Calories?

(Jenni) #1

I’m fairly new to Keto, about 2 months in. I’m just wondering if there is a good way to determine how many calories i should be having each day? I know my macros should be 70% fat, 25% protien and 5% carbs. But to lose weight I don’t quite know how many calories i should have? Someone advised me to keep it under 1200, but that seemed a little low, would that be correct? I have about 80 lbs to lose, so I have a long way to go. Just want to do this the right way! Thanks in advance for any advice! I should add that in the 2 months i’ve lost about 20lbs, but have been stalled for about 3 weeks :frowning:

(TJ Borden) #2

Keto is not a calorie counting diet. Start with the basics, and then you can adjust if/when needed:

  • 20 grams net carbs or less a day
  • moderate protein scaled to lean body mass
  • fat to satiety

The goal is to become fat adapted, which can take 8 weeks or more. At that point your body will begin to recognize, and utilize, stored body fat for energy and your appetite and calorie intake will drop naturally. Forcing a certain calorie goal at this point will only screw with your metabolism and make it tougher to lose weight.

(Jenni) #3

Ok, so watch the carbs but don’t worry about overall calories? That makes sense. Maybe that’s why i’ve stalled some, restricting calories AND carbs.

#4

I was also told not to count calories. Bay summed it up nicely in the point form format. Personally for me, it was controlling protein intake while maintaining a balanced and varied diet that proved challenging at the start. I’m one of those people who keeps on with the same routine indefinitely till thy kingdom come (I don’t flinch from the same thing over and over again!) but recognizing the disadvantages of too much protein was something I had to do because I simply didn’t need that much in my day to day life.

After about 2 months with the encouragement of my husband, I spread my meals out with longer and longer breaks inbetween until I was eating one meal a day (about 3-4 spoons of protein and fat). Remember to drink lots of water and stay hydrated. Think long term, not always short term. Enjoy the journey.

(Maggy) #5

This is really helpful because I have been struggling with this as well.

(Jenni) #6

I’ve had some struggles too with what to eat as well. I’m good on the fats, peanut butter, avocados, olives, fat bombs etc. And protein I do well on. I just want to eat veggies and it seems like all the veggies i look at have so many carbs its hard to choose a “good” one.

(Jake Liddell) #7

The book I read was far more categorical about calories - rather than just not worrying, you should make sure you have enough. In fact err on more rather than less.

If the body is calorie-restricted, it compensates in so many ways - shutting down a lot of functions that will help you lose weight. So in order to lose weight over the long term you have to eat enough calories so the body doesn’t feel you’re running with reduced fuel.

This is a bit counter-intuitive, as isn’t a fast just massively reduced calories? Turns out it’s not. There’s a big difference between reduced (say 1400) calories and nothing. With nothing, the body switches to other sources of energy. With reduced, it trys to get by without switching.

Hope that makes sense. It helped me. And 4 weeks in, I find I’m not eating as much, but I’m full every meal (lunch and dinner) because there’s plenty of fat.

(The book, BTW was The Obesity Code - v good - not specifically Keto, but more bringing you up to speed with all that’s wrong about diets, and all that’s right about fasting, and aligns pretty much totally to a keto approach.)

Jake.

(Jenni) #8

Thank you! So do you try to get to at least a certain calorie level? I mean I guess I could just eat peanut butter, there’s protien and fat in there. Lol

I may check that book. I want to do this right and understand why it works so that it can become my “normal”.

(Jake Liddell) #9

Nope - I ignore calorie counting altogether. I prepare myself a nice full plate of food, and make sure I don’t eat it all just because it’s on the plate. I found quite quickly that I was preparing plates that were too full of stuff, and I was just finishing it all because it was a waste to throw it away.

I just eat until I’ve had enough. Easy! And liberating.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #10

The stuff I read or watched before I started keto suggested not counting calories at all, but rather eating (especially fat) to satiety. In the begining, that was an awful lot of food, because I had been on the “see food” diet, but after two or three weeks, I was in the middle of lunch and suddenly my body said, "ENOUGH!!" It was really weird, because I still had food on my plate! But I just had to put it away for later—several hours later. My appetite has been steadily lowering from there, ever since.

Now sugar/carb cravings—those are a whole different story. But satiety is a very pronounced feeling, once insulin stops drowining out your leptin.

(Maggy) #11

I find cabbage,cavolo nero and cauliflower rice better (ish) I’m terms of carbs so they are my rotation.

#12

Cauliflower kills me and literally blows me out of ketosis in one meal if I’m not careful. (I accidentally made cauliflower rice for a week’s meal prep and paid the price!) I can only eat maybe 1-2 dinner spoons at a time every 2 months or so. It has the same effect on me as do beans and legumes and personally, doesn’t work well for me and keto. So I avoid it and when I decide I want to satisfy any taste for it, I blend broccoli in there as well so that it’s a 1:1 or sometimes 1:2 ratio. Not raining on the cauliflower parade though - please don’t be offended. It’s important to find variation and try different ingredients. I’m just saying that it doesn’t work for me personally.

The veg of choice I mostly stick to is broccoli and asparagus.