Beginner needs help

#13

1400 kcal is simply impossible for me, starvation for many of us… But perfect for some people, sure.
It’s very stupid when people just say “a woman must eat X calories to lose weight” and other such rot, I so hate that. Some woman clearly could lose fat eating 3000 kcal (and high-carb), we aren’t all the same! But 1400 kcal is very little for many women (and most men). I couldn’t pull that off, no matter what, not even my top satiating items and eating once a day (not like I often can do that but that minimizes my energy intake).

Yeah, some people don’t think our health and well-being matters at all when losing weight… I never understood that. But even the CICO forum I frequent knows about not going too low, it’s widely known… I can’t imagine not losing fat when eating too little, it makes zero sense to me - unless someone is in some very strange place, with some insanely sparing body (that most of us can’t have) and just enough energy intake to “maintain” (but some not fat tissue breaking down happens too and we don’t want that)…? Slight starvation more easily does that but that requires some “abnormal” behavior too. A small deficit shouldn’t harm my metabolism and never did as far as I can tell. Some people aren’t this lucky, I know that. But using only 600 kcal for everything? How a human body can do THAT? Mine never could and especially not without becoming skin and bones first and skipping all activity… We are big warm-blooded animals. There are tricks but they have a limit… But less so in some cases. I heard multiple stories from very trustworthy people so I believe they are like that but it’s still amazing to me.

600 is insane, 0 is better at that point… Not too often, of course.

But deficit is needed unless some has a magical body that throws away precious energy reserves. Quite some of us in this forum can’t just eat very low-carb (even carnivore) and expect fat-loss, it just doesn’t happen. Most (all?) of the others who lose automatically eat in a calorie deficit on keto, I am quite sure.
What keto does to our energy need may be another interesting question (and I know nothing about it), it does nothing to mine, sadly. I so could use just a tiny help but nope. Oh well, it helps in another ways :slight_smile: (Not ketosis itself but being low-carb enough.)

But it’s complicated. We can’t just eat X calories and expect anything good, we need to do what works for our individual body (and mind. no matter what is ideal for my body if no way I will ever do that for long because of mental reasons).

(Edith) #14

Frequently it is mentioned on here that keto heals. Our body needs to heal before it can feel feel to stop holding on to fat. At the age of 63, you have more years of damage to undo than someone who is in their 30s, for example. It may be that you just need to “stay calm and keto on.” At four months you are probably mostly or all the way fat adapted. Are you noticing any other, what we call, non scale victories such as clearer skin, more sustained energy, etc?

Also, what are some of the foods you are eating? Is there anything you have added to your diet that you didn’t eat pre-keto? Maybe something that is causing you inflammation?

#15

agree wthi VE on this

what are you eating?

(Denise) #16

I agree Laurie,

Especially with the 1400 since that’s my “deficit” number. My Total Daily energy/calories burned is around 1600 and I am 5" 2" and was 136, or up to 140 pounds. Some don’t think I was fat but they didn’t see me naked, lol :wink: I counted until I new the basic amount I needed was being met, now I just eat and don’t worry about it because I eat regularly, and all Keto-friendly, and kept losing. I never could eat low calorie so I’m glad for Keto, and losing the addiction I had to carbs/sugars.

(Jane) #17

While there is a large and active carnivore group here I wouldn’t say “most” here do carnivore. Not judging from the conversations and food pictures, anyway.

(Denise) #18

I like the variety I can still eat, I like to cook all my meals, and I bake with Almond Flour, mainly what I call a cinnamon loaf, and like cream cheese on it for a snack (kind of like cake) I do need to get a bit more adventurous and try some other things, but I can see where I wouldn’t do as well with my intermitent fasting if I kept too many snack around :wink:

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #19

Walmart’s Great Value Cream Cheese contains half the carbs of Philly. I eat 250 gram blocks along with roast beef several times per week for my meal at work.

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(Marlow) #20

I have found that when I eat makes a difference. I lose weight much more easily if I don’t eat after, say, 5 pm. If i do, my body says. “Hey here’s energy I’m not going to need when I’m sleeping. I’d better store it.”
Some other principles that have worked for me:

  1. Be in calorie deficit. (I go on long walks with a backpack weighted with the amount of weight I have lost. A great motivator and it makes for greater calorie expenditure.)
  2. Be in ketosis. (Don’t guess. Track blood ketone and blood glucose every morning until you gain confidence.)
  3. Eat to satiety when you do eat. Every time. (This is easy when you wake up famished.)
  4. Don’t snack between meals. (the only thing that isn’t a snack is water and salt. A pinch of salt - ideally potassium and sodium in equal proportion - under the tongue keeps headaches, cravings and lightheadedness away).
  5. Throw away the weight scale. Only inches and body fat percentage matter!

I’ve done this four or five times when my clothes ‘shrink’ losing between 20 and 40 pounds and getting down to 20-25 percent body fat. I’m 62 years old. I end up only eating one very large delicious meal a day; breakfast.
It works for me!

(Ivy) #21

Is protein and carbs together best?

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

No, that elevates insulin. What we recommend is eating under 20 g of carbohydrate per day, between 1.0 and 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of lean mass a day, and adding enough fat to satisfy your hunger.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #23

@IvyKCKO Check out the Bikman talk I linked here: Balancing Fat Intake with Muscle loss.

(Ivy) #24

I am currently listening to it

(Tim Cee) #25

Bikman is right.

(Ivy) #26

I apparently started keto with a growth hormone deficiency. Does this mean anything when played out on the keto diet?

Is there going to be more fat in my face on keto, as I didnt have much before?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #27

How do you know about the growth hormone deficiency? What were the blood test results before you started keto, and what are the results now that you’ve been eating keto for three weeks? That’s the only real way to be sure what’s going on.

As for fat, I find it left me in the reverse order of its arrival, so my face and legs got quite thin again, while my belly fat, as expected, is still showing. Everyone is different, however, so this is hard to predict. A lot of women have complained that their breast fat left before the fat deposits in other places was affected by the diet, places where they would really have appreciated getting thinner, lol!

(Ivy) #28

What test measures growth hormone deficiency?

That is the opposite for me in both those ways

(Jane) #29

Well, if you haven’t had a test to verify why do you think you have a deficiency?

(Ivy) #30

Someone here mentioned I hardly have fat on my face. Plus, I stated I had very little fat in my SAD diet. I agree with both and someone said those are factors. Im not sure what test would be for that?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #31

We don’t get fat from eating fat, that’s a myth; we get fat from eating too much carbohydrate. The extra serum glucose gets made into fatty acids and stored in our fat tissue. The resulting high insulin stimulated by eating all that carbohydrate keeps the fatty acids trapped there. (Think of a bear eating lots of berries in the fall, so as to get fat for hibernating during the winter.)

There are tests for levels of HGH, IGF-1, IGF-2, and insulin, and for many other hormones as well. If you want to know what your levels are, you will need to speak to your physician, or else find a laboratory willing to do the tests for you without a prescription. (There are such labs in parts of the U.S. where state law does not require a prescription for such tests.)

(Edith) #32

You said you are 5’6” and weigh about 135 pounds, if I’m recalling correctly. You are not fat at those numbers and not likely to have a fat face. Plus, it’s hard to really tell how someone looks from a small selfie. That’s hardly enough to go by in deciding you have growth hormone deficiency.

It is best to talk to your doctor. One thing to consider, blood triglycerides and LDL cholesterol frequently go up when one first starts a ketogenic diet. The advice often given on this forum is to wait about six months to have lipid panels done. At that point you should be a fat burning machine and those numbers will have most likely come down and stabilized.