Hello, I am looking for a bit of help.
I’ve been doing keto for almost two months now and don’t feel I am getting anywhere. My weight seems to fluctuate +/- 5 lbs and I don’t feel extra energy etc.
I’m 50 years old, 5’10" and 265 lbs. I so badly want to lose weight, it has always been an issue of mine, 60 lbs is my goal. I don’t exercise, before and after work I feel drained no energy.
I have read and watched on YouTube so many things about keto and now I feel it is too complicated. My co-worker helped me figure out my macros and an app to watch carbs, fats calories etc. I find it too limiting but I keep trying. But again it is all starting to feel over complicated like every other diet I have failed at.
For breakfast I have a bullet proof coffee (MCT or coconut oil, salted butter (I can’t afford grass fed) some flax seed and some almond milk and of course the coffee). I will then have 1 or 2 coffees through the morning, with just a very small shot of 18% cream.
Sometimes I will have a snack before lunch usually consisting of either celery, a small stick of cheese or a stick of pepperoni.
Lunch is usually either leafy greens and spinach salad with tuna and no carb dressing or keto chilli or a ground beef and cabbage soup I make.
I don’t snack before supper.
Supper is usually meat (pork, chicken or beef, sometime fish) and vegetables usually broccoli or cauliflower and mushrooms and onions.
I don’t like making complicated meals after work.
I try not to snack in the evening but if I do it’s some pork rinds, celery, another stick of pepperoni or a piece of cheese.
A book I read said I should also take daily Exogenous Ketones (I have the capsules, 6 a day) and to add bone broth to things.
I am so tired of failing and feel so discouraged and confused that I seriously will start to starve myself if I have to, I don’t want to fail again.
Can anyone give me some suggestions to simplify this and finally get some results?
Thank you.
Discouraged, what I am doing wrong?
How much in grams of each macro are eating? How many total calories per day? What app are you using? The more specific details you provide the more useful advice you’ll get.
Welcome to the forum, Gord =).
To start Keto, just make sure your carbs are at 20 grams or less, this is like the most important thing. The other thing is no snacking, because your insulin levels go up when you eat, so you want to keep them low. A general idea is to first eat 3 meals a day, with no snacking between, so breakfast, no calories until lunch (including no coffees unless black) then lunch, (again no calories until supper) then supper, then a fasting period of no calories from supper until breakfast (which would be at least 12 hours for your body to burn your fat in your body).
I use cronometer.com to type in all the foods to make sure I am keeping my carbs low enough. Eating enough proteins and healthy fats is important, to eat enough calories from these, and drinking water and your electrolytes, because if you don’t keep them up you will be feeling really tired.
Hi there,
I am sure not a coach and am sure that others have more wisdom than I do. I found that I was not eating enough at my meals and so “needed a snack”. You may find that by avoiding snacks you will eat more full meals. Make sure they are full of wonderful yummy fat (I add bacon and bacon fat to my veggies that I roast).
I really don’t think that you will need Exogenous ketones when you are eating fatty cuts of meat and since you are doing a fatty coffee in the am. I am not sure what 18% cream is, but go with heavy whipping cream that does not have carbs.
You do NOT have to starve on this way of eating. It is so amazing that I love what I am eating and do not get hungry. I have so many wonderful health benefits I just can’t imagine another way of eating!
I hope you find the encouragement you need to stick with this and learn from others on this forum.
Best to you!!
Hi Gord and welcome
I think you are going about this wrong.You are trying to “diet” with keto and eat the old so-called “healthy” foods and this even limited. You might think that eating a stick of celery is doing a diet right, but this is not keto. At the beginning you basically almost need to pig out. I know that sounds counterintuitive- but this is the magic that is keto. So have 3-4 eggs for breakfast and bacon - a LOT of bacon. Have cauliflower smothered in cheese sauce and fatty meat. Have a ceasar salad with a keto dressing - or if you prefer- have blue cheese dressing. The more fat the better,
Because the thing with keto is you are SUPPOSED to eat fat. I put butter on everything now - something I avoided eating for 4 decades.
Go to cronometer.com and put in your credentials and track what you eat. There you will see that you can eat a lot. You even SHOULD eat a lot. The ratio should be 60% fats, 30% proteins and 10% carbs, cronometer.com will show you the content of what you are eating and how much. That is tracking your macros. Its simple after that. The only thing is I find myself cooking a lot.
In the beginning you need to get into ketosis. What helps is eating LOTS of fat. I once licked out a whole bowl of sauce béarnaise which consists of butter and egg yolks ( oh so yummy) and afterwards I had like dark purple keto sticks for all the ketones I made from it.
And keep this up and enjoy your food- as long as it is keto food which is FATTY and you keep your carb intake below 20g/day - and then simply wait. Because after maybe 3 months you will notice a real change in your body. Then you can come back and write us how you feel. One hint: your appetite goes away.
So yeah- I would say you are doing it wrong because it seems like you are punishing yourself. Go forth and really enjoy keto eating! Do not be precocious and try all sorts of fasting tips before your body is fat-adapted. Don’t fast at all for now- nada! EAT. Then wait for the changes to occur. 
(Oh and as a PS - while pigging out on keto foods and keeping my carbs below 20g/day- I lost weight. THIS is what happens when you stop throwing all the insulin into you bloodstream by keeping your carbs so low. So the only thing you need to keep low are your carbs. Do this, eat a lot, and be patient.)
This is some great advice.
Welcome to the forum! This is the proper place to talk about being discouraged. We all have been, and its usually at the beginning, and it usually ends with the realization that you need to change your ideas about food and eating, and find the freedom with food that you need to be successful.
It could be you aren’t eating enough? Just a thought. I’m sorry, I should have welcomed you, also!!
Welcome Gord,
I agree with Chantarella. The priority is to go into ketosis. Put cream cheese in your celery stick. Stop the exogeneous ketones. The point is to make them, not to eat them. If the carb count is below 20 grams per day, you should have gone into ketosis in 2 or 3 days. Check the Atkins fat fast if your metabolism does not want to burn fat. I am 64 and have been low carb for 22 years and with no regrets. Keep Calm and Keto On.
Hi, here is my macros: 23g Net Carbs, 93g Protein, 155g Fat, 1865 Net Calories.
My body fat percentage is 34.2%.
Thank you Chanterelle for the advice. However, when you say cheese sauce on veggies, I thought a lot of cheese is bad, too many carbs etc.? Also Ceasar salad, you have to use a no carb dressing correct?
Thank you, but as I asked Chantarella, do I not have to watch how much cream cheese I am eating? I thought dairy, cheese included had lots of carbs etc.
@GordG Welcome - and congratulations on starting on this path to great health! Everything you’ve heard above is solid advice.
It’s not really complicated at all. It’s just very different from what we’ve all been told for the past couple of generations, so that’s what makes keto eating seem a bit tricky at first.
Yes, you need to feed yourself ample amounts of healthy fats. That’s where your energy is going to come from because you need to keep your carbs way down … only the trace carbs found in green veggies, eggs, etc. should be the carbs you eat for the foreseeable future.
And no, in your situation, taking exogenous ketones is pointless. Not even a good idea - as you want to get your own body to produce them. Absent a specific medical condition (e.g., battling cancer) this is not productive path for you.
And most important, you should feel SATISFIED and FULL when you’re done eating your meal(s)… never deprived. If at some point you can trim your feasts to 2 meals a day - and cut out the snacking - you will get much better results over the long run.
But everyone’s metabolism is different, and some folks (e.g., pre-menopausal women) will find that their hormone cycles may get in the way of significant weight loss at first. But good things are going on inside your body regardless, whether you’re losing weight right away or not.
Stay the course and please keep us posted!
I am new to Keto, so if my information is incorrect someone please correct me:
Cheese is a good keto item. For the most part, it is relatively low in carbs. For example, my Sargento’s ultra thin sharp cheddar cheese slices are 0 carbs. I think even mozzarella only has 1 carb per serving. I have only ever heard someone not recommend cheese if they have issues with dairy in general (for example lactose intolerance).
I have learned to read the nutrition labels on everything now. For just beginning, I mainly focus on the carbs, fibers and sugar alcohols (to calculate net carbs). If the item is low in carbs, it’s considered good to me. Hopefully in the future I can start to focus on ingredients and potentially total carbs. But keeping it simple is the way to go for now. The main thing, like people have mentioned, is to stay under 20g net carbs.
That agrees with my understanding. High fat dairy products also tend toward the lower carb end of the spectrum.
E.g. cream cheese has ~40 carb calories out of ~800 total, or about 5%. I’d call that a low carb food.
https://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/16/2
“Low fat” dairy products tend to be relatively higher in carbs - skim milk, etc. Keep an eye out for those. When in doubt, look them up with an app or a web search.
You have to count the carbs in Swiss cheese, my favorite, at 1.5 grams per ounce. Cottage cheese is lower at 1.0 grams per ounce but people like to eat several ounces, up to a cup or more.
I am lactose intolerant to a great extent, but even we can eat some dairy. Parmesan, goat and sheep cheeses tend to work. Basically, the softer the cheese, the worse it will do for us. Sharp cheddar works for many. I can do like a slice of cheese and a tablespoon of cream a day before it sets me off. Lactose intolerance from birth is a different thing from lactose intolerance that shows up late in life.
I thought that at first
Found out that they dont need to list carbs when under .5
Cheese has carbs think cheddar is .4
Many things I was surprised to find had carbs that don’t list it, including eggs
For some its not much of a difference but I find I need to be under 20 total carbs on average to maintain weight lose momentum
I find cheese is very useful but I am a little careful, I try not to just snack on it, I uselessly have some meat or eggs with it, I may have it mutlible times a day or may have 2 ounce of cheddar on chicken dish
But I am careful not to just snack on it to me on its own its not filling and moreish and the carbs can add up on me
again this is not for everyone I know there are many that can be more liberal with it and some that cant have it at all
@GordG
Use cronometer.com. Its free! I can’t do keto without it. Put in your cheese and the amount, and see how many carbs are in it. Cronometer will tell you. You would be surprised at how little carbs there are in full fat cheese (and full fat cheeses taste way better). And on youtube there are all sorts of recipes for your favourite foods modified to fit the keto lifestyle. Do you like mac and cheese? Make it with cauliflower instead of maccaroni. There are even pizza recipes and waffles. EAT. Believe it that you can actually eat to your hearts content AND lose weight.
I think it is very confusing to tell newbies to limit their meals or food intake because at the beginning I was confused too. Eat 2 or 3 meals a day if you want to, and make sure you eat enough at each meal so you dont feel the urge to snack later. Gord- dont try to turn keto into any other diet where you have to limit your foods. The main thing is only that your carbs are below 20g. That is the key. And eat LOTS of fat and moderate protein. Maybe in 3 months or so, your body will have become fat adapted- which means that you will be burning fats instead of carbs for energy. That is when you will notice a change in your appetite. THEN and not before. Now I dont need my eggs and bacon for breakfast every day- NOW I can skip breakfast some days. But at the beginning, you do. I also missed sweet at the beginning, so I made keto sweets. Try almond milk with sugar free cocoa and vanilla extract and eyrthrit or stevia on ice! Experiment and make eating fun with keto. Use cream and butter - I fry my eggs in butter now. Butter is good for you! Eggs are good for you! It is all the opposite of what we ever learned before. On youtube there are clips of which foods to buy to stock up in your kitchen. The hidden carbs are really in all your prefab products at the supermarket. Making your own meals from pure foods is how to keep your carbs low because nothing is hidden anymore. Keep your veg to plants which grow above ground and not under- so no more carrots. They contain a bunch of carbs and cronometer will tell you so. Do the tracking of your macros on cronometer and enjoy your eating. This will also limit your buying of prefab foods because cronometer cant tell you about the content of prefab foods- it calculates for pure foods. Check out what people are eating on the “what did you keto today” thread. There are people there eating huge meals who have lost 100 lbs. That is the miracle which is keto. Some people told me without my sweet tooth I would lose weight faster and this might be- I only lost 4 kilos in 2 months, but I wasnt ready to give up sweets yet. After 3 months of eating keto, my sweet tooth has diminished too- and if I need something sweet- i make it keto too. So be patient, enjoy your meals, eat keto and wait to see what happens. I never thought I would ever wake up one morning and forget to eat anything! But this is LATER. I call the first 3 months the “Induction phase” because before we are fat adapted we just dont know yet how our body will change, and what is coming in the way of miracles. And be patient. Keto isn’t for the short term. It is a change of lifestyle and if you can eat delicious - then it lasts.
PS there are recipes for caesar salad dressing or blue cheese dressing which are keto and taste divine. You cannot use the supermarket bottles anymore. All prefab foods which were made to “make our lives easier” are making us die younger! They contain maltodextrin and other carbs to enhance taste and make it preserve on the shelf. These are off limits now. I wanted to buy a prefab béarnaise sauce but you have to read the labels! There were all sorts of hidden carbs written on the tetra pack of this sauce. So I learned to make my own. The only drawback to keto is that it involves a lot of cooking if you want it to be really delicious- and I am not a great cook- but I follow the instructions of somebody on youtube and its great.