Too much double Cream and half spoon sugar?

[Baileyrose]

Hello Folks,

Just started Keto 10 days ago and have gained 2Ib, arrggg
I Think my problem could be the over use of Double Cream, I would normally have 3/4 cups of coffee per day if I was working,
The fact that Im stuck at Home ( furloughed ) its more like 12/15 cups if Im being honest, Im also using low cal sugar as my ( daily Carbs allowance ) apart from that Im really strict, I don’t eat after 8pm at night, nor do I drink Coffee after 5pm, and next day i don’t eat anything until after 12 noon although ill probably have 6/7 cups of coffee in morning alone with double cream/ low cal sugar

I would appreciate any feedback
Baileyrose x

[Polly1]

Hi @Baileyrose Welcome to this forum.

My gut instinct is to stick to real food and avoid sugar and sweeteners. If you keep on with the sweet’n’low [or whatever brand you are using] you are retaining your sweet tooth and that won’t help you.

Every time you have a cup of coffee with cream and sugar you are spiking your insulin. Insulin is, amongst other things, the fat storing hormone. Glucagon is, [also inter alia] the fat burning hormone and glucagon cannot operate in the presence of insulin. So a bit of a double whammy there!

Eat [including consumption of caloric beverages] no more than three times each day. Make sure you eat sufficient real food at each meal to keep you satisfied until the next meal.

Restrict your carbs to 20 g per day.

Good luck!

[Baileyrose]

Thankyou Polly, for really quick reply

If I drop the Low cal sugar , can I still use the double cream ?, as I couldn’t drop both

i remember doing Atkins about 10 years ago and the weight came off really quick, i suppose it doesn’t help with age ( now 51 ) in Menopause and an underactive thyroid

or is there an alternative ( sweetner ) that is more Keto Friendly ?

Baileyrose

[Polly1]

The cream may be OK, but try to limit the number of times in a day when you have it. I have cream in my coffee with or after a meal but otherwise take it black.

I know some folk here do artificial sweeteners and lose OK. They do not suit me and I suspect peri-menopause and post-menopause makes it harder to lose. My n=1 says that it did! But, chin up, weight loss is not impossible during menopause you just need to be a little more ruthless in what you allow yourself without trying to count calories which is counter productive.

[Baileyrose]

Thankyou for your help Polly, it is very much appreciated, Im gonna keep at this , iv just looked at my bag of half spoon sugar and a teaspoon ( which is what i have ) is actually 4g of carbs, so my daily carb intake on sugar alone is horrendous probably about 60 g easily, no wonder im putting on.

I have just used powdered Stevia in my coffee, only need less than a quart of a teaspoon, its not great but its a start and i continue try to reduce the amount until im hopefully off the sweetner altogether

It must be the sugar, because iv been pretty hardcore on this diet so far
again i thankyou, and ill keep going x

[Auntgrace]

Very similar here. I am 60, post meno. I take heavy cream and Pyure (stevia/erythritol blend) with my pot of tea (3 teacups worth) in the morning and I am really attached to it. I recently tested by blood glucose level and found it went up ten points within an hour. Going to test it again two more mornings to get better data. I have mild Dawn Phenomenon so really can’t afford to have a rise. If you can test your blood levels that would give you a better picture of what it is doing for you. I hope if I cut back on the cream (3 tablespoons in all) I can manage. If you are able to test, try testing coffee with cream and no sweetener. Another day try the sweetener alone. Keep your glucose (and so insulin) down. What sweetener are you using?

And that does seem like a lot of coffee…

[Auntgrace]

Could it be your stevia product has maltodextrin? Some do, and that has carbs.

[Shinita]

It’s individual. I drink much coffee (all day) and I need to drink most of them black. After only 8 years on low-carb and training myself to it, I finally can do that with the right band if it’s very weak… Sweetener was easier to skip, it only took a few years to gradually lower the amount but I had no problems with xylitol and later erythritol, actually. Some people do. Not the same but sometimes helps if I just drink tea instead of coffee, that’s nicer without adding stuff, I learned that tea usually should be consumed without anything decades ago.
And there is always water. If we can’t drink coffee without a ton of cream and we can’t afford a ton of cream, coffee is out. Life is hard sometimes I am a hopeless coffee addict so I learned to drink black coffee, I do IF anyway so cream should be out (sometimes I don’t care and use a few drops but I like to keep that close to my eating window).

I can’t afford much cream as it has very much fat that doesn’t satiate me at all. It seems cream and added fat satiate most people well, their attitude is different, of course. If you can afford the calories and macros and you consume it when it’s okay for you (not in the middle of a planned fast, for example), you may use lots of cream. But there is always a limit. To me, 10ml heavy cream is a good day (and it’s enough for quite a few coffee for me. unless whipped. I probably could drink a coffee with 100ml whipped cream just fine I don’t do that, I put an egg and a little cream into my coffee if I want it more substantial). 20ml is okay but I shouldn’t go beyond, usually. But if I manage to get satiated with little enough food on some day, I can afford more, not like it has much sense, I could eat some proper satiating food with it, not risking getting hungry earlier the next day. Occasional bigger comsumption is fine too if you can balance it out with stricter days. So try out things and you will see. But overeating from cream surely won’t help with fat-loss and gain is possible. So some moderation should be used.

Sugar is the worst idea. One on keto should never add plain sugar to anything - well except if someone NEED sweetening and hate all the sweeteners and they do what they are doing? But sugar in every coffee sounds one of the worst ideas ever. Even on simple low-carb with a more generous carb limit. Even my health conscious high-carber SO avoids plain sugar… There are usually way better options without a big (or in lucky cases, any) sacrifice.

2lbs is nothing, one can gain that in an hour and lose it too… Our bodyweight fluctuates.

[Corals]

Cream also has carbs.

What I do is to really count the carbs of everything I eat, including the carbs in cream. How do you control your carbs? Do you write it all down?

I eat spinach daily and even that goes in the tally. Because it adds up quickly, a 1g here, a 0.5g there…

I use an app called chronometer.

Good luck!

[Baileyrose]

Think im also need to count the Carbs in heavy cream im using, and cut back there too

Oh I wish i was back at work, because im furloughed, im drinking coffee with cream to pass time think
need to break the habit

[lfod14]

You can absolutely overdo it! Fat isn’t a freebie for us! Although we like to think it is. I have a coffee problem as well, I started slowly backing off on the amount I used to brew it with which made it slightly weaker so I could use less cream.

[PaulL]

It must be the sugar, because iv been pretty hardcore on this diet so far

It sounds as though you are right about that. Non-sugar sweeteners, while not always great (it depends on the particular sweetener and your personal biochemistry), can be a useful crutch while adapting to a ketogenic diet. I wouldn’t worry about the cream just yet, but the sweetener you’ve been using is most likely a problem. If using stevia drops will help you eliminated sugar, then by all means use them. If you can get used to doing without sweetener altogether, so much the better.

I was fortunate to have already moved to unsweetened black coffee and tea long before going keto. I tried heavy cream (double cream) in my coffee for a while, under the influence of these forums, and it was fine, however I eventually decided that I prefer my coffee unadulterated. As you go along, and particularly if you can reduce the amount of sweetener that you use, you are likely to find your taste for sweetness changing. For example, things I used to enjoy before keto now generally taste sickeningly sweet, and I have gone from considering unsweetened chocolate an abomination to quite enjoying the taste.

[LibbyL]

I agree that making your coffee weaker is the way to reduce your need to cut it with anything. I am a long time coffee drinker and just this past month started drinking it black because of being totally annoyed that being ketogenic isn’t causing weight loss in my case. (Old Woman). I halved how much coffee I use to brew it. So, money saver both with not having to buy as much coffee AND not having to buy cream. Two less things to worry about.

Interestingly, it appears to be having an effect. I cut out cheese, too. My grocery bill was way lower these past two weeks. I lost a couple of pounds, and saved a couple of dollars! I definitely eat plenty, but without the cheese and cream I seem to have less of a craving for food in general.

I don’t plan to be dairy free forever, but as long as the scale is going down I’ll probably avoid dairy until I reach a more reasonable weight. I maintained my weight with the cream and cheese, but it was disconcerting not to lose any. For a year. I’m full of hope.

I was really worried that I couldn’t stand to drink coffee black but it is actually very nice as long as I use water heated to 205 F and brew it by the mugful right before I plan to drink it, as compared to brewing a pot and coming back an hour later for a refill. I don’t use sweeteners.

Best of luck to you

[Baileyrose]

Hi Paul, thanks for replying

I really wish i was at work, cause i would not be drinking this amount of Coffee for a start, but iv not got a date to go back ( im currently Furloughed ) boy did i get a shock on these scales after 8 days on keto, cause i knew I had been good and i actually felt good and less bloated( and now i know for a start, the sugar iv been using Silverspoon half sugar is 4g per teaspoon, aarrrggg , iv probualy consumed a good 60g in Carbs everyday in the 8 days

I tried the stevia sugar this morning, just a 1/3 of a teaspoon ( its not nice ) but it got 0.5 g per teaspoon
Im gonna carry on and try and stay of the sweetnersc ause really need to get a nearly stone of Lockdown weight just for a starters

Thanks for reading and replying
Baileyrose

[Baileyrose]

Thankyou for your feedback, yeh im going have to try and ditch the sugar sweetners,and hopefully i get back to work soon, because i only normally drink 3/4 cups a day, Lockdown im on around 12 to 15

Baileyrose

[lfod14]

Not sure which sweeteners you’re using, and there’s no shortage of artificial sweetener hatred around here but for what it’s worth over the years I’ve tested ALL of them, ate a little, ate a lot, tested sugar, tested ketones and I’ve yet to ever see a negative impact from them (with the exception of toilet time from Xylitol and Maltitol) I like sweet, if you do too you may want to look around. They’re not all created equal but they’re not all bad either.

This is what I use, 1 drop = 1 tsp sugar sweetness.

Amazon.com : SucraDrops 4 oz Bottle of Premium Liquid Sucralose Sweetener, 2,...

Not a big fan of Erythritol or Stevia since the sweetness is different and kinda chemical-y tasting, to me at least. This stuff tastes like sugar. Not great for baking though.

[amwassil]

@Baileyrose BIG coffee drinker here! My suggestion is to make what I call ‘keto coffee’. This is simply coffee with a mix of fats and protein to my current macros. My mix contains: coconut oil, MCT oil, ghee and whipping cream for the fat; hydrolized collagen and whey powder for the protein. I drink a liter of keto coffee daily as my first meal. 421.45 total calories, 1.35 grams of total carbs from the whipping cream and whey. I use two whey powders, one of which is sweetened with stevia and sucralose. Other than that, no added sweetener. I cold brew my coffee since it eliminates most of the stuff that motivates adding sweetener. I use a countertop blender to mix.

Note: this is NOT a so-called fat bomb nor Bulletproof™ coffee. You can, of course, change ingredients however you like to suit yourself.

Sample

[lfod14]

I drink a liter of keto coffee daily as my first meal.

Now THAT’S How you start a day!

I cold brew my coffee since it eliminates most of the stuff that motivates adding sweetener.

What’s your method? Every time I attempt a cold brew it sucks.

[amwassil]

What’s your method?

I bought a 4.5 liter glass flower vase at my local Sally Ann. This gives me the capacity for 4 liters of coffee plus head space. I started using a 1 liter French press, but that turned out to be too much work! I use one of these at 74 microns to suspend the coffee in the water. I brew 128 grams of coffee grounds for 24 hours in 4225 grams of filtered water. The additional 225 grams of water is to allow for ‘shrink’ of water retained in the grounds. I agitate the hopper in the water/coffee when I put it in and take it out, just to make sure I get as much flavour out of the grounds as I can.

I use both ground coffee and whole beans that I grind in my Kitchen Aide grinder. I really enjoy trying out different brands and roasts, something I never did in years past.

I siphon the brewed coffee into a couple of 2-liter mason jars and store in the fridge for use.

This is 4-days of coffee ready to heat:

I originally used a Chemex carafe to heat the coffee in an open pot on the stovetop. But since I began working lots more starting at 7am I’ve gone to a Bunn warmer attached to a timer that heats the coffee for a couple hours before I get up at 04:30 to prepare my keto mix.

I’m a happy camper and coffee drinker!

[amwassil]

PS: I should mention that I am not any kind of expert about coffee. Everyone has his/her likes and dislikes and that’s fine. Drink whatever you want and enjoy. I certainly do so.

I have learned one thing: heat very quickly can ruin otherwise good coffee and make all coffee, whatever flavour nuances there may be, taste pretty much the same. The higher the heat of extraction, the greater the extraction of flavour compounds that make coffee both acidic and bitter. Coffee brewed above 190°F is borderline. If you don’t believe me, test for yourself.

If you like acidic and bitter coffee or just think that’s what coffee is, carry on. If you wonder what’s the difference between Ethiopian, Columbian and Sumatran coffees or dozens of others, then start preparing at lower temps. Cold brew is, of course, the ultimate ‘lower temp’.