Keto Newb

(The amazing autoimmune 🦄) #61

I love my instantpot I use it all the time. At least 3-4 times a week.

(Carl Keller) #62

Try boiling some eggs ahead of time. Keep them in fridge and grab them on the go if you need to. Add some Almonds and you have a decent keto friendly meal that you can eat on the run.

This could be due to not driking enough water and not getting enough salt in your system. Keto foods typically don’t have a lot of natural salt so you need to add it. I drink salt water a few times a day, plus I salt everything. Aim for 2 teaspoons of salt and at least 8 cups of water (2 liters).

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #63

Get to the doctor and find out what’s wrong. Blood in the stool is a serious problem.

Be sure to get enough salt. Constipation is one of the symptoms of sodium deficiency, also known as “keto flu.”

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #64

Instant Pot is a brand of pressure cooker, yes?

(Running from stupidity) #65

Nooooo…

Yup, and slow cooker, all in one! (I’ve got a Philips one.)

#66

Not sure how to tackle this one. I mean every piece of meat I eat is loaded with sodium-bacon, brats, sausage, jerky. I season all my foods. Other than eating teaspoons of it I am not sure what else I can do. I am hoping it is my body is just adjusting to my changes in diet and once the floodgates open again I will be fine.

It’s amazing. It can do it all. Hard boil eggs, steam rice, make bone broth, etc.

#67

I will try to up my water. I usually shoot for a MINIMUM of 40oz but probably end up usually at 80+. Not sure about the drinking salt water. Gross.

#68

Day 3 Recap-I was not as hungry as day two for sure. It still had it’s moments. I did get hungry shortly after dinner. I had some bacon and that seemed to hold me over.

Day 4-Back at the gym. Kept it light again. 25 minutes on the treadmill. I woke feeling pretty hungry which I was not happy about. Oddly after my workout I was feeling less hungry. I still have not eaten anything and feel meh about it. I mean I could eat but I am not too bad.

I am concerned with the weekend. I am hoping I stay busy enough that I am not wondering to the pantry every 5 minutes. Should be interesting.

#69

[quote=“juice, post:65, topic:62939, full:true”]

Nooooo…

LOL Now you’ve upset him Paul :grimacing:

#70

So I have done well this weekend. I have kept to the diet inspite wanting something sweet. I have to say I still have a lot of hunger daily. I have been very disappointed by this. It’s frustrating. Looking forward to Tuesday weigh in to see if it was all worth it.

(Running from stupidity) #71

Eat.

This is a long-term thing, not a week-by-week thing. (Also, weight is far from the only useful metric in determining success or failure.)

#72

This seems like an oversimplification. I know we can eat whatever as long as we are under 20 carbs. The problem I have is the lack of options. Meat, Cheese, Eggs…repeat. There is not a lot of variety and 6 days in I have probably gone through 4 mega packs of bacon. This weekend I made omelets and then egg muffins for breakfast this week. 36 eggs later we are out of eggs. Keep in mind this is not all for me. I have 4 people I am feeding.

I get the inches argument but early on it would be nice to see some results. I read it is typical to lose quite a bit in the beginning even if it is water weight. So a 0 or worse would be a let down.

#73

Day 6-I think the time change yesterday was partly to blame for my hunger. It seems like it happens every time there is a change. Still it was hard to not eat junk over the weekend. It is our time to go out as a family. Damn Starbucks came out with their holiday drinks too. I was good though.

I am feeling a little better today. I did a light cardio for 25 minutes on the treadmill this morning. I actually think weekdays will be easier than weekends. I need to head over to the recipes section and try to get some more recipes. Need to diversify. I will say a lot of the food I have been making has been good.

#74

Day 7-Sound the trumpets!!! I made it a week. Small steps…Weighed myself and dropped 4 lbs. I will take it. Have a lot more to lose but it is progress and helps justify the struggle. Workouts will ramp up now that my daughter has to be up at 4:30am for practice…YAWN. One concern is Saturday I am meeting some old co-workers out for drinks. While I have no problem living life from time to time, I wish it was a month in and not 10-11 days. Time to research low carb drinks that are not called Michelob Ultra.

(John) #75

First few weeks were a bumpy ride for me. I made a commitment to stick it out for 6 weeks before evaluating, because I know from past experience that it takes about that long for any significant change in diet or exercise to show real results.

I found that the natural appetite suppression appeared during week 4. I found that I felt completely normal (no significant swings in energy - not feeling like crap in the morning) by about week 6.

You just need to be patient and allow your body time to react, adjust, fight back against you, and eventually adapt.

There will be days when it will be surprisingly easy and effortless, and days where it will take discipline and determination and be tough to stick to it.

You have three battles going on at the same time.

First, your body wants you to keep the weight on and wants more carbs, because it is used to running on glucose and prefers that as a fuel. It will mess with you in various ways - it will make you tired, hungry, cranky.

Second, the mental game. This is under your control, but is the hardest battle because it is you vs. you. This is where you learn how much you eat out of habit, out of stress, as a self-medication for other issues which you may not be dealing with head on. This is where you can fool yourself, or make excuses, or bounce back and forth between “oh, this is just a fad/quackery” and “this is a good approach backed by science.”

You will be more successful if you approach it like a true believer, and save the skepticism for a planned re-evaluation period after 6 to 8 weeks when you have some actual results to look at.

Third is the external factors that you may have varying levels of control over. Time pressures from work, social pressures to share food/drinks with others, family pressures.

But here is the bottom line - whatever your lifestyle has been up until now is how you got where you are. If you are wanting to change that, you are going to have to change your lifestyle. If you are not willing to do that and to commit to it, you will fail. There is no way around it.

I suggest a 6-week commitment to trying it. If at the end of 6 weeks you decide that the benefits are not worth the effort, then do something else.

Or go back to your prior lifestyle at least armed with the additional information you may have learned about food, about yourself, and your external pressures and maybe you can use that to make healthier choices, or decide to accept yourself at whatever weight you are and accept that it is your choice.

#76

You sir should right a book. Thank you for your thorough and spot on assessment. Admittedly, I am not a fan of waiting 6 weeks for final evaluation (seems like a lifetime) but I am sure you are correct. To your point on arming myself with new information, you are definitely correct there. I am amazed by what I have learned already. I am using ingredients I have never used before. Honestly most the food has been good, although I have failed on any Keto dessert I have attempted. The meals are good though. I would definitely continue egg muffins in the future. So convenient during the week.

(John) #77

Mark Sisson also recommends 6 weeks in his blog.

I was seeing good enough results by week 3 to make me willing to stick with it. End of week 3 and early week 4 were a stall with even a little re-gain.

By end of week 4 my hunger signals were under conscious control and I was able to do my first intermittent fast - 30 hours. It was not planned - I just got really busy at work and didn’t have time for lunch, and by the time I got home from work it was late (like 9pm) and I didn’t feel like cooking. When I got up the next morning (day off) I was still not especially hungry and didn’t eat until about noon, so that was my first meal since the previous day’s breakfast. THAT was a big surprise. It was like “Oh, I just don’t have to eat unless I decide to.”

Week 5 I lost the extra couple of pounds from the stall/gain week and things were back on track.

Point being - if I had just looked at week 3, where my loss stalled and even reversed a bit, even though I was doing things right, I might have decided it didn’t work and wasn’t worth the hassle.

Sticking with it (like I decided I would when I started) allowed me to just grind through the hard parts.

To me the biggest benefit isn’t the weight loss you may or may not see in the first few weeks, but the ability to not eat unless I consciously choose to. That’s the tool that’s going to make me successful long-term.

#78

Great stuff again John. How much weight have you lost?

30 hours…crazy.

I get the scale is not the only thing. That said I have about 90lbs. It has been my experience that any change in eating results in a loss the first week. It would be different if I was just looking to lose 10lbs. I do understand there will be weeks where the scale does not move.

I will say I look forward to getting to a point where I do not have to eat. I will have to look into fasting more at that time. I feel like the body should get some nutrients to keep going but I am sure there is information to the contrary or it would not be a thing.

#79

Just read your blog post. Good info. The fruit part will help my youngest daughter who loves fruit. I like his emphasis on aerobic activity. I need that reminder. I prefer to lift but his explanation coincides with what I am seeing on the lifting forum here. His eating fat is a nice reality check too. Although I have not been going nuts with it. I have eaten a lot of bacon and fattier meats. I will have to try to dial that back a bit.

(John) #80

That’s a good question. Somewhere in the 25 to 30 pound range.

I didn’t weigh in before I started. My home scale only has markings up to 300 and I was well into the blank space above that. I did have a weigh-in at my allergist’s office about a week into it, and that was 320 wearing light clothing (no shoes, empty pockets). So I set a marker on my scale in the blank space when I got home that day and said “OK, this is 320.”

The home scale is currently showing around 290 - 292 so I am calling it somewhere between 25 to 30 pounds. Considering I am hoping for a 1-to-2 pound per week loss over the long term, that’s more than I was expecting or hoping for. It has not been perfectly linear, and I am still early in the process.

My long term goal weight is about 180 (male, 6’1.5", 60 years old), so I still have over 100 pounds before I get there. Like I said, I am expecting it to be a 2-year journey to get there and then a long-term maintenance after that, which I will figure out when I get closer.

Keep in mind that there are different approaches to ketogenic diets. Mark Sisson’s is not as “pure keto” and is a little more “low carb,” and he does emphasize exercise, but that’s not surprising considering his background as an athlete. It’s good to read different approaches and viewpoints, so you can try different things and chart your own path.

I am kind of playing it by ear to see what does and does not work for me.

Sounds crazy, but what that meant was I had a full breakfast on Friday, didn’t have time for lunch, had to work late and skipped dinner, slept in Saturday and didn’t eat breakfast until about noon, then had a nice full breakfast/lunch and a nice dinner on Saturday.

So I ate every day, just skipped 3 meals in a row, plus normal sleeping time (when most of us who aren’t on a feeding tube are fasting anyway.)