Am I missing something(s)?

(Casey) #1

I started keto this week and I have found it fairly easy (so far). I have been listening to podcasts, reading forums online, and I even read “The Obesity Code”.

When I started, I thought that a great part about this type of lifestyle is so that you could be free from counting calories. However, I keep seeing people talk about restricting calories. Maybe we are all stuck in this mentality and it is hard to break free.

I am tracking my macros using MFP and I seem to keep having trouble eating enough calories by trying to stick to my macro ratios (still need to up the fat a little). I still haven’t gotten myself to the point of being able to stick butter on things because I am afraid that it may deter me from eating it because I don’t want the butter to overwhelm the taste of the food. Do you find that the butter overwhelms the taste of the food? I know some people put it in coffee… How does that taste?

(Ken) #2

Counting calories, at some point, becomes relevant for losing additional fat. It’s usually not especially relevant for beginners, until they are completely adapted. Even then, if you wait to be hungry before you eat it’s usually not necessary.

Once in maintenance, you really don’t have to worry about it.

(Duncan Kerridge) #3

Try it and find out …

#4

Not a fan of macros. I try to eat under 20g carbs, around 60g protein based on my height and ideal body weight and then whatever fat I want. I tend not to put butter on everything, when I feel like it I will but otherwise no

#5

I think you mean calories?

#6

No I meant macros. Although I do not track calories either. There are a bunch of sites that tell
you to eat 75% fat, 20% protein and 5% carbs (or whatever, making it up). The problem is that then depends on calories. Each carb and protein has 4 calories per gram. So if you eat 1500 calories you are fine at 18.75 carbs but if you eat 2000 then you are at 25g of carbs. Using macros puts you back to counting calories.

Whether I eat 1000 calories in a day or 5000, I still should be limiting my carbs to a set amount, not to 5% of what I eat

#7

You just described macros! All “macros” is is the amount you eat of each macronutrient. What you describe are two different ways of establishing how much you eat of each. I agree with you, working out your macros based on a % of calorie intake is not a useful approach. It is far better to use grams. But both describe macro calculations. You show the gram approach in your first post…

Those are the macros you eat. Those are macros you describe :slight_smile:

#8

I hear what you are saying. They are all macro nutrients as opposed to micro nutrients such as vitamins. I get that. Most people, especially newbies, in my experience are talking about a percentage, especially when it has been calculated. While my protein number is calculated based either on my lean mass or ideal weight, my carbs are not, I simply try to stick to under 20g

Too often people express their consumption as a percentage based macro, in the future I will specify that I am not in favor of a percentage based macro as it is a de facto way to go back to calories

#9

The easiest thing to say is that you prefer to calculate your macros in grams rather than as a % - simples :slight_smile:

#10

Fat doesn’t have to come from butter. Pick fatty sources of protein (ie. salmon, Chilean sea bass, duck, lamb). Then add a fatty sauce over veggies. Or get fat from food like avocado, nuts, cheese, olives, seeds.

(Casey) #11

Yes! I used an online calculator to try to figure out how much protein is the right about for my lean mass and I am sticking to 20g of carbs.

(Allie) #12

I counted for my first two years on keto because I was still under the mistaken belief that it was necessary, but I stopped counting (and tracking) six months ago and have been doing much better since. The scale shows me as 3lbs lighter since I stopped counting, but more importantly, the changes in body composition are obvious - more muscle and clearly less fat, with less stress and more free time due to not obsessing over weighing, measuring, and restricting myself.

(Candy Lind) #13

Hello, the Queen of Unable to Break Free here! :smiling_imp: I’ve been eating low carb since Memorial Day weekend 2017, but I was convinced that if I ate what the keto calculators were telling me to eat, I would get even bigger than I already had. My metabolism was KAPUT. Eating low carb got me some benefit, and I have been slowly losing, but my failure to eat enough has kept me out of full-on ketosis. I just posted Friday that I was “starting over,” as it were; I pledged to eat 1500 calories a day and make sure 70% of my calories were fat. Guess what? I ate 1500 calories Friday, and for the first time ever, on Saturday I went nearly an entire day without eating. I FINALLY experienced The “WOW, I’m not hungry!” Phenomenon. PLUS (and I know they are considered worthless by the “senior” Ketonians here) my keto sticks registered something more than “light” for the first time. I finally got hungry tonight and had a nice fatty dinner and some macadamias for “dessert,” and though I didn’t eat 1500 calories today, I had the right macros for what I ate, and ate to satiety. BELIEVE IT when they say you have to eat enough, and that you gotta eat enough fat. (Cue “I’m a Believer” by the Monkees - whoops, maybe not - showing my age here! :wink:)

(Allie) #14

Well done you! :grin:
I think a massive part of keto is learning to listen to your body and responding as it asks you to, though there’s often a lot of physical healing to do before people are able to properly tune into these signals.

(Emma Cohn) #15

I count my calories on MFP periodically. I’ll record all my meals for a week or two just to make sure I am getting enough protein, my carbs are low enough and just seeing how much fat out of curiosity. I let my hunger be my guide. I’ve had to make a conscious effort to eat more protein, especially now that I’m weightlifting. And tracking has been useful for that. But I hate doing it so most of the time I don’t. My meals don’t change very often so I have a pretty good idea of how I’m eating even when I’m not tracking.

About the butter, after becoming fat adapted your tastes will probably change. After a few months on keto sugar had become extremely sweet tasting. Now I like fattier, richer foods. Eating 7oz of duck liver pate probably would have made me throw up before keto, but now it’s great. If it’s butter specifically that deters you, there are lots of other healthy delicious fats you can add to your salads or cook with your meat and veggies. heavy whipping cream and a handful of berries is a nice treat.