New to the keto journey, and this site. Just wanted to converse over some things

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #21

Thank heaven for the Edit button, is all I can say, lol! :grinning:

(chuck) #22

The macros for tuna has barely any fat which I keep falling short of, I guess if I added mayonnaise or something that would help. But and I am new at this, I need to focus on foods that will get me to hit my macros.

(Diane) #23

I like adding mayo, chopped sharp cheddar and/or chopped green olives to up the fat (along with a squeeze of lemon juice and fresh cracked black pepper or hot sauce to up the flavor). You can also add good olive oil, if you don’t like creamy dressings, it’s really flavorful with tuna.

I like to have more options for my meals (and these options are easy and quick). It keeps me happy and motivated to KC and KO.

(LeeAnn Brooks) #24

Definately add mayo and I buy it packed in EVOO and don’t drain.

(Aimee Moisa) #25

Ah, I see. I never eat tuna without mayo so for my macros tuna is VERY fatty! :slight_smile:

Good luck!

(LeeAnn Brooks) #26

I love tuna melts. I can’t have the rye swirl bread anymore, but I’ve taken the tuna and made a pile right on the griddle, then top with cheese, and carefully scoop it all up once cheese had melted and set inside Romain lettuce leaves.

Yummy.

(Diane) #27

Bookmarked!

(chuck) #28

Well, yesterday makes a full week that I’ve been on keto. As the days progress figuring out what combinations to eat to make my macros gets a bit easier. As of yesterday evening on my test strip I showed up “moderate” which is a 5.0.

Now this morning after breakfast I feel a bit nauseated, which for me is quite unusual. Also slightly disoriented , but that could just be the whole Friday morning thing. I’ve read nausea might be a sign of low salt. Breakfast was 3 scrambled eggs with cheese and an Italian sausage.

(LeeAnn Brooks) #29

Yes, nausea can be due to too little salt. Try sucking on some and see if it goes away. If it’s due to salt, it will go away within about 5 minutes.

#30

Oh that sounds wonderful–I love tuna melts! I’m new to keto but have been avoiding bread for the past year or so after doing a Whole30 and discovering that bread does awful things to me.

I have been getting my tuna melt fix by mixing up a can of tuna with mayo and a squirt of mustard, then cutting up a cheddar cheese stick and a piece or two of cooked bacon and mixing it all together and putting it on romaine, or just eating it straight. I miss the warm, gooey, melty consistency so I will have to give your way a try.

(chuck) #31

The pinch of salt thing worked. Both for myself and my wife.
Had an interesting Friday, and completely derailed. Got invited to an impromptu “offsite” meeting on a coworkers 40’ boat. Over all it wasn’t bad. Had a Caesar salad , no croutons with salmon for lunch, dinner was to hamburger patties with cheese. Then the drinks started…4oz of bourbon, 3 beers, and two dirty martinis. Yeah… not good. Ended up 1000 calories over, 35g of carbs over and 10g of protein over my macros. Got right back on track Saturday and Sunday though and now my ketone level (as of last night) was 6.
One thing I did learn though, is how quickly those calories can add up. Being a heavy drinker prior to starting this, I can only imagine the huge intake of calories and the alcohol just stagnating my metabolism. No wonder I got to the weight I am.

(Anne) #32

I’m about your weight and exactly your height, though I’m a woman so weight loss is probably a very different experience. I also have rheumatoid arthritis and am on a med which means I can’t drink alcohol at all. Which wasnt a huge life change for me, actually, pretty lucky in that.

I’ve been doing keto off and on for several years, I always feel better when I’m eating to plan! It helps with energy and joint pain, even though I generally stay the same weight no matter what I eat (past history of messed up metabolism, undiagnosed celiacs till I was 25, yoyo dieting, all that fun stuff!)

You’re a big person! You need to make sure you eat enough, especially in the beginning when eating lots of fat means you don’t get hungry in the same way.

As for your high urine stick reading after a night of drinking, I suspect that’s because you were dehydrated! Generally the urine sticks show less and less ketones the longer you’re doing keto because your body gets better at using them up instead of dumping into waste.

Oh, and when next you find yourself at an event where drinking is de rigueur and don’t want to get into it (especially if you order for yourself at a bar) club soda with a twist of lime is a great bet! No one knows there isn’t vodka in the glass, and you get away not drinking but looking “normal.”

(chuck) #33

Thanks for the advice on the club soda. Although, fitting isn’t doesn’t really matter too much to me …LOL

And the stick reading was roughly 24 hours and a 120 oz of water later. I just made sure on Sunday to hit my macros pretty much right on.

Being a cigar smoker, and collector of bourbon, the drinking thing is definitely going to be the toughest part of this. I’ll get thru it though. The benefits far out weigh having a drink.

(Mike W.) #34

Just don’t do it every night and know that your body will burn off the alcohol first, temporarily halting your weight loss. I’m less concerned about how many calories are in my liquor (read: not at all concerned) than I am about how just two heavy pours will get me drunk :pensive: Alcohol definitely hits a lot harder now.

(chuck) #35

So when does the energy come back ?! Been trying to put some miles on the elliptical the past few nights and am failing…can barely make 10 minutes when i used to do 40.

(LeeAnn Brooks) #36

Took me 4 weeks of decline, then 2 weeks to get back to where I was pre-Keto.
By week 6 I finally started to improve upon my pre-Keto workouts, but only very slightly and gradually. It was another 2-3 weeks before I really felt that Keto was helping my endurance rather than hindering it.

(chuck) #37

Oh man…that long ?! Well, I guess things can’t really happen overnight.

(Consensus is Politics) #38

There is a misunderstanding about caloric intake and obesity.

I seldom drink, last one being about 2 years ago, a shot of whiskey to help me get to sleep.

My avg daily caloric intake was about 1300 calories. I was nearing 250 pounds. Age 53. I was steadily gaining weight, about a pound a week. Tired all the time. I knew there must be something wrong, and shrugged it off as just getting old.

Then in Aug 2017 I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Long story short, I gave up on the medical industry’s accepted diet plan for people with T2DM after 6 weeks of not getting better. So I didn’t go low carb, I went NO CARB. Same day I discovered this website as I was researching ketosis as it concerns diabetes. My doctor said it would kill me, and I shouldn’t go near it.

My first two weeks of carbonongrata I lost 40 pounds. Indeed, not a typo. Forty pounds in 14 days! My BG levels were fantastic instead of hovering near levels that would hospitalize me.

So I’ve been keto ever since. I have never tracked macros. I did try calculating them for a few days to see just how close I was. I was low on protein and high on fat and still unmeasurable carbs. I began eating more bacon, and not wasting the bacon drippings. Lots of sour cream dip to go with my chicharrones.

My calorie intake was close to 3,000 a day. My level of exercise couldn’t really get lower unless I was comatose. Unless being a computato counts as exercise.

The old way of thinking about calories is broken. I used to think the answer to losing weight was just too simple. Eat less and move more. Turns out that doesn’t really apply to losing weight. Unless you reduced your caloric intake by drastic amounts, near starving, then your metabolism will just slow down to match your intake. There is a limit to that, but by the time you hit that your body will be telling you it’s starving and the cravings for carbs will be near unbearable (been there, done it, got the stretched out T-shirts to prove it.

Don’t be fooled by some who will tell you it’s simple science. Physics. The laws of thermodynamics. The laws of thermodynamics are for a closed system. The human body isn’t a closed system. It can do many things with the energy it receives. You don’t need to do exercise to burn energy. You burn energy while sleeping. Your body needs a lot of energy to do healing. Healing. Something just occurred to me. Healing, the body is doing some miraculous stuff. Actually converting energy into matter. Energy to matter conversion! Ok, my geek side just woke up!

I read recently that mitochondria produce temperatures as high as 140 degrees F. This blew me away. But it makes sense. To keep us at 98.6 degrees all the time, your heat generating engines must be burning a lot hotter that 98.6 due to simple thermal radiation.

Ok. I’m off on a rambling sidetrack again. :cowboy_hat_face:

So just lower your carbs a bit more. Maybe try carb free for a few weeks to see how it helps.

Keto Vitae!

(back and doublin' down) #39

I would suggest not being a slave to the readings. As your body transitions to burning ketones, that reading could very well go down. That doesn’t mean you’re slipping out of ketosis, it means your body is becoming more efficient at utilizing ketones for energy.

Stick with your macros ~ and let your body shift to doing the natural thing it’s genetically designed to do.
KCKO!

(LeeAnn Brooks) #40

Yes, but after week 3, I could see steady improvements, even if they were slight, so it helped me to focus on that.