Hey all!! Hope all are having a good day! Gotta quick question.
So i have been doing keto successfully for 54 days and have been using “simple stupid keto” to keep track of everything.
The app is ok but i feel i could be getting much better “overveiws” on another app…but im really scared to start over since ive done so well…and i dont think i can export any info.
Heres my questions
1.which app do you recommend
2. Has anyone switched apps far into keto?
And if so how did it turn out? Did you regret.
it?
I’d say not to worry about it, but I know that doesn’t cut any ice with people who feel the need to track. I does make me wonder, though, how our ancestors managed to survive all those millions of years without FitBits and iPhones, lol!
Seriously, if you are planning to eat ketogenically over the long term, would a couple of months of missing data from the very beginning really be all that much of a lack? If yes, then you should probably stay with the app you’re using, rather than risk it. I suppose that using two apps simultaneously is not an option?
ETA: I should probably mention, for the sake of full disclosure, that I could not eat a ketogenic diet if counting calories or macros were an essential part of the diet. It’s a mental thing, and probably the same mechanism as needing to track, just flipped in the other direction.
Hi, I respect and agree with what Paul is saying. For me, as only a 3 month new to Keto person, I have found it better to track until I learn what is really working for me. I can easily go back and see what I’ve done from week to week and adjust accordingly. I am finding that the longer I am eating this way the easier it is for me to trust that I know what is my satiety and what the portions look like as I track. Will I do it forever? Probably not but for me just starting out it has really helped.
I use LoseIt premium and I can plug in future meals, see all the macros in each category which is making it very easy to adjust them. I don’t worry too much about the calories, this is part of my learning how much food makes me satisfied, not the restriction of calories. A benefit of tracking is for eating out. You can quickly see or input a food item to see its macros and make decisions based on that. Learning to eat out in the real world is a thing. I know if all else fails just eat protein and fat but sometimes we are caught off guard.
I’m a compulsive tracker because seeing everything I’m eating really helps me with accountability and helps me make good choices. I started keto using MFP but found it deficient in a lot of ways.
I switched to Cronometer by the advice of @juice about 2 months in and loved it. I can do so much more with it that I want without having to pay a ridiculous amount of money and the hassles that go with it. I can set very specific goals with every little aspect. It’s borderline overkill for me which is great… and it doesn’t cost me any money.
Honestly, if you feel the need to track then by all means, do it.
If you are nervous about switching apps, try both App A (your current one) and App B (the new one) at the same time for a week. Then see which one you really like better. If you end up liking B better there really isn’t any need to export/transfer your data, but someone might be able to help you figure you how.
In answer to the OP’s question, I do think that there is some value in tracking macros. It’s not necessary, because one of keto’s virtues is it’s simplicity, but in the beginning it can be handy to track macros. I think it’s particularly important early on to track carbs carefully, because it’s easy for them to sneak in! I’ve tried myfitnesspal, but I really didn’t like it. I hated the fact that I couldn’t export my data. That’s a deal breaker for me. I think tracking calories is pretty important for reasons I explain below, but I don’t think it’s useful to see them. Eat to satiety!
I think it’s best to get a macro tracker that’s simple, highlights your carbs, tracks calories but doesn’t show you them, and that lets you export your data (if you’re savvy with a spreadsheet), and that fits your budget (free is nice!). Apps that fit those criteria are:
Cronometer
Carb manager
For more info on how to change the settings for the two apps above so they don’t show you calories, check out this link:
My 2 cents is that although calories have zero value in guiding food decisions (that’s satiety’s job), there is genuine value in tracking them behind the scenes. I think the primary benefit of the ketogenic diet is that over time, it normalizes hormonal and metabolic damage that’s been caused by years of Standard American Diet (SAD). Although calories have zero value in guiding food decisions, I believe that they can be used to evaluate how our metabolism is improving over time in response to the ketogenic diet.
How? Well, the first thing I do is to plot my weight and kcals each day. Then I compare how a “perfect” metabolism would respond to those calories. What’s a perfect metabolism? Ironically enough, it’s the CICO formula that we all despise because it’s a complete oversimplification, because it assumes that hormones don’t matter. Well hormones do matter, probably as much or more than energy balance matters. That said, what happens when hormones are more or less well regulated, behaving normally, and not inhibiting fat loss? The CICO model starts to become more predictive.
Following this reasoning, if the slope of your actual weight loss curve is getting closer to the slope of the CICO curve, it means your metabolism is slowly improving. The actual slope of your weight loss curve is not important, it’s whether the slope is getting closer to the CICO slope (better) or moving away from CICO (worse). Ironic, but actually kind of cool.
That probably sounds overly complicated but it’s not. It took me about 5 minutes to add it to my weight chart. The yellow line below labelled “metabolic ramping model predicted weight” represents a “perfect” metabolism. If it gets extra calories in a day, the yellow line goes up proportionally. If it gets a deficit, it goes down proportionally. The blue line is the actual chart of my weight from the scale every day. The red lines at the bottom represent my tracked calories. I do cyclic extended fasting in a 3 Feast:3 Fast pattern (I’m not recommending it, I’m just explaining why the calories are all over the map). I always eat to satiety on feasting days. Here is what my chart looks like.
Click on the image and it will double in size for legibility.
Now what’s interesting about this chart is that you’ll notice that the yellow line beautifully tracks my actual weight loss pattern. It seems to run right down the middle of my weight chart. Basically, that means my metabolism is incredibly healthy and performing wonderfully on the ketogenic diet. My weight chart undulates up and down as I come in and out of fasting just because of the water retention and loss. Look closely at the time period around March 11th though!
For around 2 weeks around my birthday, I took a bit of break, went way off plan, and over-indulged on basically everything I shouldn’t eat or drink. Look at what happens to the yellow line vs the blue line? Everything blows up! The two lines completely diverge. So much so that I had to completely reset the model. CICO completely ceases to be predictive from the very day that things go awry hormonally because of the foods I ate and drank. It’s not because of the total calories either, I had way more calories at various points, but they were keto calories. Things blew up because of the hormonal response!
This is a very long winded way of saying, there is still a bit of value in tracking calories. You should never, ever make decisions about how much you eat based on calories, because that’s satiety’s job, but plotting weight vs tracked calories, vs “perfect metabolism” might be able to help you track how your metabolism is improving over time, or how it is impacted by food choices that are derailing your journey.
That’s my two cents. If anybody actually read this far and is interested, I talk about the methodology and implementation here.
