Hey yall…im surviving the first week so far.
Got a question about Macros.
I was advised to use a Keto Macro Calculator to calculate my Macros and there is a section on the Calculator that asks at what % deficit do i want to eat at.
So i put 20% which gave me roughly 1750 calories
If i had put in a 30% deficit, it would have been set at 1450.
For reference i am 262 lbs and 5"11 and
48% BF with a Sedentary level of exercise.
So my question is…is it better to eat at 30% deficit? Will i have better results at a larger deficit or am i screwing myself over by doing so?
You’re a a little taller than I am and younger but our macros are about the same (similar weight). I notice that when I calorie restrict (even unintentionally), I just don’t lose. When I have a day where I eat a little more of non carb food, a pound drops off. It’s counterintuitive for sure.
However at your stage, don’t restrict at all. Just concentrate on your 20g / day of carbs. Let the protein and fat be what they will. Measure and record everything you eat (fat, protein, carbs & calories), this info will become very handy in a few weeks time, when you start to adjust your macros to best suit you.
This will help you get a good start. I wouldn’t worry too much about losing weight for the first few weeks. Just use the time to get your body (and mind) used to this WOE and settling down with it.
If you concentrate too much on the results of the diet and not the mechanics of it, you will increase the risk of failure.
Calculators seem to always be about “daily” everything.
Dropping daily calories will lead to metabolic slowdown after seeming to work for a while.
The more keto / fat adapted you are, the longer that while will be.
A 5’11” new-to-keto person jumping daily calories down to 1450 really sounds like good weight loss for a few weeks followed by plateau and gain at the same level after your metabolism adjusts to its new perceived low-calorie norm.
But, a much better and metabolically safer way to drop calories by about 15% is to skip a day of eating per week (and obviously 2 days for 30%). Metabolism stays the same or increases - everything gets better short term (weight goes down just as fast) and long term (weight keeps going down as long as you want it to).
30% is a pretty aggressive deficit for anyone really, I’d say 20% is more sustainable over a long term period and is what I follow.
Mirror what @RobC has just said about your metabolism too, body defence mechanisms will kick in, the bigger the deficit wont necessarily = quicker linear weight loss.
Ideally, you’d keep net carbs low (to stay in ketosis), get adequate protein (based on body composition and activity level), and ingest fat as needed (for hunger and energy). From that perspective, calories are irrelevant.
For me, the hard part is “fat as needed” because I have five decades of bad eating habits to unlearn. My “hunger” signals are still confused.
PaulL
(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?)
#8
This is good advice.
The point of a low-carb/keto diet is to keep insulin low, so that the body can burn fat instead of glucose, so keeping carbohydrate under 20 g/day is most of this way of eating. There is quite a range of protein intake possible; the idea is to get enough to avoid muscle wasting, and not so much as to poison oneself with ammonia toxicity. Fat, since it stimulates insulin the least, is the safest source of calories, so we recommend eating enough of it to be able to avoid hunger between meals. There is no target amount, just eat until you’re no longer hungry, then stop.
If you have excess fat to burn off, your body will adjust your appetite automatically so that you will be able to burn both the fat you eat and the fat coming from your body. Trying to set an arbitrary level of calories to eat generally just confuses things, so let your body tell you, instead. It’s really hard to out-think 2,000,000 years of evolution, anyway.
