Too many great comments here to reply to them all. I wanted to reply “exactly!” to so many of you!
One clarification: of course we’re all different and we are all going to end up finding what works for us individually. What I am saying here is that the place to start is keep it simple: no sugar, no starch.
Of course, if you have an especially deranged metabolism and you’re not dropping fat and your biomarkers aren’t improving after a few weeks (or even months), then by all means recalibrate. But for newbies, cutting out sugar and starch is going to get them started very nicely for the first weeks or months. There’s nothing more liberating than ad libitum eating, particularly when you’re starting out on this lifestyle.
I agree with you Alex, this group is probably the worst example you could find of people who know how to keep weight off, me included. (hope I didn’t insult anyone)
Don’t worry I have been there and done that with the weight-loss and regain it all again several times, until now it seemed impossible to do, but Keto gives us all some hope.
Its still have a long way to go, and for me the real challenge begins when I reach maintenance.
Will I manage to keep it off using Keto? I hope so but we’ll see. Congrats for your weight-loss too, KCKO!
I dunno… there are a few other groups who would probably fit that description quite well, too. Biggest Loser contestants, Jenny Craig, Weightwachers… it’s a pretty long list.
Fortunately, I’ve not had the yo-yo thing. I just got fat over about 16 or 17 years. I went on keto a year ago and have steadily dropped. There have been upward fluctuations at times, maybe 5 pounds or so, but the general trend is and has been downward.
I honestly don’t think I’m going to yo-yo. I like what I eat now. I enjoy what I eat now. I don’t go hungry now. I’m in the habit of eating what I eat now. I have no reason to change it. Truly, I’m not worried about gaining it all back.
I know, it’s N=1. And I’m good with that. (No insult taken, BTW, just sharing.)
There is likely no group more successful in keeping weight off as keto. I hang out on a few boards and know people who have been maintaining for years and years. I am one in fact. I lost the bulk of my weight in 2009 and have since maintained and even continued to lose a few more.
I was a keto dropout back in 2003 after 3 yrs. of it and learned the hard way why staying on plan is crucial. The other giant difference between then and now is that the science has convinced me that this is the only way I want to eat because i just feel so darn good. Becoming cognitive of that fact has been enormously helpful.
If we knew all the answers to weight loss and maintenance, we could be billionaires. There is no just one answer. Generally speaking, keto will do the most to reverse or improve those metabolic abnormalities that make us fat and sick. How exactly a person does keto will vary greatly due to any number of personal differences. I think we can all agree that going keto is switching up energy from glucose to fat. This can only happen when carbs are restricted and protein moderated. Then fat can become the primary fuel. We want to burn body fat but we also have to consume dietary fat and how a person decides on that is by playing with the amounts. If a person is not over consuming carbs/protein, eating more fat will not cause weight gain. Most people don’t eat fat independent of carbs and or protein so I would suggest that those 2 things are the cause of the potential gain.
Respectfully,
You are doing you and it is working and that is great. But in all fairness, you have been doing restrictive keto eating (by 1000 kcals daily) since you started and really have not (aside from a daily feast) upped your fat consumption to meet or beat your macro levels for any length of time to allow the process to work and give your satiety signals a chance to function the way that many are experiencing on keto. You are still of the CICO thinking and have not been willing to give the fat to satiety a chance.
This might be from a psychological standpoint from deficit eating and giving an upped fat consumption would help the mindset too.
This is just a thought and only meant as a suggestion to try something different, and if I am wrong about anything I have listed, I apologize.
This is inaccurate. I went on a keto cutting program, where I kept very high fat (76-81%) but reduced calories. I had my RMR tested in a lab at week 1 and week 7 and my metabolism significantly decreased from caloric restriction.
Glucose: Fat can turn into sugar and sugar can turn into fat as well as protein turning into sugar?
When first starting a ketogenic diet you take it slow on how much (amount) fat and protein you are consuming especially in the case of diabetic ketonauts?
When you are fully-ketogenic-adapted after 27 weeks or so and the cells of the body are more prone to ACTUALLY using the fat for fuel i.e. ketones, then increasing (hence “eating fat to satiety”) fat consumption would be more logical? (depending on physical activity or physical exertion variables?)
“Eating fat and/or protein to satiety” does not sound like a wise choice (especially in the case of the diabetic) when first starting a ketogenic diet?
We are eating the fat to help us “feel satiated” in-between meals or intermittent fasting NOT “eating fats/oils to satiety?”
This is the infamous “Page 4” from Dr.Eric Westman’s program. You can also find it all over Pinterest but he warns that some people have modified it to be a bit more liberal.
You should take this up with Dr Eric Westman, Dr Phinney, and others. This advice is pretty much standard practice AFAIK in the low carb medical community.
I’ve tracked my macros while eating ad libitum and I’m def not overconsuming protein. Everyone’s different I guess, but ad libitum is a great place to start.
I do get this and understand if this is the issue but my question is that since he has been doing restricted keto from the beginning, is this really the case? Maybe an n=1 experiment (giving a reasonable length of time to work) would reveal differently.
Hi Ron, that is not true. I was doing lazy keto for the first 10 weeks until I stalled out at 117.8kg and began putting weight back on. The only app I used up to that point was one where I recorded my daily weigh-ins. So you are incorrect when you say I didn’t give satiety signals a chance to function, there is no way I was prepared to sit there and listen to the endless promotion of eating fat to satiety and just blindly eating my way back to 135.1kg!
That is when I used an app that you said you used, Cronometer to monitor exactly what I was eating in terms of macros. As soon as I saw that I was eating 203% of my fat macro I knew exactly what the cause for my weight increase was, my carbs and protein macros were close enough.
I also spent a great deal of time researching for myself evidence that points to reducing dietary fat to break a plateau. Phinney’s page which I have already posted was just one source that confirmed to me that eating more fat than I require is not going to allow me to lose weight. It makes sense to me that in order to burn my own fat reserves I did not need to provide more fat than my body needed for its daily requirements, AND it was unlikely to access those reserves if I kept feeding it more than enough for what it needs.
I don’t need to try anything different, I’m not asking for help, and I’m just losing weight. Monitoring macros and controlling the amount of fat I consume works effectively for me, I’m not hungry at all, otherwise I’d still be eating three meals a day.
I just hit a new low of 111.9 kg this morning, so that’s four consecutive days of weight-loss.
I’m in Nutritional Ketosis 1.1 mmol/L, my blood sugar is 4.9 mmol/L this morning, everything is good at the moment.
You seem to have the same issue with protein, or am I misunderstanding? Why are you only addressing fat? Overeating any macro and it will convert to fat in the body, excess food of any kind gets stored as fat.
No one tells newbies to overeat fat, they are encouraging them to make sure they meet their macros (including fat) to satiety.
I was saying that a 500g T-Bone before I began Keto was what I considered to be a decent sized steak. On Keto the recommended protein levels are considerably less than what I was used to eating. I’m not doing that on Keto never have, if that’s what you’re thinking. No my protein is good now that I monitor it, I had a tendency to go over on lazy keto. As I say carbs were never a problem because I went cold turkey and completely dropped: wheat related products, i.e. bread, rice, potatoes, and pasta.
@tdean
Fair enough. I wasn’t sure so tried to word my post accordingly without accusation. Like I said, it’s working for you so that’s great. Maybe something you can play with more sometime if you choose after you reach your goal weight. I am hoping to help by broken satiety signal in the future also.
No probs @mtncntrykid Ron, I value your judgement and experience on Keto and have learned a lot from you mate. Yes I think I will experiment a bit more once I get to maintenance but for now, its keep on doing what I’m doing as long as it works. If it doesn’t work investigate and research more. I’d love my satiety signaling to kick in but so far no sign of it. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Seems like we may be the exception to the rule, and that’s ok too.
