[quote="VirginiaEdie, post:18, topic:39612
I do buy snack type nutrition bars for them but they all have 12g of carbs or less per bar; for example Nature Valley Protein bars have 10g of carbs if I am remembering correctly.
[/quote]
The healthier snacks suggestion is valid IMO.
Try Quest bars as they come in at about 4g per bar net.
They have erythritol and solubile corn starch so they are keto friendly.
This will explain the SCF properties:
https://ketogenic.com/nutrition/guide-to-fiber/
Wow, @rettakat, you did some homework there!
I will second the ânominationâ for dietdoctor.com. Right here in the forums and on that website are my top two places for research. The $9/month US membership is negligible compared to the wealth of content.
Good luck with your daughter! Sheâs lucky to have you.
The key to a ketogenic diet is to keep carbohydrate intake low enough to avoid triggering insulin secretion, whatever that level may be. On these forums, we suggest under 20 grams a day, because itâs a level that will put anyone into ketosis, but some people can handle a lot more carbohydrate and still remain ketotic. I suggest asking your daughter to start low, just in case, and she can always increase her carb intake if doing so doesnât bring back her symptoms. You might reassure her that the minimum daily requirement of carbohydrate is zero grams. But she may find it hard to go without her favorite sugars or starches (however, if sheâs highly motivated and wants to go whole hog, you can tell her that the cravings do abate, eventually).
As a growing teenager, she needs a lot more protein than a mature adult does, so ignore the maximum protein recommendations on these forums, where sheâs concerned. And then encourage her to eat fat to satiety. If sheâs afraid of fat, we can go into the science of it, but you can tell her right off the bat that the notion that fat is bad for us is not backed up by any science. By eating fat to satiety (not to a full belly!), she can be sure her body is getting all the energy it needs without stimulating the insulin production that is so harmful.
You might also see if her doctor is willing to prescribe an HbA1C test, to get an idea where she stands as far as metabolic disease is concerned. A lot of young people these days are well on their way to metabolic disorders without even realizing it. Your daughter is very lucky, in the sense that she has an idea something is not right, and some idea also of what to do about it. Good luck to both of you, and please keep us posted. 
I have a 12 year old athlete so a little different but she basically eats keto. She does eat more carbs than I do because she is very active but we are talking fruit versus no fruit. Potatoes or sweet potatoes. When she is out with friends she eats more carbs like eating an ice cream or recently she binged on carbage after being gluten free for probably 5 years. It was a lesson learned when I found out and pointed out that her mood was horrible that night. Sadly, it did not make her sick to her stomach like I would have hoped. 
My point being lead by example, provide healthy options, and let her listen to podcasts with you. That in itself, without my intending to, lead her to cut out thr increasing snacking on sweets that she had started doing.
Hugs and Kisses to you. I love this advice. It really hits home. I love all of the advice that I have gotten so far. It has been awesome. I will detail the plan down below of what I finally decided to do.
To everyone who gave me advice on this, thank you so much. Here is the plan that I came up with. We will refine this list and make it more strict as she matures into the process. Here are ten very straight forward rules to get us started:
Lead by example - She gave me a pair of her jeans that are slightly too big for her. She asked me to make fitting those jeans my goal. (If I can fit those jeans, I will blow her mind and she will be a low carber for LIFE. And just between you and meâŚthey fit fine in the legs and butt already. I just have to get that belly situation worked out.)
No fruit. No one in the family really eats it. So letâs just officially cut it out and save the carbs/money for something else. We will put raspberries, strawberries, blueberries on a special treat list.
Low carb substitute meals that mimic her favorites (Fat head pizza for example). She will be allowed to look up and even cook some recipes on the weekends. I will also adjust my regular recipes to low carb for the entire family. They wonât notice, they just like to eat.
Give her a simple list of foods she CAN eat. (I made her a little laminated list to keep in her wallet) I will keep her focused on that list and how to combine those foods to create new options. I also gave her a list of foods she CANâT eat and reasons why and what they will do to her system. All foods in the middle will be up to her discretion (I am not banning potatoes, or occasional pasta). Over the last 2 months, I have slowly purged carbs from the home. I have some boring adult cereal for my husband and son, wheat bread and spaghetti. Those are the only carbs that are now left in my house.
No counting carbs, calories, fat, etc. Just eat and enjoy it. Avoid the bad foods and work from there. I am also pushing her to eat a lot to make sure she is comfortable and full.
Stop calling this keto. I think that is a little overwhelming for her. Itâs so much easier to just let this be a free flowing process where she learns along the way. I will allow her to create, name and define it for herself.
Knowledge, knowledge and more knowledge. It has been very hard to fight the SAD advice that she constantly receives. I will flood her with podcasts, articles, etc. as long as she is willing to listen.
Taking before and after pictures. I want her to see the physical improvements to the dark patches in her skin and the improvement in acne.
Pee strips are in! I know they donât âofficiallyâ work very well. But the one thing that is pretty consistent is that they do give you an indicator of ketosis. So even though we are not calling this keto, we do want her to know when she may have too much glycogen in her system. Then she can reflect on what she ate and avoid it next time. Plus itâs really exciting for a 13 YO to be able to see direct reflection of their efforts in some measurable form. This also keeps us from having to count carbs.
Teach her situational awareness when it comes to eating. Just because she is at a party where there is a ton of bad food, doesnât mean she has to eat it. Carry snacks, eat before or pick the healthiest options available. She needs to be a leader, not a follower in this regard. But she does have to live her life and she should never feel deprived. My hope is that she can strike a healthy balance between the two. She is not accountable to me. She is accountable to herself and her skin/health.
** Bonus - Food is for health, but exercise is for fitness. Itâs a very important piece of the puzzle.
** Bonus Bonus - Teach her every day the things you taught me here in the forum. Food is a powerful medicine when used correctly. Food is for fuel, healing and prevention. But when used incorrectly (high doses of carbs) it is our worst enemy.
Let me know if you think I should add anything to our kick off plan.
Kudos to you, Dawn, for your caring and effort, here. Itâs almost never really âeasyâ with a teenager, and youâre aware of the need to not push/pull too much.
I think thatâs a huge thing. It would have appealed to me, too, at that age. You have a really good relationship with your daughter, from all I can see. Every little bit helps. My parents really could not tell me anything for most of my teenage years; I just was not open to it.
I love these 10 commandments for better health, and the fact that youâre not attaching a name to a new lifestyle, it is Life, it is not KETO or Atkins or anything else! Kudos to you to take the effort to think this through and come up with something that works for your family and specifically for your daughter.
The only thing I can think of, but it very much depends on how introspective your child is, to have her write something every week on Saturday or Sunday on how she feels, how her week went and what the solutions to the stumbling blocks were. Focus on successes and solutions rather than stumbles and falls. It may also make some emotional issues around eating surface that you and she can then deal with before they become real problems.
Wow, this is great! Iâm bookmarking this list for sure. Itâs brilliant!
Just a couple of comments, because I canât resist: As regards the jeans, practice inhaling. And if that doesnât work, jeans buttons are real cheap in the sewing notions department. You could remove the current button, and either re-use if (if possible) or put in a new on, closer to the edge. Itâll be our little secretâno one will ever know!
And seriously, if youâre looking for a better term than âketo diet,â how about âhealthy way of eatingâ?
Well done!
Awesome that youâre thinking so much of your daughter and working so hard to instill more healthful eating habits at a young age! One thing I was going to add was to maybe watch some videos or documentaries together. They tell a powerful story. I would suggest Fed Up to start. Itâs free on Netflix.
My children range in age from 13 and up. One of mine is heavy but growth is a real issue for our family (have a mix of genes including some short ones). I am very reluctant to do anything to interfere with growth. Plus I had read that the male brain continues to develop until age 25 so again, a reason I hesitate to restrict food (could argue the opposite that ketones are ideal brain food but there is simply not enough data and I do not want to experiment). At 13 she is awfully young for a lot of these decisions and you probably have not hit the worst of teen rebellion yet although maybe now is a good time to set ground rules because of that.
I would suggest going more paleo or whole 30. Having carbs in butternut squash, sweet potato and similar. Maybe have her try a sugar free month with the idea that she can reintroduce it when she is no longer dependent on it.
It has been a gradual process in our house. I am still working on the breakfast cereal. I do buy one loaf of bread. I have not tossed most foods but I do not replace most processed foods. I rarely buy anything in a box and cook from scratch. The main course and vegetable are keto or LC and then there is usually some rice or pasta leftover available that they have to heat up themselves. Still there is peanut butter, bread and whatever jelly is still lying around, either something we got as a gift or have from last year in the back if they are desperate enough to look. I also no longer buy mayonnaise because of the soybean oil.
While I did not always cook, H grew up in a house with an animal protein, vegetable and starch. If it did not have parents he did not think of it as dinner. I personally never made dessert even before keto. So other than getting rid of a few sauces that are too high in sugar that has not changed much.
Whenever we are in the car for any length I put on a keto podcast. They really do understand the way of eating even if they are not quite ready to adopt it yet
I love this. Also the bonus about exercise is awesome! One thing that could be helpful is to explain to her about âbio hackingâ - it goes hand in hand with point #9.
I am a little riled up about this situation right now. My daughter is staying for 2 weeks with her Nana. Apparently Nana and Grandpa have chosen to ignore my food guidance. So for two weeks they have thrown every carb,candy and piece of cake at her that they can find. Southern Momâs use treats as a method for showing love. I am not holding anything against them, but it is going to take a lot of work when she comes home today to get her back on track. It is also her birthday, so in addition to her having the sweet addiction back in her system, she is going to want cake and other "exceptions " that she normally would not have. It is an uphill battle, but one that I am fighting head on. Even she has lost some of her motivation. But when she comes home, we are going to refocus. Things were going well before she left. We were really making progress and talking âSCIENCEâ. I just got her a book called fat head kids. This will be her reading once she returns. FIGHTING!! Not giving up. 
For those of you are following this thread, youâll know that my 13 year old daughter challenged me to fit a pair of her old jeans (jeans that are too big for her). Well today, I squeezed my fat a** right into them. AND buttoned them and wore them around the house comfortably for a few hours. Needless to say, she is in awe and really interested in this LFHC life now. Unfortunately, I have to reverse some of the sugar re-indoctrination that was done while she was at her Grandmotherâs house, but I really think that my weight loss was an eye opener for her. I have boundless energy, I dance as well as she can and I can fit her jeans. BOOM! Leading by example. Today I hit 75 pounds loss. only 25 more pounds before I can become a keto centurian (how do you spell that?)
That is wonderful news that her curiosity has been rejuvenated!
And congrats on your continued successes!
(Fed Up)