Been off my Ketogenic since July and was on it previously for 4 months. I did not need to lose any weight, was doing it because of treatment I was going through. Most days kept around carbs 20 grams a day it was in my mind a positive experience. I did lose weight and was working out with weights and walking 14,000 step a day. For the Stem Cell treatment I had to come off and eat more carbs… Everything went well and now working out and exercising everyday, fasting 14 hours daily. I am in ketosis eat lots of Meat, Vegetables, and fruits 150 grams of carbs a day. My weight is 140 lbs 5’8" tall. It just does not make sense I can blow and test 6 or 7 times a day and I keep in the Red Ketosis area.This is good news for me as weight training is much better and I feel healthier. Could this be because I have a very fast metabolism. My wife blows into my keto breath meter and is does not get into the red area. Just thought I would put this out here and see if anyone knows of others who have had the same experience.
In Ketosis eating 150 grams of Carbs a day
It makes plenty of sense, the 20g thing is made up, 150g isn’t a lot of carbs for somebody that’s active and has high energy demands. Our livers don’t hold much glycogen, once that’s gone you’re in ketosis, what’s stored in our muscles doesn’t come back, only the muscles get to burn that.
In your case working out is a part of it, but the excessive fasting is more of it, totally believable. Also keep in mind, breathe ketones like urine show for a long time, you could eat a loaf of bread and still show ketones for a while, not making them doesn’t mean they’re not still circulating for hours until you burn them off, and by then your liver may be making them again. Ketosis isn’t on/off, it’s a sliding scale.
It depends on the individual. I am 77 years old I walk about 5 miles daily on average. I fast 17 hours daily on average. I eat 125 carbs per day on average. I don’t check for ketone often but when I do I am still there. I don’t count carbs micronutrient or carbs now, I just know from doing so in tje past what my diet consists of. My key is no processed food, no fast food, no soft drinks and no wheat.
Guess we all have to find what works for each of us. over the years I read some of Mark Hyman’s books last one Forever Young glad he’s pushing meat more than he ever did. Thanks for the input.
You are fortunate to be in ketosis with a 150g of carbs/day. That would not work for me. I have been low carb/keto for more than 15 years and have learned what throws me out of ketosis and what does not.
20g of carbs is the suggested limit for everyone to begin ketosis. The idea is that it will work for the bulk of people to achieve ketosis. Many can exceed the 20g after they have adapted. Some cannot. We really are special snowflakes when it comes to diet.
Dr Berry always said ‘try lowering to 100g of carbs, if that doesn’t work go down to 50g, and continue to reduce until you reach ketosis’.
I think 20g is quoted because that works for most people.
20g works for nearly everyone but plenty of people can go higher even without much activity. If one is active/big/muscular enough, surprisingly high numbers may be okay as far as I know. 150g without a big body, wow. I chalk it up to individual differences, I doubt it would work for many, activity or not (some activity. extreme activity may be different. some people run a marathon before breakfast every day).
I never did 20g carbs as it’s impossibly low for me, I went into ketosis and got fat adapted )as far as I know but the signs were pretty clear) with somewhere around 40g total every day. It wasn’t good enough though, lower plant carbs are better for me personally. 50g definitely was too much but I didn’t experiment with activity, I mostly just walked back then. I am a short woman too so I didn’t expect a high limit, I was happy with what I had, 20g would have zero chance… It’s borderline enough for my animal food (on some days) if I am not into dairy too much.
Yup, it’s the safe go-to number to make sure everybody gets into ketosis, it was stolen/borrowed from Atkins. Same goes for “nutritional ketosis”, made up term. That’s what lead so many to obsessively check their ketones, or worse, think that outside of that range meant they weren’t in keotosis at all, which is false.
Gotta remember, the “real” Ketogenic diet is a medical intervention for epileptics, that’s not what any of us are doing in practice. Although some come close, and if you’re using keto to manage a real medical problem, that’s fine. But doesn’t take that level of drastic for what most of us go after which is feeling good, losing fat, having mental clarity, reversing diabetes etc.
interesting. To me, this feels backwards. I find it easier to start low and only then, after ketosis is happening, add more carbs,slowly.
But I´m one of us who need to stay low, around 5-15 g, to feel right. 50 g and goodbye ketosis. I use a blood tester. I like it low,I don´t need to calculate or think about it. Hunger is gone - sometimes you need to watch that you eat enough when you´re not hungry at all,though.
Some people that have never been on Keto using for the first time to lose weight to prevent side effects that can happen. I believe its better to come down gradually on the carbs to prevent an initial shock to the system. Getting to the lower numbers and staying there is different it seems for everyone. I do not practice a full Ketogenic diet now. Still Using 5 different oils/fats not including meat fats. Fruits & vegetables make up 75% and 3 servings 4 ounces of meat a day. I am 65 Weight training has become more important as we get older our ability to move safely requires strong muscles. Protein timing after workouts has made a difference. I’m now closer to a Pegan Diet which is Mark Hyman’s functional medicine diet. Staying in Ketosis is a bonus as I like this situation. Came out of stem cell treatment Mid October eating everything that’s highly nutritious has been my aim so far so good.
Good that it´s working for you.
Each to his/her own - I come from Atkins Camp where Induction phase is what it is,quite abrupt. It is over in a few days , we still wait for weeks until fully keto-adapted so I like the Quick Start.
I started with Atkins around 2004. I´ve come to like a low carb ketosis, other than that I don´t follow any style. Except probably a light calorie reduction for the winter do-nothingness…
I try to get variable fats though.
Many people seem to do that. It’s odd to me, I started higher as I only could do that and went lower later when I could and it turned out better. But no wonder different people feels different things more natural.
As always, I believe it’s individual. Some people handle a sudden jump better, others need it to be more gradual. I needed 3 jumps to reach carnivore (not like I can stick to it for any decent time but it’s my baseline), they all brought drastic changes but sometimes when I have a goal, I need a very gradual approach. No idea how anyone goes from HCLF to keto or even carnivore but if someone can do it and it works, good for them. My jumps were big enough for me, I couldn’t do keto almost right out of high-carb, I have tried and failed epically (it wasn’t mental weakness, I felt physically unwell). It does seem easier to do thing not so suddenly but I can imagine that cutting out almost every carby items work better for the right personality and state of mind and if the one is lucky, the body handles it well enough as well. Especially if the new diet is very close to the ideal I imagine. Mine refused to handle very low carb for years after leaving high-carb despite it was best for it eventually but it really enjoyed the lower carbs every time, not to the same extent though, keto was very similar to low-carb, just harder. I did it for fat adaptation. Low-carb felt great physically, carnivore brought very good other changes too. But it had to be at the right time when it was easy enough to do it.
That must be hard. When I started experimenting with Lo Carb 20 years ago, I realized I had never really been hi carb… just never paid any attention. I had to learn what carbs actually are, there was a learning curve with all the macros.
I have one experience, trying to come down from Hi Carb:
I spent a week in hospital a few years back. Food was sugar, carbs and only sugar and carbs Just amazing. That was completely crazy, my metabolism stopped for several days… it was nearly impossible to get back to my normal keto after that .Not good. I could not lose weight in keto after that stunt any more and eventually slipped to eating everything…
It´s funny: You can get vegan food in hospital but not lo carb.
I have heard about such people… Their doctor tells them to eat “low-carb” i.e. 150-160g carbs a day, it’s the basic diet for people with diabetes… And they say they don’t want to raise their carb intake 
I ate a tad more I suppose but even with my overeating, I just couldn’t fit a ton as I needed high protein high fat too. Never did HCLF, it’s highly incompatible and uncomfortable and very much impossible for me. For others who eat fatty but their energy intake is somewhat small and aren’t into the carbiest food groups as I sadly were (I am still in love with fruits but I don’t need to go too far… I had 2 weeks without any once and I normally eat it in tiny amounts), never doing true high-carb is quite possible.
Hospital food, oh my. Ours isn’t the worst (there are so tiny budget that people can’t get much sugar…) but I know about Australian hospital food. Even my high-carber SO who is thriving on his diet would get sugar poisoning eating just half of it… Well he is health-conscious and eat accordingly, no added sugar was the first step…
It’s odd to me. If a carby, crazy diet is good for anything, it’s to ensure I won’t be able a chance, I WILL strongly desire to run back to carnivore… Even before carnivore, after sugar poisoning I ate as low-carb as possible, my instincts said so. I never get sugar poisoning anymore, not even when I overdo carbs for too long, I do feel a bit uncomfortable. It’s not normal for me to have a mental state where I don’t care and able to eat carbier for long (it’s usually one day and even that one isn’t too wild. my normal food is still carnivore or almost, I just add too much extras on my bad days) but happens. I find this quite lucky as my undisciplined self needs every help they can get! And it’s very useful to have a body that knows what is good for it and tells me, progressively more loudly (but still indulgently enough) if I act ignorant… Never could just go back to high-carb after I left it. Low-carb was a great fit for years. Big jump but very easy and good for my body - and I already had high protein high fat, that surely helped. Can’t even imagine significantly raising one’s fat intake. I keep trying to lower it since ~15 years… Not easy but carnivore helped tremendously. My original keto had no chance, it stayed where it was and that was already a quite reduced amount compared to high-carb. Drastically lowering my fat intake was the single hard part in going low-carb for me. But it wasn’t horribly difficult without high-carb. It was totally impossible on high-carb, I have an irresistable urge to eat excessive amounts of fat if I eat very carby (maybe protein could help somewhat but I had no lean protein sources until years ago. at least, no option to eat much of them, I could eat 1-2 extra egg whites but that didn’t help much). So I can’t understand HCLF, it would be constant misery to me.
Yeah it sounds quite wrong. By the way, here the vegan meal would be a slice of bread as the slice of cheese would just be omitted. At least I heard about that, it’s quite possible not all hospitals are the same… But we have okay-ish cooked meals for lunch, it’s something.
And the differences are for people who have medical reasons. I mean, the serious ones. So my SO got white bread because the wholemeal one was only for people with diabetes and he didn’t have that. And it was in the very Covid times so we couldn’t bring him food. But he had a tiny appetite and he is a high-carber at least. I don’t remember my hospital food but it was surprisingly okay. I denied the sugary cocoa and got an apple instead, I didn’t ask for it but I love fruits. They aren’t food (an apple just makes me hungry so I need to be careful with the timing) and not the best candy either (tasty but too low-fat. I always strongly preferred fatty candy and rarely was willing to eat the low-fat kind) but I got food sometimes and I could get food anyway. And I left soon enough that even a full fast wouldn’t have been too difficult. Just because I can’t do EF anymore at home doesn’t matter it’s not the easiest when there is no proper food. But I need an apocalypse or some other extreme circumstances for that to happen. It’s so easy to find/make/bring proper food for a little while.
I hope hospitals will have low-carb food in the not too far future. There are low-carbers, not so few anymore I think…? It’s definitely good for very many and what is so hard in it, not adding sides? Okay, it’s for bigger budgets as take away the carbs from Hungarian hospital food and you are left with 3 bites per day… Well for keto, the veggie soup works too but it’s very low-cal. Still helps a bit.
People with weird diets still would have no chance but they should know that. I did vegetarian keto originally, good luck with that, it was tricky even cooking for myself as everything had carbs especially vegs. And I loved vegs. In big amounts. I am so glad I don’t want most of them anymore and it’s just joy, not a real need like back then. But it’s nothing to compared to vegan keto, I still fail to understand how they do it (with 20g carbs, even!). I saw photos but it must be some very special person to be fine with that… And it takes insane amount of care when it comes to nutrition…
I better stop, better late than even later, I used to say.
Yeah, if/when I ever get hospitalized again,and am on my senses, I will bring a mini-fridge with me. Filled with appropriate food. It will raise hell there but…