One Week confusion

(Carole Sundeen) #1

I have been doing the keto diet for one week. Admittedly I am confused. Overall the advice I’m getting is stick to your carbs which in my case is 15. Stick to your carbs, ignore the calories. Well when I plugged in a new app I have what I’ve been eating the carbs are right on target the facts are OK and the calories are around 2000 a day. That is way too much for me. Even though I understand this is not a calorie-based diet, I don’t understand how I could eat 2000 cal a day and as long as my fats and carbs were at the macro numbers I would ever lose weight. Scientifically it’s calories in calories out, if I eat more calories than I burn, I Will gain weight. Any comments?

(Lonnie Hedley) #2

Whose science? SAD science was rigged by the sugar industry.

As a male I’m unqualified to give targeted advice for you. However, some guidelines for everyone is 20g net or less carbs, protein at a goal (use an online calculator to get an idea), and fat to satiety. This means don’t worry about calories, just eat fat. Unlike carbs it’s hard to eat an outrageous (read extreme weight gain) amount of fat without feeling sick.

Mental changes can be the hardest obstacle for some. The ideas of low fat, calorie restriction is a recipe for failure. KCKO

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #3

Fat is the only macronutrient that doesn’t raise insulin secretion. It also contains twice the calories per gram of carbs and protein. Even if you’re in ketosis, the body needs an abundant supply of energy in order to be willing to let go of its fat store. So the idea is to eat as much fat as it takes to stop being hungry.

Give yourself another couple of weeks for your satiety signaling to kick in; right now, your eating is going to be all over the map. A few weeks after that, you should start feeling fat-adaptation ramping up, and your appetite will really settle down. But for right now, stop worrying about how many calories you are eating and trust that your body knows what it’s doing. (A radical concept, I know, but an important one.)

(Chris W) #4

Honestly if that were the case I am a living conundrum for you.

I eat 4000 every 3 days with at least 2 days in a row, with a normal intake day of 2500 calories(not much higher than you). So on the days I am at or slightly lower than 2500k I am usually not loosing weight or maybe even slightly gaining. On the days I ingest 4000k(its actually right around 3910) I almost always loose weight on the first day, and every single day an almost always nearly a pound on the second day(I have always lost), and has always been a pound if I do it a third day. This is classic feast and famine but I am taking it to a little higher level than most people because right now I am working long hard days. I start my week out around 193 and end it on 5-6 th day around 186, those next 2-3 days of lower calorie intake is when I gain the weight back, mainly by eating way more protein than the other days were I am very high in fat intake.

What you need to understand is that CICO is overly simple math. It does not take into account hormones, the types of food you ingest and the effects they have on your body. It does not take into account metabolic health, types of muscles, BMR, and bunch of other things. Your body if trained correctly will burn more just standing there then any amount of exercise you preform other than just standing there.
Keto at its real basic form is about energy management and applying the regulations your body has setup to make it use energy better. The people who have the hardest time with keto are almost always the ones who feel they need to have minimal calories, when nothing could be further from the truth. Your body will in the face of an energy crisis slow down metabolism, cut out none essential services, and tend to hold onto body fat. When you provide your body with enough energy(fat) it will use it, and if you give too much it will use it like a drunken sailor at a port of call and burn it every where. This becomes very true after fat adaption phase about 8 weeks in for most people. Notice I said burn it, not store it, if I continued at 4k a day every day yes I would put weight on, but not at the same rate as if I was eating carbs.

(Trudy Cash) #5

Yesterday I was hungry been eating keto way for a year. So I said let’s have bacon and eggs some butter and coconut oil in the coffee. That hungry feeling was gone all day then late last night just wanting something so we got out asparagus and broccoli cooked up in butter that was plenty for me oh a herbal tea nothing in it.
So far I have started at 250 and now at 164.
I eat when I feel hungry but not the junk food.

#6

The problem with Calories In - Calories Out came up a lot on the 2Keto dudes podcast a year or two ago, so check some of the old podcasts or posts for Richards great explanations of this (Dr. Fung and others also talk about it).

The big point is that calories out is influenced by calories in. It isn’t a fixed amount, and it isn’t entirely tied to exercise either.

As mentioned very well above, your metabolism changes based on what and how much you eat (among some other possible factors), but to pull out a usual stat:
It’s been found that metabolisms can decrease up to 40% (due to too little food, type of food, other factors) and increase up to 400% due to such factors.

Exercise doesn’t even seem to have a big impact on this expenditure, at least according to research that has found the body will drop energy expenditure when a person isn’t exercising to make up for the amount spent while excising (for hours, for instance) to make the difference mostly negligible.