I have been on keto for about 6 weeks, and initially, I dropped from 207 to 191, but for the last several weeks I have been hovering in the 191-193 range (I am 6’ tall). I track everything I eat using MyFitnessPal, and my macros over the past month are Carb 11%, Fat 63%, Protein 26%. There have been a few days where I fell completely off the wagon and had a 20% carb day, but I have been sticking to the plan all other times. I think that my problem may be related to not getting enough daily calories. I am averaging 1850 calories/day, and according to the calculator, my TDEE is 2820, which is a reduction of about 35%. My urine strips are showing moderate ketosis at around 1.5. I have been taking BCAA powder and Creatine HCL daily pre-workout, and a week ago just started taking MCT Oil Vanilla daily in my morning coffee. I am doing HIIT type workouts for 25 min, 4-5 days per week, and doing an 18 hour fast every Monday. If I need to increase my calories, then what is the best way to do that, because I am never really hungry, and get full pretty fast. Or perhaps I am losing fat, and building muscle, and changing body but not dropping pounds? Any thoughts, suggestions, guidance?
Too little calories or something else?
More fat, less protein, less carbs! Aim for 75% fat at least and up your overall calories; even if you gain weight now, it will be OK. Your metabolism is ramped down because IMHO you have been eating too few calories combined with too little ketogenic macro ratios.
Stick to the following rule: If you’re hungry, eat fat. The first weeks, I snacked on “butter in a blanket” (pieces and sticks of butter wrapped in cheese/bacon. I ate 4,000 kcals a day without moving much and dropped over 10 pounds.
After the adaptation, things get easier and you can slowly start to decrease the fat and try IF or EF. This is were the real magic happens in terms of weight loss. You will notice a weight loss stall and know it’s time to fast.
First it’s about what you eat, then it becomes about when you eat.
How many carbs does that translate to? Before thinking of adding calories I’d look at your carbs.
I weighed 220 and ran for months at 1600-1800 calories, but 70% fat 25% protein 5% carbs. 75 pounds lost total.
CONGRATS on your success so far!
The macros should be fixed before upping the cals, but I think this goes hand in hand in repairing the metabolism. Try going as ZC as you can; apart from incidental carbs from dairy and green leafies.
@Pete_A, I have my carb macro set at 10%, which comes to 56g based on my target 2250 calories, but I think where this gets messed up is because I am only eating like 1800 calories. My macros are 10/60/30, and almost every day, my meals hit that on the mark. The problem is that I recently increased my calorie goal from 1500 to 2250, and since I increased it, my macro % are on track, but the total protein & fat grams are not hitting the numbers. When I say I am hitting my macro percentages, I mean based on the calories I an actually eating, not based on the 2250 calories I should be eating.
Here is an example of a typical day - 1900 cal, at a 10/60/30 ratio, I should be eating 150g fat but only ate 104, should be eating 169g protein but only ate 131, and should be eating 57g carb, but only at 6g, which put my actual macro numbers at 2/63/35. That is why I was thinking that I need to increase calories, while still keeping the macro ratio on target, but how do I do that when I never feel hungry? I just ate 1/2 an avocado, homemade chicken salad, with egg, olive oil mayo, and about 6oz of rotisserie chicken, and I am full!
Eat fat when hungry, don’t eat when not hungry. Don’t calorie count. Just keep carbs as low as possible. That’s it.
Your carbs should be net 20 GRAMS total, not any % (unless you’re doing the math to keep that resulting percentage under 20g net by way of your BMR). You can use percentage for the rest of your calorie macros, but your net carbs are a hard-and-fast GRAM measurement. 50+g net carbs (hell, even total carbs) will keep you far, far away from ketosis for a long, long, LONG time (most would argue period).
Up the fat, dial back the protein, and get your net carbs under 20g a day…
I thought the goal was to keep carb intake to 5-10% of total calories. With that in mind, the more calories you eat, the more grams of carbs are set as your goal. Obviously, 10% on 2500 cal is going to be more grams of carbs then on a 1500 cal day. So it appears that I need to stop following the macros in terms of %, and just limit net carbs to 20g, then I can do % for fat and protein, but unfortunately, on myfitnesspal I cannot set my macros in grams unless I pay $10 monthly for premium, so I will just have to watch and track maually the carbs. The problem with the app, is that it calculates your total carb grams allowance based on the total cal/day goal, so the higher you set it, the more carbs it allows you to have. I will work on 20g net per day and see how that goes. Back to me original question, should I try to get the 2250 cal/day, or just worry about the 20g carbs, and not worry about calories. When I only eat 1500-1800, I lose energy in the morning workouts.
Correct. If you want something that calculates net carbs or a set gram level of carbs, check out Cronometer. Theirs–and others–do it for free.
Here’s how I figure my macros:
20g net carbs/day (with what I consume, that equals ROUGHLY 200cal)
BMR (my DEXA Scan says 1750) -200cal = 1550cal, of that, I shoot for 75% fat / 20% protein.
That’s if I’m being lazy keto. At the beginning, it’s far more effective to use a good tracking / macro tool. It’s VERY easy to go under or over macros with the untrained eye.
Thanks all for the guidance. So I am on day 2 of the 20 net grams. I am actually tracking total grams, and yesterday it was 16, and so far today, I am at 14, so net grams would be even less. That being said, I still have my calorie goal set to 2250, which puts my targets for fat / protein at 175g / 150g, which I am finding it very difficult to reach. I know you said to not worry about calories, but if I am going to try to limit protein to less than 25%, that number in grams will go up/down depending on how many calories I consume, so I set the calorie goal at a 20% deficit to my TDEE of 2820. So my question is, should I just try to focus on the 70% fat / 25% protein ratio, and not pay attention to how many grams or calories I am eating? If I eat until I am full, I only get about 1800 calories/day, which would be a 35% deficit, and not sure that is healthy. Please advise, thanks!
If trying to lose weight then any you need will come from the belly frig. I do find my protein content moves to the high side to take on enough fat. I just add butter and olive oil to everything, and use the meat to soak up the fat. After that when full i am good.
Eat until satiated (comfortably full), irrespective of calories. For the next few weeks, it’s not about weightloss; it’s about becoming Fat Adapted…