New guy with a questions about the 20 grams of carb limit and where too find a diet calculator

(charlie3) #1

My interest in keto started a month ago. I’m getting up to speed listening to many different people on Youtube. It’s my talk radio at work. In the past couple of weeks I’ve been systematically eliminating carbs. Last Sunday I skipped breakfast, lunch, and dinner and wasn’t hungry, probably because of all the fats I’m eating. I’m doing the same today, also a Sunday. I exercised both days and that seems to make the fasting easier. So far so good.

Decades ago I was a hobby lifter with a very good home gym. I still have that gym and started using again a month ago. In younger days I exploited my metabolism to grow muscle. Now I’ll exploit my muscle too grow metabolism. Too bad I ever stopped lifting but it’s nice too have that previous experience. I’m way more patient these days.

  1. Is there an androiid (or browser-based) diet logger, including macro and micro neutrients, that isn’t dominated by the developers food ideology or driven by personal information harvesting? I’d like some precision in the beginning. For instance I’m not trying to loose or gain weight. I’d rather replace 10-15 pounds of fat with an equal amount of muscle. My waist is 34 inches today. It was 30-31 inches as a young man. I can have that waist again. That measurement seems more important than body weight.

  2. Can someone explain the arbitrary 20 grams of carbs limit? My breakfast has zero carbs but I like to eat a huge salad for dinner as I did years ago. There are probably more than 20 grams of carbs (80 calories) in the vegetables. Lets say I need 2400 calories a day to maintain. If I never go above 200 calories of carbs per day eventually that has to mean I’m getting 90% of my calories from fat, right? It’s hard to believe the extra 120 calories drastically undermines the diet. What am I missing? (I do get that protein needs to be limited to what’s needed so that isn’t converted to fuel.)

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

#2

Hey!

I’m only relatively new, so Ill let the experts respond to your bigger questions!

But for a diet tracker, I use FatSecret and find it really good. I was going to change over to use my Fitbit tracker, but it wasnt anywhere near as good as Fatsecret for Keto. Ive seen that otherson the forum use MyFitnessPal (I think I have the name right…)

Hope you give it a whirl! And good luck with your quest on the other info. I Imagine folks on here might know specific YouTube videos they could refer you to, or threads that have covered some of the deets in depth before too. And there might be some juicy info on lifting-related stuff in the ‘exercise’ section in the meantime too.

All the best!

(Lonnie Hedley) #3

The idea behind keeping carbs below 20g net (total-fiber) is that it’s the best way to guarantee your body will get into ketosis. If you’re not giving your body carbs for fuel, it will start producing ketones for fuel. In a nutshell. Same goes for protein. Moderate so you have enough to rebuild muscle while working out, but not so much it gets turned into glucose by gluconeogenisis.

#4

Cronometer, great app, tracks both macro and micro’s and VERY customizable in near every way. App and Web access. I have the premium subscription but I don’t think too much is missing in the free version. I can say for certain the free version has more going on than the paid version of myfitnesspal.

(charlie3) #5

But what’s the important difference between 95% fat in the diet and 90%? If I’m burning 100 calories an hour and I’m only eating 2 hours worth of carbs day to day pretty soon I’m burning fat. Whats the difference between 1 hour worth of carbs and 2 hours?

The last time I was a lifter, all those years ago, what I understood is the protien we eat is digested down to amino acids. Those go into the blood stream and are turned iinto many thousands of different protiens. Muscle tissue is only one of them. Most of the daily amino acids come from recycled protiens. Protien we eat is just the makeup supply. I believe a lactating female needs more additional protien than the biggest bodyy builder.

I will take a look at the two diet calculators mentioned above.

(Vincent Hall) #6

I use Fat secret, very handy for setting ul your own saved meals whjch I do.
I also consume a large salad for my lunch or main meal if I’m OMAD (quite often) example of Fat secret app below with a couple of my screen shots.
I’m around 20 net carbswith your weight lifting you should use up any carbs fairly easily I imagine. I’m currently off the weights due to shoulder injury. By the way, don’t push it too hard. Ive learned from experience That what I could do some years back takes some care now.
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(charlie3) #7

I ended up with cronometer and got a one year supcription. I like the flexibility and exhaustive micro nutrients. Thankk for the tip. I don’t think I could do strict keto without an app. Keeping carbs so low AND protien optimal is challenging, especially since I’m a bachelor who was never a fan of cooking and I’m living alone and working stupid long hours with a long commute… I want to be a regular participant in the forum. That’s going to be challenging too so foregive me if sometimes it takes days to respond.

My commute starts at 5 AM and I’m back home at 7:15 PM, shorter hours on Saturdays and some Sundays. Through all that time away from home Youtube is my talk radio (unlimited data). That is a lot of time to learn a topic. Everybody who deserves a listen is there.

I think we are adapted for fats too be the primary fuel. My body knows when I’ve had enouogh fat calories. It does not know when I’ve had enough carbs. May be overeating carbs is an adaption too. Carbs would have mostly been available in the Fall. Why not fatten up on them because temperatures will be lower and fats will be harder to get because the grass eatinng game they hunted will be moving around more because of less productive pasture in the off season.

Cronometer is telling me I’m eating 300-400 calories less per day than I supposedly need to maintain weight. But I feel full. May be my metabolism is sophisicated enoough to know I’m carrying a few more pounds than is optimal so why not suppress appetite and knock off a few? May be that’s why keto works so well for weight loss.

Crono says I’m getting half the fiber I should be even though dinner is a gigantic salad with cheeese and dressing for calories. My digestive system agrees some fiber would be nice.
What’s a better source of additional fiber than metamucil?

Thank for anwersing my questions.

#8

Gotta remember that Cronometer is still making educated guesses, and even when you set it to ketogenic a lot of what it does is tweak %'s but unless you override things many of it’s metrics are still based on RDAs that don’t really apply to us. Luckily all of those can be changed by you to what you want to take in. If your seizing up on the crapper keep in mind fats do a lot for us what fiber does, supplementing in magnesium in it’s citrate form will absolutely help, and MCT oil is great for keeping things moving as well as energy. C8 oils are the best for the energy. You feeling full overrides any calculation your dealing with EXCEPT when your in the gym and bulking, then calories become a target you need to hit. But for maintenance and loss your body knows better than any calculator regardless of how customized it is for the way you eat.