Newbie! trying not to tie myself in knots about getting keto perfect

(Ivy) #21

I am not hung up on them. I would like to know if I have made any progress, mostly scientifically, with fat adapting phase of keto.

(Ivy) #22

Love your answers Janie You’re the best — - - — Thank You

(Jane) #23

Well, the only way to scientifically measure your progress is to measure insulin - and there is no cheap home test for that.

A keto meter will confirm you are producing ketones, but they are measuring what your body isn’t using at the time and varies all over the map. Exercise tends to lower your blood ketones since you use them for energy.

You really have to go by how you feel and that is NOT scientific. There is an old thread here where people posted all the benefits from a keto diet and it is very inspiring to read. But it takes months and months for some of them to show up - some much faster.

As I used to say “I came for the weight loss and stayed for the health benefits”.

I am 62, healthy, take ZERO meds and generally feel great. I could stand to lose another 20 pounds but the weight I am at is easy to maintain w/o tracking, measuring, etc. I just eat mostly protein and veggies and don’t feel guilty adding butter to my veggies like I did when I did low fat diets.

(Jane) #24

I wasn’t thinking of measureing the fat-adapting stage when I posted about insulin.

There is no scientific measurement but you will know it when it happens. For me it was about 6 weeks after starting keto and I looked at the clock at work and it was after 3 pm and I forgot to eat lunch.

I have forgotten my keys, my wallet, people’s names… but never in my lefe had I ever “forgotten” to eat! :scream:

(Laurie) #25

Sorry, I don’t know how to copy from another post, so I’ll refer to your questions by number.

  1. I don’t know.

  2. I was a certified strength training (weight lifting) instructor. I think you should do whatever exercise you want to do or were doing before.

  3. I don’t know anything about alkaline cooking. I cook meats and eggs using normal methods: oven, slow cooker, frying pan, etc.

  4. Your eating schedule seems fine. I exercise before my first meal, and then 3 hours after that meal. My only concern is not exercising on a full stomach.

  5. There is no need to drink coffee, unless you want to. The recommendation to drink black coffee is probably because cream, sweeteners, or other additions would have an effect on the metabolism (similar to having a snack). But coffee itself has an effect, so it’s kind of moot.

  6. Many of us think beef is best, for various reasons. I base my diet on beef and eggs, with pork, fish, etc., for budget reasons and for variety. I don’t see why you can’t go directly to carnivore when you’re starting out.

(UsedToBeT2D) #26

5’6" and 130 lbs…that’s not overweight.
Is that wet or dry?

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #27

Two things we know about coffee on a ketogenic diet:

  1. Coffee is the best thing ever, because it promotes ketosis.

  2. Coffee is the worst thing ever, because it shuts down ketosis.

Personally, you can pry my coffee mug out of my cold, dead hands, lol! :rofl::rofl:

Some people like to load up their coffee with stuff, à la Dave Asprey’s Bulletproof site, whereas many people, myself included, prefer it black.

#28

More is better if we have SIBO or Candida overgrowth. The increase of acetone in saliva from being ketogenic kills off the overgrowth.

I don’t believe fat adaptation/metabolism is the same as ketogenesis(ketone production) since I can only taste the production of ketones when I’m fasting for more than 14 hours. All in all. It seems ketones are healing molecules and not the primary fuel per se. Fatty acids being the primary fuel.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #29

You are right. Fatty-acid metabolism is the oxidation of fatty acids in the mitochondrion by means of the Krebs cycle. The goal is to produce ATP, carbon dioxide, and water. Ketones are the partial metabolites of fatty acids, much as charcoal is partially burnt wood. In fatty-acid metabolism, ketones are produced, but metabolism continues to the end, whereas in ketogenesis, the liver stops when ketone bodies (acetoacetate, acetone, and β-hydroxybutyrate) are produced. (You might like to know that, strictly speaking β-hydroxybutyrate does not meet the chemical definition of a ketone. But it is produced during ketogenesis, hence the reason for the term “ketone bodies.”)

#30

I was away for a few hours and wow. Relax!
I can’t answer your question as I can;'t even interpret “what day” you are on… You are on your journey towards fat adaptation, that’s it. There is no “this is day N”… I don’t even know if you got out of ketosis. Not even how many carbs you consumed but what is means to your body? I can’t even possibly know what happened in my body today and I measured my intake.
I would think you are on the same day as without the extra carbs but if you need 1-2 more days to read fat adaptation, what does it matter? It’s insignificant and we can’t change the past anyway.

Relax. People say stress totally can go against ketosis… I think I remember well… But I do know stress can cause various kinds of harm.

You decided on keto and you do it so well. When I was a newbie, I ate chocolate banana and lots of sweets every day :smiley: And 25g net carbs worth of vegetables… :smiley: You do it so much better :wink: But I was pleased with my own progress and felt lucky I could afford the carbs for keto. Even though it gave me only my fat adaptation benefit, my old, bad hunger disappeared. Necessarily tweaking came later but I trained my little keto muscles every day - and on many days off keto, practicing my new, keto habits. More time passed, more easy things got, in general as there may be waves…

It’s a long jorney. Tiny (sometimes huge) bumps happen, it’s life. Just keep going and don’t think you can just undo everything! And you barely made a tiny bump, it’s probably quite fine. Even in the beginning when it’s more important to stick to keto, at least I think so. Even I behaved in the first 7 weeks and I got my reward. But I’ve read many, many times that it happens even with off days, it just gets a bit slower. But we don’t go back to square one. But if you want to be safe, stay low with your carbs.

(Jane) #31

True, but for most people that chase ketones they think the higher their ketones the faster they will burn fat and I don’t believe that is true, since we can only measure the ketones floating around in our blood. We have no idea what our bodies are doing with the fat we eat, the body fat we burn, etc - no way to directly measure so we just have to trust in the process.

#32

Hence the misconception. We know that overeating on fat leads to ketone production but we also know that fasting leads to a greater increase in ketone production. Therefore it seems to me that the ketones produced from overeating on fat is to prevent the deleterious effects from overeating fat and we shouldn’t chase ketones in this unhealthy way. The ketones produced during fasting on the other hand are for fat burning, tissue repair, muscle sparing, etc… and this seems to be the healthy way to chase ketones. Via intermittent fasting/eating.

It’s like the latest podcast with Joe Rogan and Rhonda Patrick where Rhonda was chasing ketones by overeating on fat. Then saying that ketosis is hard and everyone is doing it wrong while she’s doing it wrong. :grimacing:

(Jane) #33

good grief.

I enjoy watching my ketones rise when I am fasting but my numbers are consistent so I stopped wasting the strips. Usually by day 2 I see some decent numbers - way higher than my normal levels when eating keto.

(Cheryl Meyers) #34

If you are also doing intermittent fasting (IF, anything less than a 24 hour or longer fast) then black coffee is recommended instead of adding cream. From what I have read/heard, IF “clean fasting” is only water, salt and black coffee or tea outside your eating window. The theory behind this is that taking anything else in during the fasting hours will limit the effectiveness of the fast or speed of body fat loss. (No reference to ketones, just how quickly you can lose weight by IF.)
If you aren’t doing IF, then enjoy the cream in your coffee! KCKO :slightly_smiling_face:

#35

It seems you’ve misunderstood me.

I concur with not wasting money on ketone strips or measuring ketones.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #36

@IvyKCKO You seem to be a little obsessive/compulsive about this. Everyone here is throwing out what they know (or think they know) and/or what works for them. Might work for you, might not. You have to experiment a little and drop whatever doesn’t work for you. If you’re really in this to lose weight, tell yourself however many times you must every day: “The less I have to lose the slower it comes off”. There are multiple health benefits from keto, no matter how much or little excess fat you burn. In the long term, the health benefits will be the ultimate payoff.

Stop obsessing about every little thing. Explore the wonderful world of fat and protein rich food. There’s more out there than you ever imagined. Forget about carbs. You don’t need them so don’t eat them. Sure, there are incidental carbs attached to lots of fat/protein foods. But it’s easy to keep them inconsequential.

The most important thing - in my opinion - is to remain in ketosis consistently. Lots of stuff happens when you start keto and you only interfere with the process by not staying in ketosis. You do that by keeping your carbs sub-20 grams per day, the fewer the better. It takes time. Keto is not magic nor miraculous. You don’t fix the damage caused by eating SAD in a few weeks or months. But you are young and you will fix it!

Best wishes.

Question from first timer
(Ivy) #37

How much protein would be too much for me? 250 gr ? 300 ? 200 ? I used to eat 150 all the time becuase it was the heaviest I ever was and went down slowly to 130, and I was 150 earlier this year

(Polly) #38

That is a really good question Ivy, but I am afraid it is one to discover for yourself by experimenting. None of us will have the answer to that question because we are all different in our needs and tolerances. Anyone who gives you a definitive answer is probably just basing it on their own experience or the accumulated experiences of a few friends and associates. Such answers can only give you a rough guide, and the fact you are asking the question in the terms in which you ask it suggest that you already know what the rough guidelines are.

(Jane) #39

Protein macro is a minimum, not a max. Eat as much as you want is my advice.

(Bob M) #40

Test out higher and lower fat and see what happens. I’ve found that higher protein is better for me. For instance, ham instead of pepperoni. Lean beef instead of fatty. But you’ll have to figure out if you’re the same.

And even I have questions about this. If I add goat cheese or suet (both high in saturated fat) to my meal, I something think this helps with satiety. However, I haven’t calorie matched it, so it could be just more calories. Need to perform better testing one of these days.