Need help with balance and understanding

keto
newbies
food
(Michael Sperring) #1

Hello everyone,
I appreciate any knowledge that you may be able to give. I am 2.5 weeks in on my Keto journey and I am having a hard time trying to figure out a balance. Currently I am losing weight but I am worried it is not Keto weight loss and I want to be able to long term sustain.

Exercise:
30 minutes / 1.5 miles on a treadmill daily
Macros:
I am taking in less than 20g of carbs a day and average about 60g of protein or lower. However my Calorie and fat intake are not super high.
An example yesterday I took in 701 calories from food Carbs: 13g Protein: 59g Fat: 25g.

I thought this was bad, everything says that I need more fat so last week for a few days I started mixing half a cup of Heavy Whipping Cream into a fat shot (Water and heavy whipping cream)
My fitness pal showed it was doing the job to hit my macros however on this time I stopped losing weight then on the final day I actually gained weight back. In response I stopped the heavy whipping cream shot and went back to losing weight. I am unsure of why I gained back since I thought I was hitting the macros well. I am detailed about checking labels and counting macros. I have been playing it safe and I am even using total carbs instead of net carbs.

Info about me:
35 Male, starting weight 330Ibs, current weight 309Ibs
Time 2.5 weeks.

Thank you again I appreciate your time and support.

#2

You need to eat more food! 300 lbs and 700 calories while also exercising is not enough. Keto is not a calorie restricting diet. You need to feed your body good food so it can learn to become a fat burning machine. Add butter to your veggies or your meat. Eat some avocados. Dairy can be problematic for some people… You can add fat in other ways. It’s only been a couple weeks. Be patient. Good things will happen.

(Carl Keller) #3

Hello and welcome Michael.

Ditto to what @hapygirl said. It’s not calorie restriction. It’s carb restriction.

There are people who literally eat more food when doing keto than they did when they were overweight or obese and still lose weight. And it’s because they have changed the behavior of their hormones. By restricting carbs we don’t encourage insulin to store a portion of everything we eat. Fat does not have this effect on insulin and that’s why we never need to go hungry to be successful.

Keto is this simple:

Keep net carbs under 20.
~You can likely start a bit higher and work your way down but 20 is a good honest number that will allow you to eat plenty of vegetables along with fat and protein.

Use a carb tracker like cronometer.com
~so you can accurately track your carbs. It tracks many other things but this is the most important

Feed yourself plenty of fat and fairly moderate protein
~These two things are your best friend in regards to keeping hunger and cravings in check. You should not gorge yourself on these things but eat until you are not hungry. It’s very important to not starve yourself, so eat when you are hungry.

Keep your electrolytes up.
~At least 64oz (2liters) of water and 2+ teaspoons of salt per day. We don’t retain either of these very well on a ketogenic diet and those two things are paramount for reducing/preventing the Keto Flu

Don’t stress and get plenty of sleep.
~Growing, healing and losing weight work best when we are relaxed. So try to get 7-9 hours per day and don’t obsess with what keto is not yet doing.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #4

I’m not sure why you’re complaining,
21 lbs. in two and a half weeks is pretty great even if it was mostly water. Weight loss is not linear in keto. You will stay the same, loose weight and gain it all in a week if you check daily. Don’t do that. Instead take some measurements. Waist, arms, thighs, chest and so on. Pay attention to how your clothes are fitting, are they getting looser? You’re going through plenty of changes besides weight loss as your metabolism and hormonal responses are being repaired. You didn’t get to 330 in a few months and you won’t loose it that fast either. Thinking of this as a lifestyle change instead of a diet is crucial. Keto will help you keep your victories for life if you stay with it for the long haul. My best wishes for your success brother. :cowboy_hat_face:

(MyLove MyLife) #5

Focus on taking a healthy meal and satisfy your stomach, not your mind, make it a keto lifestyle don’t even think about the workout or losing weight. Take a high-fat healthy meal if your calorie goal is 1600 means try to take 1300 cal food per day. Don’t have to strain your body mostly to try for active life, and try Intermittent fasting like 16/8 or 20/4. All the best.

(Michael Sperring) #6

I appreciate the help, I know that I should eat more calories and fat I am just cautious because of the reverse results when I used the HWC. I need to find better food choices for increasing my fat and calorie intake.

(Running from stupidity) #7

I addition to the above good advice, there’s this.

Keto is this easy (Keto for beloved noobs)

This is for Phase One - the starter phase. It’s still not complicated later, but this is the really easy to explain version which will help you no end.

  • Eat under 20g of carbs a day

  • Don’t worry about the scale

  • Eat plenty of good food - fat and protein - while adhering to 20g/carbs/day. Don’t worry too much about macros and calories EXCEPT carbs. Keep them below 20g/day. (Prioritize the protein - always start with protein in every meal, but don’t panic about it.) Your job is to get fat-adapted, so give your body the fuel you want it to use. Also, your appetite will vary - it’ll disappear, then it’ll come roaring back. Happens to most people, don’t sweat it.

  • ELECTROLYTES/SALT - KEEP THEM UP

  • Buy the meat you can afford - don’t stress about grass-fed, organic (con), etc… The worst meat is better than the best bread.

  • Fasting is a tool. Nothing more, nothing less. Works for lots, not for others. Don’t let tools tell you to use it before you’re fat-adapted and it makes sense.

  • This site has a search function (magnifying glass at the top of the page) and a newbies section - use them both, you’ll get a better variety of answers to your questions far more quickly that way. SERIOUSLY, THIS IS VERY USEFUL.[1]

That’s as difficult as it needs to be for a couple of months.

My good friend Terence (being friends with a Kiwi feels kinda dirty, but there you have it, keto makes for strange bedfellows) tells me this thing I have described above is called “dirty keto.” So yeah, do dirty keto, kids! :slight_smile:

Lots of Love, THE JUICE

Expanded version is HERE

[1]If you can’t find a useful answer after searching and reading for a while, we can help you a lot more if you tell us relevant data about yourself such as your reasons for doing keto, your weight/height/age/gender, a sample menu plan & any relevant health conditions.

(Carl Keller) #8

That’s correlation… most likely influenced by water gains. Water gain and loss can fluctuate +/- 3 pounds on any given day. Don’t blame the HWC.

#9

I would not restrict calories to this degree… Especially when starting. Keto is about reprogramming hormones not restricting calories

(Running from stupidity) #10

Indeed.

FWIW, yesterday I weighed 1.2kg more than I did the day before.

Now, the day before I think I was a little dehydrated because it was hot and I was doing a lot of work and couldn’t drink as much as I wanted as I was out for a lot of it.

Then yesterday my body was busy reclaiming that hydration, so I was drinking a fair bit.

And 1.2kg is only two Camelbak bottles worth of fluid. That’s how easy it is to get a decent weight fluctuation going.

(Michael Sperring) #11

No complaint, I am happy with my results thus far but I want to do this right and in a sustainable way.

(Michael Sperring) #12

Thank you everyone for your advice! I will try adding HWC back into my diet and give myself more time to adjust. :smile:

(Hyperbole- best thing in the universe!) #13

The extreme calorie restriction you were doing works great… at first.

If you up your food amount in protein and fat your weight loss may slow down or stop… at first.

But what your body is doing while not losing is repairing itself and learning how to use fat for fuel. This is what you want. This will lead to long term weight loss while maintaining muscles and improving health all over, not just the scale.

Calorie restriction, on the other hand, damages your body while losing fat and muscle, and ruins your metabolism.

Healthy weight loss may include some calorie restriction, but more as an effect than a cause. And 700 is waaaayyyyyy too low, even if you do want to consciously restrict calories.

But it sounds like you are starting well and asking the right questions!

#14

Eat more protein. Eat fat until you feel full. You don’t have to force feed yourself fat. You are just training your body to use fat for energy instead of carbs. You shouldn’t feel hungry on this way of eating.

Protein has a lot of the nutrients your body needs and if you skimp there you won’t feel good. Also don’t forget to eat lots of low carb veggies (broccoli, brussels sprouts, spinach, bok choy, celery, dark green leafy salads…) as they are also full of the electrolytes you need.

If you go low on protein you will lose muscle mass and you don’t want to do that, so don’t go low on it.

(John) #15

At your age and weight, you should be eating somewhere in the range of 2000 to 2100 calories a day (or more). Probably 110g to 130g of protein, 150-170g of fat. You should still be able to get a sustainable weight loss at that level of intake - just not the super-fast loss you have already seen.

(mole person) #16

I’m almost always the one cautioning against too much protein so believe me when I say you are eating too little of it. 60 grams is what I eat and I’m 5’5 and 110 lbs. You don’t want to starve your body of this necessary macronutrient as you’ll only suffer later from metabolic slowdown or worse.

How tall are you? We can help you sort out an appropriate protein level.

This is actually not the best way of getting your fat. As a @juice recommends, you want to have your fat with your protein meals. Try to think of good fatty meals. If you have difficulty with this feel free to ask here. There is an excellent thread on this forum where people talk about what they eat and share pictures and recipes. I believe it’s called : “What did you keto today: part deux”.

#17

Hi Michael,

I would agree with most of the replies that you don’t want to calorie-restrict but I can’t tell from your original post: are you restricting on purpose or are you just not hungry?
If you’re able to access your fat stores already (not likely for most people in just a few weeks, but it varies depending on your history and your genetics), then you’re not actually restricting calories because you’re getting some from your own fat stores. Seven hundred calories from food plus more from your own fat might be just fine for you. Forcing in more fat to meet some arbitrary numbers doesn’t make any sense to me, and even protein is something that you can measure in longer time periods (e.g. are you getting enough in a week to maintain your lean tissue) so you might not need to get to a particular number every single day.

You’ll likely find that things shift quite a bit in terms of hunger, satiation, energy levels, etc so I wouldn’t worry about the trends from your first month continuing indefinitely.

(Lori) #18

I need someone to help me out. Started keto 9 weeks and only lost 12 lbs. does that seem normal?

(Carl Keller) #19

It truly depends… on

how close you are to normal weight

how much you are restricting carbs

how much your body and hormones need to heal in order to safely let go of fat

how much stress is in your life

and how much food you are eating or even not eating.

If you could tell us your age, current weight, height and a brief overview of what you might be eating in a day, it would be easier to offer advice, if that’s what you would like. :slight_smile:

(Michael Sperring) #20

No restricting intentionally, I read in a Keto book that my protien intake should not pass 60g and carb 20g so I have been staying under 60g of protien(apparently mistakenly). This has me not getting nearly enough calories even with healthy food choices.

Also I am 6’ 1" tall