Fait’s Keto Journey for Weightloss (newbie)

[Fait]

Greetings,

First of all, I want to intoduce myself like everybody did when they started their journey here.

I am 5’11, 34M and living in United Arab Emirates for 6 years now but born and raised in the Philippines. I can say that I have been fat almost all my life from my younger days upto my college life. To cut the story a bit shorter, I started dieting and going to the gym when I was in my freshmen year in college and that was around year 2002. To be proud of, my weighloss journey on those year was very successful because from a person who weighs around 240-250lbs, I was able to bring it down to 185lbs by just doing moderate lifting on my own and some crazy 3 day diet or military diet as they call. Eventually, after graduating from college my weight became a yoyo on the weighing scale until I wasn’t able to bounce back anymore because I have completely stopped going to the gym starting from 2009 upto date because of a motorcycle accident in Feb 2009 and my right arm now doesnt have full mobility that is why I am very disappointed with myself right now. I can’t even do a full bicep curl ob my right arms because there are “calsifications” blocking my elbow and that is one and only reason why I stopped going to the gym and exercising. Sometimes I tried jogging but I always FAIL to work my arse off and resulting to none. Now, I am trying to fix all the years that I have messed up and by accomplishing that, I want to start with myself and diet that is why I am here right now. I am bit skeptical in posting but I heartly need all the help I can get. Ok, let me start telling my keto-story.

I found out about the ketogenic diet around last week of November 2017 and psyched myself that I will do this. December 3, 2017 I started my diet by not eating any carbs at all. Because from my understanding before, I can eat anything except foods with carbs like rice, grains, bread, wheat and fruits with high sugar content. On my starting days, I ate everything what is served by my wife on the table but moderate amount of servings (even upto now, sometimes that’s what I do), but since I started my keto, I have not eaten any rice, bread, soda, juices etc. That is where I am very very strict about, not even a small amount of candy can be ingested to me. I started to weigh myself on December 09,2017. It took me 6 days to have the balls to step on the scale to determine where I am currently because I know seeing my weight on my first day of dieting could depress me and things might turnover in a bad way but I did it anyway. So, my weight was 128.2kg and I believe this is the heaviest I reached and I felt disgusted BUT since it has been a week of dieting already, I took it as a motivation because I felt lighter already on those days by not taking sugar and bloated feeling isn’t there anymore. Now, as I post this message, my current weight is 115kg! I am very happy with my progress and other people are noticing it too and that makes me feel more confident and driven towards this journey. Eventhough I have lost weight (I know it could be water weight only) I am still struggling with my macros as I am not really well educated about these matters and I am not a technical person when it comes to computation of measurements etc. I humbly need all your help to correct whatever I am doing wrong so that I can improve more in a correct manner.

I am a bit confused about macros. I don’t have problems with keeping my carbs under 20-30g a day since I totally eat zero carbs unless unintentionally it is in my plate without me knowing it but other than that, I am fine. About the fats, I think I can catch up a bit because I try to put butter, mayonaise, olive oil in everything I eat or sometimes I will endulge on chicken skin (deep fried w/ coconut oil, instead of pork rinds, I do this) and I started doing BPC to keep me satiated the whole day, because not to mention I am also doing Intermittent Fasting, 16:8 or 20:4, depending on appetite. My problem is the protein. I don’t know how to keep track of it. From the start of my keto diet since Dec 3 upto now, I am not sure if I am eating too less protein or eating too much. If I do IF, my calorie intake based on MFP (tho i dont trust this much) is around 1200, if I do OMAD, around 800-900 calories only. I also started swimming in the open beach every morning for an hour with a moderate freestyle lapping after finishing my night shift at 8am. This is the only exercise I do and some baggage lifting at work since I work in the Airport.

PS: i work 1 morning and 3 nights and always 12 hours per shift and 3 days off. Sometimes I struggle doing IF thats why I force to do OMAD if I can on night shifts.

I will post picures later on of what I have been eating this past few days so that you can tell me if that is too much/less protein for my body index.

Thanks all!
Fait

[Fait]

Additional to my post:

I FAILED my OMAD the other day because all the while, I thought having a BPC during your fasting period is ok but I just found out last night that BPC breaks fast because of the calories in it. My OMAD yesterday was a success as I fasted for 23 hours. Now, I am on it again, I had my first meal at 7pm and currently in night shift from 10pm-8am next day and eat again around 7pm. Hoping to burn more fats while asleep.

[Capnbob]

Welcome to the Keto WoE! I’m sure you’re going to crush it!

A lot of people don’t count a BPC as breaking the fast or it just becomes a little ‘fat fast’. You probably don’t need to dive into IF so early but if you can then great.

As for counting protein, you need to measure your intake (e.g. weight of protein source) and use those weights in MFP to give you the protein grams.

It does sound like you are not eating enough so may be reducing your basal metabolism unless you are already fully fat adapted (you may be) - you’ll know from your lack of appetite and abilty to fast easily. With your swimming and exertions at work you probably need more calories but if you are full with what you eat, maybe not.

[Rkgina]

I do the BPC during my fast! You can too. I am on your 78 and losing a pound a day. I check my ketosis level and I am the second darkest color

[Dipper_Actual]

I would never consider it a failure! Heck if that’s all you had other than a meal you’re doing better at hunger management than 99% of other people.

OMAD should never be a chore, it’s just something you fall into doing because you’re so satisfied with the food you’ve ate that you don’t need to eat anymore the rest of the day.

Sleep hygiene is also an important part of staying healthy. Be sure that on the days you’re not working nights you get sun and eat during the day, and try not to eat at night.

[Fait]

@Capnbob: thank you for the warm welcome and believing in me! I will totally crush our keto woe!

As per IF, the reason why I am starting this early is because of the good benefits it can do to our body especially it can really lower down our insulin. I am not quite sure if I am fat-adapted already but my mind is telling me I am in ketosis. I am not sure tho if being in ketosis for a period of time means fat-adapted already? One thing I noticed, I can last hours and hours not eating even at work. I am just annoyed with the “hunger” breath I am experiencing coz sometimes breath can really be so bad if I havent eaten for more than 5-8hrs at work.

@Dipper_Actual: I just got guilty of taking the BPC after my night shift and went to bed afterwards. Intentionally, I took the BPC so that I will feel satiated the whole morning and afternoon while Im asleep which it did pretty well but I think I can do it without it. Got crazy of the idea of OMAD or IF since research says our body will be a fat burning machine if we do this thats why im practicing it as my woe.

[Fait]

This was my dinner I had the other night and same day I took the BPC in the morning. Salmon baked with lots of kerrygold butter and home made cauliflower mashed. As per my wife, its roughly 10g carbs only as she measured it.

Here’a another look of what I had the day after. Same salmon, 3 eggs scrambled with 2tbsp butter and 1tbsp cream cheese and bowl of bitter gurd with 2 pieces of small chicken (filipino cuisine)

[Capnbob]

Ketosis and fat adapted are independent. You can be one without the other or both together.

If you can OMAD that’s great (it suggests you are fat adapted) - but don’t starve yourself as well when you do eat that meal. Keto isn’t about a caloric deficit (though one may happen as a result of eating until satiated).

Anyway - keep up the good work. The Middle East is a very (the most?) diabetic part of the world so your example may well help others who really need it!

[Fait]

@Capnbob: I hope you’re right that I am fat adapted already. That’s where I want to be without struggling doing this lifestyle and journey for weightloss.

When breaking my fast, I always think of something what I can do to add more fats to my meal but ending up not finishing everything and giving small portions to my daughter or wife because I get full right away.

My concern also now is my water intake, since weather is a bit cold yet, i dont feel thirsty and tend to forget to up my water intake. Maybe I average only 2L nowadays. Sometimes, in my 12hour shift at night, I only had a 500ml of water

[circesdad]

@Fait Welcome and congratulations on your progress and dedication. You have a challenging schedule and seem to have found great strategies for managing the shift issues. Seems you have carbs well under control and have a good sense of where your protein should be at 1 gram/kg of estimated lean body mass. The physical exertion you perform has the double benefit of giving you and income and expanding your muscle tissue’s capacity to absorb the glucose from the carbs helping to maintain a rock bottom insulin level. Well done.

Are you measuring your blood sugars and ketones?

[circesdad]

This keto calculator was posted on other threads on this discussion board https://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/

and might prove helpful to see how calories and macros go together for our weights and heights. Play with it a bit. As others mentioned above you don’t want your calories to go too low.

[Fait]

@circesdad: Thank you so much! Honestly, I am still having hard time with my protein that is why I play guessing game if it is enough already. I have to figure out that 1g/kg macros.

I haven’t tested my sugar yet since I ran out of strips but ill be buying this coming weekend. For the ketones, I only have the ketostix which I do not rely much since it only measure excess ketones in the urine or acetone. I still have to buy a ketone blood meter or ill visit my company clinic to test my blood ketone levels.

[Fait]

Not much of an update yet on this thread aside from that I started going to the gym for 3 straight days now doing moderate lifting as a beginner and jogging/walking alternatively on the treadmill until I can do running for whole 30 minutes.

Just want to share also what I had for dinner.

Scrambled eggs (3 eggs) with 2tbsp kerrygold butter ans 1tbsp cream cheese and 1 Egg Purgatory.