Skinny hubby on keto, needs to gain weight

(betsy.rome) #1

So my hubby has been keto’ing with me for around 1 year. He’s lost his spare tire, & he’s delighted to be fitting in pants from his 20’s, (we’re in our early 60’s). He is now under 140 lbs at 6’ tall, and people at work at telling him he looks like he’s been on a starvation diet. Mr. String Bean. He wants to gain at least 10 lbs back. We both know he should be exercising, but he has disc problems in his back and a demanding job, very little time to work out.

He wants the health benefits of ketosis, as dementia runs in his family, as does diabetes. So he’d like to add…potatoes. Or sweet potatoes. He’d really prefer jelly beans, but he knows better! I think his 35 lb weight loss has made him more insulin-sensitive. He consistently blows in ketosis on our cheapo BAC meter. When I asked Megan Ramos at Ketofest, she said, “Eat more fat”. He doesn’t want to do that. He keeps losing weight. (yeah, gotta hate that!) Suggestions?

#2

I think Megan is correct. I have never met her but she is now pretty thin or seems to be in pictures so I would trust her.

There is something called the perfect or optimum health diet that allows sweet potatoes.

If he had done this just to lose weight or reduce insulin resistance then I would say that would be a good compromise. However I think if dementia is a concern I would stick to keto and add fat. It can be fun fat! Eat extra fat head pizza, sour cream, guacamole or bacon or whatever other fat items he enjoys. No expert and hope one day to eat sweet potatoes again but my fear is T2 and that I can easily monitor if I leave keto. I think neuro issues are not as easily calibrated

(Jennifer) #3

Tell him he has to up his fat. My husband is the same - lost too much on LCHF until he discovered bulletproof coffee.

Also - my husband eats more carbs because he is insulin sensitive. He is probably closer to 100 a day. It’s an n =1 experiment. Try it and see how he does.

(Duncan Kerridge) #4

Just eat more of the keto foods he really likes, I don’t want to lose any more weight so I just eat a lot more of what I was eating while trying to loose, but not trying to add in carbs. I’m probably on 30-40g of carbs a day now from the amount of nuts and 100% chocolate I eat but they mainly add more fat. My blood ketones stay good, I’m sure he can find a balance.

(Allie) #5

More fat is correct as dietary fat will give the body fuel so it doesn’t burn bodyfat.

(Sjur Gjøstein Karevoll) #6

If he wants to gain weight then he needs to eat more. Fat, protein and if he’s insulin sensitive, carbs, doesn’t matter as long as it’s from nutritious food. If he wants to eat potatoes I think that’s fine to try, just beware that different preparation methods can change the nutrient contents of potatoes drastically, the best methods being steaming and dry baking. If he wants to stay in ketosis while eating more carbs then supplementing MCT oil or eating more coconut oil can help. A high-carb diet with MCT oil is just as ketogenic as a moderately strict low-carb diet (less than 10% carbs). As always it’s important to pay attention to how you feel and if increasing carbs reveals he’s not as insulin sensitive as he thinks he is then obviously switch that to fat or protein, but I think it’s fine to experiment.

#7

If he’s still under 20 grams of carbs, I think he can definitely afford to add in more carbs (healthy, keto-approved type carbs). I would also increase fats like suggested. Extra veggies certainly provide more ways to add fat into his diet.

(Ross) #8

Do you have the new Banting lists? Potato, sweet potato, winter squash and pumpkin are all A-OK for those of us who have achieved ouw weight loss goals.

For exercise, hard to beat a good masters swimming group. :swimming_man: Easy on the joints and great for the heart :heart: and provides a nice social support component.

(Stickin' with mammoth) #9

His body wants fuel, so it’s eating what’s available: him. Only way to stop it is to feed the metabolic keto beast the right amount of fat to satisfy the engine.

A good hack would be to add 25 g of extra fat per day for a week, then an additional 25 g a day the next week, and 25 g the next, and so on, until he finds the magic number for maintenance.

#10

Look at Atkins. He has induction then he recommends adding 5 grams of carb per week until you stop losing weight or in your husband’s case, gets kicked out of ketosis.

This is an article that might be of interest regarding dementia

The recommendations are near the bottom and they do not limit fruit the way we do so maybe not eating SAD is enough

(jilliangordona) #11

If he doesn’t want to eat fat, I think eating sweet potatoes with lots of yummy butter may help him get more fat and food in a safe way as long as he’s insulin sensitive! Do you have a way to measure at home? If not, I would recommend perhaps getting blood work done now, then a few weeks after he adds in some carby foods to make sure his important markers aren’t being negatively impacted.

Everyone is truly different, and strict keto isn’t for everyone if they are insulin sensitive in my opinion.

(Richard Morris) #12

A lot of the benefits of ketosis appear to still happen as long as you are not eating enough glucose and have to make some. So that would put the upper limit up around 150g a day … at which point you just have enough to feed your brain and your body can lose it’s fat adaptation. I would slowly add targeted carbohydrates (like some sweet potato, or beans), and as you do you will want to eat more and you’ll hopefully be able to dial up or down that to get your body fat to the point you want it to be.

The other way to add weight is buildling muscle through weight bearing exercise. in your 60’s there probably aren’t a lot of people who really want to be body building, but flexibility, strength and especially bone strength are good attributes to take into you latter years.

Personally I think both energy capacity (as metabolically healthy fat) AND strength are healthy and worth building.

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #13

This sounds like my DH, but we are in latter 60s now. My husband is struggling to stay in the 150s, his body wants to go into the 140s. Too thin for him. I let him eat premium full fat ice cream for an occasional treat, low carb pizzas, for the cals. and he eats some potatoes, hashbrown primarily a couple of times a week. This is the only way we have found to keep him in the mid-150s.

Hoping to pick up more idea here. Thanks for starting this conversation, TOFIs are harder to figure out, as they tend to loss over all weight more easily, just not the fat they need to lose.

My husband does yoga at home. He has a membership to a health club but rarely goes there and we walk alot but he has back issues that flare up and keep him from doing even shorter walks from time to time.

Hoping you find a good exercise routine for your husband that he can follow. Even doing simple body weight bearing exercises should help with muscle retention for him.

(betsy.rome) #14

:smiley: Thanks to all who replied. We’re going to start with testing current baselines for fasting blood glucose (strips) and ketones (cheapo ebay BAC device), and then test for after a keto meal, then try adding some of his favorites, one at a time - sweet potatoes, red-skinned white potatoes (skin-on), corn on the cob.
And he’s going to try to add either tai chi or yoga to his routine. Small changes.

(Keto in Katy) #15

Exactly this.

Feed the metabolism what it needs, fat, and it will stop using so much of his body fat for fuel.