Body weight = 80kg/176lbs
Height = 6’0/183cm
Body fat % = Around 16-20%
Exercise = 5-7 times a week at high-er intensity
I. Daily Breakfast:
II. Lunch (options):
Option 1:
200g Rib Eye Steak
½ Cup of Pecans
Option 2:
1 Salmon Fillet
2 Avocados
Option 3:
225g Chicken Thighs
¼ Cup of Olives
Option 4:
225g Chicken liver
½ Cup of Sauerkraut
Option 5:
225g Chicken drumsticks
½ Cup of Kimchi
Option 6:
225g Chicken hearts
½ Cup of SauerkrautWelcome to the forums!
You are in great shape, and your diet looks good. You are one of the few newcomers here who are already starting out in maintenance mode.
A couple of thoughts:
First, don’t restrict calories. The body doesn’t respond well to that; it’s the signal that tells it there’s a famine going on.
Second, be sure to get plenty of protein. A good range is around 2.0 g/day/kg of lean mass. Don’t fear the fat that comes with the protein; protein absorption is better when we eat enough fat.
Third, fat is your replacement source of energy, once our glucose (carbohydrate) intake drops. For the sake of comparison, bear in mind that 44 g of fat provides the same caloric benefit as 100 g of carbohydrate, so you don’t need to worry about the quantity of fat you eat. Also, fat causes no insulin response, and it is elevated insulin that a ketogenic diet is trying to prevent.
Lastly, beware of carb creep. Watch your carb intake carefully, and try to stay under 20 g/day total. Some people feel comfortable counting only net carb intake, but you might find it helpful at first to go by 20 g/day total.
Thanks Paul!
However, wouldn’t increasing my Protein intake take me out of ketosis?
This is going to open a can of worms. My guess: no. I eat quite a bit of protein and lower fat, and still produce ketones (blood ketones that I test sometimes). Now, could eating a lot of protein lower your ketones? My guess is not by much, but having never tested this, I don’t know.
Also, there are large ranges of human variability. Just listened to a podcast with Nick Norwitz where he said he could eat a banana after exercise and he was still getting blood ketones of 2 mmol/l or greater. For me, my ketones are 0.2 or 0.3 every morning, and the only way for me to get near 2 mmol/l is to fast for multiple days.
@Ahmed_A
Welcome! It’s sounds like you are already in tip top condition.
Just curious… What is your motivation to be keto?
Currently the plan is to do it temporarily (1 to 2 months) in order to optimize my body fat % and also raise my testosterone level to get rid of the small “man boobs” (not too serious but definitely should be solved)
Hard to say as we all have our unique needs… I would starve like crazy with this low protein and low cal, personally… It doesn’t seem my high protein bothers my ketosis, I reached fat adaptation just fine with it but it doesn’t matter anyway as I am totally unable to eat lowish protein. Your protein intake isn’t super low, it may be even right for you, who knows, my own SO (who is taller, more muscular and much more male than I am 
) eats maybe half my protein I do with my most successful protein minimalization and he gained muscle with that amount… It’s pretty much individual.
Your food, as I wrote before is way too low-cal for me (I mean, I would be super hungry, I don’t say it’s too little compared to my energy need and fat-loss goals. IDK, I didn’t track it) and you don’t have very much fat mass to get energy from so it sounds little to me but it’s individual too, maybe it is just perfect for you to slim down a bit. That must be your goal if you eat this little I suppose.
Your meals seems pretty nice otherwise, it’s just the amount that may be off, more or less. But it can work for a short term if you don’t get too hungry.
Good luck to reach your goals! They shouldn’t take too much time
Thanks Shinita!
The daily caloric intake should range between 1000 to 1500 calories, which may be low but I’d assume that the increase in saturated Fats compared to a standard diet + intermittent fasting will make up for it. A big factor for me is to not have protein that will kick me out of ketosis.
What do you think?
EDIT: Forgot to mention that a high amount of butter/Olive oil will be consumed, which should help me be filled up
Looking good Ahmed.
I love some of those side dishes, the Sauerkraut and pecans etc. But yeah watch out for the carbs.
Avocado and pecans are really nice (in my book) but eating plenty can make ketosis harder.
Who knows, you may discover unexpected benefits and want a more permanant and long lasting state of ketosis. It happens!
Welcome to the forums.
It seems a bit individual. My friend’s ketones (she does medical keto) drop to trace level if she doesn’t keep her protein much much lower than what is recommended here and the only way I can get higher than trace ketones is if I do the same. However, I don’t need to prioritize ketones over sufficient protein to nourish my body and see no need for most people to do it either. If you’re very keen on having your ketones within a certain range you can always experiment with different protein amounts. Ketone levels naturally rise and fall during the day, sometimes with little rhyme or reason, so don’t take one or 2 readings as an answer to your experiment.
That’s a keto eating plan by the way, not a keto/carnivore one 
People who eat carnivore don’t eat plant food, with the exception of a bit of coffee and a few spices if they eat “relaxed carnivore”.
I’m aware however there is a lack of vegetables in my plan (or lack of diversity at least)
Not at all. Ketosis is a state that naturally occurs when our insulin drops below a certain point.
Since it is carbohydrate, which is entirely made up of glucose molecules, that triggers insulin secretion, we lower insulin by lowering our carbohydrate intake.
Recent research has shown that protein eaten along with carbohydrate causes a noticeable insulin spike, protein and fat eaten in the absence of carbohydrate cause no such spike.
This all makes sense if you remember that the main job of insulin is to cause energy to be stored. It rises to keep blood sugar under control by causing it to be stored as fat. Eating very little carbohydrate prevents all that from happening.
When we eat a lot of carbohydrate, our body uses that glucose to feed the brain, but that much glucose causes damage throughout the body (including the brain). When blood sugar–and therefore, blood insulin–is low, then the liver makes ketones out of the fat we eat, in order to feed our brain. Hence, if we are not eating carbohydrate, insulin cannot be allowed to rise, because that would halt ketogenesis and put us in a coma.
People have widely differing needs for protein, based on their daily nitrogen loss. The body can only use nitrogen atoms when they come as part of an amino acid, and amino acids are found only in proteins. It is possible to get into trouble by eating too much protein, but you are likely to be unable to cram that much meat into your gut in one go.
There used to be a speculation that excessive amino acids would be turned into glucose by the liver, but this belief has been shown to be untrue.
Would you mind linking the research to me if possible? Videos I’ve watched on Keto have said that Protein levels should be moderate or there will be an excess which turns to Glucose
Just be aware that 1600 calories a day was the starvation-level diet studied in the Minnesota Starvation Study at the end of World War II. It produced serious effects on the young men who were studied, including some serious mental problems. (One of the subjects injured himself in an attempt to get out of the study.)
It should also be noted that the men eventually regained the weight they lost, and then some, most of it in the form of fat. A long-term starvation diet can cause muscle wasting that is very difficult to reverse.
Usually when I buy, say chicken, from the supermarket it comes with around 400 to 450g of it.
Would it be excessive to consume all of that in one meal?
You asked for studies. Here’s one I was just getting ready to post:
The Metabolic Effects of Ketones, Bikman BT, Fisher-Wellman KH.Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Aug 2;22(15):8292. doi: 10.3390/ijms22158292.PMID: 34361057
As for protein calculations, here goes:
You weigh 80 kg, 65.6 of which appears to be lean mass, correct?
The RDA for protein is 0.8 g/kg/day = 52.48 g/day of protein, or roughly 210 g of meat. (Beef and other ruminant meats are 25% protein, chicken slightly less, and fish around 21%, but 1/4 will do for a back-of-the-napkin calculation).
Note, however, that 0.8 g/kg/day is a bare minimum, and it is an averaged based on a wide range of data points. You may very well be fine with less protein than that, or suffer if you do not eat more.
On these forums, we follow Dr. Stephen Phinney, who recommends 1.5-2.0 g/kg lean mass/day. Many other experts, in particular Prof. Benjamin Bikman, recommend more. Here are the calculations:
| Protein level (g/kg/day) | Daily protein (g) | Total daily meat (g) |
|---|---|---|
| 1.5 | 98.4 | 393.6 |
| 2.0 | 131.2 | 524.8 |
| 2.5 | 164.0 | 656.0 |
So a chicken weighing 450 g is not too much to eat in a day, However, a chicken containing 450 g of protein = 3.8 kg, which is probably a lot more than you are going to want to eat.
Eat when you’re hungry, stop eating when you stop being hungry, and don’t eat again until you are hungry again. If you feel hungry and want a snack, make sure it’s low-carb, high-fat and then make your next meal larger. On a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet, going many hours between meals is to be expected, and it allows insulin to drop and stop causing problems in your body.
I’ve tested eating 160+ grams of protein per meal, and my blood sugar never moved. This was using a CGM (continuous glucose monitor).
The one thing I could not test, even with a CGM, was whether my “overall” blood sugar would go up. In other words, would my “average” blood sugar be higher on the days I ate higher protein? I never did a test that was good enough to find that out. That would likely take 1-2 weeks of higher protein, and 1-2 weeks of higher fat, and comparing the two. I never did that.
I am curious, what is your lean body mass? And how many meals do you eat a day?