Newbie troubles with Keto (plz sos)

#1

Hello everyone,
I’ve just started trying the Keto Diet, but I’m having some trouble. I hope no one minds listening to a not very short ramble and hopefully providing me insight on what I should do. I would really appreciate it.

The main issue is that I don’t cook for myself— I’m not allowed to because of my dorm’s rules, so my meal options are really limited to the restaurants around me. Additionally, the restaurants around me are all not that healthy; burger joints and Tim Hortons are 99% of it. Therefore I don’t have much choice when it comes to choosing high fat low carb foods.

Because of my limited choices, I often have trouble reaching 1000 calories while staying under 20g of carbs. If I reach 20g carbs, should I just stop eating even if I’m only at 600 calories? (That was my meal today… bacon, broccoli, feta cheese and nuts. Can’t say it tastes good lmao and it still manages to get me to 28g of carbs) or should I try to at least reach 1000 calories at the expense of gaining more carbs?

Additionally, I’m having some doubts about the Keto Diet. Even if I really want to do it because of the multitude of effects I would really benefit from, the limited options around me suggest that perhaps I should try Keto when I move out of the school dorms a few years later… (but I’d really like to try it now). Considering my circumstances, would another type of diet better suit my situation? What other diet would that be?

Thanks in advance!

#3

If you feel limited right now because of few options, OK. But please continue to read, research and study about the benefits of low-carb eating so that you can at least be prepared for the future and those times when you can make better food choices.

Learning about Keto, et al will also help you when you are choosing from a fast-food menu. Such as substitutions and better food groups.

At a Mexican food place, order chicken or beef fajitas but forego the tortillas, beans and rice, opt for more guac and salad. At a burger joint, order the big double meat patty offering with bacon and ask for a lettuce crap or just ditch the buns (I know, hard to do). At a pizza joint, order the meat lovers supreme or such and just eat the yummy toppings. At a steak place, order the fattest ribeye they have or a hamburger steak and opt for the grilled veggies with butter over them. At a seafood restaurant, (good luck) but try to opt for grilled or blackened fish, grilled shrimp with steamed or grilled veggies. Passing on fried shrimp would be tough. At a Chinese food buffet, get the hell out of there.

There are myriad ways Keto/low carb can help you with your current eating style. Just keep learning how to do it.

#4

No.

You may do fine on a low carb diet that is not quite keto.

(Laurie) #5

Burger joint: Burger patty only. (This is cheaper than ordering a “burger without the bun.”)

Tim Horton’s: Breakfast wrap without the wrap, sandwich without the bread, etc.

Pizza place: Eat the toppings only; either scrape off and discard the crust, or order the toppings only.

Regular cheap restaurant: Bacon and eggs, no bread or potatoes.

If possible, go to the supermarket instead. Buy buy cans of salmon, sardines, or tuna; deli meats in moderation; rotisserie chicken; cheese; pork rinds (dip optional, e.g., sour cream or guacamole); boiled eggs. Supplement with easy/precut raw vegetables if you like, e.g., celery sticks or cucumber. Maybe some nuts.

Even if you can’t eat these in your room, there should be a lounge or other area where people are allowed to eat snacks and so on. And I don’t think they can stop you from storing canned goods in your room.

Plan ahead and think about how you’re going to meet your food needs without going over on carbs. Don’t just start eating and then say “Oops too many carbs,” like it’s a big surprise.

Good luck!

(Robert C) #6

Find a Denny’s or some similar place with breakfast all day.
All meat (or otherwise keto) omelettes and skip the $3 coffee.
Either skip the hash browns and toast or unload them on a needy friend (I remember college - there’s almost always someone that will accompany for free anything).
Cut the omelette length wise and pour in melted butter (to make up for any bacon fat they drained away).
Really hungry - sides of bacon, eggs or sausage.

(Robert C) #7

Also, go big and OMAD to keep the costs down.
Try to get salad or vegetables to substitute for the carbs too.

(Natasha) #8

This is my suggestion too. It’s not going to be impossible for you to do keto, but your circumstances are definitely quite a challenge.

If you were to shift your goals from a strict 20g carbs to something more flexible (say 50-60g) and include more non-starchy vegetables, nuts, dairy, healthy protein etc (stay away from grains/processed carbage/heavy starches) then I think you may still experience some really good benefits, including a decreased appetite which would enable you to add in some intermittent fasting (16:8 isn’t too hard!) or or to adopt a 5:2 pattern of eating.

At 50-60g carbs you will likely find yourself dipping in an out of ketosis overnight and/or during any periods of intermittent fasting.

Experiment with changing things up and see how you get on. I wish you all the best. :slightly_smiling_face:

(Chris) #9

Find out how much plain patties are at the burger place.

(Carl Keller) #10

I’m with Natasha on this. Since your challenges are so high and your environment so stressful, it might be better to not have such a high keto bar. Any lowering of carbs is going to be healthier and much better than the SAD diet. Maybe you won’t lose much or any weight at these levels but at least your chance for gaining will be minimized.

Also, there’s a quite a few articles and discussions about keto and dormies, online. I couldn’t find much of anything that was comprehensive but there are lots of good ideas in this information pool. Here’s a better article I found with a quick search:

https://spoonuniversity.com/lifestyle/i-tried-a-keto-friendly-diet-while-living-in-a-dorm

(mole person) #11

There is a lot of good advice here. First of all most fast food joints have menu items that can be tailored to be keto. Having worked at McDonald’s, I can tell you that just there alone there are plenty of options.

For breakfast you can order the round eggs, the sausage patties, the bacon, the ham, all as separate items. Alternatively, you can have any of the egg Mcmuffins in a lettuce wrap. I personally enjoy the bacon, egg and cheese in a lettuce wrap and I ask them to add a slice of tomato. Extra butter and mayo on the side is free.

For lunch or dinner, any of the patties can be purchased as separate items, and the round eggs and breakfast meats are also still available. You can also order any of the sandwiches in a lettuce wrap as has been mentioned above, just ask them to hold any sweet sauces such as ketchup.

Also the chicken topped salads are actually very good. If there is some item in the salad that you don’t want, most stores will actually make you a tailored one. You can also top them with a second chicken breast (grilled only, the fried breast is battered) or any other second meat for a bit extra. Just go light on the dressings if they are carby, or you can bring your own.

And that’s JUST McDonald’s. Ask here and you will get suggestions for many major franchises.

The advice to go OMAD is also very good. Then you only have to think about a single large meal every day. It also limits snacking on the carbier keto foods such as nuts and cheese.

And if you are able to bring canned meats etc into your dorm then you are really decently set up to be able to do keto right now. Let us know if you are, and I’m sure you’ll receive plenty of ideas on what you can eat.

Finally, I’m assuming that you’re quite young. If so you probably have greater metabolic flexibility than many people that start keto. As has been stated above, you would probably still lose weight at 50 grams of carbs a day or perhaps even a bit more. I’m 51 years old and can tolerate 80 grams a day so you may be fine well over the generally recommended 20 grams. But you’ll need to experiment a bit to find your own personal threshold. Perhaps start at 50 grams a day and see where that leads after a month.

Best wishes!

(Gary ) #12

Spend $20 on Amazon to get a Dart egg cooker to make hard boiled eggs. They steam them so you shouldn’t get in trouble with your dorm. They are an easy way to get some quick calories protein and fat with zero carbs. Eat 2-4 per day to get those calories up.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #13

Any diner will serve bacon and eggs around the clock. Ask them to hold the toast and potatoes.

One of my favorite diner meals is steak and eggs, because they generally use the fatty steaks no one will tolerate in a “real” meal, and get a side of bacon or sausage to go with.

Or get steak or chicken (not breast, which will have the skin taken off), and get it with broccoli and a salad. If you don’t trust the dressings, get olive oil and vinegar to put on it.

When ordering steak, I always tell the waiter I’ll take the piece that’s too fatty to serve to anyone else. Who knows? The last time I did that, the waitress and I had a great chat about keto!