Confusing points for a newbie

#1

I am on my 4th week of Keto, of course not much progress after 1st week’s sudden weight loss (water weight). I do feel the good impacts from keto, but i have lots of confusions from researching different areas and books…here are my biggest confusions:

Confusion 1: Veggies: more or less?

Some say more veggies = more carbs (even eating low carb greens) = exceeding daily 20 grms limit easily

Some say Keto can have unlimited low carb veggies due to the rich nutrients

Some says liver will expels lots of wastes, need 7 cups of mixed veggies a day to help flushing

Some says more fiber from veggies = worsen if already in constipation

Some says just fair amount of fiber will be enough, meat has more nutrients than we thought

Confusion 2: Fluid: more or less?

Some says at least drinking 2 litres a day when on Keto

Dr Berg says, he drinks 2- 3 cups a day, drink only when feel thirst

He also says water won’t help fat burning, nor flushing toxins

Some says water may wash away electrolytes

Some says drink more bone broth to replenish electrolytes

Maria Emmerich says bone broth stimulates insulin spikes… suggest 1 cup or less / day

Confusion 3: Eat until satiated? Or calcaulate your intake carefully?

Eat too much (exceed daily burned calories) = will gain weight

When on intermittent Fasting = cannot eat that much each meal = don’t feel satiated

Calculating carefully calories intake = cannot reach satiety easily

Some say just keep eating! = exceed daily calories intake limit = gain weight!!

Confusion 4: Very confused on just too many way to calculate food to take (weight the food, omit water and fiber, forget about carbs in veggies, count net carb….etc(

Is there a simple way???

#2

  1. This depends on the person. Generally tho the nutrient-density of vegetables has been greatly overstated, because not all of it is bioavailable. Don’t do the 7-9 cups thing. If you don’t like veggies you don’t have to eat them.

  2. Drink to thirst.

  3. Eat until satisfied.

(Frank) #3

If there was a simple way everyone would do it and everyone would have success. Asking if there is a simple way says to me that you’re asking for the quickest way from point A to point B. It is my feeling that if this process is done for the right reasons with the right frame of mind, point B doesn’t exist. We start on day one at point A, we follow some basic rules, and moving forward is a constant self experiment to find out how variables affect us. Slower is faster if that makes sense.

(Carl Keller) #4

This is pretty simple and worked for me:

Keep net carbs under 20.
~You can likely start a bit higher and work your way down but 20 is a good honest number that will allow you to eat plenty of vegetables along with fat and protein.

Use a carb tracker like cronometer.com
~so you can accurately track your carbs. It tracks many other things but this is the most important

Feed yourself plenty of fat and fairly moderate protein
~These two things are your best friend in regards to keeping hunger and cravings in check. You should not gorge yourself on these things but eat until you are not hungry. It’s very important to not starve yourself, so eat when you are hungry.

Keep your electrolytes up.
~At least 64oz (2liters) of water and 2+ teaspoons of salt per day. We don’t retain either of these very well on a ketogenic diet and those two things are paramount for reducing/preventing the Keto Flu

Don’t stress and get plenty of sleep.
~Growing, healing and losing weight work best when we are relaxed. So try to get 7-9 hours per day and don’t obsess with what keto is not yet doing.

It depends on where your calories come from. 1000 calories of bacon does not affect you like 1000 calories of sugar will.Things like fat and protein do not increase your blood glucose levels much, if at all. Spiking your BG makes your insulin spike and insulin’s job is not just lowering your BG, but storing some of the excess into fat cells. Carbs are what makes your BG levels rise the most. By restricting those and keeping insulin as low as possible, gaining weight is not necessarily going to occur.

The whole key to this how much do I eat. is satiety. Satiety will eventually self-regulate your caloric intake and it might mean you are eating more calories than your macros suggest for a bit, but it will naturally come down as you get better at using fat for fuel. You kind of have to trust the process in the beginning as things get sorted out. Just remember, Keto isn’t calorie restriction, it’s carb restriction.

(Running from stupidity) #5

Keto is this easy (Keto for beloved noobs)

This is for Phase One - the starter phase. It’s still not complicated later, but this is the really easy to explain version which will help you no end.

  • Eat under 20g of carbs a day

  • Don’t worry about the scale. All it tells you is weight, it tells you nothing about body composition, even the “smart” scales.

  • Eat plenty of good food - fat and protein - while adhering to 20g/carbs/day. Don’t worry too much about macros and calories EXCEPT carbs. Keep them below 20g/day. (Prioritize the animal protein (i.e. not protein powder) - always start with protein in every meal, but don’t panic about it.) Your job is to get fat-adapted, so give your body the fuel you want it to use. Also, your appetite will vary - it’ll disappear, then it’ll come roaring back. Happens to most people, don’t sweat it.

  • ELECTROLYTES/SALT - KEEP THEM UP

  • Buy the meat you can afford - don’t stress about grass-fed, organic (con), etc… The worst meat is better than the best bread.

  • Fasting is a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. Works for lots, not for others. Don’t let tools tell you to use it before you’re fat-adapted and it makes sense.

  • This site has a search function (magnifying glass at the top of the page) and a newbies section - use them both, you’ll get a better variety of answers to your questions far more quickly that way. SERIOUSLY, THIS IS VERY USEFUL.[1]

That’s as difficult as it needs to be for a couple of months.

My good friend Terence (being friends with a Kiwi feels kinda dirty, but there you have it, keto makes for strange bedfellows) tells me this thing I have described above is called “dirty keto.” So yeah, do dirty keto, kids! :slight_smile:
Lots of Love, THE JUICE

Expanded version is HERE

[1]If you can’t find a useful answer after searching and reading for a while, we can help you a lot more if you tell us relevant data about yourself such as your reasons for doing keto, your weight/height/age/gender, a sample menu plan & any relevant health conditions.

Newbie - Have I Plateaued?
#6

I found the following advice very easy to understand and do.

Simply avoid sugar, bread, rice, pasta. Instead of them have veggies (but not potatoes).

You may come from a different part of the world and so your diet may be very different but I hope this gives you an idea of how simple things can be.

For dinner - meat of any sort: beef, lamb, fish, chicken - and veggies with butter on top.

I’m talking about a normal amount of veggies, nothing crazy.

Lunch: Fish or something like that with avocado and feta cheese.

Breakfast: If I am hungry at all, bacon, eggs, cheese.

I have to drink plenty of water or I feel it. Must get plenty of salt. That’s easy makes food taste better. I do have a cup or two of broth. Helps with water and salt at the same time.

Anyway all this keeps me below 20g Net Carbs, or there about.

YES you MUST count carbs. The rest pretty well falls into place. Once you go into keto your taste and appetite will change. You don’t have to count calories, it’s pretty automatic.

Great pictures of food over at dietdoctor.com plenty of ingredients to choose from.

Hope that helps

(smilekapoor) #7

Agree. Slow and steady wins the race!
However, Keto is about being healthier and secondly loosing weight is just simple with that profile. :blush:

#8

Thank you all for the replies… it is kind of frustrated when there are so much information available to tell you do this and do that… at the end I don’t even know if I am doing it right.

Now I have put away the scale, just measure blood ketones once a week make sure I am not off track… basically i have avoided carbs from pasta and rice and milk but maybe sometimes I have consumed more carbs from veggies and fermented milk only… i hope that won’t throw me off the bus. I am doing intermitten fasting, 2 meals a day 8/16. But my body tells me that I feel hungry even after i ate my calorieies counted meals. So… i think I am going to forget about fasting for now.

Water… will drink whenever i feel thirsty. Also not going to follow 7 cups of veggies a day… it is just too much for me.

I know everyone says things will change when I am fat adapted, and I will notice when this happens. Last night i felt like to consume so much fat beforw going to bed bcos i was simply hungry. This morning I seem ok… my pants used to be a little loose last week is now tight again. So… i just ignore if I am gaining weight for now but not to let my body always feel hungry.

I hope I am on the right track. Maybe I will feel a change in a few more weeks.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #9

Most people here will tell you to not follow Dr. Berg’s advice. That will thin down a lot of your conflicts with things you’ve read. All good advice above, keto is pretty easy when you get all the carbage out of your kitchen and get good at shopping for the good stuff. Keep carbs low, drink plenty of water, keep electrolytes up. That means salt and magnesium glycinate for me. I don’t take potassium because I eat avocados and green leafy veggies. Some people are more carnivore oriented, others eat plenty of low carb vegetables. Your choice as to what sits right with you. Best luck in finding that right way, I know you will if you stick with it.

(Running from stupidity) #10

+1

(Robert C) #11

For some reason, everyone balks at the high cup count.

If you sauté 5 cups of spinach in butter and melt cream cheese into it - you get a very keto and tasty pseudo-creamed-spinach dish (about 1 cup).

A salad the size of your head is not the only option if you decide you want to see if vegetables help you, hurt you or seem to have no effect.

#12

Thks @RobC fot the advise… yes if just a large amount of spinach it can be cooked down to just one cup of size. However my thought was to get as much varieties as possible for the meal in order to get the nutrients, cabbage, tomatoe, cucumber, kale, mushrooms…etc these add up to 3-4 cups in size after cooked, which is a lot to eat along with other food in my plate.

But I wont stress out now… maybe focus on one or two kinds of veggie at a time.

(Robert C) #13

Cauliflower pizza crust with low carb tomato sauce, lots of cheese and meat and mushrooms and onions.

(Scott) #14

Don’t over think it.
Keep carbs <20g. Me, I am doing <50g because I enjoy veggies and wine. I can do this because I feel like it! (keto rebel I am). I have trouble staying in ketosis but seem to be able to reap the benefits anyway. It helps me into ketosis if I run a decent amount.

Veggies - avoid root or any below the ground. A few others have varying amount of carbs so check if you don’t know and in a short time you will have a good idea each ones carb count. None of the veggies I eat have labels but if yours do you need to watch each one for added carbs that may get sneaked in.

Protein in moderate amount (not high) and the fattier the better It’s like hitting two birds with one stone.

Healthy fats - You can search this one but for sure no seed oils.

(Consensus is Politics) #15

The point really about 20 grams of carbs or less a day is typically meant for type 2 diabetics. When I originally discovered keto, I did it with 50 grams of carbs a day. I loved my sandwiches, and at the time was ignorant to ketofying things. I just called it a cave man diet, and I knew it caused me to produce ketones. I didn’t even know the term ketogenic at the time. I found I could go as high as 100 grams of carbs back then and still get the pee stick to show medium levels of ketones. I have heard (no proof) of people going as high as 200 grams a day. After seeing lots of other data about ketogenesis, I have my doubts about that. But again, everyone is different. Even if just slightly.

(Eric - The patient needs to be patient!) #16

I did that for 3 years and inflammation went down and illnesses disappeared. But I starting slipping on carbs and gaining weight and inches. So I’m strict <20g a day (90%) and <30g (100%) and feel better than I did with <50g. I do drink some wine some weeks and not others. Always dry red. Well almost always. Even the white I drink is lower carb.

(Scott) #17

I am having some belly fat that is being stubborn right now but since I am in this for the long term so I am a phase where I am still doing what I started with. I lost twenty pounds fast and just stopped. Watching and waiting to see what happens next. With two ski trips in the next two months I think I will wait till April to change things up and take a more aggressive keto stance.

#18

I also have joints / muscle inflammation… if you don’t mind, can you share based on your case, how long after you are in keto for that to go away? I understand everyone could be diff…

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #19

The point of a well-formulated ketogenic diet is to promote metabolic health, by keeping insulin levels chronically low. Among the other benefits, low insulin also permits the body to dispose of its excess stored fat and restores proper hunger and satiety signaling.

Everyone’s carbohydrate tolerance differs, and you can only discover yours by experimenting. But in the beginning, especially, we recommend keeping your carbohydrate intake under 20 g/day, so as to efficiently get into nutritional ketosis, and the resulting fat-adaptation a couple of months later. Once you are fat-adapted, you can experiment with eating more carbohydrate, if you feel the need of it.

Bear in mind that carbohydrate is not necessary in the human diet. You could do fine on no vegetables at all, if you wanted to. But if you do eat vegetables, stick to leafy greens and fibrous vegetables that grow above ground, such as broccoli and cauliflower. If you eat high-fiber vegetables, you are likely to have enough before reaching the 20 g limit of available carbohydrate (the fiber, whether soluble or insoluble, is indigestible), which is probably where the “eat all you want” came from.

The kidneys excrete more water in the absence of carbohydrate. Likewise for sodium. Drink to thirst, and be sure to get between 10 and 15 grams of table salt a day (that’s 2-3 U.S. teaspoons).

Keto “flu” is a symptom of sodium deficiency, and recent studies have shown that we need close to 3 times the daily salt intake recommended by the U.S. government.

Keep carbohydrate low, eat enough protein but not too much, and fill in with fat to satiety.

Your body will be more willing to shed any excess fat it may have hanging around if it gets enough calories. By three or four weeks in, your appetite should be a reliable guide to how much food to eat. Why do the work of counting calories and calculating macros, when 2,000,000 years of evolution has well fitted your body to do the work automatically?

  1. Control carbohydrate ( < 20 g/day)
  2. Prioritize protein (1.0-2.0 g/day/kg lean body mass)
  3. Fill in with fat (to satiety)

(Remember that meat is not all protein, so 50 g of protein is around 200 g of steak, etc.)

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #20

Dr. Phinney used to talk about a well-formulated ketogenic diet that included 100-125 grams of carbohydrate a day, so it is obviously possible for some people. I notice, however, that he has lowered his recommendation to 50 g/day, now that he is working with diabetics at Virta Health.

The story goes, as I read it once in a post on these forums, that Richard and Carl really wanted to make the forum recommendation be 0 g of carbohydrate, but were afraid it would scare off the newcomers. In any case, at a 20 g/day limit, everyone but the most metabolically-damaged can get into nutritional ketosis, and once they have become fat-adapted, people can then fool around with carbs to discover their actual tolerance.

A company physician who had his corporation’s obese employees on a very successful keto/low-carb diet reported in a case study in the 1960’s that one of his executives was so insulin-resistant (although that term didn’t exist yet) that one apple could cause him to gain weight. Fortunately, most of us aren’t that bad off.