Introduction and questions - Am I underthinking the Keto Lifestyle?

#1

Hello, and my first time posting. - I’ll try not to write a book. :slight_smile:

I first heard of the Ketogenic Diet just over 7 weeks ago, after watching a film on Netflix with my wife titled “The Magic Pill”. … I found it quite intriguing that I was already doing a lot of the things they mentioned, eating similarly, with just a few things I would need to change to switch over to a Keto Lifestyle. (I don’t like using the word diet really, since it doesn’t feel like one to me) … But anyway, I decided to give it a try starting the very next day, which was May 26 2018.

Since then, I’ve been reading a ton of stuff on this subject and have learned a lot. And though I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading all about people’s success stories, their advice, looking up recipes, etc. The one thing that keeps bothering me somewhat, is that I’m not doing a lot of the things I’m hearing others speak about. Such as checking Macros, knowing their exact numbers and exactly how much of everything they want/need to incorporate into meals daily, etc. … I mean, basically since I started, I’ve simply just kept my carb count under 20g a day, (Not Net-Carbs, because I didn’t know about this) and I cut out the few things I was doing that I was needed for this to work. - Actually, the only thing I’ve done besides this was to look up carb counts for food ingredients, created a spreadsheet that I can simply enter the amounts in and have it auto-fill for my daily total, to ensure I was keeping things under 20g.

But reading so many posts about things like ‘knowing your numbers’, ‘make sure you’re also getting enough salt, ‘make sure your hitting your protein levels’, etc. I’m just wondering if I should be doing all those things as well, or could there be consequences later if I don’t? - Don’t get me wrong, and I don’t want to seem like I’m being lazy, but it just seems like if I do start doing all those things, that maybe this will start feeling more like a diet to me?

So, I guess my main question is, should I be doing all those things to do this right? Or can it be kept simplistic, as I have done so far? … I mean, in the past 7+ weeks, I definitely feel it’s working quite well for me but want to make sure I’m not heading for something unforeseen later.

Thanks,
Dave

(Lonnie Hedley) #2

There is a thread somewhere about how there are no rules. I mostly agree. However, I feel there are guidelines. The one I think is most important is keeping carbs as low as possible. 20g net is the typical number tossed out since keeping at or below is pretty much the best way to almost guarantee getting into ketosis.

So no, all that extra stuff isn’t necessary. What you’re doing is good if it’s working for you. If you find it stops working, or you’re noticing negative effects, then you might need to add stuff (tracking, calculating macros, supplementing electrolytes).

KCKO

(Casey Crisler) #3

I agree with hedleylo. If it’s working stick to it. I’ve been going <25 g carbs a day since May 5th and don’t even log my food into MyFitnessPal anymore. Don’t see the need as I am still losing weight. Plus all the high level math for figuring out the macro numbers goes way over my head anyway.

Due to the excessive energy I now have I do a lot of hiking, so salt intake is pretty important for me (I also only eat one meal a day). My main concern is potassium levels. But when I’m almost ready to use the fourth hole in my belt, I’m not complaining.

(karen) #4

I’m doing what I refer to as ‘satiation keto’. I stay under 20g of carb, eat a modest amount of protein (maybe 50-70 grams, I’m pretty small and not super active), pad my meals with lots of natural fats and salt, aim for unprocessed organic foods as much as possible, and stop eating when I feel I’ve had enough. That’s pretty much all I do, other than occasional fasts.

I feel good, better all the time. When I keto I maintain my current weight and when I fast I lose about a pound of fat over 3 days. The fasting seems to boost my good feelings as well as getting me closer to a weight goal without metabolic slowdown.

I am not T2D, as far as I know I’m not dealing with cancer or any other active manifestation of a chronic disease. I think if you’re trying to actively manage / cure diabetes or some other active disease, or if you’ve got very ambitious fitness goals, it’s probably much more critical to have numerical data.

I also don’t have a problem with satiety signals. After a few months on this diet, I no longer want to eat and eat and eat past satiety, it’s like my body now knows that it will have a reliable steady source of energy and there’s no need to gorge. I honestly have no idea how many calories I’m eating.

Love my simple keto and plan to stick with it!

ETA: the one thing I did was buy a very cheap breath meter (about $8) so I’d know if I was in ketosis or not. It’s not accurate but does give me a yes-or-no answer. It probably wasn’t necessary but does give some positive feedback, so I’m not unhappy I bought it.

(Mandy) #5

I think the biggest takeaway from blogs and this forum is, we are all different. What works for me might make you feel terrible. I try to take advice with a grain of salt (pun intended). I have been on keto a little over 2 months and have gotten a ton of great advice that has lead me to try or drop things. I think one of the things that most people probably should keep track of, is electrolytes. For me, if I am off on salt, potassium or magnesium, I feel terrible. I only track my foods to make sure I get those things. I could care less about my calorie intake as I’m pretty adapted to what I need to feel ok. I’m still learning as well but the biggest curve has been about the needed minerals. Good luck!

(Brian) #6

Lazy keto has worked pretty good for me.

In the beginning, I had to work out what 20g of carbs looked like, what 75g or 100g of protein looked like, that kind of thing, but since then, I just avoid the stuff I know is on the naughty list and eat! I don’t go hungry. I eat dessert at a lot of meals. I eat all the fat I want and pretty much all the protein I want. (My natural inclination is towards less protein, I was a vegetarian for a lot of years so I’m more accustomed to my protein being under what I should be getting than over.)

The weight loss has slowed way down since I started, about a year ago, and I have a little over 20 pounds to go to get to where I wanted to be. (I’ve lost close to 70.) If it takes another year, I’m fine with that. I’m in no hurry. I enjoy eating good food and there is a lot of good food that is keto friendly. The weight is still going in the right direction and I know I’ll do a little intermittent fasting along the way as the spirit moves me.

I’m fortunate in that it’s not much of a battle. If I were in some kind of hurry, it might be a lot more stressful. But I’m not. It will happen. In a way, I’m liking how the last few pounds are slow in coming off because it will be a very smooth change from losing to maintenance, or maybe almost no change, just keeping on keeping on. To me, that’s kind of a cool thought. :slight_smile:

KCKO

(Michelle) #7

Re: tracking versus not … I have two theories why people track.

(1) I believe that a lot of people here came from an unhealthy relationship with food. We don’t quite trust ourselves to feel satiety signals, stop when full, recognize hunger versus thirst/need for salt. So we micromanage our food intake until that magical time when we are fat adapted and have that definite satiated feeling. It’s the little bit that we can control.

(2) We have a variety of body chemistries and lifestyles. Everyone feels as though we are performing sort of a scientific experiment on our bodies. (n=1) keeping track of what we do and seeing the results is a way to have continued success and/or a way to avoid problems in the future. We share our results like the scientists that we are - for the common good.

My opinion anyway.

#8

I think when you read the forum posts, especially newbie posts, the ones that have issues unless they track religiously or are having to tweak things very carefully are overrepresented. They’re the ones that seek the feedback and have more questions. I’ll bet for every one of those there are lots of people lurking (in a good way) and reading and just doing the old KCKO thing. So if you’re doing okay following your macros loosely and seeing the results you expected, I’d recommend just keeping it simple. Sometimes obsessing over details is helpful for people to keep them motivated, but for others it gets tiresome. You don’t have to do it unless there’s a problem.

(Robin N) #9

If simple is working for you, keep it up. For me personally, I don’t count anything. The only time I really look at carbs is when I’m shopping for a new product (like PB or dark chocolate)…otherwise as long as I’m feeling good I just don’t worry about it (eating whole foods really makes it easy). Like you, I don’t want it to feel like a diet. I cannot “count” as a way of life…and that’s what I intend this to be. I simply avoid the foods I know are problematic: sugar, grains and starch. I’ve never actually calculated my macros…I eat what I believe is moderate protein, a few veggies and fat to satiety…and so far I’m doing fine. The loose clothing doesn’t lie.

#10

Well I’m a newbie as well. I was FAR from living a healthy lifestyle before. But, I’ve been doing it for 10 days now without logging everything I eat and have lost roughly 3/4 of a pound, on average, daily.

(LeeAnn Brooks) #11

It’s affectionately called “lazy Keto” but there’s nothing wrong with it if it works for you.

Uptight people like me need to track. Perhaps we should call that “annal Keto.”

#12

Thanks kindly for all the feedback, advice and clarification everyone. I definitely agree with it all, and a lot of it is pretty much what I’ve been doing so far. (So that’s good to know) - Staying with whole foods, nothing processed, etc. (which does keep is easy) Listening to my body and eating sensibly. … I should say that I have been using ketone-strips since the second week, (ordered them) and pretty much just been checking every morning. Just to make sure It still showed me in a good range, which is has. And I’ve only been weighing in once a week just for record keeping. (Which also helped me decide I much prefer to eat just once a day, and get better readings too)

I actually never liked eating during the day most of the time, feeling it was almost forced at times. Or it was just our regular “Feeding Time” that we got used to. … So not eating was very easy for me, and since the first week, haven’t been hungry much. (But again, I was sort of like that before Keto) … But I’ve already lost over 30 lbs., 20 in the first month, but as Robin said, “The loose clothing doesn’t lie” :slight_smile: … Thanks again

(charlene clark) #13

Brian I saw that you mentioned fasting in your post,could explain why and or when it is needed in the me to lifestyle, don’t mean to sound dumb but him very new to this

(charlene clark) #14

And my auto correct is really working tonight sorry

(Lonnie Hedley) #15

It’s not needed / necessary. It’s only an extra tool. Keeping insulin low is more of a necessity. You can accomplish this by eating low carb foods. Not eating too often. This looks like breakfast, lunch, and dinner but no snacks. Or 2mad (16:8 IF) no snacks. Or OMAD.

(LeeAnn Brooks) #16

The goal of Keto is to control insulin. There are two main ways to do that: what you eat and when you eat.

What:
Carbs raise insulin the most
Protein raises insulin about half the rate of carbs
Fat raises insulin minimally, but still raises it.
This is why we limit carbs, keep protein moderate and eat fat to satiety.

When:
Since we raise insulin every time we eat, we can limit insulin by limiting how often we eat.
IF or Intermittent fasting sets a smaller feeding window per day, so 16:8 is fasting for 16 hours and feeding for 8. TMAD (two meals a day) and OMAD (one meal a day) are two ways to IF.
And then people get into EF or extended fasting, which is not eating for more than 24 hours. When you stop feeding, your body will use its fat reserves for energy. This is much easier if you are fat adapted as your hunger isn’t as great.

Fasting is far different than daily restricting calories as it doesn’t harm the metabolism in the way restricting calories will.

Hope this helps.

(Brian) #17

No problem. I’m not really into multi-day fasting but the occasional intermittent fast happens for me naturally. There are the occasional mornings when I get up and just am not hungry. It may be because of not sleeping right, or something on my mind, or having had a big meal the evening before, or any number of reasons. And in that case, I’ll mostly wait until the usual supper time to eat again giving me what would work out to be a 24 hour fast.

If I feel like I want to give myself a little boost towards taking weight down a bit, I’ll purposefully do one meal a day (24 hour fast, same thing) for a few days. It does seem to shake a body up a little when it’s not something I do all the time and my body does tend to respond to that.

I have an extended visit planned with my step-son coming up in a few months. I suspect we’ll do pretty well on our diet while staying with them but there will be exceptions, I can almost guarantee. And rather than be a royal pain, I plan to indulge a little from time to time, in things that I don’t generally eat. After doing that, I may find that I’ll want to fast for a day after and may feel better if I do.

The fasting, as said above, is just another tool in the keto toolbox. It’s not one I plan on getting carried away with or using to the extent that some do. But I will not hesitate to use a 24 or even a 36 or 48 hour fast if I feel like it’s right for me at the time.

One thing about being keto for a while, that means that my body is better conditioned to run on fat. And I have a supply of fat onboard. No, that doesn’t mean I’ll never get hungry. But it does mean that I don’t get those intense hunger cravings like I used to every 4 hours or so and won’t feel like if I don’t get my next meal only a few hours after the last that I’m gonna die soon. The 4-hour-hunger-monster kinda dried up and went away after the first couple of months of keto. It was a nice side effect.

Not sure if that answers your question exactly…

:slight_smile:

(charlene clark) #18

Thank you Brian, many days I only want to eat at supper time,so is it ok to do so and what about my fat intake will I have enough?

#19

As I said above, I have read up a lot about all the aspects of the Keto Lifestyle, and that included IF. But to be honest I actually did this quite a bit before learning of Keto. Going a day or two without eating, just because I wasn’t hungry. (And anytime I mentioned this to a doctor in the past, I was always told it wasn’t good to eat just once a day. That it would basically make my metabolism slow to a crawl, and that my body would simply hold on to everything I was eating in that one meal? - I guess that could be true, if you weren’t eating Keto style and eating LC, so they could have been right?

Though I didn’t plan to do any IF at first, I did actually do a 36 hour fast a couple weeks ago, basically since I wasn’t hungry the entire day, and didn’t eat until the following night. But again, I’ve just been eating when I feel like it. … But in the time I have been doing this, I do prefer eating just once a day, because I feel better and it seems to be what I like best. So I guess I’ve been doing the 24 hour fast as well? Or should that be 23 hour? But my meals have been basically 10 to 15 grams, and as I mentioned, I haven’t been thinking too much about breaking it down to net-carbs, but do understand the logic. :slight_smile:

(Brian) #20

Honestly, I don’t fret over the macros of the one meal if it’s only one meal a day. I don’t do that often enough that I care. That said, I do gravitate towards a keto meal. I try to keep the carbs to incidentals, the kinds I’d be getting in my non-starchy veggies mostly, and have a nice protein to go with it. I know that I will find a meal like that to be satisfying, filling, and it will be likely to give me a decent nutritional profile.

I know, this is supposed to be a high fat diet, and I haven’t even mentioned it. A couple of things… Fat often comes packaged with protein. If I am having deviled eggs, it just so happens that an egg is almost half fat and half protein, not to mention the extra fat in the filling. Win, win! If I have beef, it probably has a decent amount of fat in it since that’s the way I generally buy it. If it’s fish, it has a decent amount of fat in it already but I do tend to put some butter, browned or otherwise, over it, or some kind of sauce. With leaner meats like poultry, I tend to do the butter or some kind of sauce, too, mostly because I like it that way. Oh, and the veggies sometimes get butter to swim in, too. And I like fatty salad dressings if I’m having a salad. I don’t add buckets of fat just for the sake of eating fat. I add fat because I like the taste and texture of it with what I’m eating. Maybe I’m lucky in that what I like to eat seems to work out to what I think I need to eat. Then again, I pay attention to cravings. For instance, if I crave asparagus or broccoli, that’s what I’ll have. If I crave a burger, that’s what I’ll have. If I crave a piece of fish, that’s what I’ll have. And I find that to be even more satisfying. I know it doesn’t work that well for some people.

I didn’t catch whether you are trying to lose weight or not but if you are, you already have a fat supply built in that your body can use from if you have given it a chance to let that insulin level drop down often enough and long enough, which generally the one meal a day will do nicely.

If you’re having a hard time with the last couple of pounds or you’re at a stall point that just won’t budge and getting frustrated, it might be worth looking more closely at the macros and seeing whether something really isn’t working. But if I’m generally doing well in my journey, I’m not inclined to try to micromanage every morsel. Some non-starchy veggies and a healthy amount of protein, along with the fat that either I add or comes with, is very satisfying to me. And life goes on.

If simple works, keep it simple. When simple doesn’t work, then look closer. :slight_smile:

KCKO