Can a big salad be keeping me out of ketosis?

(Sophie) #1

I’ve been doing typical keto foods for meal 1: Green tea with 1T MCT oil, 1/2 an avocado, 2 eggs, handful of walnuts, slice of cheese, etc

For meal 2, I have been having a variety of huge salads. Dressings are all homemade. I plugged in a popular salad where I’m from and it has 30 total carbs (no idea about net). Could a salad be keeping me out of ketosis? I really had no idea I was eating so many carbs.

I am trying to eat healthy, whole foods but give in to occasional keto treats or halo top ice cream. I lost 10 lbs at the beginning of the year, but have remained around the same weight for months. At some point, it would be nice to shed an additional 10.
I workout a body part for 30 mins and then cardio for 30 mins 5 days per week.
I intermittent fast for 20 hours everyday.

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(German Ketonian) #2

Huge salads usually are fine, but it depends on many things, including your metabolic health, height, weight, gender, diabetic status, etc.

Yet from your MFP statistics, your can clearly see the problem: veggies are still carbs, whether salad or potatoes. They differ in their amount and the load of fiber, however. If I eat raw lettuce without anything, I ingest pretty much pure carbs, even few of them. That’s not a ketogenic diet!

One example: In past times, I was health.obsessed and thought of fat as being evil. Thus, I regularly ate my 300-400g lettuce per day raw, without dressing, or Italian dressing (meaning pretty much only salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, etc). I felt horrible and my blood sugars were all over the place. I essentially got hyper- and later hypoglycemic. If I now eat the same amount of lettuce with 75-100ml of olive oil, nothing happens.

What I am getting at: Always eat your veggies with copious amounts of fat! It not only changes the macros to a ketogenic ratio, but also radically (can’t emphasize this enough!) alters the insolinogenic and glycemic effect! This is super important, IMHO. I know, people are sick of talking about macros. Yeah, sorry, but they do matter, if you stick to the ideal of the endocrine model of health. Food elicits different metabolic responses based on the macros and the micros.

(Artemis) #3

I love Pasta House salads, or back in my day they were known as Rich and Charlie salads. Here’s the net carbs on the romaine. Not bad

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(Cindy) #4

It might be the carbs. For me the carbs in your salad would be too high for my whole day. I couldn’t stay in ketosis until I got my carbs down to around 20 for the whole day. It sounds like you’re down to the last 10 pounds? I had only 15 pounds total to lose, and lowering my carbs while increasing my fat did make me lose weight. But I’m quite “vertically challenged” (5’3", 115 lbs) so what worked for me might not work for others!

(Crow T. Robot) #5

Why do you think you are not in ketosis? Most of those veggie carbs are fiber, which shouldn’t affect ketosis – however some people are more sensitive. I wouldn’t think it would make that big a difference, though, so I return to my original question.

(Omar) #6

while I can not scientifically prove It, I am confident I was kicked out of ketosis by about three plates of salads. Roughly 800 grams of green vigitables.

I feel great without salads.

Please note I am not indicating by any means that vigitables are not required. I am just stating my experience.

(Cindy) #7

I have to be careful with veggies too. I eat 2 servings per day of veggies, but modest servings, not huge ones. Plus I’m super careful with protein and keep it around 60 g per day. But I use fats very lavishly. Doing this keeps me in ketosis around the clock.

(Sophie) #8

Thank you all for your replies!
15 grams of net carbs is sure better than the 30, but still quite high. I’m not going to have the salads as frequently, and when I do, I will move some of that fat I was having at meal 1 and eat it with the salad… maybe a handful of nuts. With the olive oil and the parmesan around 35 grams of fat, and the net carbs around 15, it’s not so bad I’m thinking.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #9

Take a look at your salad dressing. It could easily have hidden carbohydrate that you didn’t pick up on. In fact, the first thing to double-check when feeling stalled is the possible presence of unknown carbohydrate.

Other things that may be relevant to your lack of weight loss are as follows: (1) you are close to your goal weight and will not lose as fast as before; (2) your body’s goal weight and your goal weight may not be the same; (3) your hormones are interfering; (4) you may be putting on muscle while losing fat (also known as, what are your measurements doing?); (5) your scale may hate you and may just be messing with your head (mine hates me, I just know it); (6) KCKO. :bacon:

#10

are you really sure you ate over 600 grams of romaine salad at once? I fall out of ketoses when having 30 g of net carbs from vegetables. :frowning: Love my vegetables and feel that I need carrots.)