Counting calories and macros but they're not adding up?! Help

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(Marianne) #21

This period of 3 meals a day is different - it is designed to be restorative. You are healing your body from years of abuse.

(Dana) #22

Love how helpful and supportive people in this forum are! How long have you been on Keto and how much weight did you lose? Did you hit a plateau and if so, when did it happen and how did you break it. What I realized after all the helpful comments on here is that my body is reacting to the keto AND IF and going into famine mode. All the stories about people who have lost weight on keto all say they lost a lot of weight the first few weeks then it slowed down. Mine completely stopped one week in. I’m going to make it a point to have at least two meals a day and keep an eye on those carbs. Funny how I never though of carbs when it comes to kale and cauliflower!

(Marianne) #23

I’ve been on keto since 2/19/19; it has been a miracle to me. I’ve lose 44 lbs., which started pretty modestly. At some point, probably when I first tried 48-hour fasting (this wasn’t until I was 4 months in and fat adapted - just did not want to do it until then - (I don’t want to do anything that reminds me of dieting ever again!!!), I experienced a “whoosh” that people talk about (rapid weight loss). I haven’t hit a plateau yet but not saying it isn’t going to happen.

If I could sum up what I have learned to make it easier for newbies, I’d say just KCKO (keep calm and keto on). Just live your life and nourish your body. Don’t “diet” or think of this as a diet. Let the days pass as they would otherwise. Just eat - or not - whatever your body is feeling, and trust that it will happen. I don’t know how much weight you have to lose. If it’s only a little, it may come off more slowly, but you will still be healing and restoring your body to good health, even if you don’t see much weight coming off.

Please keep us posted about how you are experiencing your journey.

(Dana) #24

Wow! 44 lbs down is awesome! Thank you for the inspiration. I will KCKO and let you know of my progress. After a week of stagnation, I’m seeing a little drop in my scale now and I can’t be more happy. I took everyone’s advice and only worried about my net carb intake and increased my calories to at least reach 1200 a day. I started taking my vitamin D’s and fish oil and drink at least 3 liters of water a day. I haven’t felt so energetic in a long time! I started this diet for the weight loss, but I’m definitely gonna stay for the health benefits! Keto on!

#25

Thank you for your question! :+1: I had a similar problem.
The feedback is great. Thank you guys for the help. :pray:

I see that some of you don’t count calories or macros at all. I find it hard to get the right diet without tracking. I’ve been using Yazio as food diary and tracking app to know what’s good to eat: https://www.yazio.com/en. They also have a keto meal plan which is why I got curious and recently started the keto diet. How do you make sure you get the right ratios and do you prep your meals for that? Thanks in advance for your answers! :slightly_smiling_face:

(Utility Muffin Research Kitchen) #26

Ah. I find it way too cumbersome to weigh, add and track. I just know roughly the macros of the usual ingredients. Some food is “unlimited” (less than 5% carbs - 1:10 ratio carbs:fat is always safe regardless of protein), I eat as much as I like, and I only track the rest. I completely eliminate starchy stuff (including legumes), except on rare occasions.

IMO it doesn’t really matter if 60% or 80% of the calories come from fat as long as carbs are low enough. I simply use a lot of butter (veggies), lard (cooking) and olive oil (salad), plus make sure that the meat isn’t too lean.

Some ingredients: Meat/eggs = unlimited (fresh meat that is, sausages and other prepared meats may contain carbs, check on the package).
Fat/butter = unlimited (naturally).
Heavy cream, creme fraiche, mascarpone cheese = unlimited. They have 3g carbs and 30g fat (mascarpone 4g/40g), in calories that’s <5% carbs.
Salad = unlimited (leafy greens). Not enough carbs even in a big portion to track.
Nuts = unlimited, except cashews, pistachios (too much carbs) and peanuts (lectins).

Vegetables: As a rule of thumb most vegetables have 3-4g carbs per 100g. Exceptions are starchy vegetables (corn, pumpkin) which I eliminate, and veggies that taste sweet. Carrots have ~9g carbs, so a small portion is OK. Green beans are technically legumes but have only between 3g and 8g carbs (check the package), I buy the ones with 3g so I can eat basically as much as I like (as long as it’s a normal portion).

Fruit: I only eat fruit that have intensive taste and little carbs, typically berries that have less than 5 grams carbs (raspberries and strawberries may have 6g). I don’t weigh, but to give you an idea: 100g berries are more than enough to give intensive taste to a dessert, like 100g raspberries (6g carbs) and maybe 150g heavy cream or creme fraiche (4g), that’s ~10g net carbs. Mousse au chocolat has cream, mascarpone and 90% or more chocolate that has <15g carbs, so 3-4 portions are about 30g carbs (15g from chocolate and 15g from cream/mascarpone) or 8-10g per portion.

Practical example: On most days I eat only one meal. Bulletproof coffee (no carbs) in the morning, meat and salad/veggies as main meal. So I have maybe 10g carbs from veggies and 10g from dessert. If I snack on nuts, 100g will give 5g carbs, total 25g for the day. (Nuts roasted in butter with salt are very tasty and have a better carb ratio than prepackaged nuts.)

If I do eat a second meal I typically have something like bone broth or bacon&eggs, which has zero carbs, rarely with carbs at all like a big almond flour keto muffin that has about 5g carbs.

(Paulene ) #27

Thank you for that post @Fruno - it seems very balanced and simple.

I naturally progressed to OMAD on weekdays and 2 meals on weekends after about 4 weeks on keto. Just felt right and is a great fit with my lifestyle.

How much success have you had with your approach?

(Bunny) #28

Interesting take on calorie counting and adipose lipid droplet extraction from the United States Department of Health and Human Services:

Setting your calorie goal:

What is a calorie?

A Calorie is the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of a liter of water 1 degree. Sure, it was hard to understand when your science teacher explained it. Relax. It is just a scientific way to measure energy. That said, what do you need to know about calories? Just a few things: Think about what you regularly eat, what your calorie needs are, and how to count calories. It takes approximately 3,500 calories below your calorie needs to lose a pound of body fat. It takes approximately 3,500 calories above your calorie needs to gain a pound.

At this point, you know how many excess calories it takes to gain a pound or deficit calories to lose a pound (3,500), and you know about how many calories you need (in “My Personal Profile”). You are already on the road to a Healthier You! The next thing you need to learn is how to count calories so you can determine how many you eat each day. At first, this may seem like too much trouble, but once you get familiar with portion size and the number of calories in your favorite foods, you’ll be able to estimate how many calories you eat each day, easily, without weighing your food and without taking too much of your valuable time. …” …More

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(Utility Muffin Research Kitchen) #29

As well as can be expected. Losing weight is secondary (lost ~30 pounds this year), but my main concern is health and I’m doing a lot better than a year ago.

(Utility Muffin Research Kitchen) #30

What exactly is interesting about it? It sounds good, but it’s completely wrong because it’s the usual calorie in, calorie out crap.

Fung explains it much better than I could. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nJgHBbEgsE

(Bunny) #31

Since you asked I will fill you in on the finer details:

The part about heating 1 liter of water?

It’s not wrong, it is simply a different way of understanding it?

The thermal combustion part of what a calorie is, how much thermal heat does it take to burn a carbohydrate, fat or protein or heat up one liter of water?

Carbohydrates, fat, and even protein are very flammable if torched directly with fire. Powdered sugar can blow up an entire building or factory if placed into the air and ignited with one spark? (the sugar is ignited, annihilated and turned into carbon)

Hard to imagine the human body being capable of torching even a small portion of the amount of food we truly eat in calories?

For a metabolically fit person the calorie counting might work but if your not then your in state of storing fat rather than oxidizing carbohydrates.

So if your oxidizing (CO2 output) and not storing then that means those calories would not count as being stored?

Just some thoughts!

Besides the biochemical side of of regulatory hormones. The electrical (thermal) and mechanical side is also interesting?

References:

[1] “…Each human breath contains roughly 33 mg. CO2 with 8.9 mg comprised of carbon output. …” “…The amount of carbon that is lost can be increased with exercise. By substituting 1 hour of rest for 1 hour of moderate exercise such as jogging, the metabolic rate is increased sevenfold, removing an additional 40 g of carbon from the body, increasing the daily total by around 20% to 240 g. …” “…Keeping the weight off simply requires that you put less back in by eating than you’ve exhaled by breathing,” state the authors. …” “…However, this can easily be offset with unhealthy eating. A single 100 g muffin, for example, provides around 20% of an average person’s total daily energy requirement. “Physical activity as a weight loss strategy is, therefore, easily foiled by relatively small quantities of excess food,” write the authors. The solution is a traditional one - “eat less, move more.” …More

(Utility Muffin Research Kitchen) #32

Sorry, but it’s total BS. If you measure the CO2 particles out of your exhaust pipe you can estimate how much fuel you burn, but it will tell you nothing about efficiency, that is, how far the car can go with a given amount of fuel. Good luck if you’re driving a gas/electric hybrid.
It’s the same with calories. If your fat metabolism is nearly blocked from metabolic syndrome you will burn exactly 0g fat with an hour of exercise and just be more hungry for the next meal. If you are insulin sensitive you might burn off a few grams fat, but a lot less than your calculation gives because glycogen stores are emptied first. And we are hybrids, carbs are one fuel, fat is the other.

I strongly suggest to throw away anything that elaborates on calorie difference and does not mention insulin resistance. They are missing the most fundamental thing: Metabolism accounts for 90% and calories for 10% in the fat burning equation.

Watch the video or have a look at https://thefastingmethod.com/smash-the-fat-calories-part-xi/.

(Bunny) #33

So let’s dig into that metabolism thing much deeper?

I’m guessing it could go pretty far given the amount of distinguishable body fat you have?

…And that’s true even when in ketosis or on a low carb-high fat diet or fasting-extensively EF too.

That’s only if you eat after exercising, I would also think that would be the reason one would be trying to put there body in ketosis or be in ketosis, you are simply oxidizing fat whether the fat stored in adipose tissue will be release to be oxidized for fuel comes from tyrosine deficiencies, noradrenaline (tyrosine-catecholamines) depletion ect.

Eating a little tiny bit of sea weed help release lipid droplets more rapidly in my own experiments with the scale, if you want to actually deflate fat cells even with a much higher carbohydrate ketogenic diet long-term. (I found that my adipose tissue in appearance deflates or shrinks rapidly with the seaweed even when at rest BMR/RMR/EER)

A metabolically fit person goes into ketosis naturally even at high carb intake but they over do it for years on end and up on this forum eventually.

Just because your in ketosis does not mean you will burn body fat for fuel, it simply makes it possible, you can also burn body fat without being in ketosis through adrenaline.

While on a ketogenic diet you could simply sit their and burn dietary fat constantly and not burn any body fat ever?

(Utility Muffin Research Kitchen) #34

Not sure what your point is. Yes, human energy metabolism is complicated. I never claimed it was simple. But counting calories is still BS, because on keto 95% of overweight people will lose fat even if they eat more calories than they burn. The final 5% is where it gets complicated, true.

(Bunny) #35

That’s like a no brainer around here!

We know that…lol