How do you stay below 20g of carbs per day and not starve?

#1

Hello,

I’ve been on a Keto diet now for nine weeks. I am not diabetic. I’d just like to burn off some stomach fat. That said, I am simply starving at 20g of carbs per day. I’ve been using keto sticks to measure my ketosis levels (and yes I am aware that these sticks may not be the most accurate testing measure, but I’m not going to get a blood analysis every week). If I go beyond 20g per day, according to the keto stick results, I get thrown out of ketosis. How on earth does one stay at or below 20g of carbs per day? I should also say, prior to this diet, I was rarely a meat eater. I don’t like bacon (pork or chicken varieties). Chicken and fish was always my choice.

Prior to every meal I drink an 8oz glass of water with apple cider vinegar. I read this helps with digestion. I also drink lemon water throughout the day.

Vegetables such as spinach or broccoli take my stomach forever to breakdown. I’m constantly bloated.

Honestly, this has been a living Hell. What am I doing wrong?

Typical day…

Breakfast: Three AA large eggs and three slices of bacon.
Lunch: Three cups of spinach. A half pound of ground beef with taco seasoning mix. Two tbsp of sour cream.
Dinner. Three cups of spinach. Five ounces of chicken. One avocado. One roma tomato.
Snacks are usually mozzarella or cheddar cheese sticks.

Thanks,
K

#2

This is going to be counterintuitive, but try going zero carb. Decide on a period of time like 3 weeks or 30 days, and eat no plant material at all for that period, then reassess. Some people find zero carb much easier to do than trying to stay very low carb. Figure you are going to est 2-3 times your current amount of meat. Eat all you want whenever you are hungry, but strictly from the animal kingdom. As much as you want of meat, fish, eggs. You can also have small amounts of cream, and full fat cheese, but view them as sides to meat, fish, or eggs.

(Jeff) #3

Fat to satiety. If you’re hungry, add more fat. It’s a wonderful way to deal with hunger pangs. I eat salami with cream cheese until I feel full. More bacon, butter with your avocado, or fatty cheeses. Don’t be afraid to add more fat! Wishing you well.

(Allie) #4

More fat needed definitely. I’m never hungry, not to the point of feeling starving. Hunger comes and if I ignore it, it goes. I get around to eating when it won’t go away.

(I want abs... olutely all the bacon) #5

Congratulations on your nine weeks! More detail will help in answering your questions. This reads like you likely have more than one focus area to investigate and adjust.

Bloating: A ketogenic diet is anti-inflammatory and I’ve not seen much discussion of bloating other than related to food sensitivities. Did you have this bloating pre-keto? Did you eat this level of leafy greens pre-keto? Using a zero carb (ZC) as mentioned above for food elimination may be helpful.
The forums ZC topic is here Zero Carb
This topic shares an elimination experiment with a 32-day elimination for protein, but you could do this with any foods to determine what is causing bloating 32 day ZC Variable Protein Test

Hunger may be a signal of too many carbs and/or more food (fat/protein) needed. Do you track your grams in relation to goals/limits for carb/protein/fat? Are your cups of spinach cooked? Is the taco seasoning a home mix or purchased, how large is the roma tomato, is the sour cream full-fat, are the cheese high fat? It’s difficult to tell without your stats and goals beyond the loss of a little belly fat. Have you explored your level of insulin resistance yet? If you have low/no insulin resistance you may be able to play with fat/protein in different ways than many in the forums with significant insulin resistance.

(Griffin Mekelburg) #6

Anecdotally, I am always hungry the first month back on Keto (I have restarted 3 times, never going back this time rofl) after a month, I do a 2-3 day fast and that seems to reset my hunger signals. If I just keep eating my mind def interferes and I suspect creates some of the hunger as well untill I take time from it. Just some food for thought :slight_smile:

#7

Thanks for everyones input. A couple of thoughts. I believe one reason I’m so hungry is because I’m trying to keep my carbs to 20g or less per day. It dictates my caloric intake. If I hit 20g of carbs and I’m at 1100 calories, no more food. Therefore, I absolutely starve. That said, I’m reeeeeeeeallly tired of eating meat. Ground hamburger, steak, bacon, chicken, etc. I’ve just never been a meat eater. Even chicken or fish I have eaten sparingly. Yet, that seems to be the recommendation: “Eat more meat”! To Brook…thanks, but there’s no way I could live on meat, fish, and eggs for a couple of weeks. I’d truly go postal. Another thing, I’d like to just make one big pot of something; for instance, for dinner, and eat it each night for the week. Making something ‘new’ for every meal is becoming tiresome. I’m inclined to believe Keto works really well for people that like to cook. To Becky, I do not cook the spinach. Cooking it depletes the nutritional value. At best, one can lightly steam it. I didn’t have a problem with bloating prior to embarking upon my Keto adventure. Yes, I do track my food intake. For instance, the McCormick taco seasoning comes out to 2g of carbs per serving. I eat one serving worth per meal. The Roma tomatoes are always on the small side. I don’t dare get a large one (as I would like) because of too many carbs. The sour cream comes out to 1.2g of carbs and 6g of fat per serving. I’ve never had insulin problems. I periodically check my blood glucose levels in the morning. I’m come in at around 84 to 90. From what some of my diabetic friends tell me, that is very good.

(Karen Fricke) #8

When I’m hungry, I know I need more fat, either more fat on veggies, or fat bombs. I make them with a combination of butter, coconut oil, cocoa powder, and either peanut butter, coconut butter or almond butter. Lots of fat calories with minimal protein or carbs.

(AnnaLeeThal) #9

Yes, 1100 calories is way too low, no wonder you are hungry!

I would figure out ways to make your meals more fatty. One way is to pour melted butter on your veggies. Drink some tea with coconut oil. Make some fat bombs that you can eat if you feel like your meal wasn’t satiating enough. Find some good cream cheese dips that you like.

Good luck!

(Allie) #10

More calories and more fat needed…

(Todd Allen) #11

I’ve found that when I eat more protein I need to keep carbs strictly limited but when I keep protein moderate/low I can relax a bit on the carbs.

And when you hit your carb (or protein) limits, don’t stop eating if you are hungry just stick to mostly fat with only incidental carbs or protein. Explore the fat bomb recipes. Try making desserts from butter, HWC, coconut milk/oil/butter, cocoa butter, etc.

#12

30% of your daily carbs are taken up by seasoning? That seems an easy fix.

(Ren) #13

Are you doing total 20g of carbs or 20g net carbs? The “typical day” you posted, doesn’t seem like it would reach 20g NET carbs, but would reach the 20g TOTAL carbs. You want to go off of NET carbs and not total carbs.

Also look at your seasonings and make them so you can control how much sugar is in them. I had noticed that our taco seasoning has sugar in it. Now I make my own taco seasoning using chili powder, cumin, salt, pepper, oregano. I control what is in the seasoning and keep it at 0 carbs, no sugar.

Also 1100 calories isn’t a lot. How big of a deficit are you running for your macros? I would highly suggest not sticking to such a rigid calorie restriction. Just make sure you stay below 20g net carbs, hit your protein macro, and then add fat till you are full.

(KetoCowboy) #14

When I started keto, my biggest mistake was trying to get most of my fat from meat instead of more dense sources of it (such as butter, olive oil, coconut oil, and cream).

I do have to cook more now than I did before keto, but that was going to happen no matter what I did to replace my previous diet of processed food. AFAIK, cooking for oneself in the only way to avoid consuming endless quantities of sugar and industrial oils, so cooking is, at the present time, essential to health. (Side note: The main reason I’ve gone to eating one meal a day is that I don’t have the time or inclination to do a lot of cooking.)

I’m sure your tastes are different than mine, but my breakthrough meal on keto may be helpful to you because it’s easy to prepare:

  1. Polska kielbasa sausage (the fattier the better) fried in a skillet.
  2. Sauerkraut sauteed in bacon grease (in the same skillet–to cut down on cleaning) (If you can find un-pasteurized sauerkraut, you can eat it raw for the probiotic benefits, but I cook it to increase the levels of vitamin K1.)
  3. Broccoli steamed in a large pot
  4. Keto cheese sauce (just google “keto cheese sauce” and the recipe from Martina should be the first result) in a sauce pan.

The cheese sauce goes with the broccoli and the sausage. The sauerkraut provides a nice change of pace. Some of the fat comes from the sausage, but most of it comes from the cheese sauce. And the very few carbs come from the broccoli, sauerkraut and cheese. After I finish that meal, I’m not hungry at all for 20 hours–and only a little hungry in hours 21 and 22.

(Siobhan) #15

Where are all your carbs coming from?
Some is seasoning, mix your own
Total or NET?
RE: bulk cooking
Very doable on keto. Chili, soup, curry, casserole, I like making pasta sauces like Alfredo sauce and pouring it over steamed broccoli
Spaghetti sauce and meatballs (make your own for both), etc

If you would like good recipes to make in bulk Im sure people could post some I am currently mobile posting so cant at the moment

I think you should have some low carb options for if you get hungry and underestimated fat needs such as fat bombs (usually as candy type stuff), keto ice cream or shakes, almonds, macedamia nuts, souffle (easier to make than you might think!). I also find that plenty of indian dishes (like tandoori chicken, saag paneer, etc) can be cooked in bulk and made keto easily and do very well in the fridge

I would say work on lowering carbs (such as in the spice mix), perhaps try counting NET instead of total, and add fat to your meals.

You might want to look up vegetarian keto recipes if youre not fond of meat too

edit: by keto shake I mean like a keto frappacchino you make at home, or keto smoothie, or keto milkshake not the powder shake things

(Dustin Cade) #16

one thing to keep in mind, you may not show up on the diabetic scale as your fasting glucose may be in the “normal” range, might even show up in the “normal” range after eating, this does not take how much insulin you are pumping into your body to take care of the glucose… my understanding is when there is belly fat there is insulin resistance… if you are having issues getting in enough fat and you are not partial to meat, I make coffee every morning in a 30oz container (insulated for it to stay hot most of the day) and I mix in the amount of fat i am going to need for the day, split between butter and coconut oil…

Keto is really you finding out what works best for you, its N=1… keeping glucose and insulin at bay… allowing the body to heal, shed the excess weight, get into that glorious state of ketosis for mental clarity…

last night I made brussel sprouts cooked with pork jowl bacon… it was a lot of fat but not a lot of meat, made the sprouts nice and tender and loaded with fat… you will find your way, we are here to help guide you to finding what works for you!

(Jane Reed) #17

You are eating SIX cups of spinach a day? It’s no wonder you can’t keep under 20 g. of carbs.

Instead, make salads with dark leaf lettuce, cut up half a Roma tomato into each one, and drench in a fatty dressing.

(Adam Kirby) #18

You seriously need to up your fat intake, until you are not miserable anymore.

#19

Karen, do you really eat a snack just made of [quote=“Kirkor, post:12, topic:12769”]
30% of your daily carbs are taken up by seasoning? That seems an easy fix.
[/quote]

Only one meal per day has the 2g of carbs from seasoning. 30% of 20g is not 2g.

#20

What is darker than spinach?