Here is what is not clicking for me

#1

I have a lot of weight to lose and I don’t understand how I will lose the weight eating bacon and eggs. it makes sense to me that someone who is already at their desired weight would not worry about a high calorie meal. For those of you who have lost weight, what did you eat? How would someone who wants to lose weight eat differently than someone at their desired weight? I guess that is what I just don’t understand. Thanks in advance!

(Todd Batitis) #2

You are thinking with the “if I eat fat, how will it not make me fat by giving me more fat?”

The key behind the ketogenic diet (and intermittent fasting which I also do) is keeping your insulin level low for long periods of time and switching your body over from running on glucose as it’s primary source of fuel to using your body fat and fat in your diet for it’s fuel by creating ketones as a process of breaking down the fat.

Your body can run on one source or the other but not both. If your insulin is kept high by eating carbs or eating all the time (even smaller meals) your body can’t access it’s fat stores for fuel and keeps burning glucose.

When you force your body to make the switch, it starts to use fat for fuel and it doesn’t care if you get it from what you just ate or from, as 2KD say, “that Krispy Kreme you ate a decade ago and stored as fat”.

(John) #3

Bacon and eggs is not a high calorie meal. It’s about 300 calories for 2 eggs and 2 strips of bacon.

Have you done ANY reading at all about the foods you can eat?

If not, start here:

#4

Hi,

Most meals contain some: carbs, protein and fat.

The blood can only carry one tiny teaspoon worth of carbs(glucose) at any given time. Some is stored in muscles, some in the liver and all the rest is stored as fat around the belly. Insulin is the hormone which drives all this. Next day same thing, day after same thing. This cycles is never broken.

To break the cycle we must reduce our carbs below 20g. Insulin, the fat storage hormone, no longer rules the roost. It turns up to manage all he carbs but it isn’t required. So finally we burn some of that fat we’ve been storing.

If we avoid carbs then what can we eat? W are left only with protein and fat. Hence the bacon and eggs. And for dinner some sort of meat and veggies. Nothing in crazy proportions. No crazy food required.

We initially fear fat, due to conditioning, but the body loves fat. Loves to make it (as above) and then loves to burn it.

The other big point is - it takes the body a few days to switch over from carb burning to fat burning. That’s why most people don’t just go into ketosis. By the next day, or even same day, they are so starved because carbs don’t really satisfy they are eating again … saving all the spare for a rainy day which never arrives. Keto breaks this cycle.

(Donna ) #5

Dr Fung does a great job explaining why it’s the hormones, not the calories. The hormones control WHERE the calories go. (The hormones controlled by fasting and keto.)

#6

Like others are pointing out, you need to shift your focus from calories to carbs, because controlling your insulin will be how you lose weight, not by controlling calories. Fat may have more calories per gram than protein and carbs, but it also produces the lowest insulin response and it keeps you full longer, which is what matters.

(Carl Keller) #7

To understand why those things won’t cause you weight gain, you need to understand how protein, fat and carbs affect our blood glucose and how our insulin responds to elevated BG levels. It’s when insulin levels are raised that we begin to store energy into fat cells for future use. So the key to weight loss is to keep our insulin levels as inactive as possible.

Fat affects BG levels very little if at all. Since it’s not being stored in our fat cells, it’s metabolized for energy. This is what makes us tick.

Protein does not raise BG much but it can increase insulin levels. The good thing about protein is that it is satiating and this hormonal mechanism keeps us from overeating.

Carbs, mainly processed ones, raise our BG level the most which leads to us secreting large amounts of insulin which leads to greater and longer opportunities for placement in fat storage.

So back to bacon and eggs. 1 slice of bacon and 1 fried egg amounts to:

7.5g fat
8.2g protein
.6g carbs

The fat doesn’t affect our BG and makes our insulin stay inactive. The protein doesn’t affect the BG but it makes our insulin spike a little, but the satiation of the protein makes us not need to eat much to feel full. And the .6 carbs are not from processed foods but do increase our BG a little but nothing our insulin can’t regulate in a short time.

The key to a ketogenic diet is to eat high fat (for fuel), moderate protein (to regulate how much we eat) and low carb (because we want our insulin to stay low). Bacon and eggs fit this requirement perfectly.

#8

I’ve lost about 180 pounds so far. My breakfast almost every morning for the past two years has been an “everything” omelet with bacon and/or sausage and a fruit cup.

I live in a retirement community where some meals are provided. I often take home the food and remake it, using what they served as ingredients. I request my meals without bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, etc, or toss those parts when I get home. Sometimes, I need to rinse off gravies or sauces.

For example, we can get a club sandwich any time. I ask for it without bread and with double meat. Adding it to their garden salad, I can make a great Chef’s salad, as I use the ham, turkey, cheese, bacon, tomatoes, from the sandwich.

Or, I can order a burger without the bun. I can use my Magic Bullet to grind it up, then make a great bowl of chili or spice it up and put it on a garden salad as a taco salad.

I do cheap and easy keto meal preps based on the proteins that are on sale in a given week. Otherwise, much of my pantry list is mostly geared around lazy microwave recipes.

Really, the only difference is how much fat you would be eating.

The carb macro may not change, as you want to keep it low to stay in ketosis.

The protein macro may not change, as it’s typically based on your less body mass and activity level. Those may or may not be related to whether you are losing weight or maintaining.

But, while losing weight, you should be getting at least some of your fat needs from stored body fat, so you won’t need to be eating that fat. When you reach your desired weight, you may need to eat more fat to make up for the reduced usage of stored body.

Basically, hunger will be your guide for fat intake. A lot of people have a diminished hunger under keto, because the stored body fat is being used and less fat needs to be eaten.

(Katie the Quiche Scoffing Stick Ninja ) #9

Very creative :slight_smile:

(Empress of the Unexpected) #10

I stopped eating carbs. Just meat, veggies and cheese, sometimes nuts. lost 23 pounds.

#11

Higher quality meats/fish and veggies. Carbs in the veggies (broccoli 90%) of the time only. Lowered fats for us in previous months. Age might have something to do with it. We eat once daily, portion controlled amounts mostly because we’re pretty damn organized and lead busy lives; our meals are cryovaced 1-2 weeks before we eat/every 1-2 weeks. Ie. Meats and fish are layered in the freezer. Veg is fresh. Butter on occasion only, NO cream and minimal dairy. We do not incorporate a lot of cheese. It slows us down and I really don’t care for it much. Once in awhile and a sprinkling is fine. Nuts in moderation. Hubby is allergic to tree nuts but I do snack on them 2-3 times a week(handful only). Our meals actually are very precise and very consistent. We prep like a factory. We know what feels cleanest without all the bs.

(Randy) #12
(Marius the butter craving dude) #13

Butter is a true super food.

(Scott) #14

I must admit that after years of being told to eat low fat with lots of carbs and fats are bad it feels like the food pyramid got turned upside-down. But if you think back to a time that all of our foods didn’t come in a box or get flown around the globe to always be in season you end up with something that looks like keto.

(charlie3) #15

It helps a lot to understand the mechanisms, how the body deals with what you feed it. That takes time to learn. Then you have to translate that into what you eat meal to meal, day to day. The first guidance that got my attention was, eat real food. Even that took time to figure out. The second target I recognized was eat below 20 net carbs per day starting out. Another place to look is Dr. Westman’s fabled Page 4 which is a list of what to eat and what not to eat written for beginners in his practice.

Another thing that might help is listen to Dr. Fung and others on youtube.

I’m keeping carbs at 35 grams, and eating twice a day, no snacks. My daily food is low carb vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, olive oil and heavy cream starting a year ago. I lost 30 pounds back to my highschool weight and waist line (we were skinny and healthy back in those days).

#16

Thank you all for your thoughtful information. It is helping me a lot. Special thanks for the link to Butter Bob Briggs. He has some great info and the video Butter makes your pants fall off is priceless.

(Alex) #17

this site may prove useful to you regarding weight loss / how much you should be eating:

i had the same thought process as you when i was starting out on keto, but decided to forget about all of the false information regarding what’s good for me to put into my body that i’d been told all my life, and instead, to trust that keto actually works, as well as all of the science behind it. i can tell you from personal experience, it works! just keep those carbs low (under 20g net daily) and those EGGS AND BACON UP BABY! yeah! :crazy_face: