I think I probably need to eat more?

(Brian Smith) #1

Hi all - first post here. I’m 58, 174cm, 86kg and want to get to about 75kg. A mate suggested keto, I have done some reading and have started. Finding it pretty easy (using fatsecret) to keep at about 70% fat, 20% protein and 8% or lower carbs for a week and a half now. 2kgs down (but probably water, right?).

However, I’ve become used over the years to eating only about 900-1,000 calories. On a typical day (2 boiled eggs for breakfast and a salmon salad with lots of mayo as dressing for lunch) this makes for about 20g of carbs, 84g of fat and 54g of protein. I don’t eat dinner or anything until about 7am next day. On my keto diet I’m never hungry.

However, using a few keto calculators and reading forum posts it seems my calorie intake is too low. I can easily get to 1,500 calories by adding some bacon, pork belly etc, but should I?

Is 900-1,000 too low to get my body to burn fat whatever my macros are?

thanks

smith

(Susan) #2

Welcome to the forum, Brian =).

Eat more for sure, so that your metabolism doesn’t come to a halt and your body doesn’t go into starvation mode! Keep the carbs at the 20 grams or less like you are doing, and up your healthy fats and proteins for the rest of the calories. Maybe try to do TMAD instead of OMAD at this point? I eat lunch at 1pm then supper at 4:30 for a 20:4 IF -not eating from 5pm-until the next day at 1pm, but I started at 12:12 doing 3 meals, then moved it to 18:6 and then the 20:4. If you divide it into 2 meals you might find it easier, you might want to do Breakfast and then a later Lunch since you don’t do supper? Maybe do a 18:6 of 18 hours no food, and the 6 hour window with the 2 meals =). Best wishes on your Keto journey! I try to do about 1800 calories a day so I think you need at least that, maybe even a bit more =).

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #3

Keto is carb restriction, not calorie restriction. Cut out the carbs as @Momof5 recommends. The lower the better. If you are truly ‘never hungry’ don’t worry about it. As you decrease carbs and increase fat to make up the difference, your metabolism will burn faster. Sooner or later you will start to feel hungry again. Then start to increase fat to eliminate the hunger. The important thing is not to let yourself feel chronically hungry, that is all day every day. Feeling hungry before a meal is OK. Feeling hungry immediately after a meal is not OK. It means you didn’t eat enough. Finally, if I were you I’d increase protein to at least 75 grams per day, maybe more. By comparison, I’m 74, 6’0" height and 144 pounds weight, and eat 90 grams of protein per day in maintenance. Don’t be afraid to eat lots of protein. It’s not going to be converted to glucose!

#4

You don’t need less protein when you eat less calories… And one goes out of ketosis if the carb intake is too high even if the calorie intake is so huge the carb percent is little. Grams are important, not percents! Fat has even more wriggle room.

1000 kcal is way too little for almost anyone and 1500 kcal seems much better and with your numbers it would be surprising not to lose fat at a nice pace. Your metabolism might have slowed down even in such a short time but it’s probably not significant and you easily can change it back, it’s not like you did it longer term, right?

You seem to eat too little protein. I’m a short, lightly active woman, maybe it would be barely/almost enough for me but I try to eat about 80-90g (I often end up with 100-120, sometimes more on keto) and I believe 1-2g protein per lean bodyweight in kg is a pretty good and safe range, the upper limit is a bit unneeded in most case but many people like to be sure and it doesn’t hurt unless one has some special health condition. Fewer is needed if one isn’t active and there are multiple other factors but this range should be okay.

Obviously your body burn fat at 900 kcal or at 0 kcal too, it must get its energy from somewhere. You lose a significant amount of muscles too if you don’t eat right but you burn fat too (usually mostly fat). One can’t just magically function using very little energy, the body does its job in starvation as best as it can but the metabolism can get super slow.

(Brian Smith) #5

Thanks for the replies - I can get to 1,300-1,500 cals with a bit of effort (eating a bit more than I feel comfortable eating, I must say) and yesterday I had 16.5g carbs, 119g fat and 88.2g protein.

I checked with a urine strip for the first time and it showed me being in ketosis, so I’m pleased with that.

I have one additional question if I can crave your indulgence - after a while, I understand my body will get better used to burning fat and the ketones in my urine will increasingly be used and not disposed of. At that point, should I start to reduce my fat intake (keeping carbs at 20g or below) so my body burns more stored fat?

What should my macros be then?