People overeat on keto all the time. What do you think happens to the excess food the omad people take in. I doubt it just sits in the stomach waiting its turn to be used as energy. That way works for alot of people. The same as people that eat twice a day works for them. Or the ones that eat every other day. Just because things are said over and over and over doesn’t make them true. What about the over and over and over post about the people that hit that stall on keto and are eating to satiety and still not losing anymore weight. Maybe. Just maybe their keto energy intake has matched their metabolic rate and that is their new set point. I know I know that’s where most start fasting and getting things moving again. I also know that fasting is not believed to be calorie restriction by some.
Can we please stop repeating the “You have to eat at a deficit to lose weight on KETO” lie?
Replying to both of the above. I think we can divide keto folks into 3 general groups: reduction, maintenance and recomposition. To be clear: the ‘reduction’ group are those trying to lose overall weight and reduce body fat; the ‘maintenance’ group are those who are trying to maintain overall weight and body fat; and, the ‘recomposition’ group are those who are trying to increase lean body mass and/or muscle mass. I realize I can oversimplify so I’ll add: there are likely sub-groups of these aimed at achieving specific goals, for example reducing or eliminating T2D medication use. There could be overlap as well, for example, some people losing fat who try to add muscle mass at the same time.
I presume it’s a given that in any of these hypothetical groups where someone maintains a consistent ketogenic state, hormonal and other metabolic factors trend towards normalization. I think there’s lots of evidence, for example, that keto leads to weight/fat loss primarily due to this ‘normalization’ process particularly of blood glucose and insulin concentrations and re-sensitizing cells and organs to insulin. These in turn result in ‘normal’ fat metabolism and synthesis of ketones as a beneficial by-product. As well there’s less glucose so less conversion of it to adipose tissue.
I agree with @barns that it is possible to overeat on keto, you can eat sufficiently to overwhelm the hormonal ‘normalization’ process. The question is just how much does it take to do so? I think ‘a bit more food than it needs’ from @PaulL can easily add up to this point. If you eat more exogenous fat than you need, and do so habitually, endogenous fat utilization must decrease. I think this is fairly easy to do when one is not weighing and measuring.
The ‘eat to satiety’ concept works for many, but it’s not an ‘on/off’ switch that flips off when you reach precisely the exact amount of fuel you need to consume at that meal, that day, that week in order to reduce, maintain or gain. There are many things going on metabolically speaking that might influence when you feel satiated. For example, how efficiently is your body metabolizing fatty acids and/or ketones at that moment? If not very efficiently for some reason, then the switch might not flip off at the appropriate point.
Maybe I’m an outlier, but I suspect I’m not a singleton. I do not have either a strong hunger signal nor a strong satiation signal. I am at the low end of the overall weight range for my height, age and build and quite thin, less than 15% body fat. I experience a very slight hunger signal that is easy to ignore or miss. By trial and error I have determined what total daily calories I must eat to maintain my weight and I hit that total consistently because I do not want to lose. Paul’s ‘a bit more food than it needs’ for me is a window of about 200 calories more/less than my daily maintenance target. If I stay within that window I maintain, below that window for a few days I lose, above that window for a few days I gain.
I suspect that if folks who ‘eat to satiety’ were to measure what they’re eating and how much, they would likely find that they, too, are eating within a relatively narrow caloric window. Just my guess.
Hunger vs Satiety (Eat to satiety?)
Somewhere way back, David S. said something about 4000 to 6000 kcals a day… Doesn’t the “k” stand for a thousand ? So yea’, I think 4 to 6 million cals a day is probably too much 
lol
It’s stupid but when we say ‘calorie’ we’re always talking about kilocalories. So when someone says I have 1500 calories a day it’s actually 1500 kilocalories. It’s just the non-sciency way of talking about it.
I love this question so much I remembered to get back to it after a weekend at the Lake!
I do not enjoy feeling physically too full. I dislike that heavy or bloated body feeling.
However physical fullness can help muffle or soothe intense emotions, and sometimes I still enjoy that comfort.
This is why becoming aware of my style of emotional eating has been critical for me. I wasn’t able to deal with emotions in other ways until I realized that the feeling of fullness from that entire steak was enabling me to feel better temporarily…
and sometimes it’s still just habitual behavior. I realize too late that I am physically full and I should have stopped 10 bites earlier. a work in progress.
Don’t you think if this was true for everyone, if everyone stopped eating easily when they were no longer physically hungry there would be (way?) fewer people with weight issues? This can be true for young children I think.
I could say the same thing about cigarette smoking. ‘why would one smoke? it tastes horrible, ruins kissing - like kissing an ashtray, why would one put something in one’s body it doesn’t need and is bad for it’
However just because it’s been easy for me to not smoke and I have had zero cigarette cravings means nothing to the people who have cigarette cravings.
people are different. What is easy for one is not easy for all.
I would take this as a truth in a ketogenic diet, but not in the SAD. If you’re coming from the SAD to KETO then you have some psychological habits to work through possibly if your tendency is to continue with your old stuffing yourself patterns of eating rather than listening to satiety signals. You know your stuffing yourself eating meat if you overeat. And eating for emotional comfort has zero to do with listening to satiety vs. counting calories, this is stuff you need to work through outside of your diet. The battle with your psychological eating patterns is the second step progressing in the KETO lifestyle IMHO after getting free of carb addiction. It can be much harder than giving up carbs.
I read something @Ilana_Rose wrote in another thread about not loading all the meat on her plate but using a serving dish and taking smaller amounts onto the plate she was eating from. If she wanted more she took another small portion…It keeps her from overeating on her meat based diet. I thought that was a smart solution for people who think they might be overeating. Personally I live alone most of the time and only cook a reasonable amount for my meal. I seldom cook large amounts of anything. I decide how much to cook based on how much I think I will want to eat.
Ok. I think we are agreeing here. 
It’s not just about physical hunger there is also mind stuff going on for a lot of people. and the technique that @Ilana_Rose mentions that I first heard of from Dr Cywes is useful for many, especially in an addiction model. At least that is how he uses it.
I would just gently add that I think there is room for a range of experience on the ketogenic diet. I have been very low carb/ketogenic for years. since 2002 I can overeat on a keto or low carb diet and I know I am not alone. I just think it’s a disservice to people to say ‘stop eating when you are full’ or ‘eat to satiety’ in a similar way to saying ‘you have to eat to a deficit to lose weight’ is a disservice. Humans and their experiences are not black and white. I think it’s more helpful to validate a range of experiences so that people can start from a place of inclusion and then go on to make the changes they need from there.
I realize the thought work is not really the point of this thread so I will hush up now.
Yesterday for lunch I had some leftover ribs and chicken wings. I just threw all the leftovers in the lunch box to figure out later how much to eat. Two large ribs and three chicken wings later I realized the “clean your plate” mentality had taken over. I felt stuffed all afternoon and had a smaller portion for dinner. The result is the exact same weight as yesterday this morning.
Okay, so how do we explain it, how do we advise a new KETO initiate?
I would say that it is more about what your eating and what’s in it?
The more fat we eat goes into the endogenous production of hormones, then you have various array of animal proteins and plant matter that provide exogenous hormones and fat soluble toxins etc.
So if your eating hormone (and who knows what else?) and toxic infused plants, animal proteins and fats your going to be storing this stuff in your fat cells and go into puberty much sooner then nature intended?
References:
[1] “…One culprit could be rising obesity rates. Researchers believe that puberty (at least for girls) may be triggered in part by the body building up sufficient reserves of fat tissue, signaling fitness for reproductive capabilities. Clinical pediatrician Robert Lustig of Benioff Children’s Hospital in San Francisco reports that obese girls have higher levels of the hormone leptin which in and of itself can lead to early puberty while setting off a domino effect of more weight gain and faster overall physical maturation. …” …More
Maybe like this? You can be sedentary; pray and hope something happens or try to build muscle?
Even if the scale doesn’t budge you still have muscle volume to clean up the previous mess and not starve yourself to death trying to do it?
@atomicspacebunny I’m in total agreement about the resistance training. However I was asking in the context of diet and how to know how much to eat, and what to tell someone new to KETO. Not everyone can jump right into training from the start for various reasons. Many are just capable of one step at a time and not jumping into a complete wholistic lifestyle reconstruction.
As a side, I started a personal experiment a week ago. I have checked my tracking last night and I have been eating at 300-500 kcal above projected maintenance levels all week. I had a temporary bump in weight last Friday from drinking Tequila at a BBQ. I went up about 4 lbs. But overall I have lost weight all week and am below that temporary bump now, and my weight a week ago by about 2 lbs.
Well I think if someone is new to Keto the easiest thing to suggest is ‘cut carbs’ or ‘avoid all carby food’ as much as possible…
However for some people maybe the easiest starting point is to stop snacking or gradually increase the time between dinner and break-fast…
clearly I am not a health educator 
I think you need to advise like @cervyn suggests. Temper what you advise with the caveat that it doesn’t work for everyone. Because it doesn’t.
State what works for you and the majority of folks as a starting point. Bad habits such as binge-eating, years of yo-yo dieting, eating for comfort, drinking to numb the pain and post-menopausal hormones all affect how we lose weight and our satiety signal differently.
There is a difference between eating to a deficit naturally and being hungry all the time because you aren’t eating enough through deliberate portion control.
I think general advice (potentially not applicable to absolutely everyone, but likely applicable to most people) could be:
- Eat the right foods. The right foods are natural, unprocessed foods very low in carbs, high in fat, moderate in protein, and that you personally can tolerate and enjoy.
- Eat until you are full. This may take some trial and error. If you feel stuffed to the point of nausea, you probably ate too much at your last meal. Try to eat more mindfully next time so that you feel satisfied but not uncomfortable.
- If you have eaten beyond satiety, chalk it up to a learning experience and don’t worry about it. When you give your body the right foods, it’s likely that you will naturally compensate for overeating by eating less later in the day or by waiting later to eat tomorrow.
- If you feel hungry, eat!* See #1.
(*ETA: Unless you’re fasting.)
I’ve know women who were small and thin and ate like birds (~1000 cal/day) and I’ve known tiny women who ate like field hands (~2000 cal/day). The latter obviously had a higher metabolism, but both were never hungry or felt deprived.
I’ve had a foot in both worlds - ate huge amounts before I had kids. Now I eat much less, not hungry and maintain a slightly higher weight. If I ate more I’d just gain weight but I’m not hungry so I don’t. I’m not sedentary so not sure what I could do to increase my metabolism so I could eat more w/o gaining… but since I’m not hungry I don’t see the point.
I agree you raise an excellent point. If one restricts calories to some arbitrary number that results in chronic hunger, sooner or later metabolism will slow to adapt to the insufficient intake. Whereas if eating less does not cause incessant hunger metabolism is making up the short intake from internal storage.