If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t know until my 7th or 8th week and I suffered absolutely zero harm.
I don’t think people intentionally withhold this tip. I know I’ve repeated it at least 50 times, but rarely to new members because I know they have a lot on their plate (pun intended).
I lowered everything after being fat adapted, not just the fats. Lowered protein and less fiber(daily carbs) also. This is mostly related to the energy output(in my lifestyle). If I need energy for longer periods for different activities I don’t mince around worrying about how much fat I eat. I eat what I need. For regular periods and intervals or day to day now compared to how I was one year ago, yes, my fat (and portions of everything else) have decreased significantly as has my appetite of course or desire/need to eat.
Why are you eating so much fat every day if you’re trying to lose weight? Are you hungry?
? Because that’s what’s preached on here. Eat fatty meats… tons of butter… coconut oil… whipping cream… mct oil… fat bombs… just to name a few things. It’s is conveyed that fat consumption does not attribute to weight gain. And that it actually contributes to weight loss.
This site is geared much more towards people dealing with extreme obesity or type 2 diabetes, and not so much towards weightlifters trying to get shredded.
The advice you see “preached” depends on both who is doing the preaching, and who is sitting in the pews.
You should only be eating enough to avoid being hungry, and to get adequate nutrition. The only time you would typically be eating tons of fat is when you first get started, to get your body shifted over into fat-burning. Once you are in lipolysis, you want to burn the fat on your body, not the fat from your food intake.
Unless you are looking for something other than fat loss, in which case you would want your intake to provide your body’s fuel needs.
and it does. Take Richard’s point of view Why we stall
and stall is usually recognized at 6 months to a year not 6 weeks.
It took you years to get this sick. Not fat. SICK. It seems to me you might want to be a little more patient. With that in mind also read Carl’s experience of adding fats here I'm losing weight again after a 1.5 year stall
@NickTunes We get caught between two paradigms of weight loss: the first is that the only thing that matters is your caloric intake, that all calories are the same. The second takes into account the hormonal effects of different types of food, and a whole complex of mechanisms by which the human body regulates itself.
The science behind a well-formulated ketogenic diet is based on the second model. Since insulin is the fat-storage hormone, the purpose of the diet is to lower insulin levels enough to give the body acess to its fat stores. Since carbohydrate is long chains of glucose molecules, and glucose in the bloodstream is what raises insulin levels, we advise keeping eating as little carbohydrate as possible.
Protein is protein, and the weight we want to lose is fat weight, not muscle, bone, or organ weight, so we keep our protein intake at a level that will preserve our lean tissue. Usually we can just continue eating it at the same level as before. Protein has an effect on insulin, about half that of carbohydrate, but we have to have it, so the insulin effect is a wash (we need some insulin anyway, or we will starve to death).
So where are all the calories that we need going to come from, now that we have eliminated all the carbohydrate calories we used to eat? Well, from fat, of course! Fat stimulates insulin at a negligible rate, so it is a safe source of calories.
But in the context of low carbohydrate, the next consideration is caloric intake. The body responds to the amount of calories we give it by either increasing the metabolic rate (in times of abundant food), decreasing the metabolic rate (in times of famine), or switching from dietary intake to the fat and protein reserves and leaving metabolic rate alone (in times of fasting, say when the mastodon meat has run out and it’s time to go hunt down another meat source).
So if you don’t give yourself enough calories, your body is going to start conserving your fat store, to make it through the famine. This is why we tell people who want to lose weight to eat fat. But what we tell them to do is to eat fat to satiety. Satiety does not mean the old, sugar-burning, “fill the stomach till it’s about to explode” amount of food, it’s the amount of fat that satisfies hunger. In my view, eating to satiety is the only way to be sure we’re not stinting ourselves on calories, because we are letting our body signal how much is enough, not dictating to it. By eating to satiety, we allow the body to set our appetite at a level which allows it to take from its excess stored fat, as well as from the food we eat. The only other choice, where weight loss is concerned, is to eat nothing, so that energy expenditure comes entirely from the bodily reserves. Merely eating less triggers the famine “reflex.”
So if you have been eating fat past the point of satiety (which I hope no one here ever told you to do), you definitely should cut back. If you have been eating to satiety and stopping, you can continue doing that, letting your body decide how much you should eat. Or you can do what most of us feel compelled to do, and try to out-think 2,000,000 years of evolution by manipulating input in order to influence output.
But it seems to me that if we influence quality of intake to eat the kinds of foods our ancestors evolved to eat, and influence quantity in accordance with the bodily mechanisms that were designed to regulate how much we eat, then we can’t fail to be healthy and fit.
@PaulL Thank you for that. And thank you to everyone else that posted. I’m much more clear on how to move forward from here.
One thing I hear a lot is to eat to satiety. But then I hear that it would be ideal to just have one meal a day - that in doing so would give your digestive system a break, only spike insulin once a day, and some other benefits. So I typically drink bulletproof for breakfast and then have 1 massive lunch and then 1 large dinner. The problem is that I eat tons for lunch but I could keep going if I wanted to. I’m always really hungry by lunch and I can east a lot. I don’t get a clear signal that I’m full unless I eat A LOT.
So maybe I’m not so sure on how to move on from here…
My experience was that eating to satiety involved a lot of food at the beginning. I have come to think that my body needed it, actually. But one day, in the middle of lunch, I suddenly lost interest in eating one bite more. It felt really weird, and I had to put a half-plate of food back in the fridge for later.
What had happened was that as my insulin dropped, the leptin secreted by my adipose tissue started to register in my hypothalamus again (too much insulin blocks the leptin receptors in the brain, which is one reason fat people are always hungry). At that point, my brain was able to regulate my appetite again. My food intake dropped considerably at that point, and my satiety signal has only gotten stronger since then.
Restricted eating is a technique for keeping your insulin level as low as possible for as much of the day as possible, but you don’t need to force it. Let it happen naturally. These days, my first meal of the day is usually around 2 p.m., just because I’m not usually hungry till then. But if I get hungry earlier in the day, I eat.
Switching to a ketogenic diet forces a lot of changes on the body. They are good changes, but a lot has to happen all at once. Try to let things come on their own, and work with your body, instead of feeling obliged to force your will on it. That’s what seems to work best for me, anyway. 
The bacon emojis are life!
I try to count macros and hit my goals per day but last week or so I am only eating to satiety. It does feel weird to feel full and not eat it all.
I used to eat breakfast, snacks, lilunch, snacks, dinner, snacks. I ate all the damn time and gained and gained. Now I have coffee with MCT powder, eat a small lunch like pimento cheese and celery a beef jerky around noon, then steak and steamed veggies for dinner. No I am by no means shredded, never will be, lol! But compared to what I used eat prior to keto it is amazing that I can just skip breakfast, eat a moderate amount of protein at lunch and then eat dinner around 6 and be satisfied.
Keep up the good work! I am a married lady, but I must say you look pretty, um, amazing already in your pic! 
You are obviously doing something right! KCKO
@NickTunes You look incredibly lean without any body fat to spare. I don’t get why you feel you need to lose weight. It seems like you’re a body builder and would be wanting to gain.
I always say the early hunger and cravings are simply the body having a “temper tantrum” at not getting the carbs it’s used to getting. Feed it primarily fat, a little protein, but as few additional carbs as possible, and it will learn it needs to use the stored body fat it has available. When the body does that, it no longer needs to signal hunger to get as much as it can of what it’s already got available.
Hi Paul, I don’t get hungry at all sometimes for more than 24 hours and end up eating about the 26 to 35 hour range. I don’t feel tired and I don’t try to starve myself. I honest to God have totally no desire to eat. That’s usually one meal every 1.5 or almost 2 days. Your post/explanation was extremely helpful for me above. Please bear with me because I’m very new to the science behind ketosis and fat-adaptation. I also don’t mean to confuse the matter. I read in a few articles(not on this website) that ketosis and fat adaptation are different states. Is this true? If not true, why is this believed by some? I am trying to understand what happened (chemically) where I am not hungry at all. Am I harming my insulin levels? When I eat I eat to satiety but then I stop. It doesn’t matter if I am mid-plate in something. Once I’m full I just saran wrap it or put it away for another day.
Sorry if this is a detour or so basic for anyone. Just wondering if you might have better suggestions on how I can tweak things to be a bit healthier.
2 years ago I weighed 235 without an ounce of muscle on me. I lost 45 lbs just by “eating healthy” and then gained about 20 back mostly muscle. I am an endomorph to the max and gain fat very easily. If my diet is not spot on I will gain fat. I recently had ACL surgery and I knew I would be out of the gym for a few weeks so I was scared to death that I would get fat again. So I decided it was a good time to start keto. I am about 15% body fat I would guess and I have been trying for months to get down below 10. The last 5% wouldn’t budge and I thought maybe keto would be just what I need. I am not worried about losing weight as I’m happy with my weight but my goal is to drop body fat and get sub 10%.
Most in shape athletes between 20-40 are very fit at 15-20% body fat but I found another reference of 8-19%. Your body might just want a little more fat than you’re willing to accept as a healthy balance. You’re obviously very proud of the work you put into that six pack so I understand your wanting to keep those muscles visible! 
♂
It might not have been food, it might have been vitamins and minerals. The low fat diet (and grains) is death to those. That’s why Atkins recommended some multivitamins to start.
Well, it is certainly my understanding that ketosis and fat-adaptation are different, and people on the forums report that as their experience, and Dr. Phinney himself talks that way. Ketosis is ketone bodies above a certain level in the bloodstream. The liver starts producing ketone bodies as soon as there is no more glucose (i.e., carbohydrate) coming into the body from outside and the internal stores begin to drop. So people generally show ketones almost immediately, certainly within two or three days.
Fat-adaptation is when the mitochondria of the muscle cells re-learn their ability to metabolize fatty acids. Apparently, without glucose, they can limp along on ketones, but ketones are fatty acids that have already been partially burned (the term is “intermediate metabolites”), and the muscles do really well starting from the original fatty acids. But the process of changing back to fat metabolism (which we were doing at birth) takes time. Mitochondria have to heal, new ones have to be born, and as I understand it, there are certain enzymes or hormones that the muscle cell has to start producing again. The result is that fat-adaptation takes time. So—ketosis begins in a few days, but fat-adaptation takes 6-8 weeks in most cases, sometimes longer.
Just to confuse you, I should mention that Dr. Phinney makes a distinction between the terms “keto-adaptation” and “fat-adaptation.” He sees them as being different, somehow, but I don’t understand what the difference is.
Lack of hunger is a complex cascade of hormones mediated by the brain by way of the vagus nerve. I’m not up on all the details, but I can tell you that the stomach secretes ghrelin to make us hungry, it secretes some other hormone when it is stuffed/stretched full, and the (small?) intestine secretes peptide YY to shut off hunger. Also, the fat tissue secretes leptin to tell the brain that we have enough stored energy to go without eating for a while. This hormone registers in the hypothalamus, and too high an insulin level blocks the receptors from noticing the leptin.
When the hypothalamus receives that leptin signal, it is supposed to tell the stomach to stop secreting ghrelin. Other stuff is supposed to happen, too, that I don’t remember. The only other thing I can tell you is that appetite regulation occurs in the hypothalamus, particularly the ventro-medial hypothalamus, and that damage to that region of the brain causes problems with hunger and satiety. Anyway, it can’t harm your insulin level in any way that I am aware of. Insulin secretion is managed by certain cells in the pancreas, in regions known as the Islets of Langerhans. One type of cell in the islets secretes insulin in response to the blood sugar level, a second type secretes glucagon, which limits the action of insulin in certain situations.
The way you are eating, to satiety and stopping, is exactly how we are supposed to eat.
For me satiety is very different from having a full stomach, because I just lose interest in eating more, even though my stomach is nowhere near full. By contrast, as a sugar-burner, I could eat until my stomach was hurting from being so full, and still be hungry for more. So we could say that keto is not an all-you-can-eat diet, but an enough-to-make-you-happy diet.
Sorry this turned into such a tome!
You might try eating more at breakfast to reduce hunger at lunch. Or you might experiment with things that can impact satiety signaling such as starting a meal with a glass of water, a bowl of soup or high water content vegetables such as celery. Often it takes time for satiety to kick in, so slow down your meals or drink water before the meal or reserve a portion of the meal to be eaten 30 minutes later. Engaging in activity immediately after eating but not yet satiated can blunt the hunger signaling and give satiety a chance to emerge. And if still hungry after some activity eat something fatty like a handful of macadamia nuts and give it a little more time.
Is the eating more at breakfast tip a long term solution? It goes against the “eat as few times a day as possible.”
Or is it just until I am completely fat adapted and comfortable with eating a smaller lunch? Same question goes for saving the rest of my meal for 30 minutes later.
It’s my understanding that we would be better off eating one huge meal a day in order to reduce insulin spikes. And that every time you eat you raise insulin to a degree which puts you in fat storing mode. This reasoning is why I eat 2 large meals a day, opposed to 4-5 small meals.