Ketogenic Living and Intermittent Fasting

[firstsafety]

My Keto journey since 2017 August has been good.
I keep my carbs to within 20gms a day and don't eat more than one full meal a day.

Im a bit scared of eating huge amounts of fat though. I use good fat as I normally
would...olive oil, Goose fat, butter, ghee, full fat cream for coffee. But I don't
put butter in coffee etc.

My theory has been to keep the fats a little on the low side so the body consumes some of my own
first. Ive dropped at least 3 sizes in both shirts and trousers. About 28 kg.

The biggest hurdle has been getting a good sugar substitute....I use organic erythritol mixed
with monk fruit powder.

My favourite dessert is a chocolate cake made famous by nigella lawson. I use almond flour instead of
regular flour and swerve to sweeten it. It's awesome.

Chocolate Olive Oil Cake

eating fat is very important, it is a key nutrient. Eggs and meat are high in fat, so you probably have enough, but there are some great sources of fat like homemade bone broth that are amazing in taste and function.

 

[firstsafety]

Here is my take on it.

CLINICAL keto is very strict, especially if one suffers from diabetes or seizures. I am sure the macro is in 60-70% fat, with less than 20 grams net carbs. if you are doing Keto as a lifestyle and weight loss, listen to your body; you can still be in keto at 20-30 net grams depending on insulin sensitivity and level of activity. caloric deficit is needed for weight loss even on KETO, but will backfire and slow your metabolism if done at an extreme level.

before you make too many dietary changes, try and change WHEN you eat if you can: if you eat everyday at 7am and noon, your body will "prep" itself for the meal by sending hunger signals. A good test is if you ignore the hunger feeling, do they go away and you still have the energy to go through the day ? if so. change your eating times every couple of days and not your diet. If you are still hungry at the end day, every once is a while, add a good and small source of protein and fat. That often ends up being tuna, or sardines or even some salami for me. in a pinch I will put butter in my coffee (black coffee always).
most often a glass of water and green tea is all that is needed to get over the "hunger".
This worked for my wife.

Weight loss does plateau on KETO as your body eats itself and starts depleting your body fat. At some point, your body will want to retain the fat within your system and will seek exogenous fat (from food). If you want to break through the weight loss plateau, decrease fat consumption, but maintain \ slightly increase your protein intake to get to a caloric sustainable level (within limits since your body can convert protein to carbs, but in small amounts. incidentally your body does this conversion all the time regardless of the amount of protein in your system and I read that since you are letting your body generate the carbs, it will only generate what it NEEDS and very little more) I don't think there is a magic number for percentage and it takes trial and error. the key is to keep the carbs low.

If you think about it, our caloric intake does not run on a 24 hour clock. If you eat 2500 calories on monday, your body does not reset to 0 calories at midnight. Think of what you eat over a course of a week; your body may need more calories one day, and less another. If you are hungry, eat a little more (50-100 calories). if you are not hungry, don't eat all the food you prepared.

as it comes to the pain of measuring all the macros
Do I measure every day all my macros? no. Do i eat "similar" foods on a daily? yes . do I keep track of my carbs? absolutely.
I "normalized" my foods so i don't HAVE to measure every day; 5 eggs + bacon + avocado + 1 1/2 once nuts + 8 olives + approx 1/2 tbs gee and approx 1 tbs organic butter. Add approx 6-8 grams of protein and I am within range of my caloric numbers. I also eat 2-3 handful of salad greens, but the net carbs is low. so the handful is my measurement.I'll admit that I don't eat green everyday, some my carb numbers could be in the low teens on some days.
I used to plug the above every day, but now I know where the above will put me. If I eat something different or decide to change it up especially with vegetables, I will plug in all my number on an app called carb manager to make sure I am not kicking myself out of keto.
Sounds boring, but for my weekday it works perfectly as I work 7-5 and it is easy to pre-pack and stay on track

I am happy this works for you, but there are some serious problems in this. First, calories do not matter, you do not need to track your food, and consuming fat has nothing to do with fat storage. If any of that were true humans would have died out a long time ago. Eating Keto is deepening our understanding of what it is to be human and counting calories or macro nutrients is the most inhumane thing I can think of.

 

[Tester28]

My understanding till now has always been: that you can be in ketosis and yet not lose weight.

This happens if you exceed the daily calories you worked out earlier to meet your weight loss goals.
Unless you are actively burning them off.

 

[mauser44]

consuming fat has nothing to do with fat storage.

agree 100% on this statement. eating fat does not make you fat. carbs do.<<<< Mantra to live by
I still feel that if you are somehow eating in excess of what you are burning, you will NOT lose weight. nothing about gaining weight.
I will also 100% agree that overeating on a healthy fat diet with low carb is rather difficult and one would end up naturally eating at "equilibrium" if they only eat when hungry, to satiety.
However we are all guilty of eating out of boredom. If my goal was to lose weight and if I eat bacon (lovely, lovely crispy bacon) because I am bored or add butter in all 6 cups of coffee I drink on a daily because I like the taste, I will consume too many calories. May not get fat, but i can't see how my body will tap into my body fat reserve if I am ingesting all it needs

I track my food because i tend to under eat and can't afford to lose any weight. My goal is to actually put on weight in a keto lifestyle - the correct kind at least - since I am 5.4, 120lbs on a good week

p.s I love this discussion and don't want anyone to feel attacked.
I could be very wrong in my thinking and would love to learn something new about the lifestyle.

 

[BMWRider]

I still feel that if you are somehow eating in excess of what you are burning, you will NOT lose weight. nothing about gaining weight.

I agree. If burning stored fat is the goal, you do need to be burning more calories than you are eating, BUT that is a relatively easy state to be in if you are overweight and eating keto. Once you are weight stable, you will probably even up (burn to eat). That is my experience anyway, I suppose others could be different.

 

[Doc4]

Great thread, great discussion!

I just eat fat and meat though, no carbs on a regular basis, because they always seem to cause minor issues.

First off, do what works for YOU.

That being said, I always try to incorporate the nutrients of leafy greens and prebiotic fibres in my diet, within the macro levels that keep me in ketosis.

Keto has been the best lifestyle change I made over the years and I have tried all the bro-science diets that were presented for energy and better health. I know it is not for everyone, but it works great for me

Me too. Adding in the complimentary factor of intermittent fasting (16-8 five days a week and the occasional 24-36 hour fast) really helped too.

Sorry for the long post. I think I am done.

These are great posts and very informative. Keep up the good work everyone!

When I first started the group I found were very structured, and you had to calculate your macros and follow them to a tee. I did at the beginning, and did lose weight (about 30 pounds). But all the calculating and weighing out of food became a pain to me, and I went to lazy keto. I know from what I was cooking before, what looks to be decent portion, and I definitely steer clear of all sugars & carbs. But I'm not sure if I'm on the right track. I haven't lost anymore weight, but I know my body is still changing.

I think it's important to be "strict keto" at the start, and to really get through the transition to being fat-adapted. As time goes on, you can do it by having a sense of what you should and shouldn't eat ... but of course our perceptions are often off-base, so it's also good to "go back to basics" every once in a while and do strict macros and such ... and if you notice a big change in the amounts and ratios of what you are eating, your "guestimate keto" is probably not accurate enough.

But lately, I've been wondering if I should get back into the whole macro thing. Or is there some good in between, or an easier way for doing it? I definitely have some more weight to lose, so I'd like to change something.

Now that I'm adapted and used to it, it seems like I'm hungry all the time. I can't skip a meal without feeling like I'm starving. Doesn't seem like that should be the case.

That doesn't sound like someone who is in ketosis.

Perhaps the next step for you is to spend a month or so doing strict measured macros to ensure you are following an actually-ketogenic diet, and see if you notice changes.

caloric deficit is needed for weight loss even on KETO, but will backfire and slow your metabolism if done at an extreme level.

My understanding ... saw this on a recent Thomas DeLauer video among others ... is that resting metabolic rate doesn't slow down on a ketogenic diet, unlike other diets. I don't believe he specifically addressed the issue of combining ketogenic diet with significant caloric restriction ... but he was clear that the studies he referenced showed that keto weightloss did not lower resting metabolic rate.

As for the debate on whether caloric deficit is needed for weight loss ... my personal view is somewhat muddied ... I like to call it "nuanced" ... rather than following simple rules. I do agree with much of what is said about refined carbohydrates and insulin making us unhealthy (including being overweight), and feel that a dietary change away from those foods to a high-fat-low-carb diet will make major improvements in health and weight.

However, much of what I hear from the "eat as much keto as you want" folks focuses on how test subjects on low carb diets reached satiety and didn't feel like eating any more and so lost weight ... so isn't that just involuntary caloric restriction, in a sense?

I think our bodies are far more complex than we often give them credit for, and we try to impose simplistic interpretations on them to "explain" what is going on inside us. I think that sustained caloric excess, regardless of food type, will result in a different body than sustained caloric deficit of the same food type. ... even if those food types are both ketogenic.

Weight loss does plateau on KETO

I would say so ... and hope so! I'd like to drop from my 182 to about 176 ... but that's about as far as I want to go. If doing another decade of keto were to get me down to 112 ... um, no thanks!

My main goal is health, not perpetual weight loss. After all, I only have 182 pounds, and most of those I need regardless. We have an "ideal weight" each of our bodies should be at, and the healthiest lifestyle will be the best way to get there. (Probably better to say "ideal body composition" rather than "ideal weight" ... as I'd like to be 176 pounds of lean, athletic muscle rather than 176 pounds of unathletic skinny-fat.)

See, this is something I have been trying to wrap my head around. Because according to that group, your statement is false. They claim that if you are at a caloric deficit on keto, you can stifle your fat loss. They claim you need to eat to at least your TDEE and preferably higher in order to lose weight. They say fat loss is more about the insulin "process" and not calories.

See my comments above about how our bodies are very, very complex. Yes, the insulin/carbs thing is important to avoid, and eventually we hit our ideal weight and need to do a "maintain stasis" diet rather than "lose weight" diet but ... "eat lots on keto" seems more like wish fulfillment of "I like eating a lot of bacon and cheese ... ooh, and a bowl of macadamia nuts!!" rather than pursuit of science regardless of the outcome.

But at the end of the day, if your body needs let's say 2100 calories to function based on your current activity levels, and you are eating 2100 calories within the keto macro, your body will consume the fat in your diet for energy vs. the fat in your body. To lose the weigh once your are Keto adapted, slightly reduce your FAT consumption and your body will burn your body fat instead of what you are eating.

I suggest looking into the benefits of intermittent fasting combined with keto. The keto diet gets you fat-adapted, and then the periods of dietary stress where there are no calories coming in at all turns the body to the other sources of fat ... including the fat cells.

Have you read anything by Gary Taubes?

Great stuff. I have the audiobook of Good Calories Bad Calories and really enjoyed it. Very informative.

 

[firstsafety]

Gary's contribution to this debate is huge. What other authors do you (pl) read?

 

[Doc4]

Gary's contribution to this debate is huge. What other authors do you (pl) read?

I really like the work of Dom D'Agostino, Peter Attia, Rhonda Patrick, and recently I've been watching Thomas DeLauer as well.

Mostly I'm referring to podcasts and Youtube videos rather than reading books.

 

[Tester28]

eating fat does not make you fat. carbs do.

For anyone who hasn't researched keto enough, this is a hard statement to figure out.
I wouldn't link carbs directly to getting fat per se. Its only when you eat fat along with an indiscriminate
amount of carbs that things get out of hand.
When given a chance the body always prefers to get its energy thru carbs, so if you eat everything, your body will
go for the carbs first and then store the fat you just ate.

I eat a lot of vegetables that have very low carb impact....salad leaves, okra, spinach, French beans, cauliflower, broccoli etc etc

It can actually be dangerous to eat just meat and fat ..... fatty liver is one of the problems.

 

[Doc4]

eating fat does not make you fat. carbs do.

For anyone who hasn't researched keto enough, this is a hard statement to figure out.
I wouldn't link carbs directly to getting fat per se. Its only when you eat fat along with an indiscriminate
amount of carbs that things get out of hand.

Fats and carbs together are a bad combination, but ... and here go read Gary Taubes' Good Calories Bad Calories as a starting point ... the general proposition is "eat refined carbohydrates" => "insulin spike" => "you get fat".

It can actually be dangerous to eat just meat and fat .....

A proper ketogenic diet isn't just meat and fat. In fact, it's only "moderate" protein, so the image of a plate of T-bone steaks as "keto" is completely mistaken ... mis-steak-en ... and many of the fats consumed in a good ketogenic diet come from plant sources (coconut, avocado, olive oil, macadamia and pecan nuts, and so forth.)