Newbie from Oz..need help & advise

(Victor Diola Jr) #1

Hello everyone. Im from Australia., 52yo male and have started to try the keto diet. I’m very interested in what keto can do to my health and body. I just have a few questions on how and where to start:

  1. I’m of Asian descent, fairly slim, but have belly fat. My question is, will keto diet help take away belly fat?
  2. Is it possible to gain weight on a keto diet? I have read that keto is mostly for weight loss, but for me, it’s the other way around, lol. I’m 63kg, 175high.
  3. I have read that the electrolytes and minerals in your body will lower once you get into 6 diet. Why is this? And how will I know which mineral/vitamins I can increase?
  4. Do you have to completely stop eating carbs all the time to stay in keto? I came from Asia and rice is our staple food. It’s very hard to completely remove rice from diet, and I feel I really lost the energy when I stopped eating rice. Is there a substitute for rice that I can eat regularly as a side?
  5. I have 2 instances where when I woke in the morning with very painful cramps on my right calve muscle. Has anyone experienced this when they went with the keto diet?

Apologies for the lengthy questions. I just needed help and any advise would be appreciated. Cheers!

#2

If you’re eating at a deficit, yes.

Of course you can, same answer backwards. If you eat at a surplus, you’ll gain. No shortage of us that lift have done bulks while eating keto.

Because carbs let you hold onto them, when they’re gone, you flush more back out. You should (always, regardless of eating keto or not) supplement electrolytes as most people walk around under-hydrated. Everybody should also be taking a good quality multivitamin and multi mineral.

No, but most can’t pull it off. A serving of rice a day (may) work if you’re really active, but come to terms with Keto being a different way of eating. For you it’s rice, for other’s it bread, and any other carb. Don’t compare one way of eating to another. You gain and lose whenever you change how you eat. It may be a staple in a standard Asian diet, but keto isn’t a standard Asian diet…

That’s your electrolytes, magnesium in the case of lower leg cramps.

(Bob M) #3

While this will depend on your metabolism and genetics, I tried a TKD (targeted keto diet) for a while, and I wanted to see if I could get a zero on my ketone monitor. On the day I did body weight training, I was able to eat 100 grams of carbs in rice noodles and still have ketones. That was not bad, because I think those carbs had somewhere (muscles) to go. I felt okay.

The next day, I did no exercise and ate the 100 grams of carbs from rice noodles, and I was still above zero and produced ketones that day and the next morning. My problem was that the carbs had nowhere to go, so I felt bad – hungry; tired in the afternoon, etc. All the reasons I’ve quit eating carbs.

That caused me to stop that testing. Every once in a while, I’ll eat some rice noodles after body weight training, but it’s not often and I keep it to 40-50 grams of carbs.

My problem is also that 100 grams of carbs in rice noodles is not a huge serving of noodles. If I could, I’d eat 5 times that amount. And be hungry an hour later. That’s my problem – these are not filling to me.

(Victor Diola Jr) #4

Thank you for the reply. Can the body adopt and eventually normalise the electrolyte levels in the long run on keto diet?

(Victor Diola Jr) #5

I was consuming around 3-5 cups of brown rice per day. And I have been doing this because it was always been part of your Asian diet. Hopefully someone here who comes from an Asian descent can give feedback or advise on my situtation. If you’re going to ask me WHY I am trying keto diet? I just wanted to lose my belly fat (hopefully not lose my muscle…) and just feel great and look young!

(Joey) #6

My wife is Asian and loves rice. So when she joined me doing keto 7 years ago, it was hard for her at first. Now she doesn’t miss it at all. But here’s a great tip …

I now make her fried rice (with loads of keto friendly fixings)… But it’s cauliflower rice.

The flavors in such dishes are from the fixings… Not the rice. The rice itself has little to do with how the food tastes unless you’re eating it plain.

Try cauliflower rice as the base for your otherwise low or zero carb rice-based recipes. (I get frozen bags of it and pop them in the microwave.)

#7

Cauliflower rice is great, as long as you add flavouring like garlic butter, sauces or spices as @SomeGuy says…
I don’t know about others, but I’ve always had to supplement electrolytes with keto.

#8

Cauli rice is nice but it has a strong cauli flavor and it is nothing like rice if you ask me (and I had to ban it on keto as it was way too carby. I LOVED cauliflower and needed substantial amounts). Of course, it works for some people instead of rice. To me, absolutely nothing replaces it. Today I had rice (didn’t do keto though, it’s cherry season), about 10g, it works for me. It wasn’t needed but sometimes I indulge.

But cauli rice can be better than nothing I suppose…? Even if it’s very different both in flavor and texture. At least if the rice/cauli rice has something else what vegs with it… As a bunch of vegs alone sounds very different from rice and vegs!

I don’t think it matters what is a staple in someone’s cuisine. In Hungary, people eat bread with very nearly everything (especially some people who eat it even with pasta, allegedly) but there are ketoers and raw vegans… If one wants to do keto, even veggie dishes may need to go (mine were all too carby except the thinnest soups. it got easier when I added meat but I took away vegs at that point anyway) but high-carb staples (so the amount isn’t tiny) definitely must - unless one has a really big carb allowance (big for keto, I mean).

(Victor Diola Jr) #9

I’ll have a look at how to cook cauli rice. So what electrolytes supplements do you take, is it powder, effervescent or tablets?

(Victor Diola Jr) #10

What about protein smoothies. Do you guys have protein smoothie, or is it not keto friendly?

#11

Hi Victor,
You raise some interesting questions. As you’re from Asian descent it would be different as to how your body would react on a predominantly meat and fat diet. Your ancestral diet would play a big part. Belly fat may be an early sign of insulin resistance. You should ask your doctor for a screen for a metabolic screen. Important blood tests are fasting insulin, fasting BGL, lipid panel + ApoB, CRP, ferritin, irate, homocysteine.
I think you should start by watching some YouTube videos for the basics such as the Metabolic Link. There are some excellent doctors and nutritionists such as Gary Fettke, Paul Mason, Zoe Harcombe, Anthony Chaffee. There’s also a very good textbook called Ketogenic which is all the science behind keto diets and ketosis. A helpful website is Keto Mojo.
The keto diet is muscle sparing so it is possible to gain weight.
Minerals in particular are very important especially sodium, potassium and magnesium. You kidneys will excrete these minerals via the urine. Many people take keto electrolytes, though you may need medical advice if you are on any medications.
Carb restriction is important. I eat between 30-40 total carb grams (13-18 net carb grams) and have no problems maintaining ketosis. Other people may get away with more of fewer — the important thing is to check you ketones to see if you are in ketosis.
I use Chang’s low calorie noodles instead of rice — they are made from Konjac (glucomannan).
The cramps you are experiencing may be related to loss of magnesium.
You should be checked out by your doctor or at least well informed about keto before embarking on it. It is a very powerful diet and changes the physiology of how your body handles food depending I macros. Once you are established on keto you will find no problem with energy. What you describe as a loss of energy is because your body has been using carbohydrates for fuel. Once in ketosis your body runs on fats and ketones as alternatives

#12

I take supplements as tablets, potassium, magnesium and sodium as @Bird2Dog says above.
You’d have to have a look at the packaging for protein powders , most are too high in carbs for keto. I have found one I have occasionally but it had sweeteners instead which I don’t like to have often, most of us on keto try to wean ourselves off sweet stuff!

(Bob M) #13

I was following someone on Threads (a competitor to Twitter) who ate about 80 grams of carbs per day. He was exercising, doing at least body weight training, and was relatively fit. He thought that if we went over 80 grams per day, he started to gain weight, and if he went under 80 grams per day, he lost weight.

Just an example that going under 20 grams might not be necessary.

(Victor Diola Jr) #14

Thanks for the input. Are you from Oz too? Yes, I might discuss the diet with my GP and ask for the blood tests. I already started the diet and I am trying to go slow with it. I am just interested on how the diet works in the body. Have you been to keto diet for on now? I also bought keto books like the book https://www.booktopia.com.au/keto-6-ingredients-or-less/book/9780648559474.html. Cheers.

(Victor Diola Jr) #15

Do you guys use an app or something for your macro nutrient monitoring? How can you monitor how much carb or protein or fat you are eating. Do you just need to look at the nutrition table and tally them?

#16

Upping your levels to compensate yes, holding onto them, not really.

(Joey) #17

Until you get a better sense for how much of each macro nutrient is in your typical menu items, keeping track is the best way to learn.

There are plenty around. I had great success with Carb Manager for a couple of years. Then stopped logging since I learned what I needed to know.

(Victor Diola Jr) #18

I am starting to use the Cronometer at the moment to slowly add my food and meals. By the way, have any of you guys used ketones in a can like Ketone IQ?

#19

I used my fitness pal for a bit, but found a pen & paper easier, just kept track of carbs! I’m not very techy though :joy:

(Bob M) #20

I used some ketone salts and other exogenous ketones. The salts made me more frenetic. The other exogenous ketones, I couldn’t tell a difference. I didn’t do much testing, especially because the testers only test one form of BHB, and don’t test both.