Hi, thanks for accepting me to the forum. I discovered Keto recently and have decided to give it a try, my goal is to reduce inflammation,I don’t want to lose weight. I am only on it 5 days and already I am slimming down. This is normal for me,I go up and down very easily. I have stopped eating all grains, and I now eat eggs meat broccoli cabbage avocado and cook with butter. Is it possible to maintain my weight on Keto. Do I have to start calorie counting.
Don't want to do weight on Keto
scaperdude
(B Creighton)
#2
If you actually go into ketosis, the first 6 pounds or so of weight loss are going to be about 2-3 pounds of stored glycogen, and then another 2 lbs of water for each of those pounds - commonly called “water weight” in the dieting world. So, yes, that is quite normal for everyone. After that is when the real fat loss begins. Just realize when you bring back the carbs you can expect to regain that weight in the first week. As long as you include sufficient protein, you shouldn’t lose any lean body mass. In fact most people who eat protein foods are going to even gain some lean body mass.
Shinita
#3
If you don’t eat at a deficit, you can’t lose weight but humans are complicated so it may be not as simple and/or easy as it may sound.
I only ever could keep my fat body on keto as I inevitably eat a lot fat (protein too but that can’t keep one fat). It’s normal to me, I ate even more fat on high-carb but the typical person comes from a lower-fat diet or at least get satiated by keto food very easily.
Do you know your macros? You don’t need to track, of course but it can be useful when things don’t go to the right direction…
I usually eat 130-180g protein and a similar amount of fat on keto (I easily do much more but it depends on my food choices a lot) and nope, I don’t lose either muscle or fat that way. But I am a short, moderately active female, of course other people would lose fat eating this much. And some would gain fat rapidly. It’s quite individual.
But in your case… Only 5 days passed and it’s near impossible to lose much in such a short time (and that involves serious sickness or running at least a marathon a day and stuff). Basically everyone loses some water weight in the first days, some more than others, it means regarding muscle mass or fat and that is what is really important (well if one is swollen with lots of unnecessary water, that can be important too ;)). Be a bit more patient and eat enough! Or as much as feels right. It’s even possible that keto is so unusual (or satiating) for you that you eat a bit less for a little while, that’s fine. If you are worried, track and see what happens or if not, eat more fat to be sure (I find eating 100-200g extra fat ridiculously easy but not everyone is me… but liquids are usually easier, cream, fatty soups…) - but if you are very used to much lower fat or if fat satiates you very much, it may not be the right thing to do…
Pjam
(Peter - Don't Fear the Fat )
#4
Welcome to the Forum
No. Count Carbs not calories. You can eat until full just make sure your under 20g of carbs a day.
Don’t think of keto as a weigh loss diet it’s more of a way to find your natural weight.
Good luck with the inflammation, that’s my goal too and if keto doesn’t work you could try an even more powerful method … carnivore.
kib1
(KM)
#5
Welcome! I would not bother with calorie counting, but you may want to add more fat to your diet. I’m not sure it’s a precise formula so much as an individual body reaction, but you may need to tweak things until you find the sweet spot where you’re still in ketosis and happy with your food choices, but not losing pounds. … Or should we call it the “grease spot”, haha. 
Most people eating keto or carnivore find fatty meat to be a good choice, provided they can tolerate it, taste and digestion-wise. Coconut milk and coconut oil also seem like good additions for people who do not want to go the dairy route for added fat.
Pjam
(Peter - Don't Fear the Fat )
#7
Me?
I had back pain from bulging disk - Gone
Pain from 2 knee Op’s - Gone
Recently diagnosed (suffered for ages though) with IBD - So far much improved but it’s only 3 weeks in.
I should add Keto made a big difference but Carnivore has added to improvements.
lfod14
#8
Keto is no different than any other diet, if you don’t eat enough to support your TDEE, you’ll lose. Eat over that, you’ll gain. I’d say you should ignore the first two weeks of loss, because you’re going to dump water and muscle glycogen that you normally would have had, and that’s not the same thing as losing fat or muscle.
You notice many of us dont say “lose weight”, because it’s fat and muscleass that matters, not a blanket scale weight, but that works in both directions.
If you don’t know your TDEE (most don’t) tracking for a while is useful to figure that out. Keep in mind, that changes with body composition, muscle mass, how efficient your thyroid is running etc.
CFLBob
(Central Florida Bob )
#9
FWIW, I don’t think it’s possible to know your TDEE in general. It depends on things that aren’t easy to measure or know from day to day. The best we can do is approximate it.
TDEE = Total Daily Energy Expenditure
RMR = Resting Metabolic Rate
TEPA = Thermic Effects of Physical Activity (calories burned in activity)
TEF = Thermic Effects of Food (calories burned in eating and digesting food)
And note that there is no specific way to account for metabolic effects, think GLP-1 agonists since they’re so popular today, which are going to vary in real time. Energy expenditure is part of a control loop that we have so little understanding of that the best we can do is get within 10%.
A way to calculate your resting metabolic rate (which is really just an estimate) is the Mifflin – St. Jeor equations. Note that there is no correction for % bodyfat or muscle mass or anything else we know that has an effect.
Men: (10 × weight in kg) + (6.25 × height in cm) - (5 × age in years) + 5
Women: (10 × weight in kg) + (6.25 × height in cm) - (5 × age in years) - 161
From:
Metabolism is complicated. Weight loss is complicated. There are people for whom weight gain is complicated; after all, it’s the same set of equations. It’s small differences in those things that don’t even show up in the equations, or rounding errors, that are the difference between losing and gaining.
Shinita
#10
Yeah it’s complex. Thankfully, I don’t need to have much idea about my RMR, my TDEE is more useful but as I can’t possibly guess very well my energy intake either (it’s still way more accurate than my energy burn through activity when I am a tad more active… it’s a total mystery then) and tracking most of the time is very tiresome anyway, it’s best if I just figure out how to eat to get what I want.
Of course, TDEE is subject to huge changes, sometimes even if our activity is the same. Mine is usually the same as my energy intake, no matter how much I eat (there is a limit but it’s surprisingly hard to reach, my maintenance energy need is a pretty wide range apparently).
It helps if one eats somewhat similarly every day, no tracking is needed, just eating more or less if the result isn’t right. In the super simple cases like mine, I don’t have magical items interfering with fat-loss or something. Or strange conditions, some people have it super rough.
lfod14
#11
That’s true, and it literally changes daily, but when your tracking and weighing daily you can hone in very close to what it actually is, depending on method of course. In my case a combo of my tracking, an AI tracker that’s watching everything, accounting for daily fluctuations and ignoring them and going on trends, and since the measurement tech has come a long way the last couple years, a scale that actually is useable to track metrics as close to a DEXA as well probably have for a while, very much close enough for simple things like bodyweight loss, gain and maintenance. Even my body water and muscle mass is tracking correctly for what I’m doing, which is insane because a couple years ago that was impossible minus constant DEXAs, which I used to get a lot of. Last one was literally just to see what the scale gave me vs that.