Newbie to Keto Advice please


(Sheila Dobson) #1

Hi Everyone, I am 63 years old and started Keto 2 weeks ago. A typical day food wise for me is a homemade milkshake for breakfast ie chocolate or strawberry with either Advocado or Kiwi added, for Lunch i have an omlette with cheese. for evening meal yesterday i had chicken cut into chunks with sliced mushrooms and onion all fried together and a slice of low carb bread. Is this enough or should i up my food intake. I have lost 6 pounds in weigh so far. So wondering if anyone has any suggestions that would help me further Thank you


(Marianne) #2

Welcome! I am 60 and have been on this for about 3.5 mo. Everybody’s keto is different, but as a critique, I’d suggest eating your food instead of drinking it (shakes). You could have eggs cooked in butter and some bacon and/or sausage for breakfast, a fatty protein for lunch (i.e. chicken, tuna or egg salad; salad w. blue cheese dressing; chicken legs or thighs, etc); and a nice piece of fatty meat for dinner (our fave is pork steaks or cheeseburgers with lots of delicious toppings), with other stuff you like to supplement - salad, broccoli in butter, cheese, pepperoni, etc. The meal combinations are endless. You may want to ditch the low carb bread.

Just make sure you are eating to satisfy, staying under 20g carbs/day, and getting enough fat. Don’t count calories. That is it in a nutshell. We all have to get there on our own, but in the beginning, I was looking as this more as a diet with a “right” and “wrong” way of doing it. Read the newbie forum for tips and you can also check out dietdoctor.com, if you like learning about things. Good luck.


#3

Losing is a good sign. Do you count your carbs?


(Sheila Dobson) #4

Thank you for the tips gingersmommy. will certainly rejig my meals :slight_smile:


(Sheila Dobson) #5

Hi HeleneS yes i keep an eye on carb numbers x


(Carl Keller) #6

Hi Shiela.

Protein and fat are your greatest allies in the battle of the bulge. Not only do they fill you up quicker, they keep you full for longer. This greatly improves the health of our hormones and makes weight loss easier if that’s your goal.

Featuring a fatty protein for my meals allows me to easily go eight to 12 hours before my next meal, without hunger being a real issue. An example of eating like this would be:

Breakfast: cheese omelette with bacon or sausage
Lunch: Salad with salmon or a few chicken wings
Dinner: Ribeye steak with buttered broccoli

Some days I don’t eat breakfast of I skip lunch. It all depends if I am hungry. Don’t feel obligated to eat just because the clock says it’s that time. Eat only when you are hungry.


(Sheila Dobson) #7

Hi Carlkeller

Thank you for your reply its a great help to what i should be preparing to eat. Looking forward to my breakfast in morning lol .


#8

Those shakes may be just fine for you, depending on what’s in them. It sounds like you’re doing great and eating the right things, since you’re losing weight. Just keep track of carbs and eat generously and see how you go. If you stop losing weight, then it’s time to track everything at least for a couple of weeks. This will arm you with some information, so you have some ideas about where to start tweaking. But for now–you’re doing great!


(Full Metal KETO AF) #9

Mostly you seem to be doing fine. A couple of things to think about,

Kiwi fruit isn’t a good choice for keto, a 2” diameter fruit has about 8g. carbs. And be careful about the amount of berries you consume. Often it’s recommended to avoid all fruit other than avocados and some tomato in small quantities for the first two months of keto. The carbs in berries can eat up a big part of a <20g. carb allowance. The same goes for nuts, easy to overeat. I recommend buying a $10 digital kitchen scale and using a tracking app like Cronometer to get a truer estimate of your nutritional profile at least for a while till you’ve educated yourself and have a feeling for how much of what is okay. I personally ate no fruit, nuts or keto treats for my first two months. It changed the way I looked at food and helped me get past snacking habits and my sweet tooth. I still rarely eat those foods as I don’t really miss them and they’re carb dense foods even for keto.

Be careful with onions and garlic especially cooked down or caramelized. This increases the sugars in the root vegetables and while they’re okay in reasonable quantities it’s not a free pass for sure. It’s easy to eat a bunch of fried and browned onions and garlic, but not so much with raw. I was overdoing it with onions early on in keto and going over my carb limit before I figured it out. I use dry onion and garlic a lot now. Added towards the end of cooking it gives a stronger flavor with a lot less carbs. I only use small amounts of fresh garlic, you’d be surprised that two medium (just what is that?) cloves that weigh 8 grams have 2.5 carbs and that’s a small amount of garlic for me to cook with! Sometimes after cooking you’ll taste it and say, that’s not enough garlic flavor if you’re like me. So adding dry garlic right at the end gives a better punch.

I second anyone who suggested eating a more standard solid food breakfast. Eggs, bacon, sausage, avocado, cheeses are good solid keto breakfast foods. A bit higher fat and protein is good for us seniors. Extra protein to fight muscle loss and fat for mental function. My best wishes for your total keto success. :cowboy_hat_face:


(Full Metal KETO AF) #10

You can also download the Cronometer app for a smartphone. I hope this is helpful stuff. :cowboy_hat_face:


(Sheila Dobson) #11

Hi David-Stilley

Wow the information you have given is fantastic, I am going to print it for bedtime reading.
Thank you very much.


#12

[quote=“David_Stilley, post:9, topic:87505”]
Often it’s recommended to avoid all fruit other than avocados and some tomato in small quantities for the first two months of keto. The carbs in berries can eat up a big part of a <20g. carb allowance. The same goes for nuts, easy to overeat. I recommend buying a $10 digital kitchen scale and using a tracking app like Cronometer to get a truer estimate of your nutritional profile at least for a while till you’ve educated yourself and have a feeling for how much of what is okay. I personally ate no fruit, nuts or keto treats for my first two months.[/quote]

Though there are lots of plans that allow for small amounts of fruit, including berries, and nuts and dairy and all these other things, as long as you’re staying under your carb limit. Excluding lots of foods really works for some people–the fewer foods to choose from, the fewer ways to go wrong, I think, as well as cold turkey quitting all snacks and treats. But other people, myself included, prefer to have the variety and some treats. So we do well including all these things, as long as we remember to including them in our daily count. Still other people lose weight and do well drinking diet coke, pre-made shakes and bars, and every kind of low carb junk food on the planet.

The important thing is to pick a style of eating that you feel you can really stick to for the long-term. You may find that your tastebuds and desires evolve, too, but it’s not worth forcing, IMO.


(Full Metal KETO AF) #13

@ZuleikaD Of course those are allowed.:slightly_smiling_face: The reason that I suggested this and did it myself is that it’s a more surefire way of getting into ketosis. I do eat those foods but I don’t really crave them, they’re just occasional items for me. I believe stripping things down a bit starting out gets rid of any self deception or the tendency to overeat berries, nuts or treats. While you’re sugar cravings are still a bit high they can draw some people away from safer ketogenic foods and delay or keep people from getting into ketosis. That’s why I recommended the scale, tracking and the links to help make it easier for Sheila to get on track fast without guessing. Knowledge is power. Ultimately it’s a personal decision of course. :cowboy_hat_face: