Question from another newbie!

#1

Hi guys,

I have just started keto on the 29th of December. I have lost a lot of weight a few years back (but put it all back on over the last few years) I have done intermittent fasting in the past and lots of different kids of exercises but I have never done keto.

So I started on the 29th by fasting for the day as I was travelling back home after Christmas and didn’t have a lot of options for keto friendly foods on the way back.

However I have found I am naturally tending towards doing OMAD which is fine as it works for me I’ve done it in the past not a problem but I am finding some days I’m just not eating much (I am only eating when I am hungry) for example today I have only eaten 974 calories but I am not hungry anymore.

So my question is should I be trying to get more calories in? My worry is will my body think it’s starving and start hampering weight loss? But if I am not hungry could that be because my body is using my (plentiful) fat to fuel itself?

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks.

(Robin) #2

We’ll need more info… what do you weigh, etc… how many calories are you eating in that OMAD. Any details will help. Good luck.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #3

You may want to check out this topic:

#4

If it just happens occasionally, it’s fine but regularly it may easily lower your metabolism. If you have very much to lose, you can get more energy from your fat reserves but I still didn’t see success stories below 1500 kcal… You need your nutrients anyway and it’s harder to get from very little food.
Hunger is overrated :smiley: I would be in big trouble if I wouldn’t eat without hunger… Well I get other serious urges, I stop functioning properly, that’s a good sign… Others may feel fine and end up with a low metabolism… So be careful.
I only have ~40lbs of extra fat, it’s significant but still can’t give me enough energy to function well at very low-cal… It can’t be calculated how big energy deficit your body can handle well due to individual factors but still, if you haven’t very much to lose, you probably shouldn’t eat so little too often.

#5

Hi Robin thanks for the reply I have been keeping a note of everything I have been eating so I have put the exact figures below but if you need me to I can also tell you exactly what foods I ate on these days.

232lb is my current weight my starting weight was 238lb

30th
1852 calories
14g net carbs
140g Protein
139g fat

31st
1996 calories
10g net carbs
177g protein
143g fat

1st
1275 calories
3g net carbs
127g protein
83g fat

2nd
1835 calories
2g net carbs
171g protein
127g fat

3rd (today)
974 calories
8g net carbs
114g protein
48g fat

Like I said in my original post I am eating until I feel full and this tends to be in a smallish eating window of around an hour or 2.

Thank you

#6

Thank amwassil,

I appreciate the reply :slight_smile:

I’m not quite that low (other than today and on the 1st) every day appears to be around 1800-2000 calories. But I will take note of this and if my calories are low I will try to bump them up to over 1800.

(Edith) #7

Your body’s digestive mechanism and flora need to adapt to your new food. As your digestive system gets used to the fattier food, you may find your appetite increases over time.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #8

Guys tend to need closer to 2500 calories, depending on activity level, and on height, weight, and age. But I would advise taking things slowly. You might even want to try eating two meals a day for a while, until you’ve gotten the whole keto routine down and are fat-adapted. I wouldn’t fast at this point, nor would I try to force the calories. But it wouldn’t hurt to see what would happen if you were to eat a bit more food than you are currently getting. Once you are keto-adapted (i.e., your muscles have healed enough at the cellular level to prefer metabolising fatty acids over glucose), then you can experiment a bit to see what works best for you. In the meantime, be gentle on yourself.

#9

Hi Shinita,

Thanks for the reply :slight_smile:

I have more than that to lose :joy: but I agree with the nutrients so I will try to keep it over 1800 calories a day as a bare minimum.

Is it worth taking multivitamins? Are they keto friendly?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #10

In theory, if you are eating whole, real foods, you shouldn’t need to take multivitamins. But if you decide you want them, try to pick a brand with minimal carb content. A lot of supplements use dextrose (a form of glucose) as a filler.

#11

Hi Virginia,

Yeah that would make sense maybe it’s just getting used to what I am now eating as I am still only in my first week of keto :slight_smile:

#12

Oh it’s a bit familiar :smiley: I did such things… It depends on the next days. Maybe you will need more after such a low-cal day, no problem then, I say. But if it continues (I had such times when I was new at carnivore… I still went higher in 3 days or something but it didn’t feel good so I made sure to avoid it in the future), tweak something. Back then I swapped my “eating as little as I can” to “eating as much as I can” but it involves changes in my chosen items and even timing. I need my calories, no matter what. Lack of hunger and presence of satiation be damned, I need to eat. If I really can’t, I wait some time and try again. But it was very temporal in my case and then I ate much again and needed to get strict to go lower but not too low again…

This far it seems to be some short term thing, I wouldn’t worry about it. If tomorrow will be too low as well, I would focus on eating more somehow.

I am personally bad at taking anything, I only take magnesium if I get cramps (one pill and then stop) and that’s it most of the time. I focus on good, nutritious food instead. I don’t even get cramps if I eat enough meat on carnivore. It was very different without meat and with lots of plants… Even our nutrient needs aren’t the same if I eat differently, sometimes.

#13

Hi Paul,

I am 5 foot 9 and I work in an office so not a great amount of activity maybe about an hour’s walking a day. I will be looking at upping this but planning on concentrating on keto for the first couple of months and getting the nutrition right first to give me a good base to build on.

Yes it has mostly been whole foods, fish, meat, vegetables, salad, eggs etc the only processed thing I have eaten is a couple of slices of corned beef.

I will probably see how I go before I look into multivitamins but I will keep in mind about the dextrose should I decide to go down that route.

Thanks for the info I appreciate it :slight_smile:

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #14

That sounds very good. You should be fine. But traditionally cured meats and cheeses aren’t what we are talking about when we inveigh against processed foods. On the other hand, sugar is now cropping up in foods where you’d least expect it, so read the nutrition labels and lists of ingredients very carefully.

Bear in mind, while I’m thinking about it, that exercise has been shown in several studies to be useless as a way to lose weight. On the other hand, it is very helpful in promoting metabolic health. As long as we are eating in a way that allows our body’s hormonal response to the foods we eat to deal with it healthily, the actual number of calories we are eating is far less significant. The body can be trusted to get all that sorted, if we eat right.

As the science writer Gary Taubes stated in a recent interview: “Obesity is not caused by overeating; we don’t get fat because we overate. We get fat because the foods we eat shift the regulation of what’s known technically as “fuel partitioning” into excess storage of fat. So what we worry about are the hormonal effects of the foods we’re eating, not the caloric content of them. Calories are a convenient—or not convenient—way to measure how much we’re eating, but that’s not the issue; the issue is whether the foods are fattening or not.”

#15

Yeah it’s still early days at the moment so just have to get it figured out maybe once I have been doing it for a few weeks I’ll be able to see a pattern and work out how to up the calories on those days. Maybe like Paul said I might try a couple of meals on those days. On that advise I will definitely be having a couple of meals on the days when I am busy in the evenings as it sounds like the best way to be getting my calories in on busy days.

#16

Thanks Paul I appreciate the help and advice.

Yeah I was thinking more along the lines of weight training more to build my strength back to what it used to be than to lose weight and I would like to start running again not for fitness but because I actually used to enjoy it. I spent many weekends running up on the moors… Fantastic scenery.

(Butter Withaspoon) #17

Running on moors … now that sounds like heaven!! You can always do a fast hike if running isn’t working yet.
I think It’s fine to eat different amounts of energy from day to day. Chronic energy restriction is the real problem, but if you’re feeling good, have good energy levels and sleeping well then you are probably responding to your hunger signals well. Good luck, you’re off to a a great start!

(Marianne) #18

Welcome!

I agree with @PaulL’s post. Keto has very little resemblance to conventional “dieting” or weight loss plans. Many of the principles can seem counterintuitive to what we’ve been fed about how to accomplish weight loss and what constitutes proper nutrition. Through this site and its members and dietdoctor.com, I’ve learned a lot about the science behind this way of eating and have adopted it for the long term. I have never eaten or felt better.

So, my two cents - eat at least two- to three meals a day, at least in the beginning (for about 4 weeks). You’re body will naturally tell you when it doesn’t want to eat that much or that often. There will be no mistaking it. Whether or not you “feel” hungry, do it anyway and use this 3-4 week period to acclimate your body and your metabolism to eating sufficient amounts of food so you don’t go in deprivation mode, and to adapt to burning fat instead of carbs for your fuel. Consider this your grace period to eat delicious food and retrain your body. Don’t count calories but meet or exceed your fat and protein macros every day, while keeping the total carbs as low under 20 as you can (comfortably - for me that was never difficult because once I started eating this way, I found I preferred fat to vegetables or carbs anyway). Exercise is not required to lose weight. Do it if you enjoy it, but otherwise, it can be just another attempt to purge calories or speed up the weight loss process. My last bit of advice - stay off the scale. It is a mind game whether the results are good or bad and has the power to sabotage either way. You will know from your appearance and your clothes how you are doing. If you really need to know, try to keep the weigh-ins to as infrequently as possible.

Good luck; looking forward to hearing about your journey.

#19

Hi gingersmommy,

Thanks for the advice I did 2 meals today I had a bacon and blue cheese salad for lunch then gammon and duck eggs for dinner :yum:

To be honest I haven’t eaten breakfast since I was a teenager I have alway been either 2 meals a day or OMAD regardless of the kinds of foods I was eating at the time.

I totally agree about the scale to me it is more of a guide in the right direction and being able to give accurate information to get the right advice but it’s not about the weight it’s about getting healthier and fitter so if my clothes are getting baggier (and/or I’m dropping sizes) then I know I’m doing good :slightly_smiling_face:

#21

That the mindset… but that’s also metabolically stupid. That said, I fell for it as well so no judgement. I wound up with RMR of 1700 as a (at the time) around 250lb pretty active dude with a physical job that worked out 6 days a week! I stopped losing because I was eating what almost every macro calc said which was between 2500-3000 (where it should have been). I’ve got it back up over 3000 now so I get to eat adult sized meals again, but it’s not a place you want to go, I can assure you.

There’s absolutely times to listen to what your body’s telling you, then there’s a time to ignore it because you know better. Many of us can’t trust our hunger or satiety signals, keto isn’t the magic signal fixing pill that many think it is, for SOME it is, for many others it’s not. Under 1000 calories is starvation, I don’t care how big or small you are.

I’d personally stay away from OMAD, but if you can eat a days worth of food doing it, I guess it’s fine. I honestly don’t see an advantage to it at all including fixing blood sugar problems, that can be done just as well by correct diet. But I’m also for people doing what works for them… as long as it works and isn’t causing negatives. To me, a lowered RMR (after dealing with it myself) is very much a HUGE negative.