Am I Still in Keto?

newbies
(Robin) #21

You go, girl!
You do you.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #22

As long as you can get back on again, which many of us have found to be difficult. It can be a slippery slope.

In the same way, many recovering alcoholics have found that total abstinence from alcohol is actually easier than trying to cheat and have some occasionally.

#23

I was okay with going off 1-2 times a week… It wasn’t ideal (but it turned out, my normal days were too carby, that was the problem) but it was the best I could do at that point. It’s very possible once a month will work. But it may not be, it’s quite individual and matters what we exactly do when we go off…
I physically can’t stay off, I bounce back. It’s still bad if we are prone to stray too far even if it’s short. Nowadays I have extra rules, different taste… We should know (eventually) what keeps us from going wild/insane…

There are items we should ban for good (either because it’s so bad or more like because we inevitably go overboard) but carb intake over whatever our keto limit is? That’s definitely not for all of us. Some of us don’t even care about that specific limit but other things.

What should we do, what we can do is quite individual. Just like with booze. Ex-alcoholics know what they should do. While I can have all the alcohol I want. It’s almost none but no way I would ever give up alcohol. I have no reason for it.
But some should do that, yes. Same with certain kinds of or much carbs.

(Joey) #24

Yes indeed. You are always free to eat as you please.
Ultimately, the proof of the carbs is in the eating. :wink:

(Sophie Wu) #25

@PaulL
@Shinita
As a drug and alcohol counsellor, I have never practiced total abstinence with my clients and I work with the state government in my job. It’s always about exploring options and understanding the relationship between the individual and the issue that have at hand. Most of the time, alcohol dependency or drug dependency is more of a symptom than the core issue, it’s an extension of what’s debilitating. So I don’t see any reason why alcohol misusers are being compared here. Abstinence works for some, but that’s actually a very small portion of the clientele that I work with. Many times, understanding what works on their terms and harm reduction/prevention is the the best way moving forward. Underneath all of that, looking at the deeper issue is more important.

Thus, if we put in this equation for keto, the underlying reason for why I’m doing keto is because my body feels better, more energy and I’m losing fat. And to me, keto is just something I enjoy rather than a discipline, so it’s very different for alcohol misusers because there is the factor of unhealthy dependency. I am not dependent on carbs, like most of my clients who enjoys a drink every now and then without impacting themselves negatively, I like to have some carbs. And if my carb blockers work for me, like in the noodle scenario, then that’s great FOR ME. I’m also a woman, I also get natural carb cravings due to my genetic predispositions and that is different to a dependency, my body tells me you don’t have a choice sometimes because of the menstrual cycle and hormones, that is the woman in me speaking and I’m not speaking for every woman out there who’s doing keto.

At this point, I only want information. Which I have gotten a lot of useful ones from everyone here, and I now understand there is no need for me to read into the numbers if I’m listening to how my body feels. However, I don’t need advice or comparisons, I will ask for them if I do. But many people here right now are very strongly opinionated and I can see where you’re all coming from. But this is really the point where I’m asking many of you to perhaps step back a bit. So yes, I am absolutely standing up for my carb blockers and clients, because that was honestly an awful comparison. With all due respect.

(Little Miss Scare-All) #26

Well I wish you the best. But to be fair, if you’re going to post on any forum, anywhere, opinons and advice are to be come along for the ride. It sort of goes along with publically posting questions. :tipping_hand_woman:‍♀

(Sophie Wu) #27

Hey thanks, I get that, and of course everyone’s valid to their own opinions and feelings. Which is why I’m politely asking people to slow down before they post and to ‘give info’ as opposed to opinions. In information, I’m talking about neutral statistics or evidence, not personal experience or thoughts about comparisons. They can still post, that’s fine, but it won’t be relevant to me which defeats the purpose of them posting in the first place, that is if I’m assuming they’re posting to help me? And I’ve stated many times that I’m ‘doing keto in my own terms’ and shout out to @robintemplin for acknowledging that. I’m sure that everyone’s posting out of good and kind intentions, but things which have been said are taking me aback and I do feel unheard in the context I’m giving.

(Allie) #28

As are food / carb addictions, and any other addiction, so I guess that’s where the comparison comes in and although you’re exploring keto as a way of generally just feeling better, coming to a forum like this you will get responses and feedback from others who are dealing with issues of carb addiction / metabolic dysregulation as that’s what brings most to this path and any one of us can only speak of our own experiences. There is a LOT of knowledge here and I advise you to keep an open mind so as to enable you to learn, whatever your reason for being here, rather than allowing your professional mind and the predetermined beliefs it brings to act as a barrier to the knowledge you could gain and benefit from.

(Megan) #29

Hmm yea, some of you need to take a step back, as Sophie has asked. Keto isn’t a religious cult. Sorry to offend anyone, but I’m a bit taken aback myself, given Sophie has been really clear about what she is seeking. As a suggestion, if you think someone is heading in the wrong direction, or are worried they are, asking questions can be more useful than giving opinions. B/c really we’re just assuming it’s the wrong direction, usually based on personal experience, and truth is we’re all different.

Having worked in the addiction field myself, as a counsellor, it’s helpful to give information (not opinion) and support, and the person then walks their own path. Sometimes we need to go round the mountain many times, learning something new each time, before we decide to go walk across a meadow instead. Not saying this is what Sophie is doing, I’m talking about the human journey in general.

(Megan) #30

The million dollar question. Some people know b/c of how they feel, b/c some lucky people feel great when running on ketones. I’m not one of those people (yet?). The urine sticks stopped showing ketones after the 1st 2 weeks (very common according to some stuff I’ve read), so I bought a blood meter about a month later. 3 weeks of a 0.2 reading and I was going up the wall. Lots of advice from here to keep calm and keto on and to stop chasing ketone readings. I think I might be finally fat adapted b/c I’m 0.5-0.8 now. Congrats! It’s a girl! lol

This whole keto and carni thing (I’m now full carni) is like a leap of faith to me in terms of “am I doing it right”, “is it working” etc b/c I can’t see what’s going on inside my body. I’ve been ridiculously stressed out at times. The place I’ve gotten to now is I eat clean, I eat when hungry and stop when comfortably full, I don’t count calories, and I wait. I wait to feel better, hoping I’ll be blessed with energy and better mood etc, and I wait for the weight loss I’m pretty sure will happen. I’m only going to weigh myself monthly, another 2 weeks to go.

Sounds like brain fog is something you associate with having eaten carbs and/or being kicked out of ketosis?

(Sophie Wu) #31

Thanks so much for understanding where I’m coming from. I feel today that I’m 100% in keto, no carb cravings, feeling full on the right foods and good energy for my run. What you said which really resonated with me is the waiting part, I do this and I do that and then I wait; it’s what’s I’ve done for the past few days since the post and now my body is giving me clear indications that I’m in a good state to burn fat. It’s very much a patience game I realise and if I’m in it for the long term then I shouldn’t be too stressed about any of this. What rocked me a bit was that I did start my period yesterday and the carb cravings finally went down today, and much easier than anticipated. Now I’m not 100% sure if the hunger that I experienced, when writing the very first post, was to do with my hormones rather than ‘being out of keto’. My next step is to probably do more research around menstruation and keto, so I can watch out for certain signs. But please feel free if you or anyone else would like to put their 2 cents in regarding the monthly flow and keto.

(Allie) #32

That would be entirely possible yes, but you’ll likely find in time that these diminish as your hormones will balance out and be more stable overall.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #33

I’m intrigued that’s your clinical experience, because my experience is the opposite; namely, that people who think they can “have just one” really can’t. Granted, most of the population is not vulnerable to addiction, so many heavy drinkers might actually be able to stop or moderate, when presented with reasons to do so. But it is the definite experience of a non-negligible subset of the population that even one drink is too many, in terms of maintaining sobriety. For such people, telling them they can drink moderately is destructive.

I remember when, back in the 1990’s, a scientist made the news with a claim that she had found a way for alcoholics to drink moderately. Several of my friends had known her from A.A. meetings, and it turned out that she put her hypothesis to the test personally, got into a bad accident while driving drunk, and spent many years in prison for vehicular manslaughter. Now that’s an anecdote, but it does illustrate what I’m talking about. I’ve had friends who were the same way with cigarettes, gambling, and so forth. They had all tried moderating their addictive behaviour, and it never worked for them.

That is wonderful for you, but please do not diminish the experience of those of us whose experience is different. Tell me I can eat any carbohydrate I want, including sugar, and I will be weighing over 300 lbs./136 kg again in no time.

I’m a little baffled about how you distinguish between posting a question and “asking for advice.” For most of us here, that’s pretty much the same thing. If you already know what you’re doing, and it’s working well for you, then what is the purpose of the post?

In any case, all we here can do is to share the fruits of our experiences when eating a ketogenic diet. If we warn you about something, it is because that has been our experience. It may not happen to you, but you need to know of the possibility. The 2 Keto Dudes, the founders of this site, have two dogmata: (1) Show us the science; and (2) Figure out what works for you. If you’d like to argue the science, there are those of us here who can oblige you. If you’d like to know what works for others, we can also oblige you.

You may not like what you hear, however, and if people say that what is working for you would never work for them, that is not necessarily a criticism of you and what you are doing, merely a reflection of individual variability. But you need to know the range of that variability, because bodies change over time, and a number of us have discovered that what once worked in the past now needs to be different.

One of the key points of our Community Guidelines is that it is possible to disagree without being disagreeable. If you feel that a comment is discourteous, please flag it, and the moderation group will deal with it. But please don’t confuse disagreement with discourtesy. We dislike the latter intensely, but we tolerate the former quite well, as long as it is expressed politely.

(Joey) #34

Yeah, sort of… Given your life experience, no doubt you can appreciate that this forum isn’t just about any one of us. It’s a community, not a personal message box.

Long-time members post with the intent to help countless other folks yet to come along - not just the individual raising a question or seeking immediate personalized feedback. :vulcan_salute:

#35

Exactly. Well I admit I love to react and say my 2 cents selfishly too but actually I want to help too. And while I usually have not much idea about the OP, understandably, I know many people read the comments so maybe it will be helpful or informative for them.

I think there are very, very few people who can eat anything as they aren’t addicted at all or have other problems so they can stop at a proper amount with a big chance. Almost all of us have some tricky items where abstinence is the best idea (sometimes because even a tiny amount causes problems but quite often we can’t stop in time) and as far as I know, ex-alcoholics totally have that with alcohol, they shouldn’t try to drink little as they will fail. And booze or sugar or peanuts? It’s pretty similar if one is an addict. There are differences, sure but if we shouldn’t compare not super similar things, we would lose a lot of very good and useful parallels.

(Allie) #36

Living with an alcoholic now, and having grown up with one too, I have to agree.

It’s that “just one drink…” that sends them on a downward spiral.

(Megan) #37

Most of the agencies here are now working with a harm reduction approach for many people, which bears little resemblance to “presenting people with reasons to do so”. It’s an in depth approach (when done well) that works with a person psycho-educationally, psycho-therapeutically and psycho-socially. Clinicians also work with people to take a abstinence approach and their work ( when done well) is also psycho-educational, psycho-therapeutic and psycho-social. It depends on what will work best for each individual client.

(Megan) #38

Again, at the risk of irritating or offending people, I want to give some feedback to some of you wonderful long timers who have remained on this forum and respond to post after post after post from folks at the beginning of their journeys. As a beginner myself, I wanted to know the unknowable, and bit by bit I’m letting go of that wanting and have adopted the great advice received here to stick with the program - keep carbs very low, eat clean, try not to snack but increase meal sizes instead if the desire to snack happens more than occasionally, don’t calorie count, don’t try to calorie resist, eat when hungry, stop when not instead etc etc. Just keep calm and keto on. Let my body do what only my body knows what to do and give it TIME.

Information such as “When you don’t eat carbs, you burn off your liver glycogen, then you’re in ketosis. After you ate the pizza, you reloaded it. When you burned that off while not eating carbs again, you were back in ketosis.” is really useful. As is information like “Keto urine, blood, and breath tests can reveal some data, but none of them can tell you exactly what’s going on in terms of your body’s production and utilization of ketones.” And info like “They’re not accurate for anybody, ketostix are for diabetics to see ketoacidosis in progress, they do nothing useful for a keto dieter.” should be on every damn packet of urine test strips sold!! Companies are making a fortune off us newbies!

BUT I seriously doubt I am in the minority of people who found being told to stop complicating simple, to stop worrying, to stop stressing, to throw the scales and all testing equipment away (usually said quite strongly/bluntly), to trust a process no beginner and very few seasoned ketoers and carnis understands etc etc very difficult to hear. To be honest I got a bit pissed off a few times. I was anxious. I was on completely uncharted territory. Telling anxious people to stop being anxious doesn’t work. It’s not helpful. It can even be alienating. Easy said, very hard to do. I know it is said with all the best intentions, but it was still hard to hear.

I have read a lot of postings on this forum from folks just starting out. Those threads have a lot of useful info in them, and/but they also had a lot of stop complicating simple, stop testing, the scales are the devil, throw them out, stop stressing type comments. Not a lot of people want to stay on a forum and become an active member, I imagine most people come to get information or come to talk about a particular issue then happily drift off, BUT how many people left because they got talked at, not to?

“Finding the keto that works for you”, which will very probably change as time goes on as folks slowly drop this and that food/drink/additive, is what many of our journeys are and will be. Giving information is great, sharing personal experience is great, being told what to do and not do isn’t.

Again, apologies to the folks who’s backs are up reading this. I want this to be a supportive community for more people new to this lifestyle because it’s a GREAT community and I’m really glad I found you all.

(Joey) #39

No apologies needed!

The challenge remains: How to be genuinely helpful in responding to questions from those who beg for answers to resolve their unfounded anxieties and needlessly complicated concerns?

The approach most of us follow here is to share the facts as we understand them. To do otherwise seems unkind and patronizing.

We’re glad you’re here. No doubt you’ll offer up your knowledge and wisdom and pay it forward! :+1:

#40

Simply no one can tell someone what to do as we don’t know the other people. We usually don’t even know ourselves without a lot of experimenting and listening and we still can change and becoming a new person even in our eyes…
I am very bad at giving some concrete advice as I consider that impossible in most times. We may have good tips and they may or may not work in the individual case. If someone does something very, very obviously wrong, that’s simple but quite rare I would think.
Even the lots of basic advice you wrote about, most fails in my case… They are still good advice but they can’t be right in each and every cases, we humans are way too complicated and different for it. I know that and that;'s why I am horrible at giving some general specific advise that most people (not in this forum, in general) loves to give. Just because something works for me or for most people, they can easily be bad for some individual.