I am nervous because I tried atkins in the past with no success. Only my husband had success. I decided to try keto. I have been keeping carbs under 15. Doing 16-8 fasting. Is keto so much like atkins th as t it wont work for me???
One week on keto no weight loss
Keto noob here.
The first time I tried keto, I was on it for three months and it did not work and I was terribly disappointed. I went off my diet, gained about 30 pounds and then decided, after much reading about keto to try it again.
Last time I tried keto I logged my macros and meals in a food journal and dug it up and no wonder I didn’t lose weight! I was hitting my caloric and carb goals, but my fat and protein were way off (much too low) and I was often hungry. Now I’m logging my meals and macros on MyFitnessPal, which I LOVE, and am losing weight because I hit on or near my macros each day, my blood glucose isn’t all over the place and I feel satieted and not starving all the time!
The thing I love about using MFP is that I can enter my planned dinner and see, “oops, that will put me over!” (whichever macro/s), and I’ll eat something else instead. Or, “wow, I need a lot more protein today!” and will schedule a protein-rich snack when I get home from work and push dinner time back a little bit, or have a salad instead and add hard boiled eggs and a can of sardines to it. It’s not just about low carb.
Long story short, what works for me personally is logging and trying to hit my macros. YMMV. Best of luck!
Sheri_Knauer
(Sheri Knauer)
#4
@Shortstuff is right. A week is too early. You need to have patience and realize that the first few weeks, or even months, you may make mistakes or do something that is counterproductive to your goals. It may help us give you some advice if you told us exactly the kinds of foods you are eating. What have you been eating over the 7 days? Just saying your carbs are below 15 isn’t enough info for us to be able to give any helpful advice. I also would suggest to not fast until you are fat adapted. You may be unintentionally under eating which will, in time, slow down your metabolism.
The adaption phase, which can take anywhere from 6-8 weeks on average) is a time when your body is adapting its mitochondrial machinery so that it becomes efficient at burning fat for fuel instead of glucose. During this phase, you should eat when hungry, keep total carbohydrates below 20g, moderate your protein, average for women being between 50-75g, and then eat fat to satiety, which is the point where you can get up from the table not wanting more to eat. The food you should be eating should be whole foods, not shakes, bars, or other “keto” or “low carb” processed stuff. The processed foods that are advertised as being keto or low carb are usually not and contain ingredients that can hinder weight loss and the fat adaption process, and can be generally not good for anyones health.
If you are not tracking your food, now would be a good place to start so you can look back and see what your eating and get some advice from keto veterans as to what you can do. It is also a visual guide for yourself to see what you are actually eating and good for future planning. There are many food tracking apps you could use, the most popular being MyFitnessPal, as @ChubettaMcGee mentioned. I personally like using Cronometer.
Another important thing to keep in mind is ingredients. Read all labels to make sure there are no added sugars, hidden wheat/starch products, or bad vegetable oils. It may take a while at the store the first few times you go but then you will learn what brands are good and which to avoid so trips to the store will be quicker.
Dee_Eichler
(Dee Eichler)
#5
Csn u give me a reliable calculator to get correct ratios to eat? I seem to get different answers
juice
(Running from stupidity)
#6
Eat under 20g of carbs a day. Eat plenty of good food while adhering to that. That’s as difficult as it needs to be for a couple of months.
Expanded version:
My newbie guidelines (work in progress)
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clear the house of carbs (if possible - not essential but if you can, it really helps)
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keep carbs under 20g/day (vital to make sure you do this)
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track your food intake (this teaches you what is and isn’t sensible to eat in terms of carbs, and is great for planning your food for the day. Cronometer is great for this.)
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eat plenty of real food (keto is not a calorie-restricted eating system) and don’t worry about “eating enough” fat or “eating too much” fat. Your body won’t let you eat too much, trust me.
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when you eat is as important as what you eat. Eat enough at meals to get you to the next meal - snacks keep insulin high.
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take supplements (or at least extra salt)! Super-important to stay feeling good!
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ketone numbers are not an arms race. If you’re in, terrific. If you’re not, time to get the carbs down, most likely, or start searching for other solutions (see above point about tracking).
CarlKeller
(Carl Keller)
#7
As a guideline, 70-75% of your calories should be fat, 20-25% should be protein and around 5% should be carbs. If you go to cronometer.com, there’s a circular colored wheel that tells you what % of each you are consuming when you hover your mouse prompt there. These ratios should get you into ketosis. Just remember to stay under 20 carbs per day and eat lots of fat since fat will help with hunger and teach your body to use it for fuel.
CarlKeller
(Carl Keller)
#8
Great idea to have that handy for new keto people. I might add a reminder about H20 and NaCl.
Alley
#9
your body can provide the fats, so in the event you keep supplying your body all the fat fuel it requires it will not need to burn it from your body, but until fat is the primary fuel the important thing is to keep carbs low but eat lots to keep metabolism ramped up. Your protein and fats should fire your full signal to let you know when to stop and until you can without thinking skip a meal do not force fasting, One of the most common things I see, just general observation of the chat is under feeding and fake sugars.
juice
(Running from stupidity)
#10
It’s in my “working documents” app which is ALWAYS open (Write App) so it’s easy enough to get to. When I’m happy with the final version, I’ll put it into my text replacement program, so I can just type “ketorulez” or something and it’ll just magically appear 
Still not happy with #4 (especially), gotta work more on that. Might put that in my accountability thread to get some other opinions.
cw2001
(Cindy)
#11
Dee, stay off the scale. Give yourself time to get used to eating a ketogenic diet. That means, perhaps, eating 3 meals/day for satiety. Find the whole foods that you love, that fit within the keto guidelines. I ate 2 packs of bacon over the course of about 9 days, because bacon used to be a “forbidden” food for me. So while cutting carbs, I felt like I was treating myself with BACON!
But the other thing I want to stress is that keto is NOT a “lose weight quick scheme.” Even if it was, they DO NOT WORK. So this means that you need to continue to live your life without watching the stupid scale every day or every week because it’s going to take TIME to lose weight. Find a way to make keto a reasonable, happy way to eat…otherwise, what weight you do lose will come right back when you return to old habits.
So take some measurements, then put the scale and the tape away. Make it so that following this diet is not dependent upon the numbers…you don’t get to give yourself a food reward when you lose, just as you don’t get to quit as soon as you don’t see the numbers you want to see.
Dee_Eichler
(Dee Eichler)
#14
Can u give me ideas of how to add fat without raising my protein or carbs
Dee_Eichler
(Dee Eichler)
#15
I am so.confused. then why is fat the highest percentage? Shouldn’t I cut back on fat so my body uses my own fat???
cw2001
(Cindy)
#16
Dee, you only cut back on fat after you’ve become fat adapted. That can take days or weeks. If you cut back on fat now, along with carbs, then you’re going to be very, very hungry. That just doesn’t work…takes too much willpower. 
So for now, don’t be afraid of fat.
Ways to add fat…add butter, olive oil, ghee, etc. Eat olives, avocados, homemade mayo. Leave the skin on your chicken, choose fattier cuts of meats. You can use sour cream and full fat cheeses. Instead of thinking “low fat”, just tell yourself it’s ok to eat fat.
You CANNOT treat this a calorie restrictive diet, at least not initially. If you start adding up the calories from the meat and fat you eat, you might be worried. But losing weight is not as much about the calories you eat as the way in which your body processes those calories. Carbs spike your insulin levels, which causes an increase in body fat. Too much protein can spike insulin, but fat doesn’t. So even though you’re eating more fat, your body isn’t being triggered to STORE fat.
Once your hunger levels subside, then you can try to cut back a bit, such as eliminating cheeses or nuts, so that your body will have to use your fat stores for energy. But right now, your metabolism is still looking to process sugar, so cutting calories will just reduce your metabolic rate.
Dee_Eichler
(Dee Eichler)
#17
Thank you so much for yr reply. I just have to.wrap my head around it. I’ve been restricting fat and calories for so many years.
Is this why I’m not in ketosis? Is it also true.i shouldn’t be fasting till my body is adapted?.
juice
(Running from stupidity)
#18
That’s the hard part, indeed. Realigning your brain.
I think you’re better off not fasting until then. Before then, you’re not running off your body fat stores, so it’s MUCH harder (for most people) to fast before they’re fat adapted, and you’re also reducing your caloric intake (because not burning your fat stores) which is effectively a calorie reduction, which you don’t particularly want.