HI there, I am currently in ketosis and have been doing (mostly strict) keto now for one month, I also fast and most days I have only one meal a day. I do not weigh/measure myself but have lost a bunch since starting as I feel it everyday and my clothes are loose. Is what I am doing, correct? having OMAD? I would also like to have some advice on carb cycling. If and when I should start? How many carbs to have? I am confused as I read that people can stay in ketosis with up to 50 carbs daily, but I am here having 20 and under daily… will I be kicked from ketosis if I have 30 or 40 carbs? See how I can be confused? Why can the next person have 40 carbs a day and be in ketosis but I apparently, will be kicked if I have over 20?.. I can’t really get advice on it. Thanks a bunch!
Intermittent fasting and carb cycling
Hi Cora. Welcome. You are doing really well. Keep things simple and enjoy the success.
Each person is individual. We’ve all lived different lives in different environments and ate different foods. All these things make each individual unique. That is how there are so many different responses to different doses of carbohydrates.
If you are at one month and feel good with the way you are doing keto, I would suggest to keep on the same path for a bit longer.
In terms of timing and making adjustments to your way of eating those experiments will always be available to you in a couple of months time. In the mean time keep educating your self in the foundation knowledge and practices of nutritional ketosis.
What you are doing is correct. You seem to have time restricted eating and limiting your carbohydrate intake covered as two excellent first steps. And you could stick with those all the way through to meet your health goals.
Two areas to think about in the start off 6 months are: getting enough salt (electrolytes) and eating enough nutritious healthy fat containing keto food to meet your body’s energy needs. It can be a trap to under eat if launching straight into one meal a day, purely because the one meal can seem so unbelievably big. But you seem to be going ok with that.
The time to adjust and experiment is usually when you are met with a plateau in your progress towards goals. Plateaus are fabulous times in nutritional health, as they can demonstrate other areas where health is improving, if one is interested enough to check with blood tests, or reflecting back on a greater ability to be active, or more mentally productive etc.
At this time, one month in, the foundation advice is keep calm and keto on.
Thank you so much, FrankoBear! I appreciate your response. I guess I just get anxious sometimes with wanting to have my carrots and turnip! Haha and also with holidays coming up and not knowing what to eat when I visit people. I essentially want to carb up with what I am missing but I understand. I need to tough it out for another few months or so and make adjustments according, should I reach that plateau! Again, thanks!
Carrots and turnips are waiting for you like relatives and friends staying at home when you set off on a great adventure to see the world. They will be there for you when you plan to return. Don’t worry about them they will be ok.
But your point about the holiday season and all the traditions and marketing around foods can be a real challenge. Totally agree.
It is an exciting time to discover how ketogenic eating can be adapted to fit into the social expectations. That would be time well spent, is preparing for the holidays by investigating how ketogenic eating and planned intermittent fasting can fit in with all the future feasting.
If you just keep doing what is working for you at this stage, you will be in good metabolic shape to face the holidays with curiosity about eating your keto way through it and the knowledge on how to do it.
I find the work of a nutritionist named Amy Berger very helpful, practical and forgiving in developing the best way to nourish your self for you using nutritional ketosis and it’s many potential forms.
Most people don’t begin OMAD unless they want to maintain weight, as it’s more for maintenance. We generally recommend eating two meals a day for continued weight loss.
You are losing weight as you are eating less calories, but you’re at the risk of placing your body into starvation without being entirely fat adapted. Just like the CICO model, if you continue eating limited calories your body will adjust and it will be harder to lose weight. This is why CICO fails eventually.
The people who can eat upwards of 50-100 carbs without falling out of ketosis, are generally very fat adapted. That process takes a while, and I doubt you are fat adapted at one month.
Thanks for your comment ava_ad0re (I love SP haha) I am meeting my daily macros though, so I am not going into starvation mode as I am eating one big meal a day. My macros are 20 carbs, 85 protein and 1373 calories. I always try my best to meet those marks and usually do or come close as possible. Being fat adapted before I carb cycle, definitely makes sense! I essentially have to become more fat adapted for a while longer. Thanks again!
I would still recommend attempting to eat at least 1800.
Again, without being adapted, you are dramatically reducing your BMR by trying to survive on 1300 calories a day. This is NOT okay. If you want to lose weight, you need to be eating more, otherwise eventually you will stall.
I would never attempt a diet by eating 1300 calories daily. I’m sorry but I think you are hurting rather than helping your cause. But that is just my opinion.
Katie (and FrankoBear) have both given you excellent advice here. I was stalled for 2.5 months from not eating enough calories, and from doing way too much Fasting. I only started losing weight again when I increased my calories to about 1800, always keeping the carbs at 20 grams or less and I eat two meals a day (lunch at 1pm and supper at 4:30, no snacking between). This gives me a 20 hour fasting period a day from 5pm-1pm and TMAD.
Even though I am fat adapted and have been doing Keto since February, I always keep my carbs at below 20. I did 21 the other day and was really upset and freaking out, I feel way better always keeping them at 20 (and usually way below that).
Your macros are similar to what mine were. I did 100% of my weight loss journey at around 1300 -1400 calories and OMAD (with a *caveat). It was a very successful approach for me. Now that I’m in maintenance I eat a bit more and twice a day to keep my weight steady at about 104 lbs.
*My advice is to not stick to a specific calorie count and meal number too rigorously however. If you have days where you are more or less hungry then follow your body’s cues. It’s ok the eat two meals sometimes if you are more hungry and it’s ok too eat nothing if you don’t get hungry. This will keep your body convinced that there is plenty of food available when needed and that no metabolic slowdown is required.
My metabolism is much higher now then when I started keto 2.5 years ago. I now frequently can eat upwards of 1800 calories without thinking and won’t gain a pound.
My advice is that carb cycling is unnecessary and counterproductive. You are going to a great deal of trouble to persuade your muscles to switch from burning glucose to burning fatty acids; why on earth would you want to interfere with that process?
@Cora007 Congratulations on an outstanding start! Superb advice has been provided from all responders above.
The carbs and protein look great. But as noted, 1300-1400 calories is NOT enough to maintain a healthy metabolic pace for a healthy adult. Sure, you can lose weight … until your body’s defenses begin to embark on a starvation response and it revolts. Not a good outcome.
Like @Momof5 above, I too wound up not eating quite enough calories during my initial keto efforts (closer to 1400 kcal/day) - I simply was not hungry enough to desire more. This wasn’t a terrible thing at least for a brief period of several weeks - but definitely not good to keep going this way. Trouble waiting to happen.
Having mae a concerted effort to lean toward eating more saturated fats, I’d upped my overall daily kcal closer to 2000-2200 (still within an 18/6 fasting/eating window)… and subsequently feel even more energy, sleep better, even as my weight continues to slowly decline (which, in my case, was never really an objective in the first place - and now I’m as thin (weight and waistline) as I was in my thinnest high school/college days).
My point being: It became clear to me (another n=1 experience) that eating 1300-1400 kcal/day was not enough and eating a more appropriate amount for one’s adult body is where you ought to head at some point soon.
Best wishes - and keep us posted.
p.s. - “Carb cycling” is a weird idea to most keto’ers. It’d be like “alcohol cycling” to a recovering alcoholic or “heroin or opium cycling” to an ex-addict. If you’re going to enjoy the lifelong benefits of kicking the sugar/refined carb addiction, you need to reconsider your perspective on this.
Once you’re fully fat-adapted, then the natural carbs that occur in your healthy food choices (green veggies, eggs, etc.) are perfectly fine. But that’s not “cycling” … that’s just eating a healthy diet and reaping the benefits of avoiding the crap that’s out there while embracing the good stuff. Perhaps it’s just semantics, but thought I’d throw that idea into the mix.
Haha you literally made me laugh! 
Thank you so much for your advice and encouragement, it really means a lot,especially when I am still learning!
Hi there, I really genuinely appreciate your advice, that’s why I am here. I was so confused by a few things and needed clarity. I spoke to dietitian today who said, for my credentials, my macros are good. She said that the calorie intake is fine to lose weight but never go under 1200 calories a day, I explained to her that I I get a flushed face, which I haven’t before and she advised that my OMAD is probably too much, when trying to fit all my macros in and to have two meals a day instead, which I will do. Thank you again for your help! .
Because I want to have nutrition from regular higher carb whole foods… vegetables and fruit.
Thank you llana_Rose, I appreciate your advice! Congratulations on your journey, that is just wonderful!! I spoke with a dietitian today who said my macros are completely fine but not to go under 1200 calories/daily and she recommended that I eat two meals a day, as trying to fit my macros into one meal is too much. This is what I will do. I may do OMAD once or twice a week and the others, two meals. Again, thank you!
The bottom ine is not to start eating significant amounts of carbs until you have.a reason to. That means to counter negative metabolic effects, like slowdowns and long term stalls. The most important thing is to get to your goal weight and enter into Maintenance, when you can eat.more (but not like you used to) carbs. Metabolic derangement is taken care.of along the way… This process can take months, and even years. It depends on how far you have to go and your overall activity level. If you’re sedentary, it may not even be necessary, but if you’re very active and an athlete it can happen much sooner.
Carb Cycling by consuming large.amounts over a short period of time is part of Keto cut (CKD) used by primarily Bodybuilder types who have to recompensate muscular glycogen in order to maintain training performance. It’s not really applicable for the average person. Eating some periodic carbs once in Maintenance is.
I think Leanne Vogel also recommends some carb cycling for females. But by carbs cycling She doesn’t mean Twinkies. She means, for the last meal of the day to have a little bit more of healthier carbs such as a small amount of sweet potato
Thanks so much, it completely makes sense. I just needed some guidance as to if what I was doing is okay and how it works. I am a 42 year old woman and although losing my weight is important, so is nutrients from higher carb fruits and veg. I have to learn to create a routine for me to incorporate those carbs in sparingly until I reach my goal. Thanks for your advice, really appreciate it!
I am currently in ketosis and am on a 90-95 percent strict diet (I have cheese, sausages and pickles sometimes), and exactly what you said is what I’ve heard before too. I am also a 42 year old female and as important as my weight loss is, so are the nutrients I am lacking from higher carb veg and fruits. Thanks for your advice and I will definitely check her out!
I’m a 36 year-old and I’ve been reading Leanne’s book - my period was MIA for a year and I wanted a woman’s perspective on the diet. I don’t believe in carb ups, I’m not a body builder.
I’m histamine intolerant so I dove deep down the oxalate rabbit hole and came out the other end realizing that veggies and fruits aren’t nearly as healthy for us as they make them out to be. I have a daily mixed-lettuce salad, I like mushrooms, avocados, asparagus, cucumbers and cabbage, but they are just a side-dish, protein and fats are much more important.