Another newbie - Intro and a simple question

(Robert) #1

Good morning everyone. I’m new here and a sort of novice when it comes to Keto. Please forgive the username. I work nights, i’m really tired, and it made me laugh. You can call me Robert or some variation of that if you like. A brief description. I started a calorie restrictive diet on 4-16-18 and lost 28lbs as of a week ago. I was doing what I thought was a “Keto hybrid” diet. Then I found out you are either in 100% or out 100%, there is no gray area.

A week ago I began to eat only what is considered to be keto friendly food but I think I am messing up somewhere because I am not losing. I am not gaining either so this might be normal but I don’t want to play a guessing game. So I need to know if there is someplace here where I can see not only what I need to be eating but how much I need to be eating and how often. I don’t want to ask a bunch of redundant questions. Any help is appreciated.

Robert

(Robert) #2

I found the getting started post after I typed this. I’ll start there.

#3

There are lots of apps to calculate your macros which help a lot.
E.g. http://myketotracker.com/
Also you can post a typical day - with specifics on what exactly you ate and when so we can see what you’re up to - and trust me, there are lots on forum who love to analyze :grin:
Also, it takes a bit of time to sort all of this out and what works best for you - so go easy on yourself. You’ve had a terrific response but things will slow down and that is normal.

(Robert) #4

Thank you for the response. I will get that tracker. I use my fitness pal but its not designed for this. I read the getting started post by Larry and it answered some questions for me. Ok, so some background.

In January of this year I weighted in at 324 lbs. I went on a self induced better eating diet for the new year and managed to wander down to 302 lbs in April when I visted my Doctor who put me on a 1200 calorie a day diet. My daughter was graduating in May and I needed to lose as much as possible to be able to go and at my weight I hurt all over when I walked. I am 48yrs old, male, and 6 feet tall.

I took my Doctor seriously and adhered to the diet very well. I lost a couple of pounds per week but I knew it would be slow. I post my results on FB for my freinds and family as a sort of accountability thing for me. I update it weekly, the good and the bad. I have had 2 weeks that I posted a gain and none more than 4.2lbs. I always thought of this diet I was on as a hybrid Keto but never really looked into what Keto was.

The 4.2lb gain was about 3 weeks ago and it made me sit back and analyze my diet. I had already given up breads, pasta, rice, and what I thought was most carbs. However, I did not know the fruit, corn, and root veggies I was eating was loaded with carbs. So I got online and did some actual reading on what Keto is and I modified my diet to match that. I did that a little over a week ago.

I have not gained but I have not lost either. And I know this might be normal but I have been on a diet for awhile and I don’t see Keto as a diet, I see it as a life plan, as in a plan to save my life. I need this. I am a single parent and my daughter is heading off to college in a month and I do not want to be stuck waddling around this empty house. So commitment is not an issue here. I just need the proper direction.

So I said I work nights. I wake up around 7pm and go to bed about 11am every day. I only work 4 days a week and never more than 2 days in a row. I meal prep, a lot. I have about 40 frozen meals at any given time. I am a creature of habit and it helps me to stay true to my plan.

This is my typical day in food. Rememeber, my breakfast is your dinner/supper time so this timeline is backwards.

Dinner (about 9am):
2 eggs (LARGE), a sandwich sized slice of real cheddar cheese in the eggs, 2 slices of bacon (1.5-2oz cooked), cut up tomatoes (about 1/2 cup Roma), 1/2 cup cottage cheese, about 5 blackberries and 5 raspberries, and sometimes I have avacado instead of the cheese and berries. And 2 20z travel mugs of black coffee with heavy whipping cream.

Lunch (about 4:30am):
All of my lunches and dinners are in Glad plastic 2.2cup square containers and frozen (meal prepping). This helps me not overeat. All of these meals consist of 1/4 of the conatiner being meat (3-6oz), and the other 3/4 being green vegetables with salt, butter, and pepper. I usually measure out 1 cup of each veggie I choose.

Breakfast (about 11pm):
Same as lunch but different meats. All the meats are baked, not fried. Marinated in sauces not containing sugar, and low carb counts (4 or less).

Other than these 3 meals I snack on Baken-ets spicy pork rinds, PLanters mixed nuts (1/3 cup that I will snack on throughout the day. I drink Perrier flavored 0 everything water when I feel the craving for a soda, and water. Mostly its water. I get cramps easily so I drink lots of water and salt my food which I was never a fan of until Keto.

Now to me, that is alot of food but I read online to not calorie count on Keto. I don’t know if I am getting enough high fat or if I am eating the right stuff. I am a creature of habit so what you see about is almost the exact same every day. I do occasionally change but I try to keep it on the same level, I like simple.

(Robert) #5

One more thing. My test strips show I am producing Ketones already. First day they were high but they have settled at around 4.0 now. I think I might just be eating too much. I never ate this much on my first diet but everytime I get to feeling lethargic, dizzy or cramping it seems I need to eat something fatty or drink/eat salt. I feel like I eat all the time now.

(Ellie) #6

Hi Robert,
It sounds like you are broadly on the right path but I would make a couple of tweaks.
I would bin the cottage cheese - it is surprisingly carby and (imho) pretty tasteless. Add cream instead if you like.
The rest looks ok, except for the baking not frying bit. Fry!! in plenty of good tasty fats - like bacon fat, butter or avocado oil.
1200 cals is low and you will be lowering your metabolic rate which becomes a viscous cycle.
You should eat less than 20g carbs, enough protein (at your height and weight about 80-100g per day), and then fat to satiety. Ignore calories and just listen to your bodies signals.

The idea to not to snack. Eat enough fat at each meal to feel full until the next meal. That might be 3 meals a day to begin with, but you’ll probably end up at 2 meals a day or even 1 meal a day once you are fat adapted properly.

Edited to add - the dizziness is mostly likely an electrolyte imbalance. Make sure to add salt to your food, and do a search on here for Ketoaid for an electrolyte drink recipe.

(back and doublin' down) #7

Congrats on being so organized! That serves well when eating away from home.

Fry that food! if you enjoyed fried stuff, that is. Are you still trying to maintain that 1200 calories set by your doc? probably not enough fat or calories to help you switch to being a fat burning machine.

Try the calculator at ruled.me and see what it says for your current height and weight.
Try cutting out the snacking between meals. if you like nuts, great…eat them with your other food at meal times. This will give your system time to settle down and not be spiking your insulin production all day (which makes it harder for the body to give up the fat). If you are hungry between meals, you aren’t eating enough fat.

I’m a fan of ‘know what you’re eating’ and that includes both macros and calorie count.

and, Keep Calm Keto On because you’ve been restricting calories for months and it may take some weeks to repair metabolism, switch over to fat burning, heal things inside that are too complicated for me to understand. I do believe in the process.

Congrats on your success so far, and your determination to start this new stage of your life in better health!

(Robert) #8

Thank you so much. I thought I was on board with the high fat part but my mind is still working against me with the bake not fry thing. lol. I guess I just can’t bread the things I fry, correct?

It’s funny you say 2 meals a day. I have had a few days where I did only 2 meals. I just wasn’t hungry but I thought that was bad. I still have a good bit to learn. I will adjust the fats in each meal and try to get off the snacks. I think I need to adjust my protein too. Is that 80-100g cooked?

Question, are pork rinds bad for Keto? I confess I love them.

(Robert) #9

It is hard for me to wrap my mind around all the fat I need. I know it sounds weird but I have always trimmed the fat on all my food. I did stop counting calories but the amounts I eat might be being subconsciously regulated in my mind to conform to that calorie count. I think judging by my hunger and these posts that I need to track the fat intake much better. I guess I worry about getting too much fat, is that possible? I only snack because I get hungry but if fat increase at meal time will eliminate that, count me in!

(Ellie) #10

It is hard to get your head round it to begin with. You just have to go with it and let the results speak for themselves.
Definitely no breading, but I ‘bread’ pork like a schnitzel with a mix of grated parmesan, coconut flour and some salt and pepper - works pretty well!

The protein is a rough number, you may be ok with higher, so I’d say cooked weight is fine - just try it for a few weeks and see how you go. The ruled.me calculator already mentioned may have you higher. I am a similar height to you, but lower weight and that is the number range I use - although not very religiously I might add. The only ‘fixed’ number is the carb number.
Pork rinds are perfect for that crunchy fix on keto - also if you grind them up and add them to the parmesan mix I mentioned then you’ll get even better breading. Check out the recipes section of this board for more inspiration too.
2 meals a day is good. The main aim of this way of eating is to reduce the number of times and amounts that insulin is released. Reducing meal frequency is one way.

(Robert) #11

So I went to ruled.me and got this as my macros. This is all new to me but I can already see I need to make changes. I am very glad I decided to look for a Keto forum today!

Macros
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(Ellie) #12

Did you put in a deficit? To start with you need to put in maintenance. Sounds weird but it’s true!

(Robert) #13

The default deficit was 20% and I left it at that. it said the range was 15-30%.

I think I need to get a decent list of good fat food options. Apparently my butter and whipping cream is not enough. If I did that and removed some of my protein my meals would probably stick with me longer. So, is there a limit on pork rinds? I only ask because I found lots of people with that question on the internet but never saw an answer, I was kind of amused at that I might add.

Edited: The deficit was to lose on this one.

(Robert) #14

Ok, so I thought the net carbs was the deficit for some reason. I changed it to maintain and this is what I got in return. Seems awfully high.

Macros2
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(Ellie) #15

Seems about right!
No limit on pork rinds as long as you count them. In the UK they have some protein but if yours don’t then munch away. When you feel full, stop.

(Robert) #16

Ah, so count there fats against what I should be getting each day. That makes sense. I looked up a few of the foods I was eating and found they have minimal carbs but can easily be replaced with a no carb option so I will shave a few carbs off with those too. I am probably getting more carbs than I think I am and just not tracking them well enough. Time to make some adjustments. This makes me wonder if I am actually in ketosis at all. Been making ketones for a week so hopefully I am.

(back and doublin' down) #17

You can be in ketosis and still need to eat a bit more. If you don’t eat enough, it starts to wreck the metabolism. you might not lose anything for a week, just remember you are healing your body.

Tracking is helpful. And leave that fat on your meat! Avocados? cooking in olive or coconut oil? Spicing up some cream cheese with seasonings and then spreading it between bacon slices makes for a nice protein and fat lunch. Eggs! cheese! eggs and cheese cooked in butter!

And keep reading around here. soooo much great information. Glad you found us ~ this place has become my lifeline for support, consultation, learning, and even sometimes a bit of correcting.

(mags) #18

Welcome! You are having great advice. I would just add to watch your fats. Steer clear of vegetable oils. Use butter, coconut oil, avocado oil, bacon grease, lard, tallow. They all add wonderful flavours to your food. Boring veg tastes so much better when it’s cooked in fat. I’ve just discovered the joy of fried radishes or adding them to a casserole…pretty good substitute for potatoes. A fried brussel sprout bears no comparison to one boiled to death in water. Also have you listened to the 2keto dudes podcasts. That’s how I started. Listen from the beginning and you will learn so much. Good luck and keep us posted.

(Jane) #19

I stir-fried some in bacon grease with some onion and garlic and then added crumbled bacon to them. This was one of our keto side dishes for Christmas dinner last year and was yummy. We started keto after Thanksgiving so were only about 4 weeks into it then.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #20

Bad for keto? BAD FOR KETO? Never mind, my friend, you really are new here, aren’t you? Just say three Hail Bacons and we’ll absolve you. :grin:

Seriously, the whole point of eating a well-formulated ketogenic diet is to keep insulin levels low. In its simplest form, we do that by keeping carbohydrate under 20 g/day, eating a moderate amount of protein, and eating fat to satiety.

The reason is that carbohydrate stimulates quite a bit of insulin production, so eat as little as you can, especially at the beginning (stick to leafy green vegetables, and things with a lot of fiber, such as broccoli and cauliflower). Protein stimulates insulin somewhat, but we have to have some, just not too much. Fat stimulates insulin the least, so it is the safest source of calories. Eat enough to feel satisfied until the next meal. If you have to have a fatty snack between meals, eat more fat at the next meal.

The body reacts badly to restricting calories, so if you wish to burn off your stored fat, you have to give it more calories, not fewer, as paradoxical as that sounds. So our mantra is “fat to satiety.” When I first started eating keto, it took a lot of food to satisfy me, but one day, in the middle of a meal, my satiety signaling kicked in, and I had to put half a plate of food away to eat later. (Me, turn up food that was already on the plate? Weird!)

But I was full for hours, and since then I have found my appetite leveling out at a more reasonable level. Some days I want more food, other days less, it just depends. But the point is I don’t need to count calories, because my body tells me how much to give it. It needed to be reassured at first that the famine was over, because a body on famine rations shuts down and hangs on to stored fat for dear life. A body in time of abundance, however, can afford to ramp up the metabolism and even to start metabolizing excess stored fat.

So at your size, you may need to eat quite a bit at first, but I suspect that after a few weeks—once your insulin level has dropped low enough for your brain to hear your fat cells tell it they have enough energy on board—you will have the same experience I had. At that point, your body will let you give it somewhat less than it needs, so that it can mobilize some of its stored fat to be metabolized. After somewhere around six to eight weeks, if all goes well, you will start to feel more energetic and clearer-headed, signs of growing fat-adaptation.

There’s lots more to confuse you with later, but for now this seems like enough to be going on with. :bacon: :grin: