual unique body. Also the brain can decide all it wants - it’s the body that’s driving.
Think about nothing except eliminating carbohydrates. Read the label on everything you consider eating and Google the nutrition of any raw ingredients you consider cooking with. Do not worry about any of the special foods or equipment you hear about. Eliminate carbohydrates and eat enough fat so you are not hungry. (Plenty of time later to tweak your eating but if you can’t get this part down there’s no point in the tweaking)
If you’re overweight stop buying clothes in your current size.
Focus on the things you can have, not what you can’t.
If your type 2 diabetic, eat to your meter
Be patient
Don’t tell anyone, just adjust your own food intake initially. Once you start to loose weight people will become curious and ask what you are doing. That’s exactly what I did. I cooked regular dinner for everyone but adjusted mine. Now for the most part my family is on board.
I’ve found more people are willing to listen and not judge when the outcome is obvious and they are the one’s to notice and ask.
Tips to get them up and running if new.
I agree with the tracking comments - once I started doing that I found it much easier to understand what I should be eating , I was eating way over my macros without noticing as I was trying to eyeball everything.
Also for newbies, I find it’s really important to understand how the body breaks down protein/carbs/fats differently.
I honestly wish someone had said listen to the first three episodes of your 2 keto dudes podcast, that’s when it clicked for me.
Trust the process! I didn’t trust the process of becoming keto and then fat adapted. I wanted the hunger to be tamed immediately and wanted to have keto clarity and be able to fast immediately also.i didn’t realize there’s a process that the body goes through to do that and it happens in its own time as long as I KCKO. It all happened and it was only a matter of months for me.
Don’t. Cheat. Not worth it. Even little cheats - a bit of this & that at a potluck, a little popcorn at the movies, can put you back to Square 1. Bring your own treats. Buy those little snack size zip bags, measure your own nuts, cheese etc. Keep some emergency nuts or jerky in the car.
Weigh once a week for a month, then once a month for a year.
Obsessing over the scale makes you crazy.
It can take weeks / months to become really fat-adapted, especially for women / menopausal women. Weight stalls can last a really long time on keto, meanwhile your body is adjusting; use jeans or measuring tape as a guide.
Don’t try to explain the keto program to people unless they’re interested. Just say, no thanks, I’m not eating carbs right now. Or, I don’t eat bread / cake / potatoes / pasta. No bun please, can you just put it on a bed of lettuce or sauteed spinach.
is a great tool to help dodging temptations of carbage