Annnndd....she's off!

#1

HI all. I’m enjoying this site posting here and there, but thought I’d share my beginnings in that it might help someone else.
I’m a 49 yo female, not overweight, very active. I have hypothyroidism, but it’s treated perfectly and I have high cholesterol (before keto, on a “healthy” diet)
I started this woe for its health benefits. I have high-ish liver enzymes, cholesterol (both good and bad), and A1C. This after working out and eating the way I’ve been told to be docs - lots of lowfat, fresh fruits and veggies and whole grains. Yeah. Worked great (Not)

I’m about 3 weeks in and I’m not yet fat adapted from what I can tell. I still have headaches sometimes, hunger a lot of the times, and tanking in workouts, but that’s all ok cuz they’re all getting better. I have had some honest mistakes on this diet - gone over on veggie carbs, protein, not enough fat, not read labels closely enough…but I’m on a roll now with blood ketones at 1.2 most days.
I just bought pesto, olive tapenade and mascarpone cheese today. All new foods to add to my somewhat unvaried diet thus far. But I’m working on it. I feel great as far as energy, sleep, mood and satiety go. Still lookin’ for that lack of hunger you all talk about. THEN I’ll know I’m fat adapted.

(Renee Slaughter) #2

Don’t worry it will happen. One day you’ll wake up and say I’m not hungry for breakfast. Skip it. Keep the basics and you will succeed. Welcome and success.

#3

Thanks, Renee - you are so generous with your support and kind words on here. I’m happy to wait cuz I know you’re right and it will happen. I love the food so that seems to be the ticket :slight_smile:

(Banting & Yudkin & Atkins & Eadeses & Cordain & Taubes & Volek & Naiman & Bikman ) #4

You keep on plugging, you learn from your missteps and you turn the corner. It’ll happen for you.

(Chris W) #5

keto adapted to fat adapted was rough for me, I hit a wall about 10 minutes into my workouts vs 40-50 minutes when I was a carb burning. Now I have to stop based on time I don’t run out of energy on LISS and can go just as much on resistance as I used too. Listen to your body, if you are hungry eat fat, salt or both.

I knocked my self out of keto earlier this week based on someones good will and my not paying attention to a label. If you have an issues get back on the horse and carry on.

KCKO

(Miss E) #6

More fat needed in your diet if you don’t have weight to lose. I’m only a month in but rarely hungry because my body has plenty of fat

#7

Thanks for all the support, everyone. I’m still plugging along, happily eating all the fat on my veggies and meat. I have learned so much here about how to manage my macros so there’s not too much protein (all about the ones I choose). Getting that protein down was my biggest hurdle and still is when I’m not cooking for myself at home. But onward and forward.
I don’t have a lot of fat to lose, but I wouldn’t mind leaning out some. Scale weight is not my issue. I could tell I was leaning out some by the fit of my clothes on some days (not all. Weird) and the way I looked in the mirror (again some days, not all). But yesterday my husband took a picture of me and I was like, “???”. I just looked leaner somehow. It was pretty cool.
It’s not easy doing this woe. I mean, the ratio of fat to the others is hard (impossible) to find out in the everyday life (restaurants, freinds’ houses, parties) but we can manipulate the menus to work for us. At least I can, to some extent. The real issue seems to be the decreased hunger. I used to be SO hungry all the time on carb diet that I HAD to eat everything in front me, so so hungry was I. But what I see now is that I can let the food stay on my plate if it doesn’t fit my needs, for the most part, and eat the portions that do fit. I used to always come out of ketosis after a restaurant meal, but now it doens’t happen every time. And I have learned from blood testing and watching that the over-consumption of protein (which is the offending macro since I’m not eating ice cream when I go out :)) may mean no ketones at next reading, but my body quickly goes back in. So whatever, right? KCKO

#8

Today my ketones registered 3.4 on the blood meter. The most Id ever seen was 1.4 so I kinda took a double-take. Im usually .8, .9 but I did not work out today because I was away on vacation. It is very rare that I do no workout so that might have had something to do with it…I stayed keto my whole vacation. It’s important to me so I worked hard and, unlike my first trip away early on, I’m not only in ketosis but way way in. Still feel the same, though. I might (finally! This is what I came to keto for) have experienced a little less hunger today. Not markedly, though

(Stephanie Sablich) #9

Thanks for sharing your story! I am impressed that you were able to stick with keto during your vacation- that’s a HUGE non-scale-victory :slight_smile:

Hang in there on the hunger. It sounds like you’re doing keto for plenty of non-weight loss reasons, and I’ll bet the process is working. I think quite a few of the people (myself included) who lose hunger quickly have quite a bit of weight to lose. I don’t really know why that is, but I’ve noticed it both in myself and anecdotally with other folks.

Besides, it’s okay to be hungry if you’re hungry, especially if you don’t have weight to lose. :slight_smile:

#10

Oh, yes! This hunger is managable. When I was on a “healthy” diet with lots of carbs I would get SO hungry (ravenous) that I had to plan my day around getting food at a certain point, or before a certain time, or enough before I left not to be out of control eating while I was there, etc. It was actually in the way of my life, my constant, ravenous hunger.
I have now read in Maria Emmerich’s book that people with celiac (me) have low HCl (a stomach acid, I think) and therefore aren’t absorbing all their nutrients which can lead to chronic hunger. I never have heard that and I’m wondering if maybe I should supplement.
I"m going to look into that further. The search option on this site saves me every time :slight_smile:Happy Monday, fellow ketoninans.

#11

Still doing well and actually much better! I’m now fully fat-adapted and knew it right away, just like you all said I would. My hunger is under total control and it feels BLISSFUL. It’s not that I don’t get hungry (obviously) but it’s a manageable, polite type and my meals can be pushed back a couple hours and Im not gnawing my own arm off.

Workouts feel really good but I’ve lowered exercise by a lot to help with the hunger, too. That also feels good.

Getting a full thyroid panel and DHEA test this week. I’m hypothyroid and on medication, but I feel so much healthier, I want to see where it’s at and if I need as much/ any (?) now.
Cholesterol panel will come in June when I can get to the lab fasted because I’ll be off work (yay for summer break!!) THat will also be about 6 months after I started, so hopefully that will look good. I have major heart disease in my family, so I would like those numbers to be in good shape. No reason why they wouldn’t but my medical doc (not where I’m getting them done) will flip a lid if the total is like 400. I’ll deal with that later and see.
REALLY loving how I look and feel on keto! I didn’t come here to lose weight, per se, but I’m definitely leaning out in the mirror.

(Chris W) #12

I am glad you are doing better!
My only comment is that you really at this point should not feel hungry all the time save maybe near meal time but even then.

Fasting for a lab panel may actually back fire. Have you heard of Dave Feldman look up his podcasts on the 2ketodudes episodes he has several.
Of all the common test to take the one I was encouraged to take by my health coach who is keto as well is the calcium score. Its cheap, and if they find anything else they will tell you.

(Rob) #13

Like @In2steam said - DON’T do a lipid panel fasted (beyond the 12hrs recommended). It will likely give worse results and freak your doctor out. As it is, keto lipids may still scare your doc with frequently elevated total and LDL since most docs don’t understand that those don’t really matter as long as the other more important markers improve.
Go to www.cholesterolcode.com to find out more than you’ll ever want to know including a protocol that would probably normalize your LDL/total - though it is a little difficult and can backfire if you get it wrong.

#14

Ha! I’m sorry when I said “fasted” I meant 12 hours. ANd I meant when I can get to the lab before and not be late to work. I’ve read extensively on here and know it’s 10-12 hours, not more.
I’m not concerned about the cholesterol numbers. If I thought this was dangerous I wouldn’t be doing it. But I would like my doctor not to freak out on me. If she does, she does but it would be nice if my numbers were somewhat normal and we’ll just see. My total was 239 on a VEGAN diet (lol) and she didn’t panic or offer statins, because the other numbers were ok (kinda). She might be fine but we’ll see. Just to clarify

thanks everyone.