First day finished ...question?

#21

@amwassil
So then why are we told that in this WOE we are supposed to follow the formula: 65% fat, 25% protein and the rest carbs?

(Cancer Fighting Ketovore :)) #22

Maybe, because it’s easier to work with % rather than fixed numbers.

But using % a person eating 1500 calories and someone eating 2500 calories would have different numbers.

Personally, I’m aiming more for 80-90%, minimal carbs (under 20g net) and the rest protein. But I’m in a more extreme situation.

(Mark Nelson) #23

The original ketogenic diet was developed in 1923 for treatment of epilepsy and it’s protocol was 90% of calories from fat, 6% from protein and 4% from carbs. [https://charliefoundation.org/classic-keto/]

Generally the macros used a a guideline for those starting out in keto most likely came from the Atkins diet which generally used the 60% fat, 30% protein and 10% carbohydrate as guidelines for starting.

#24

@Marknel
I am asking because of the article about how limiting proteins doesnt matter. I have bought books on keto and I am advised to eat most of my calories in fats. It says that if one raises the level of proteins then the weight loss formula won’t work. So what’s true?

(Shane) #25

No one has ever told me that. Why would “they”? The only requirement is to eat in a way that puts you into ketosis. In the past, my deepest ketosis has been while eating 100% carbs, no protein or fat.
I started Last Dec by cutting high carb food and doing occasional 3 or 4 day fasts. I passed 30lb weight loss some time in January. I went keto in Apr to compliment the fasts. I went carnivore a few months ago.
Now over 100lb down. I’ve never used an app or formulas. My body tells me what it wants, not an app.

#26

I don’t know about others but for me it’s easier to work with grams especially that they aren’t fixed and anyway, they make way more sense. Our body has its needs in grams, not in percentages. Just because I eat less, my protein need doesn’t drop significantly so in some cases these percentages must be off. And for carbs, we really need grams.

65% fat is just right for me now (of course, I need some wriggle room but 65-70% usually works) but it should be lower or higher for some others and I need to raise it later. Taste, protein need, calorie intake and other factors matter a lot. Even low-fat keto may work for a while if someone can get away with very little food or high protein… Some people prefers that. Each to their own.

I never heard about 65/25/10 but 10% carbs surely wouldn’t work for most of us. And why would we need to eat so much carbs (if we are able to stay in ketosis with that amount) or so low calorie? It would totally ruin the diet for many of us, without a good reason. It would be super restrictive and stressful. And not everyone is willing or able to track anyway. My meat has no label with its fat content, it’s a mystery to a pretty big extent. But if fixed percentages work for someone, their prerogative to use those, of course.

But it doesn’t make sense for all. There is therapeutic keto, there must be people who prefers fixed percentages and there are zillion ketoers who should find their own percentages or grams or not even worrying about the whole thing, potentially including tracking. I honestly couldn’t care less about my percentages until I feel right, eat well, get my nutrients and if everything goes well, slowly lose fat. When I track, I use grams but it doesn’t matter exactly how many grams I eat from fat or protein especially if it’s for a single day. I don’t have fixed grams but pretty wide ranges except for carbs, of course. Fixed numbers couldn’t work but they would make nothing better anyway.

I don’t know what the weight loss formula is but weight loss is quite personal. My fat-loss doesn’t require even keto, I just need to eat little enough, ketosis doesn’t change how little (it just makes it less impossible). Others have wildly different experiences, their body works a bit differently. I still wouldn’t do insanely high protein and I don’t know anyone who eats low-fat protein and not much else. It sounds very wrong but fortunately it’s very easy to have fat as our main energy source, especially on keto. It allows high protein… I eat significantly over my protein need with 30% protein and 68% fat… But it’s not high enough for me to worry about. I would do that with 50% fat or 4000 kcal (more like I would make sure I eat fattier somehow)…

I probably carried away again. I am quite against fixed percentages for all, it’s so silly.

#27

The % = approx 20g carbs.

All I know is that I started keto with keto books and this is what they say. I am not carnivore and I don`t intend to fast for 4 days, or anything along those extreme lines - just “simply keto” as one of the books I bought is titled. I am doing keto and this is what it says to do. It gets very confusing when everybody adamantly professes to eat another way. I congratulate you, Shane, on your 100 lb weight loss. Thats great and totally amazing. But I want to continue eating and lose gently.

#28

It’s okay to do simple keto or even your own personal keto. I went against most “rules” myself when I started because it was hard enough (but enjoyable) that way, even after years on low-carb. Most people don’t need extreme things, some people need different extra restrictions than others or just not right in the beginning.

If it’s really 65/25/10 and the carbs are under 20g, it’s barely 800 kcal or less, extremely low.
I usually read about 75/20/5, not like it makes way more sense for normal ketoers who don’t need very fixed numbers for therapy but at least 5% carbs are more realistic for keto. But it’s fine to go lower if it suits someone. It’s fine to use up all the 20g if it’s better that way.

Some people loves their own method and recommend to others or just tell their good experience but it might be far from your own way. My current way is vastly different from my original way. We are different and subject to change.

(Shane) #29

This may be the most important thing for long term continuing improvement.
I’ve had to change what I do at regular intervals to continue improving.

Fair enough, but I had to lose a lot of weight for health reasons. And I did.
I’m now fairly healthy and I’ve started to increase lean body mass while slowly decreasing fat with the aim of getting back to where I was 20 years ago or maybe even a bit better. That’s next year’s project :slight_smile:

I wasn’t, but maybe should have been carnivore from the start for my health
and I haven’t fasted for nearly 6 months. I don’t think I will ever fast again even though it did give me the best weight loss results and helped my BG. These are tools that can be used when/if needed.

(Mark Nelson) #30

Without knowing what you’ve read, again I’m speaking in a general way here, to much protein can spike your glucose and keep you from going into a state of ketosis and I’m theorizing that is what is being referred to when stated that “…the weight loss formula won’t work.”.

With regards to raising proteins beyond a certain point, what can occur with higher protein is that it converts the excess protein into glucose stores via gluconeogenesis and causes your insulin levels to spike affecting your state of ketosis.

The reality is that bodies are different. For most people, the general guidelines of 65% fat 30% protein 10% carbs gets most people into state of ketosis when they first start this way of eating. The general consensus is that most people hit the goal of fat adaption between 4 and 6 weeks and the weight loss and anti-inflammation healing going for months to years.

In my own personal journey, after 2 years of eating keto in a general way and staying around the recommended percentages my body stayed at 235lb +/- 8lbs for 18 months. For clarity I’ve done nearly zero exercise. During that time my body composition changed (measurements) but not being psychologically happy with my weight I’ve decided to go full carnivore. I’ve tossed the conventional macros out the window and now nearly 2 months into this 90 day experiment I’m pleasantly surprised at how my body is responding.

I used to go crazy over the macros myself until I started paying attention to what my body was telling me. I’d increase my fat intake and wait for changes, lower it, increase protien, add carbs, eat less dairy, cut out sweeteners of all sorts and just wait for my body to respond.

This is a process and not one specific way works for everyone.

#31

@Marknel
Thx and yes- thats what I read. I don’t do sports either and I am 67 years old. What I have seen is that my weight is going down in microscopic bits. Like I have lost 3 lbs in a month. I get on my scale and would need a magnifying glass to see the few grams I lose. This really isn’t much. But this way of eating is sustainable for me. I can’t imagine that I could actually LIVE with carnivore. I eat maybe 1400 Kcal of the 1992 which is considered my “sustainable” intake. I would either have t go down to 1000, or I would have to do IF, or I would have to start doing some kind of sports, methinks, if I wanted to see the needle move faster on the scale. But for now I am OK with this because I can live like this. And I am hoping that after a while, I might be able to do IF with more ease. 16/8 or something like that. I dont want to diet anymore and I dont want to suffer anymore. and with keto I am not suffering and the varieties of food I can eat is amazing.

(Richard Hanson) #32

Happy New Year All,

A few thougts for the New Year and people New to keto.

First, discriminate between needs and wants. A need implies that I have no choice, no control … we need x of this or y of that so we try to provision those “needs”. A “want” implies that an individual can make a personal decisions concerning a variable. I am very reluctant to use the word “need” even in reference to myself.

We need to eat else we die. An understandable consequence of physics, the second law of thermal dynamics. What we need to eat is not at all clear but a great many people will be happy to tell you they know the answer to this question.

Dr. Ancel Benjamin Keys was so profoundly confident that he knew what everyone needed to eat that he lied to the government and intentionally fudged data. I think this a critical lesson. How many people, not just in America, but around the world have lived a miserable life and died early by eating SAD?

Not only do I not know what I need to eat, I most certainly don’t know what you need to eat, how you should eat, when you should eat … but I do eat and I do make choices about what I put in my face.

I eat less then 10g of net cabs and less then 60g of protein a day except when I am fasting. I believe that this has cured my type 2 diabetes as I no longer take any medications and my last Hemoglobin A1c was 5.1. This is less then 300 exogenous kcal a day which is not enough energy to sustain my life long term. The rest of my energy comes from fat.

I try to eat one meal a day in the evenings. Eating with my family is an important social event for me, so I choose to eat in the evenings with my family. This is also when I eat the vast majority of my protein. If I feel hungry, I will sometimes eat something late in the day at work. I have little tiny cups in my desk that contain 1 oz of pecans, 1 Brazil nut, and 2 tablespoons of raw coconut oil. That is lunch on those somewhat sporadic occasions when I bother to eat lunch.

To get more calories with dinner, I might start with a cup of keto coffee. I also love to eat steamed vegetables with a lot of butter.

Just a few other hints about what is working for me.

I never eat anything I don’t want to eat. When I started eating a keto diet, I chose to give up a lot of foods that I greatly enjoyed consuming and so I have also chosen never to eat anything at all that I don’t like no matter how many people tell me how much I “need” to eat x or y because it has something I “need” to be healthy. I am embarrassed to confess that I did fell into this trap at first, but after buying a Vita-Mix and choking down green smoothies for a few weeks, I made the choice to only eat things I enjoy eating.

If I don’t feel hungry, then I don’t eat and I don’t feel at all guilty about leaving food on my plate.

I never eat anything with added sugar in any of its sinister forms.

I try to only eat foods that had eyes or roots not long in their past, and almost nothing that comes in a can, box, or jar. Foods get processed in my kitchen and not in a factory.

Marketing labels such as “heart healthy”, “organic”, “clean” … are ignored. What the hell is the definition of a “clean” food or “eating clean” or even “organic”? I certainly have no way of knowing. I have about 600 bottles of wine. Ever hear about biodynamic wines or the biodynamic wine movement? These people make “preperations” such as literally packing shit into cow horns, these fecal horns go into the ground for months, and then the content is adding to a large volume of water that is pumping out over the vineyard. Many people are happy to believe almost anything that will make them feel better about themselves, or special, but I think wisdom is not found in blissful self deception but in cultivating healthy skepticism.

It is always tempting to follow the Ancel Keys of the world, to jump off a dietary cliff like so many dietary lemmings, it is tempting to believe we have answers when in fact we are, or at least I am, profoundly ignorant.

I try to eat the way people ate before so many people got sick eating what others are happy to tell us we “need” to eat to be healthy.

Keto for Life!
Richard

(Mark Nelson) #33

Are you eating less because your body is telling you to eat less or are you thinking that restricting calories is the way to lose weight?

If it’s the latter, then I would suggest not restricting your caloric intake to lose weight. The Calories in / Calories out model for losing weight is just not accurate. Our bodies adapt to our intake via a slowing down/speeding up of metabolic rate based on energy available.

I don’t have the links handy but specifically there was a study done on the “Biggest losers” contestants that in summary shows that even with the people doing all the “right” things, diet, exercise ect, they had depressed their metabolic rate and as such actually gained weight.

Keep your body guessing! Eat to satiety for the most part and shake it up every few weeks!

#34

@Marknel
Dream come true? REALLY?
I could eat a bit more…but I am OK with a bit less. Not today though- I pigged out on bearnaise sauce…at least its keto.

(Marianne) #35

Some days are like that. I can pig out on my sausage bisque soup, the difference is I don’t feel guilty when I pig out on keto things.

(Mark Nelson) #36

This took me awhile to accomplish too. The not feeling guilty part.
It’s one of the key factors for me in my journey in learning to “eat to satiety” and sometimes I still need reminders!

After being “stuck” at 235lbs for 18 months I did a drastic switch in my eating style and boy does my body really let me know now when it’s not hungry. Three times in the last 2 months I’ve ignored that signal and in a spate of what I’ll call psychological “hungry”, I.E. I was bored or stressed/upset , I ate anyway.
What a very uncomfortable feeling! I felt nauseous and my stomach was cramping!

I almost did this a fourth time over the New Years, but my body flat out refused. The more I thought about food the more repulsed I got! I listened this time.

Bodies are weird!

#37

@gingersmommy
EXACTLY. If its keto I don’t feel so bad about it. Oh that béarnaise was SO good. First time I ever made it myself. Didn’t want store bought because there are always sugars hidden in it.
As an aside, my keto stick was DEEP purple just now. Never been so dark. So the more fat you eat, the more ketones you produce. I guess thats not to say you are actually burning them - but you are producing them! LOL

(Mark Nelson) #38

With regards to the Calories in / Calories out model being broken? Absolutely!
I wish I had the “Two Keto Dudes” podcast bookmarked where they first talk about it. I’ll have to go back and listen to find it. Maybe “Conventional Wisdom” from 2016? http://2ketodudes.com/show.aspx?episode=45

I’m hoping someone else remembers the episode and chimes in.

Edit: I just found the episode
Metabolic Rate

#39

@Marknel
People think I am crazy. Do you get that too? HOW can you eat such foods?? You are killing yourself! I guess they must take it all back when they see how much you have lost, Mark? With my measly 2 kilos nobody will notice anything. But I am hoping once I lose maybe 8 or 9 kilos, they might not think I am so crazy anymore.

(Mark Nelson) #40

Absolutely I get that push back from people. When I tell them that I’ve done the work to find out what my body responds to, that my doctors say this is the healthiest I’ve been in years and I’ve looked at the science around insulin resistance as well as eating “factory” processed foods, sugars and over loading my body with carbs they shrug and walk away.

I get that it’s uncomfortable to be “bucking” the normal and that pressure from those around us can produce negative reactions around this way of eating. After all, for all of our lives its been pounded into us that to much fat is BAD. To many calories are BAD and it’s become part of our programming on how we view ourselves. If I’m not eating to the way I’ve been taught, then I must be failing as a human.

Let me offer this for your consideration.
Aren’t you worth feeling good physically?
Feeling good physically should also affect how you feel about yourself correct?
Now this way of eating isn’t for everyone. I would ask you to do this simply for 90 days and see how you feel.

What does YOUR body tell you?
What are the FACTS after eating this way for 90 days? 6 months?

This information should override the opinions of people who haven’t done the work.

“There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which can not fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance-that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”
–HERBERT SPENCER