I’d be really interested to see some studies that evidence support the hypothesis that low calorie but high fat diet slows metabolism BECAUSE I have the same issues as @alive-and-kicking - I am satiated with very little food and relatively low calories, but I am having a high level of fat (proportionally). I do mean satiated - no cravings, no hunger - and I am eating in a narrow window between 11:30am and 1:30pm usually. Occasionally I have an afternoon snack of nuts and a bit of 95% chocolate but mainly because I feel guilty that I haven’t had sufficient calories, not because I want to eat.
Certainly my weight loss has not been dramatic like some people report - I’m currently averaging 1.5 lb/week - but I am exercising and building muscle, and my clothes are getting much looser, so I’m losing. And while I am fearful of killing my metabolism, I don’t feel at all that my body is slowing down - I feel better than ever!
What @Madeleine is saying seems rational to me - if I am providing my body with 1000cal via food and still losing weight, surely the body is using my fat stores to supplement my energy requirements? Does it not also make sense also that the speed at which the body uses stored fat reduces as the amount of stored fat reduces, to the point at which there is minimal stores so the body slows the rate at which it burns energy, to become more efficient?
I am aware that metabolic slowdown accompanies dramatic weight loss (esp on VLCD) but as this same effect is not observed in people that have bariatric (my spell-checker wants to change this word to ‘barbaric’, which I think it quite appropriate. lol.) surgery - caloric restriction, but not necessarily fat restriction - so I’d be interested to know if there is any research on low carb high fat calorie restriction Vs high carb low fat calorie restriction. If you know of any, pls send me a link. Thanks.
I have a question (about how to eat enough calories)
Unfortunately I cannot send you a link to a study.
I am just going by what I have learn here and elsewhere about killing metabolism. In your case, I think you are killing your metabolism for these reasons:
- You are having consistent weight loss (Keto usually provides frustrating plateaus)
- You are having a low amount of calories daily (natural for the body to adapt to a low food environment)
- If you are exercising a lot, that leads to an overall further daily calorie deficit. If it is cardio, your body will become very efficient at what you are doing so, if you rebound on slow metabolism, you’ll be in double trouble because more exercise won’t help much
- You feel “better than ever” - depending on when you started Keto - you could still be in the “Keto honeymoon” period (after Keto flu if you had that). I heard this term discussed lately - just about every diet that focuses on whole foods - Keto, Vegan/Vegetarian, Paleo etc. makes things dramatically better than a processed food based SAD diet. Everybody wants to tell everyone else about the “benefits” of their particular diet but, a lot of the benefits are common and just come from getting away from SAD. I personally think the Keto WOE gives some mental clarity that the others don’t but I also think people feel generally better on any of them. This point is around burning fat and making ketones (which make things work better and feel good), I still think it is the case that a (daily) low food environment will eventually make you use ketones more efficiently and therefore your liver will produce less (burning less fat -> slow metabolism).
I think for a while, yes. But, without some heavy days of eating, I think no. The body wants to hold on to fat as it thinks it needs it for survival. For a while (I think) it will supplement daily caloric intake in the hopes of more food intake but, after a while, it will start to favor retaining the life-giving fat and slow down metabolism.
I am not a doctor but, from what I have read, even if you always reach satiety at a low calorie count - you might want to mimic ancestral eating. Some time on the hunt went without food (i.e. do some meal skipping or skip eating for a day a week) and, after the animal was down - eat, eat, eat (giving your metabolism the signal that food is not consistently scarce).
Oh, I didn’t say I have consistent weight loss - I said I have an average weight loss of 1.5. I wish it was consistent as that is far less stressful that wondering what the *$&% is going on! This is my current loss pattern compared with VLCD (optifast) that I did 5 years ago. VLCD is completely unsustainable due to the continuous urge to eat real food.
I’m only on week 9 but I suspect I have a strong cyclical pattern linked to my hormones - something I didn’t have 5 yrs ago and/or on VLCD. I walk 3 x per week for about 40 min - not strenuous - and do some very light weight and resistance exercises to gentle strength building. I didn’t feel this good on VLCD but 15 years ago I went on a 80% raw food diet (also unsustainable) and felt even better than I did now - completely wiped out post-natal depression, cleared my skin, bounds of energy. Similar to how I feel on keto. I’m lucky that I didn’t get any keto flu or headaches, etc… at the start of keto, but my diet has never been as bad as SAD
Prior to keto, it did take a lot of food for me to reach satiety.!