How much should I listen to my body?

#1

Eat when you are hungry, stop when you are full.

I keep hearing this, but it doesn’t seem to work for me.
Is it just because I am not well enough fat adapted at week 5?

I never fancy breakfast, but if I don’t force down a couple of eggs and a creamy coffee I feel weak and dizzy by lunch.

My water and electrolites are good, I drink 2 ketoades a day.

One of the benefits that really attracted me to keto was the idea that you could survive on your body fat which ment you could skip meals.
Have I misinterpreted this?

#2

Good post, really interested in the replies.
I’m trying to eat when hungry also and feel more in tune with my metabolism but I don’t feel satiated until an hour after food so it’s really difficult to gauge if I’ve under/over eaten.
Not sure about skipping meals yet, too early to tell as I’ve not done a KETO month yet.
Good luck!

#3

I definitely don’t do that, it would be horrible. Fat adaptation had no effect, it’s not my thing at all, neither parts.
And IDK about others but being full is AWFUL (usually. I can imagine a nicer type but I don’t want that either). I definitely want to avoid that! I rather go hungry and I dislike that too.

I don’t write my personal complicated decision making but my end goal is long term perfect satiation. And try to eat accordingly. When to stop, that’s complicated.

When to start to eat is easier but not clear. I typically wait until my body seems to need food. I am rarely hungry and hunger is unreliable anyway but it is part of my decision making. If I am annoyingly hungry, I eat. But I usually just don’t get hungry so I need my “need to refuel” sign. It’s subtle but dizziness and weakness and loss of focus shows I reached it.

Well one surely can survive like that, the same as on high-carb but it’s not necessarily pleasant.
5 weeks rarely enough for most of us to be fat adapted (I did it after 7, it’s pretty normal). Fat adaptation tends to help with fasting, it seems, I have read it many times.
But we aren’t all the same. Some people can’t do IF (at least not a small eating window. 8 hour is very big if you ask me, I easily put 3-5 meals into it but I am abnormal, apparently) even after much keto and being fat adapted. While there’s me… My fasting abilities deteriorate as I eat less and less carbs. I could skip days easily on HCHF (they were even automatic), I can’t anymore. And I suspect that it’s mostly about my mealsize but it’s not the only reason. Oh well, I try to do OMAD but that’s trickier with less carbs too (it’s sure thing on high-carb if I want to do it).

It’s fine not to be like others. We all have our individual circumstances. As long as we find the style we are comfortable with and what works for us, we are good I think :wink:

I would wait for fat adaptation, maybe it helps. And maybe you need different food choices to skip breakfast without problem. Who knows?
My hunger changed a lot since fat adaptation, even since my early carni times! Now I get hungry (just a tiny bit, strong hunger is impossible for me without eating first) and I can wait hours without a problem, my hunger stays cute and innocent or goes away. It’s pretty recent, I never had this before, not even on carnivore and I actually had a changed hunger there (not always but often) but not like this.
This journey is full with surprises.

#4

Thank you. Some really handy info there.

I have been eating about 6 times a day.
I started just eating twice a day. Now I feel better if I have a butter coffee early. Then a couple of eggs. Maybe a handful of nuts and jerky late morning, then some tuna or chicken mayo, some salad or vegetables at some point.
For dinner I tend to have a bit of meat, then a creammy coffee later in the day.
I just do better having lots of smaller meals.

Like yourself, I do not like the feeling of being full.

#5

Are you counting calories?
I’ve been using nutracheck which I believe is the very best calorie app in the UK.
Though my payment failed this month, so I’m not going to have full access for a while.

#6

Yes to counting calories as I can’t see how not to on MFP. I use Cronometer for food data. If I’m hungry that feeling overrides the counter as I’m really trying to repair a sluggish metabolism.
I’m ditching tracking when I get a better understanding of nutrition and what works best for me etc.
I will have a look at nutriacheck, thanks for sharing.

#7

Nutracheck is good because is has a really good database for aldi which is where I shop. But you might be better off sticking with the one you have if you like it.
I think my metabolism is pretty slow. If I exercise, I crash after 30-40mins. But it doesn’t matter if I am doing very hard exercise or very light exercise, or if I am weight training with short or long rests. It’s always 30-40mins then I feel faint.
I don’t think I am fat adapted yet, and my body is not able to break down fat fast enough for me to actually use the energy.

#8

Did you feel faint after 40 mins exercise before starting Keto? It could be that your body is adjusting to different nutrients and 40 mins sessions is enough for now? I’ve purposely not lifted this month and am trying to get equipment for home, I run and walk dogs.
I’m not sure about being fat adapted either, from what I’ve read it takes months so I’m probably not. Do you feel better with this WOE?
I’ll check Aldi out too, I use Lidl but a big Aldi has opened nearby.

(Bob M) #9

I wouldn’t be concerned about when to switch to eating fewer meals. When I started, I ate 5 meals a day because I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. Then I watched a bunch of Dr. Fung videos and slowly started limiting meals, but that wasn’t until about 1.5 years into low carb.

And even then, I started by going to 3 meals, then trying a bulletproof coffee in the morning, then skipping lunch. It took a while before I tried skipping breakfast then skipping breakfast and lunch, then not eating at all for a day.

Do you check your blood sugar? It would be interesting to see what happens from before exercising, to immediately after then every 15-30 minutes thereafter. A CGM would be the best, but they’re hard to get (if you’re in the US) and expensive. And pin prick monitors have so much error in them that you’ll have to repeat the test multiple times.

(Bob M) #10

In about 2 weeks, you should feel less hungry, or at least I did. I’ve always thought that it takes about a month for a “real” transition for most people. For those exercising, though, it could take longer – no idea how long though Basically, your body has to replace glycogen somehow, and whatever else it needs to be able to exercise without an intake of carbs.

For me, after a long time on low carb, that means my blood sugar goes up in the morning and also while exercising. (And it’s hard to unravel, because I exercise in the morning, so I have two blood sugar effects at the same time.) But it would be interesting to follow someone from high carb to low carb and see how long that takes to happen.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #11

Fat adaptation happens at the cellular level in skeletal muscles. The matter of eating to satiety is related to our insulin level.

Among the many other things it does, elevated insulin blocks the reception of leptin in the ventromedial hypothalamus, the leptin having been secreted by adipose tissue to signal there is enough energy on board and we can stop eating. (This is a useful feature of insulin for bears that are eating berries in the fall in order to put on fat for the winter.)

I followed the advice to eat to satiety, and for the first several weeks on keto I continued to eat the belly-filling quantities of food I ate as a carb-burner. But one day, in the middle of lunch, I suddenly could eat no more, and I had to put half a plate of food away for later. It was that dramatic.

I see two possibilities here. One is that your insulin simply hasn’t dropped low enough yet, and it is still interfering with satiety. The other is that you may be one of the people whose appetite hormones, for whatever reason, are broken.

Try taking a look at your food, and make sure that you are definitely eating less than 20 g/day of carbohydrate. If you are exceptionally insulin-resistant, you may need to limit your carb intake even more strictly. In any case, restricting calories is more likely to do harm than to do good, so do try to eat. As long as you are limiting the carbohydrate, you should be able to shed excess stored fat.

My experience with satiety, by the way, is that it is a very different state from being stuffed to bursting. On keto, I am satisfied when my belly is no more than about half full. On carbs, I could fill my stomach until it literally could hold not even one more bite, and still be hungry.

(Marianne) #12

I’m glad you are listening to your body and continuing to eat breakfast for now. That’s what I did, having never eaten breakfast before. Like you, I would also have a creamy coffee with it and it got so that it would take me through lunch and until dinner before I needed to eat again. When you become fat adapted, you will find your need for breakfast falls away naturally. You may just decide to have a butter coffee and nothing to eat, or just plain coffee. The point is you will feel great either way, once you become fat adapted. Your body really will tell you if it just doesn’t feel (need to) like eating. The signal is clear and you won’t suffer for it in any way.

#13

I was the same. I could eat virtually an entire 18inch pizza.

My carbs have been very very strict. I have recorded everything and been between 10-20g of carbs every day. One time I had 35g of carbs but that was 3 weeks ago.

[quote=“PaulL, post:11, topic:115962”]
The other is that you may be one of the people whose appetite hormones, for whatever reason, are broken[/quote]
this may be it.
I have always struggled with hunger. I wouldn’t ever feel ‘full up’ I would just eat till I felt sick. Then once I stopped feeling sick an hour later, I would eat more.

But I have always struggled to eat breakfast. I even struggle to drink water or coffee. It’s like my stomach is closed untill I have been up for a while.

My work around is to get up at 2 hours before work, so that I can eat breakfast just before I leave.

#14

Not really sure. I didn’t exercise so I can’t say what would have happened.

#15

I see it as the opposite. I am not listening to my body because my body doesn’t want breakfast, but I am forcing it down.

The strange thing is that I am just as hungry by mid day if I have lunch or not.
But when I eat fewer calories over a few days, I end up feeling weak and dizzy.

#16

Yeah I have a glucose monitor.
I’ll try over a few days to get a baseline, then test every 15mins around exercise.

(Robin) #17

I think there is a beginning phase where we slowly learn the difference between a mental craving and a physical one. Once I finally felt a stomach that was obviously empty and sending strong feed-me messages, I realized I hadn’t been truly hungry in years.

#18

thats is what i am trying to sense. When i dont eat, i get dizzy and weak.
I think i just need more time to adapt.

(Marianne) #19

I got that, however, I think it is telling you by feeling dizzy and weak. When you become fat adapted, you shouldn’t experience that. Until then, fuel your body and metabolism.

#20

I’m the same regarding breakfast: I get up at 05.30 but don’t eat until 08:00 when I feel hunger pangs/rumble. This is a huge NSV for me: never had a ‘belly buddy’ before!

Can you eat breakfast at work rather than get up a lot earlier?