Running a business and doing keto that has no real (certain) parameters

(Roberta Worley) #1

We never know when we will hit the ground running or how hard we’ll need to hit.

Being on keto was good until it wasn’t. There are so many unanswered questions that I have and no one doctor or person has come down on one side of the equation or the other. It seems a vast spectrum of if this/then that type of ordeal.

There is only so much of me to go around and with being bipolar, I really have to watch out for how difficult something is in order to not go into mania.

For example, my husband and I have both understood that almonds are high on the GI index, yet they are prevalent in so much keto baked goods. And that brings up another point. Are we to consume/not consume baked goods? How much fat is high fat? High fat, low carb. How is it figured?

I’m not a brain surgeon or an electrical engineer. I just need the debits to equal the credits and I’m not even very good at figuring that.

Someone.Please.Send.Help!

(Jane) #2

You are overthinking this!

All that is required to be on a ketogenic diet is to be in ketosis and this is accomplished by eating low carb. < 20 net will get most of the population into ketosis so that is a starting point. Don’t worry about the glycemic index - just count carbs.

Protein is a goal to ensure you don’t lose muscle mass.

Fat IS.NOT.A.GOAL - it is a maximum and that is based on arbitrary macros. Eat enough fat that you aren’t hungry all the time and do not need to snack. After a time you may be able to cut back some. Do not go “low fat” as you need fat to absorb nutrients and to give you energy you may not be able to get from your stored fat.

(Joey) #3

@Janie Right on. “KISS” is simple street talk for Occam’s Razor.

@Roberta_Worley So, keeping it simple, the challenge remains that everyone is a unique variation on a broader theme.

No one single approach works for everyone - all of the time.

Seeking to understand things better (to ensure the debits equal the credits), I’d suggest reading from various reliable sources (,i.e., those who have nothing to sell you). Test what works best for you - for the time being.

Sorry, but if anyone tried to make it much simpler (adding beyond what @Janie said above) to spoon feed what works best for us at the present time, they’d be doing you a disservice.

Knowing your bipolar condition as you do, you also know better than anyone else where your boundaries lie. Know them and respect them. :vulcan_salute:

(Jane) #4

Like @SomeGuy said - our bodies are complicated. What I wrote will get you started until you stall for like - 6 weeks. Not a week, not 2. Weight loss isn’t linear and too many factors to calculate the debits and credits as you say. Metabolism, insulin response, water gain from time of the month, etc.

You can tweak later once you get into the groove and find out what works and what doesn’t. Keep a long-haul focus and you will be fine. Get really stuck - ask for advice here - not all will work, but something might!

(Roberta Worley) #5

I do appreciate both of your responses, Janie and @SomeGuy.

Can you point me in the direction of how to count carbs as not everything comes with a nutrition label?

Thank you!

(Laurie) #6

You will be safe with meat, eggs, poultry, fish. Leafy greens such as lettuce and spinach. Celery and cucumbers. Mushrooms.

Organ meats (e.g., liver) contain a few carbs. So do shellfish. So eat these in moderation.

Crucifer/brassica vegetables contain some carbs, so go easy on these. These include cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and other vegetables with similar cabbage-like flavors.

Stay away from squash, tomatoes, and root vegetables until you’re willing to look up the carb counts for each.

For extra fat, you can use butter, bacon (and bacon grease), ghee, coconut oil, olive oil, or avocado oil. Also dressings and mayonnaise made from these.

For nuts, sour cream, cheese, and many other items I haven’t mentioned, you can refer to the nutrition label on the package.

(Robin) #7

When I first began, I used an online program, Carb Manager. It was easy to use and invariably the exact food I wanted to eat was already in it’s index. So you put in your weight, your desired weight, and then the percentages you’d like to stick to. It will tell you how many calories you need a day and the percentages of carbs, fat, protein. I used it long enough to see that I had intuitively figured out what and how to eat on my own. Occasionally I will get back on and chart my day’s intake just to double check. And I’m always in the zone. So, I don’t need a carb counter now, but it was invaluable to me when I began. Good luck.

(Joey) #8

Same/same. Used it for about 10 months - even paid for a year’s “pro” version after testing it out for a bit. Learned so much about what’s in the food I was eating and how it all added up.

Then it became too OCD to keep up with. Now I just know what’s what - invaluable education for a while.

(Gregory - You can teach an old dog new tricks.) #9

Keto Baked goods ( snacks, desserts ) are the result of the processed food industry ( almond flour is a processed food ) trying to appeal to those who want to hang on to a SAD ( standard American Diet ) way of eating.

If you want to get the life long health benefits of a ketogenic metabolism, try to focus on whole, single ingredient foods that contain a minimum of carbohydrates.

(Jane) #10

Good advice.

However, my carb-addicted husband who didn’t need to lose much weight never would have stuck it out with me if I hadn’t made some of the substitute foods with almond and coconut flour early on to transition him to keto.

Now he rarely bothers with mug cakes and the likes as his cravings are pretty much gone. Some people are better off dropping them altogether - just depends if you need a crutch for a while. Nothing wrong with crutches as long as you eventually ditch them or make them an occasional thing.
:+1:

#11

It can’t be super simple as we are individuals and we should find our own way. After experimenting with myself for a decade, I think I have some vague idea what I should do right now…

But first you just do keto without overcomplicating things. People often force themselves into some random number, no need. If your body works fine enough, listen to it, it’s more useful than a lots of science but it’s good to know things sometimes, of course.

Almond? Too expensive for that little flavor, I simply avoided it all the time… Spinach and peanuts with their oxalate content are prevalent too. Vegetables with their zillion carbs… Quite carby treats with impossibly tiny servings… Ignore them if your preferred style is different.
Some ketoers need to focus on various things. Others just use it as a fat-loss diet and ANYTHING is okay as long it fits the carb macro. I had my IIFYM times but I still had a long blacklist I brought from my low-carb times. To me, health is more important than fat-loss, I read, I try and I decide what to eat.

Hopefully things will fall into place. You can learn things slowly, all the knowledge isn’t needed for a good woe for you.

To consume baked goods? Up to you. I always will do that, I have a very good one ingredient carnivore sponge cake :smiley: Of course you can just eat simple, normal food, meat, eggs, maybe vegetables… I doubt any kinds of item is needed. You just need some good protein source, some fat… We don’t NEED baked goods, sweets, sauces… But some people find keto way harder without them.

I have no idea how much fat is high-fat. Is it important? I don’t even care about my fat intake, I don’t even have a limit for it… It shouldn’t be unnecessarily high but sometimes that’s okay too… And nothing is wrong with a nice low-fat keto day either but it’s usually not good for longer term. I eat according to my satiation, desires, whatever - and the fat falls into place. Sometimes it’s 54g. Sometimes it’s 254g. Both may be perfect for that very day (and both are extreme for me)… The average is more important but I eat enough to get satiated and that’s it. If my numbers are clearly very off longer term, it’s time to figure out what is my problem and tweak my woe or attitude.
Carbs may interfere. Diary may interfere. Too much or wrong fat may interfere… I learned from my tracking how my body work. I never enforced numbers, I just tracked my intake and realized some things. That’s why I avoid vegetables and added fat now. I don’t care if vegetables are great for others, they are interfering, hunger-inducing carbs. I don’t care if I get many carbs from liver and eggs as that never caused any problem.

I never cared much about the GI (it’s complicated anyway, adding fat to the carb source lowers it etc.), net carbs were more important and it’s usually good enough for the start. It may change later but it’s usually a huge step to lower your carbs this much, it may be enough.
As years passed, I started to be careful with sugars, animal or plant, doesn’t matter, they are worse than starches, it seems. I believe many of us use dairy with lactose carefully, maybe dairy in general. But you can feel if heavy cream or lactose-free cheese is problematic for you, at least I feel it. many others just experience it interferes with their fat-loss.

If you are able to do it, you may do an elimination diet and you can add one item a time to see what happens… But I only would do it if my original keto would be seriously lacking - or not but I could imagine something better than what I have. I felt very healthy on high-carb too but as I went lower and lower, I got some positive surprises :wink: It took a lot of time though.

I was afraid I will be too complicated for you but it IS complicated. But we don’t need to see it all. Just do what feels right, maybe it will be enough for now :slight_smile:

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #12

There are apps, such as Cronometer and MyFitnessPal that contain data banks with the carb counts of common food items. Or you can go the USDA food composition database and look up the foodstuff you want to know about.

If you limit your carb consumption to leafy greens and such cruciferous vegetables as broccoli and cauliflower, you probably don’t even need to worry about your carb count. Or you could go carnivore, in which case any carbohydrate in your meat would be purely incidental and not worth worrying about.

(Roberta Worley) #13

Thank you to everyone who replied to my quest.

I am particularly thankful to @SomeGuy Joey for Ockham’s Razor. I had to look that up as I had never heard of it before. Quite interesting and gave me food for thought with all pun intended.

(Joey) #14

Fun with science! :wink:

38%20PM
Screen Shot 2020-10-27 at 7.18.38 PM.jpg1456×1082 256 KB

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #15

Einstein’s version was something to the effect that a theory should be as simple as possible—but no simpler.

I’ve often thought that his theories of relativity are perfect examples of this. Newton’s laws of gravity brilliantly accounted for the all the data available at the time. Then, when additional data needed to be accounted for, Einstein came along and made the necessary revisions. It makes you wonder what more we don’t know about yet, that might require a revision of Einstein’s brilliant work.

(Joey) #16

And he managed to whittle things down to roughly 3 variables.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #17

And one arbitrary constant, which irked him bigly trying to eliminate it to no avail.

(Roberta Worley) #18

You gentlemen make me to laugh!

In all seriousness of the matter, do you think it’s possible to tie all that in to keto? What would Einstein and Newton’s thoughts be on the matter? Any ideas? Conjectures?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #19

The way to tie all that in to keto is to stop assuming that we know what we are doing, where tampering with the food supply is concerned. The idea that it is possible to out-think two million years of human evolution is absurd. Also, the idea that religious beliefs or the desires of people to sell us products are relevant to what we should be eating is another absurdity. No amount of believing that plants are pure, that animal flesh is disgusting, or that sugar is healthful makes any of that actually true.

(GINA ) #20

If you are a person that does better with rules or guidelines you could try following a particular plan. ‘Keto’ is talked about in the media like it is a single comercial entity, but it really isn’t. At it’s most basic, a ketogenic diet is a diet that puts a person in ketosis- that’s it. The wrinkles come because everyone is different. What I need to do to be in ketosis is likely different from what you need to do.

Then all kinds of ‘rules’ about food type and quality have popped up. They are all important to someone, they may or may not be important to you. My doctor suggested keto to me (long after I was already well-aware), but said “Don’t read about it on the internet. No one on the internet really knows keto. Pork and dairy aren’t allowed.” Keto with no bacon? That will be news to millions. :grinning: My point is, if you just get on the internet and type keto, the results will be overwhelming.

If you prefer a set plan, I am partial to the oldies- Dr Atkins New Diet Revolution or Protein Power by Drs Michael & Mary Dan Eades. They are both more low carb plans than ‘keto’ (it wasn’t a thing when the plans were written) but they will give you clear guidelines that will have you feeling better and losing weight. There are probably newer books that are good that others can suggest too.