Hi, All! I have been doing strict keto for exactly 1 month. My statistics: I am a 58 year old female. I am 5’9.5" tall with a mesomorphic body type (big boned, lots of muscle, easily get fat). I currently weigh 220.4 lbs. My goal weight is 175. I also have high cholesterol (270 - my normal is 220), high LDL and the start of fatty liver. My Dr. is pushing statins, but I refuse so far.
I do not have a particularly active lifestyle, but I do swim in the ocean every single day for 80-90 minutes. I have lost 16.2 pounds in the last 30 days, which I feel is a good weight loss rate for me. I know that I will hit plateaus and am ready for that. Keto has been really good for me. I did experience the Keto Flu, but since then, I am very satisfied with my food, have very limited cravings and don’t feel like I’m “suffering” by being on this eating plan.
I am using an app called Carb Manager to track my macros and I have been very diligent about measuring everything and counting everything (please note, I know that there are those who don’t feel this is necessary, but it works for me). Carb Manager (CM) has me eating the following:
26 g net carbs per day
164 g of fat
132 g of protein
2105 net calories
I stay within these parameters EXCEPT, I aim for 10 g of net carbs per day and never go over 20. I also don’t mind if I go over in the fat and often try to not eat quite so much protein. I’ve been a dieter all of my life and am aware of the fact that I have issues with sugar and starches. I have not eaten ANY sugar or starch since starting this plan. I am also doing “clean” Keto, with little processed foods and no fake baked goods, etc. I am consuming mostly beef with fat, eggs and salmon with some full-fat dairy and limited veggies. My go-to snack is Utz’s pork rinds with Peruvian green sauce as the dip and macadamia nuts. My fats are predominately ghee, butter, olive oil (ghee focus as much as possible) with some almond butter. My only carb “cheat” are 1-2 ounces of tomatoes (we grow them and they’re in season right now) or 4 oz of full-fat yogurt sweetened with a few drops of liquid stevia and with 1-2 ounces of fresh blueberries. I do the yogurt only about 2-3x per week. I drink ONLY water, plain selzer and fresh mint tea (home brewed from mint leaves) with a few drops of stevia in it.
I also do Intermittent fasting every day. I try not to eat after 7:30 pm. I get up at 5:30 am and I swim in the ocean. I come back and do not eat my first food until at LEAST 11 am. I try to go to noon or 1, but usually can’t make it. My first food is almost always 2 oz of macadamia nuts because by that point I am HUNGRY and it’s an easy way to get some fat into me no matter where I am or what I am doing. I then consume the majority of my food at lunch. This is usually 8 oz of salmon or meat plus some sort of veggie (8 oz of asparagus or a veggie salad with a feta-cheese dressing that I make). I also will add either an oz of butter to the veggies or an ounce of ghee on top of the meat or a TBSP of EVOO on top of the salmon. I will usually have an ounce of pork rinds, maybe with the green sauce or 2 oz of sheep or goat cheese (I try to stay away from cow’s milk cheese as it is a trigger for me). Sometimes, if I’m really hungry, I’ll also have 6-8 oz of ground, cooked turkey with 1-2 oz of sour cream mixed in. I usually consume at LEAST half (sometimes 2/3rds) of all of my food for the day at lunch. IF I am craving something sweet, this is when I will eat the yogurt with blueberries. My snack is usually around 4 or 5 and it is almost always 2 oz of pork rinds with 1/4 cup green sauce. Dinner is usually around 6-7 and it is almost always just some meat with some sort of fat on top (ghee if it is meat, EVOO if it is salmon). That’s my typical food day. On occasion (3 x this month), I have had my KETO BLT+A, which is romaine lettuce wrap with 1/2 oz bacon + 1 oz tomato + 1 oz mozzarella cheese + 1 oz avocado. I usually will eat 2 of these. I TRY to eat this at lunch and not dinner because the carbs can add up fast with this and I don’t want to go over. I can adjust dinner accordingly. In general, I try to stay away from pork. It’s just not my favorite. So this is how I’m eating. When I first started I had to add some fat bombs at the end of the day to get all the fat in, but I’ve figured out how to get the fat in during the day and haven’t had to do that for a while. Sometimes I’ll have a TBSP of almond butter at the end of the day. I feel that I’m doing everything right,
HOWEVER
I’m not sure that my body is going into ketosis as it should. I use both urine test strips and a breathalyzer and I’m concerned that I’m not in ketosis most of the time. When I wake up at 5 AM, I never have any trace of ketones. When I get back from my swim (I swim really hard and try to swim to the point of fatigue each day), I never have any ketones. I do not show any ketones registering until after I eat my first food and then, most of the time, it’s just a trace of 0.5. Sometimes it will go up an hour or so after I eat, but I’ve never been above 1.5. After I eat dinner is when I’m most likely to show ketone bodies, somewhere between 1.0 and 1.5. By the time I go to bed at 10-10:30, I’m back down to just a trace, if anything.
Is this normal? I would have thought that I’d be rocking along in ketosis the whole day, especially after my swim in the morning. Isn’t this when I’m maximizing my fat burning? I really don’t want to do blood monitoring. I purchased the breathalyzer because I thought it might be more accurate than the pee sticks, but, actually, it just shows the same results. I’m thinking of returning it and just sticking to the pee sticks. I’m really concerned that my body is ketosis resistant and that I’m not eating low enough carb and high enough fat. There is diabetes in my immediate family and I know that I don’t process sugar or starch well, although bloodwork shows that I am not yet pre-diabetic. I gave up sugar years ago and have limited my starch intake as well, but because of dieting all my life, I was eating too much protein and WAAAY too many carbs in the form of veggies. Again, I’m worried that I’m Ketosis resistant and that I’m going to have to go no carb in order to be in Ketosis.
I really, at this point, do not want to do carnivore. I’m very happy with Keto and I feel that it’s something that I can live with. I can see myself doing Keto as a lifestyle in the long run, not just to lose weight. Keto eating makes me feel really good. I think that, at this point in my life anyway, carnivore would be too limiting and I wouldn’t be able to stick with it.
Please advise and thank you so much for your input.