Calories too low?

#1

Hi, Ive done keto an IF, but keep falling off the wagon, i believe becouse I have very addictive behaviour around food, and cannot controll myself alot of the time. Keto has been my saviour to get controll back, but i still slip up periodically, and i think maybe 0-carb will be the solution for me, just stepping away from it all, and like an alkoholic, just say «no more».

I still have 60 pounds to loose, my TDEE is 1700 cals. And on keto, i tried to not go under that, afraid to lower metabolism.

I normally eat one or two meals a day, within 4 hours, going by hunger

So, today i want to start 0-carb, and try this for at least 60 days.

My first meal was 12,3ounce tenderloin with salt, made with 25g butter. ( I ate all the butter)
I would find it hard to eat more, im very satiated, but this is only 600 cals!?

If i get hungry again today, im thinking 3 eggs w 25g butter. But i feel i might not be hungry. And even so, it will only then total just under 1000 cals.

I hope for some input from you who have done this for a long time, am i heading for trouble?, what should i do?

(Laura) #2

Why do you believe that becoming even more restrictive (0 carbs instead of anywhere under 20) will stop you from falling off the wagon? My understanding is when people restrict too much with food, that’s the main reason they “cheat” even worse and fall off the wagon. Approaching diet from a place of scarcity and worry may lead to lots of confusion, dissatisfaction, and disordered eating. Can you approach it from a place of adventure and faith?

I like the posts here that point out that keto heals you, including healing disordered eating. If you keep the carbs under 20g and eat to satisfy your hunger, the theory is that your body will find its way to health in a few months. Maybe you’re not yet used to what real hunger and real satiety are. I think that takes time!

I also keep reading that people do best when they don’t worry about IF for the first several weeks of keto. Instead, they let IF happen when it will happen. Of course if you’re not hungry then you’re not hungry, but if it were me, I’d stop calorie counting and stop measuring food, except for the carb count, for several weeks.

To me, the answer to food addiction and emotional eating is not to focus even more on food by restricting things and worrying about food. The answer is to explore ways to soothe your mind and body without food: Sensory-rich activities, moderate exercise like long walks and gardening, a structured day so you’ll feel secure, acupuncture, yoga, and LOTS of laughing (underrated). Find some very funny friends if you don’t have any. I focus least on food when my day is full of things I’m passively walking into: Scheduled calls and hearings for work.

I’ve dealt with so much addictive behavior through my work. I do believe we get addicted to carbs and sugar, and I believe limiting them so the body doesn’t rely on them for fuel is one essential piece of solving food addiction. But I don’t think people are successful who focus only on the physical, chemical root to addiction. People do much better when they also turn to the psychological roots, and form new habits and new routines. One bad habit you might have is an over-focus on food, does that ring true? Can you replace it with new habits meant to soothe the mind, body, and senses? Again, I think structure and routine are very helpful here.

My hope for keto is that it’s not restrictive. It sounds restrictive at first. But long-timers seem to find it otherwise because they start from a place of adventure, not scarcity, and they eventually don’t even crave the carbs. I think they also end up stocking up with keto foods so they can just eat what’s around and not obsessively focus on food. My sense is that it takes time for the body to adjust so that the hunger and cravings naturally find their way to what’s healthy.

I’d be very interested in what more experienced people say! I’m a total beginner.

#3

Come over into this thread:

https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/all-animal-august-triple-a/109615/24

We are carnivore.
We can show you how to come into this plan and MAKE it work for you!
We also can show you were you don’t need to track etc. (unless you want of course cause you enjoy it) and we can tell you how to proceed.
Carnivore On! with us over here…hope to see you…alot of experienced carnivores with great advice and a new person is always welcomed into our lifestyle and thread!

(Laurie) #4

I believe nuts, vegetables, etc., can be a slippery slope. It’s too easy for “a few” nuts to become a pound of nuts, and for high-carb vegetables to sneak in with the low-carb ones. Now I’m basically carnivore/zero carb (although I do eat some dairy and spices), and yes, it does help keep my addictive tendencies at bay. Good luck!

#5

Thank you @Lc14503 for your nice reply. I made a short post without my whole history.
I have been ketoing for five years, but still there are foods within keto, that triggers my disordered eating, and its a constant struggle to fight the monster and contain myself.

Now i want to do this experiment with carnivore, limiting myself to meat, egg, butter and salt. From my keto-experience i know i feel fantastic, on days ive only eaten these things. And i hope my carnivore experiment will give me, not limitations, but freedom from my struggles around food.

Wish me luck, i wish you success with keto.

#6

Choose fattier protein sources? I ate a single pound of pork ribs for dinner 2 days ago and it was around 1250 kcal according to the data I used, of course it’s not exact, no one knows how much fat is in my actual slab of meat…
Of course some people prefer leaner meat (and beef, not pork… I can’t afford beef and it’s not available nearby anyway but I love pork best and my body is happy with it so it’s fine), they add butter (not only 25g) or maybe fatty dairy but yeah, it’s better to eliminate dairy if you aren’t very sure it’s fine or you need it… But as Fangs said, check out the carni thread with many carnivores (and me), someone may help you. I minimize added fat and get my fat from eggs and meat, mostly. So IDK what to do if the meat is too lean. When I eat leaner meat, I typically balance it out with some extra fatty meat, not with added fat…
Fortunately there are options. Even if one only eats meat.

Eating without hunger and appetite is a skill I had to learn on carnivore… But choosing my food items is important too. Maybe you can eat more from something more dense. I eat the same amount using a bit leaner or a fattier cut for some reason… But only the fatty stuff with enough energy can satiate me for long.
When I tried out carnivore, I couldn’t eat so fatty but it passed. I always LOVED fat so maybe that’s why it went so easily…
Oh and I soooo underate in the beginning sometimes… That passed too though carnivore and especially meat is extremely good at chasing away my hunger. I never ever got very satiated with tiny meals before (I was hungry if my first meal was below 1200 kcal… on low-carb. even keto I suppose. it was long ago).

So if anything odd happens in the very beginning, don’t worry too much. 1-2 low-calorie day is not a big deal (unless someone isn’t healthy enough) but more is a problem indeed.

And if you are anything like me, odd, surreal things will happen :smiley: It’s not necessarily bad.
Hopefully it will be good for you as it is good for me :slight_smile: It’s not the right path for everyone though. And not in any style. I would be somewhat miserable without my little dairy (unless I could have a huge variety of meats that I don’t have, maybe) while others need to avoid them. One people have problems with pork, I live on it and eggs just fine. One person needs 2:1 fat:protein ratio, the other prefers more protein than fat. I should minimize added fat (fatty dairy included), others need it for their leaner protein…etc. Some people eat tiny protein (60-80g), I go up to 180g and beyond because I just can’t avoid it but my body says it’s okay so… It must be really hard with lean meat, I do this with quite fatty meat and other carnivore items.

Oh and IF, especially with tiny eating windows. Well. I do on/off carnivore(-ish) since 1.5 years and I have VERY impressive overeating skills. Well, not on carnivore. IF and carnivore is problematic for me. Me, a natural IFer who never called anything below 2000 kcal a big meal, ended up with 4-6 tiny meals a day too often on carnivore. If you didn’t eat enough and get hungry again, eat, IF be damned. Priorities.
If I didn’t use all my skills and non-meat items (and tempting, super fatty meat items) to ensure I eat big meals (keep eating after satiation is just as important as sitting down to eat with zero hunger and appetite), I still couldn’t do OMAD and TMAD often.

So not being able to eat much meat sounds normal to me. But it’s individual. I could get away with less than 1 pound of meat a day on my carni days because I had fatty meat, several eggs and dairy too. I see you eat eggs too. But 3 is very few. I eat that few when I have much and quite fatty meat. On the days with very little energy from meat, I ate 8-10 eggs, a few times 12-14… I had to. I needed the energy even if I store much in my extra fat. It’s rare, eating more meat is better but sometimes I need a little break.

It can be to others. To me, it’s an abyss or something. It messes things up right away…
OMG who on earth can eat a pound of nuts? :smiley: I did 150g but I had to eat something on vegetarian low-carb… Unimaginable now.

And being MORE strict sometimes is a great solution… When the time is right and only restrictions which suit us but many of us experienced that taking things away may be wonderful. And not even necessarily hard. If we take away the right things at the right time and listen to our bodies.

(Joey) #7

@Shatz Given your long experience with keto, you probably just need a little “can do” support rather than facts and basic info. But I think @Lc14503 Laura has really touched on a key point…

Keto is about abundance - selecting the right menu items, you get to eat to satiety. Selecting the wrong items is where the undoing creeps in. It’s largley about a mindset that - within a fairly wide set of food choices - lets you enjoy boundless satisfaction in eating.

Best wishes for your ongoing success!

#8

Super happy ya came over to chat carnivore with us :slight_smile:

(Marianne) #9

I have an addictive personality with food as well. I’d venture to say that many of us here do. I used to love bingeing, going out to eat, getting take out, and eating large quantities of food - until afterward. Honestly, when I started keto, I didn’t even think I would be able to lose ten pounds without abandoning this program like every other thing I tried in the past.

What I suggest to everyone starting out is to obtain your macros and meet and/or exceed the fat and protein macro every day, keeping the carbs as well under 20 as you can. Eat three good meals a day for 3-4 weeks, even if you never have before. Don’t snack and don’t count calories. (I chuckled at your 3 oz. tenderloin. - For one thing, I’d suggest a fattier piece of meat, but also, if it were me, I’d have a 12 oz. tenderloin with blue cheese or cream sauce and no veggie!) :hugs: Your body is converting to fat burning, metabolically, and you are still in a fragile state emotionally after coming off of all the addictive carbage you ate and enjoyed in the past. That ■■■■ is so addictive and why we have such a huge weight/health problem in this country, particularly. You need this time to fuel your body more than sufficiently and quell the cravings to eat some of the things you did in the past. For me, one bite is all it takes to start a binge. Honestly, it’s taken me 55 years to learn that and since discovering keto, I don’t mess around with cheating anymore. I know I am a bona fide food addict; anyone else who is knows that this is real.

Once you reach your groove, your body will naturally tell you that it doesn’t require three meals a day and you will likely switch to two and maybe later to one. Whatever it turns out to be, let it develop in its own time.

What also helped me in the beginning was reading the success stories on dietdoctor.com. I knew that these people were food addicts as well and keto worked for them. I believed it and it gave me hope, which was something I needed when I started, I was so broken.

Good luck! Be gentle with yourself. Every moment can be a new opportunity to start again. I hope we see you on the forum!

#10

i’ve found becoming more restrictive is never the answer and only makes it worse. I have dealt with binge eating myself and that’s the best way to wake that beast up.

I’ve also slowed my metabolism pretty bad in the past with IF and OMAD, when I got it tested at what I figured was it’s worst it came back a little over 1700 and I’m a 5’9" dude with a physical job and lifts weights 5-6x a week. I should have had way more! Took a long time of reverse dieting and now it’s over 3000, but the in between was a nightmare.

For somebody that loves to eat that’s the worst news there is. I also found that when my fat intake was super high I couldn’t loose. I’d say you should work on things that get your metabolism up so you don’t have to be as restrictive and can still loose. It sucks to do when you still have a lot to loose, but best thing in the end.

#11

More strictness makes wonders to me sometimes… Especially with binging. Or addictions, compulsions…
I shouldn’t be too strict but being too relaxed isn’t good either. Scylla and Charybdis comes to mind as so often in my life… It’s not always easy to stay in the middle, far enough from both dangers… But I should do my best to try to do it.

#12

Yes, i want a healthy metabolism, and i i believed IF would prevent that bad effect from being in a SMALL calorie deficit. Im aming at eating at least my TDEE of 1700 cals. So right now, the first days of transitioning from keto to carnivore, im way low under 1000 cals, but i will adjust, find a way, im just not forcing it imediately, becouse the freedom of eating by hunger and satiety is hard to let go of. Im hoping my body will find a way to give me hunger signals, to make me eat my fill.

I did wake up hungry early this morning, and got 650 cals from bacon and eggs, im exited to see if i get hungry again later today, if so, then i will already have doubled the intake to 1300…and thats in the right direction.

To raise your metabolism from 1700 to 3000 is amazing, what did you do to achieve that @lfod14?

#13

@Shinita yes, its so clear to me, that carbs is an addiction to me, and the ongoing battle to keep that in control, steals so much time and energy. So if i can be healthy, eating in a way where i dont have to deal with it at all, then i dont feel restricted, i feel freed.

I feel so exited about what this 30-60 day experiment will tell me, so far im so happy and hopeful, becouse i feel great, and i have peace.

#14

Reverse dieting, track everything, slowly increased by 100cals on a weekly basis until I maintained or gained, then either backed off by half or kept going up. That along with a lot of working out, key was getting more muscle on me to drive a higher RMR and TDEE.

#15

I don’t believe a small calorie deficit could harm our metabolism but maybe some people are like that? Makes no sense to me, though but it’s true for many people’s experiences… My family works normal, small deficit -> fat loss and no problem with metabolism. I can imagine it’s not that simple for everyone (though it’s impossible not to lose from our reserves if we actually have a small deficit).
I KNOW it’s not that simple but that’s an extreme case when someone’s body responds with starvation to a small deficit. A normal person should use the reserves specifically for that purpose. (My body chooses to harass me for food, sadly. Why it loves my lots of extra fat so much, I can’t imagine… But I do my best to trick it. More like persuade it? Tricks never work longer term.)

Big deficit is another question entirely, don’t do that.
Some people likes to add a higher-cal days here and there (it’s automatic in my case).
I do IF naturally (sometimes it doesn’t happen but usually do), I dislike forceful IF but if you try and it’s not too hard, okay, there are multiple benefits for most of us who do it.

It’s good you are excited, it helps in the early, potentially rougher times. And when novelty wears off, you already will have some carnivore habits :slight_smile:

(Sama Hoole) #16

The optimal version of carnivore only creates weight loss as a happy side effect. Providing the body with total nutrition is the main game, and for that to work, you don’t want the calories too low.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #17

The problem, as far as people who want to lose weight are concerned, is that the body adapts to the amount of calories we give it (within a large range, at any rate), so shorting ourselves on calories is more likely to make our body think there is a famine going on and cause it to cut back. Giving it a bit more than necessary, on the other hand, causes the metabolism to speed up. The body is just as capable of wasting energy as it is of conserving it.

This is why we urge people to eat to satisfy their hunger, so they aren’t accidentally telling their body there’s a famine going on and it needs to hang on to what it can. The body doesn’t match hunger to physical activity precisely, during any given 24-hour period, but over any given 7- or 8-day period, the match is startlingly accurate, according to a paper I read.

#18

Yeah, that’s what I never experienced together with zillion other people.
It makes no sense - but after a while, it makes a bit sense. If there is less food for a very, very long time, it’s smart from the body to lower the need. But the body works not so well when it uses less energy than normal for it and our fat reserves have a role.
Maybe it helps to have high calorie days here and there… But not everyone needs that.

But if I keep my calories at maintenance level, I never will lose fat… So a small deficit is my only good way.

I’ve read that a significant part of the population have this metabolism speeding when eating more but it’s not the norm. But it’s logical to me that isn’t not THAT simple. Many people quickly and immediately gains when eating more than their normal maintenance level, no matter the woe so they should avoid eating too much (and anyway, it’s wasteful). I had a very big maintenance range, that’s why I never ever could gain fat quickly even when I massively overate longer term but I obviously don’t lose fat when I overeat so it doesn’t help me when I want to LOSE. I must eat “little” for it. But I can’t do that so I stall.

I satisfy my hunger because I dislike hunger…
But hunger is not reliable for many of us. We should eat the right amount and type of food. JUST satiating our hunger isn’t necessarily enough. Some people do it and ends up below 1000 kcal every day. Others overeat with the same attitude (well there must be some problem with the food choices or maybe timing or something, I still don’t condone going hungry if possible).
I have a big range if I just satisfy my hunger, it’s all about food choices and timing (that’s why I dislike eating at night and avoid added fats). Activity matters little under normal circumstances (in my case. it’s different for others).

It’s not simple.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #19

Of course you can manipulate your body by cutting calories—up to a point. But as Keven Hall showed in his follow-up study of Biggest Loser contestants, they not only gained back all the weight they had lost on television (often more) but they also suffered a permanent reduction in metabolic rate.

Fat loss is complicated, but the key is to put the body in fat-loss mode, and let the caloric deficit take care of itself. The necessary condition is to lower insulin levels sufficiently to permit fatty acids to leave our fat tissue, and there are other conditions necessary as well. It is well-demonstrated that a more active metabolism burns fat faster, even when there is more in the diet. (Dr. Phinney cites several studies showing this, in his lectures available on line, and Prof. Bikman has shown that adipose tissue can waste energy, under the right circumstances.)