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GoldStar

New member
Hey everyone. I'm a five foot 8 woman, 209 pounds, and doing Keto for the first time. I've spent the past week researching this and started yesterday.

Quite honestly it seems a bit disgusting to be eating so much fat and going out of my way to add even extra to my food. The amount of calories are insane. Like for brunch I ate 4 chicken thighs with garlic mayo and some buttery brocoli and it was 1300 calories for a fairly small meal with no carbs. That's the same as I'd eat on a normal day on a normal diet, and it could fill me up.

I plan to eat what I want until I go into ketosis which will hopefully take my appetite away and let me eat mainly meal replacements but with the occasional keto friendly snack or evening meal thrown in.

I'd like to lose about 40 pounds. 170 sounds high however its a weight I know I feel and look good at, and I'm not going to overpush myself to reach a target that's not going to work for me long term.

I just did a big shop. Lots of oils, fats, cheeses, salami, egg, chocolate. And nuts. It all seems a bit nuts really.

I'm doing my calories on my plate which seems quite good and tells you your carb/protein percentages. I'm usually quite lazy with tracking my food but it needs to be done on this diet.

Taking a deep breath and diving right in!

Food today: 4 chicken thighs, brocoli butter and garlic mayo. 4 vodka and lemonades. Two big spoonfuls of cashew butter, 4 squares 85% cocoa chocolate.
 
Hey Gold, and welcome to the forum!

I am no expert on Keto, but it seems to me that 1,300 calories for a single meal is a lot. How many do you plan to eat per day?

My experience is that there is no "free lunch" in this business and calories do count. I believe Keto lets you play with that a little but not a lot. There are more knowledgeable folks here, hopefully you will get responses from them.

In the meantime, best of luck to you, and congratulations for deciding to take this on. One of the great things about this forum is that it will help guide you to something that makes sense for you.
 
GoldStar said:
Quite honestly it seems a bit disgusting to be eating so much fat and going out of my way to add even extra to my food.
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You do not need to do this for keto, ketosis is achieved through carb restriction, filling up on extra fat is not needed and not healthy when done like this.

Calories still count, keto does not dissolve the requirement to keep calories under control. Carbs are a limit, protein is a target and fat is the lever that controls calorie intake, eat too much fat and you will gain weight, that weight will be fat if you are not training to build muscle. You want the fat burned for energy to come from your bodyfat, not from a ton of extra fat your eating.

GoldStar said:
4 vodka and lemonades
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Keto reduces alcohol tolerance and alcohol also stops the body from burning fat for fuel until it is all out of your system.

GoldStar said:
carb/protein percentages
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You should be working on absolute values not percentages.

Electrolytes

When you first start, you loose a lot of water weight to begin with (not fat) with this water goes a lot of electrolytes, to prevent feeling like you have no energy and having flu like symptoms (keto flu) you need to be consuming extra salt, magnesium and potassium. It takes time for the body to adapt to using ketones as energy and the body will flush a lot of ketones out of your system until it adapts to using them efficiently.

GoldStar said:
Two big spoonfuls of cashew butter
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This is not great for any diet, including keto, a tablespoon of cashew butter is 4.4 grams of carbs, 2 is half the carbs many people on keto consume in a whole day, if these were heaped spoons then you could even come close to consuming all your carbs in this one food item. It also has minimal fibre.

When counting your calories, carbs from fibrous vegetables is best and you only count net carbs for these which means you can have a lot of healthy vegetables and still be under your carb limit. Like many on keto, my carb limit is 20 grams and you can fit a lot of healthy food within that limit.

I have been Keto since 2008
 
Thank you Aligatorob and TrusyIver for your advice. I may have done a bit of research but I know I have a lot to learn still so thank you.

First of all, yes I got extremely drunk from the same amount of alcohol that would normally just chill me out.

I was kind of confused as to the difference between the ketogenic diet and the Atkins diet. It seems from what you are saying Trus that Atkins is more something to be aimed for than Keto.

Am kind of annoyed with myself for buying so much cashew butter and also peanut butter now.

Thank you for the 20g carb benchmark as I'd never heard that before, only 5% max carbs.

I will make sure to consume extra salt, I've taken a vitamin supplement that should give me my potassium and magnesium needs for a while now.
 
Atkins is high fat, Keto is simply keeping carbs low enough to put your body into ketosis, for some that is a 50 gram limit, but many stick to 20 gram.

A lot of websites buy into the high fat version of keto because it make it sound like you can eat like crap and still loose weight which is terribly wrong and unhealthy, these same sites often have products to sell through affiliate marketing and we see a lot of those products spammed here (we attempt to keep the spam under control but some slips through at times)

I can suggest Keto Macro Calculator for Free - Ketogains I Finally get your ratio right! for calculating macros and there is a lot of good info on the site, like other website they have a product to sell but all of their informational pages are science based and accessible without any need to buy anything. It is not a site that makes money from affiliate links to dodgy products.

The problem with percentages is that if you need to consume a higher number of calories you will soon find your eating a lot more of specific nutrients than you want or need.
 
I've water fasted for 27 hours now and am not hungry so although I havent tested my ketone levels, I'm taking it I'm in ketosis. Going to have full fat cream in my coffee tomorrow, and will try out coconut oil in it.

Thank you to the link to that site Trus, It seems loads better than myplate.

I did find myself mindlessly adding fat that I didnt even want on day one and two.

Going to start exercising tomorrow or maybe even this evening. It will feel awesome that I'm burning my fat stores rather than the glucose(?) from my food.

Can't wait til weigh day.
 
Hey Gold, you are off to a great start! I know you will find your way, and you can't get better advice than from Trusylver!

I am looking forward to following your progress.
 
Hi, Gold. You have been given some great advice. I don’t think anyone here recommends atkins but Tru does very well on keto & is very knowledgeable on it. Whatever you do I hope you find what suits you.
 
Hi Cate I have been given great advice, I'm in awe that Trus has been keto for 13 years. I've never heard of anyone doing it super long term.

I have pre-diabetes and also a health condition which causes chronic pain. So I want to give resetting my insulin resistance a go.. and of course I have been wanting and needing to lose weight for a long time now and I think this health scare is just what I needed to make me go for it. I hope I can do it long term, but whichever way I'll be eating low GI for the rest of my life after keto is over.

I am kicking myself right now as I ate so many carbs today (42 grams!) by accident after being so good. I need to plan my meals. I guess there is just those limited lists of keto friendly food everywhere so I just assumed they were all good in any amounts. I had the cashew butter travesty a couple of days ago, so you think I would have paid closer attention to the carbs in my walnuts but I had seen this chart which showed walnuts as one of the least bad foods, so I ate quite a lot of them. Also throw in three slices of ham and half an avocado and that means I am over three times the carb limit I should be and feeling hungry again

I've been trying to pack all my food into a 5 hour window to increase the benefits of intermittent fasting. So its a lot of carbs in little time.

So right now I'm going to make a meal plan for the next week (will take inspiration from pre-made plans online) and check all the carb contents in advance.

Thank you for all your replies its really good to know that people are there trying to help me x
 
Avocado is a great option as it is packed with nutrients, not something I eat because it is on my allergy list. Most nuts are good but in moderation, when they are in the form of butter it is very easy to eat more than you should. If you are meeting your protein needs it will go a long way towards filling you up.

As an example of a filling lunch I had a large salad with lettuce, red cabbage, cucumber, fetta and a vinaigrette dressing - 5.9 grams net carbs, 4.6 grams of protein and 23 grams of fat and also providing a big range of vitamins and minerals (all of the ones I track except D) If I was hungry I would have had the salad as a side dish with chicken but it is sooo hot here that I am not hungry. I will have a more substantial meal with a large amount of protein later.
 
Thanks Tru, I'll add that salad to my meal plan option, it sounds good and nice and substantial.. The cravings for veggies on this diet are so intense omg.

The transition into keto has been more difficult than expected. I've barely slept to the extent nobody would even believe how few hours. Its kind of insane to think it has only been 5 days. I deffo haven't been in ketosis before now, ever.

I don't know if it was the lack of sleep making me have waking dreams or something more spiritual but I had amazing visions last night. I didn't feel tons of blissful energy like I have when I've had genuine spiritual experiences in the past, and to some extent I could control what I was seeing. It looked more real than real life. All the textures were almost multidimensional and I just let go and watched this dream-state cinema screen behind my eyes. There were so many interesting clips and images that I wish I had the talent to draw. It's a truly awesome experience and I can understand why there is a monk somewhere who did a fasted meditation under a tree for two years :)

Before that happened I was close to crying because I didn't feel like I could actually do this. All I wanted so bad was sugar and carbs! I just ate a keto meal and held on for dear life! Stomach cramps helped to keep me awake but I feel much better this morning. My clarity of mind is just absolutely incredible.

Going on a 5 hour round trip to collect some diet and exercising stuff today then I have to go on a cleaning spree as my daughter is visiting tomorrow. I have another couple of errands too. Hopefully getting activeish will make me crash out tonight.

I've decided on my meal plan. Apparently for the first four days of eating keto friendly foods your daily average basal metabolic rate increases slightly, followed by a very gradual decline that is very slightly less steep than non-keto but its a decline none the less. I ordered the book 'The carb night solution' which basically says that every four days you should eat HOWEVER MUCH pasta, bread, fruit, desserts you want between 6-10pm. It says not to worry about insulin as in ketosis your body gets used to producing less and eating carbs will only mildly raise its levels for a couple of hours. However, all the other hormones responsible for the decisions about fat storage (think leptin and possibly glycogen although I'm probably wrong) rise a fair bit when you are slightly knocked out if your ketogenic state, this means your BMR will not continue along its slow and steady descent, and increase again.

I have already found that weeks where there is a special occasion in the past I've lost more weight than expected. I always thought that maybe food guilt for my cheat days was making me overcompensate. But maybe not. Maybe the meals I felt so guilty about were actually helping my body to be more efficient.

ANYWAY...So the plan is quite open which fits my unorganised nature.. I know I will mess up if I rely on my organisation skills. I predict I will give it all I have short term then not having any food in could mess me up (hello, takeout). That's not being pessimistic, I am just being real with myself as I get so hyperfocused I forget my surroundings and real life sometimes.

I'm going to have my first meal as late in the day as I can bear it without pushing myself that hard. The diet I'm doing has a pre-made meal plan with choices and I'm adding a few of my own. HOWEVER if I'm not hungry I may choose not to eat or if I would prefer a keto meal replacement. So that's three choices for every 'meal...either don't eat, have a shake or eat the prescribed food.

I'm not going to count calories or do macros because that has already been sorted and controlled by people who know more about what they are talking about than I do!

And of course, every four days, after the prescribed dinner has been eaten, I have an 'eat whatever you want' window which I am really happy about as it will make this plan sustainable long term. J already know my appetite won't be that big on those evenings so I am not worried about accidentally eating 20 thousand calories and making it all for nothing.

I feel slimmer already. I look 9 months pregnant usually. All my weight is on my tummy and arms.

Happy dieting everyone :)
 
Most people need several days to get into ketosis (2-4 days, some people need a week or longer), so if you´re having a carb meal every four days it seems to me that you won´t actually be doing keto. Which is fine, everyone should find what works best for them! I´d just be careful taking nutrition advice from a physicist instead of a physician or nutritionist.
 
That's a good point LaMarie. I think I'll wait another ten days before I have the carb boost. By that point it'll be 16 days so I'm more likely to be in full swing ketosis.

I am really annoyed with Exante meal replacement. It's a VLCD so if you're doing it exclusively then it's 600-800 calories a day. They market themselves as being a ketogenic diet yet they have at least17g Carbs per pack! Times three per day, that's at least 53 grams carbs. And to think I was so upset with my accidental consumption of 47gs of carbs a few days ago. No wonder I haven't ever been in ketosis before despite having done between two and three weeks of exante several times. I just checked their website and it says it MAY help you achieve a ketogenic state.

Changing the subject... Dieting has become so different since the last time I did it properly. For me back then it was all about half a plate of veg, quarter plate of low gi carbs, quarter a plate of protein. No desserts and no fried foods. Simple. Of course it still works just as well then as it did now. But dieting deffo seems more complicated.

I've never really been one to buy into all the latest health and diet trends. I just kind of thought it was a different way of doing the same thing.

I see a lack of research on the long term weight loss (and insulin resistance reversal) of low carb vs normal low GI. Everyone's giving lots of compelling reasons why it's better long term. On one level it all makes sense. But where are the numbers to back it up? The proof that people on keto will not regain all the weight they lost again? All the 'proof' I see seems to have holes in it. But maybe I havent been asking specifically the right questions or looking in the right places.

Also, maybe sometimes they are looking at scientific rather than psychological data and like Jess was saying recently, our relationship with our diet is probably the biggest decider if it's going to work long term.

Anywayyy... No more meal replacements for me which sucks as they're so convenient. The ready meals of a ketogenic(ish) diet.

I discovered Robinson creations which is a no-carb squash, and very tasty. It also contains salt.

I've been using a sucralose based sweetener on my coffee which is disgusting, but my normal Splenda contains sucralose which is a no-no. Discovered that canderel is mainly aspartamine based but check the label for each specific product. Drinks are important as you are more dehydrated on this diet due to carbs holding onto water in your body.

Food yesterday: Cream in coffee, 6 babybell cheeses, about 5 walnuts, chocolate shake meal replacement

Food today: Two eggs scrambled with big teaspoon scoop of butter and a handful of oil dressed rocket, strawberry shake meal replacement, 3 small slices of ham. Maybe a few berries with my leftover cream later.

A proper meal plan and doing my shopping is more important than ever now because I know for a fact the reason I will eventually stop this diet will be because of disorganisation.

I did quite a bit of cleaning today which I couldn't have done at any point over the past few days so am deffo feeling a bit better physically :)

Time for the plan!
 
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GoldStar said:
I see a lack of research on the long term weight loss (and insulin resistance reversal) of low carb vs normal low GI. Everyone's giving lots of compelling reasons why it's better long term. On one level it all makes sense. But where are the numbers to back it up?
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The main reason why you don't see studies like that all over the place is that they're both expensive (because you need to follow people and monitor their food intake long-term) and very hard to do. Getting people to stick to an eating plan for 6 weeks is hard, let alone for the 5+ years you need to say anything about the long term. And when you need 100+ people in each group... In the end the only thing that works long-term is what you can keep doing long-term.
 
Good point. Although there are ways around parts of it (although not the monitoring and verifying the participants diet) specially where the long term bmr is impaired because of different types of shorter term dieting. BUT there would be so many variables like illness, other diets, other natural weight loss fluctuations due to stress or feeling down .. that it might be more difficult to find a correlation the more time that passed since the initial diet. Maybe people whose BMR has been measured by the doctor prior to weight loss could be contacted retrospectively (it would have the added bonus of not having to wait years) But the memory isn't as infallible as we'd all like it to be so there would be a danger of people being mistaken/misreporting. And still a small sample size, with different lengths of time elapsed since the diet for all.

It's almost, but maybe not quite a shame that individual personal experience isn't a more trusted mode of info in these long term cases.

Anyways, next weeks plan is made! I am being super strict with myself. Going shopping now.

I also found some low carb meal replacements so all is not lost on that front. I'm still annoyed with Exante though. They so carefully choose their words on their website blaming citric acid, sweeteners etc for people not being in ketosis and not their meal plans high carb count or even peoples own individual carb tolerance level. People are more likely to lower their BMR on a VLCD as opposed to keto, and are therefore probably more likely regain the weight in a fairly small timeframe. But they brush it off and say it doesn't really matter if you are in ketosis as you'll still lose weight. It actually matters a lot if you are doing it for diabetes or pre-diabetes! Or even if you have decided Keto is for you.

I kind of feel like they want people to regain the weight because it's more profitable for them. When I was on Exante before I thought my appetite had shrunk because of ketosis when really my body must have just become accustomed to eating a smaller amount of food. I think that Ketosis is like love, you know when you are in it and I deffo wasn't in it then. Happy Valentines day to everyone by the way :)

I had three hours of sleep last night. When will this end? I am too blimming wide awake, always and am worried the lack of sleep will stop me from burning my fat stores and make me hungrier. Being awake means meals spread over 20+ hours rather than just 16 as well.

Added onto yesterday's: 5 slices chorizo, some grated cheddar 30g cashews as a late night snack yesterday :(

Today's plan : 3 egg omelette with a little bit of onion and mozzarella, 2 chicken thighs with cauliflower, vodka and diet coke

I lost almost 7 pounds this week, sorry about the 'stones' on my image, I am too English for my own good. Don't want to make a fuss over it as it's water but its still nice to see the numbers come down

20210214_110829.jpg
 
Hi, GoldStar. How long have you been having sleep problems? Is it only since you started dieting? I'm a really light sleeper, but take a low-dose anti-histamine at night as I also have lots of allergies. Our son takes Melatonin & finds it really helps him. He's a terrible sleeper- always has been. I don't have any caffeine after midday, stay away from screens in the evening etc, but still found, without the AH I didn't sleep well.
Well done on the 7lbs lost! :)
 
My sleeping since the first lockdown has been messed up. I basically fell into a sleeping pattern that was 20 hours awake then ten hours asleep which meant that I was going to sleep and waking up at all kind of odd times.

But since about day three of this diet til yesterday my heart rate was through the roof and I was absolutely wired to the extent I can't even describe. Like I had taken speed or something. Not physically, just mentally.

I slept last night but I know I really need to get in a normal and regular sleep cycle again so I will take your advice and order some melatonin now. I'm actually also allergic to my cat but I don't take a antihistamine for that so it will probably spare me some discomfort if I take them as well!

Thank you :) I'm going to the pharmacy in a minute to weigh myself properly to see how the calibrated scales there compare to my home scales. I'm also going to buy a tape measure.

Have decided that instead of writing down what I plan to eat in my diary, or what I've eaten that day (as I always seem to eat more after) I'm just going to write what I ate yesterday so that its always accurate.

Yesterday I didnt stick to the plan at all. I fasted all day except a bulletproof coffee at 2.30 which made me feel nauseous then had:
30gs cashews (with a disgusting amount of salt as I felt like I was going to pass out at that point),
Mexican breakfast (modified for keto.. about 5 slices fried chorizo with about a fifth of a fried Bell pepper, 2 fried jalapeños, fried egg, handful of rocket and small amount of mashed avocado (dip sized portion). It was lovely.
5 Chorizo bites (5 slices of uncooked chorizo each topped with a blob of garlic and herb cream cheese and a tiny little bit (like a 7th) of a jalapeño. I rolled the salami around the filling and it was a nice snack.

My fridge is looking great as there are lots of veggies and quality meat in there, along with loooads of different types of cheeses and dairy. Last time I had that much cheese in my fridge I gained 50 pounds :)

I'm becoming obsessed with researching this diet which feels good, I have that fire within me to succeed, I can feel it.
 
GoldStar said:
I'm actually also allergic to my cat but I don't take a antihistamine for that so it will probably spare me some discomfort if I take them as well!
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Please do! Having low-grade allergic reactions all the time can't be healthy in the long run.
GoldStar said:
I'm becoming obsessed with researching this diet which feels good, I have that fire within me to succeed, I can feel it.
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:) Long may the fire burn.
 
I'm not sure that taking Melatonin and a sedating anti-histamine as well is such a good idea. I would check with your pharmacist first. Good sleep is so important, as is hydration.
 
I will ask the pharmacist but we don't have OTC melatonin in the UK so they may not know. It's still difficult to get to sleep but at a normal level... at least I'm feeling sleepy now.

Fiiiinally this keto thing is getting easier! I think I would rather be fat forever than go through all that again.

I had a pleasant surprise because I fasted for almost 24 hours with no hunger, and I'd almost resigned myself to being ravenous forever.

I decided that I really need to get on top of this whole electrolytes (salt, magnesium and potasium) situation as I had yet more cramps because of it, at least four days out of seven I have ended up in pain. So I thought I need to find a way to incorporate them into my diet that's low cost and low effort. I've never craved salt the way I am now, I want it like its sugar and my taste buds aren't finding salt too salty either.

I already take a multivitamin and found that it only gives me 80% of the RDA for potassium and magnesium. It's someway towards it but not all the way. So I bought some ionised salt (which contains potassium)to put in fizzy drinks so I can sip throughout the day. When you stir it in the drink it reacts in a volcano like fashion so I drunk about 5 inches of a 2 litre bottle and added enough salt to slightly taste it but not enough to be unbearable. It's quite nice really, it tastes like an electrolyte drink that comes in a sachet. I think that I'll always keep some individual packets of restaurant salt at the bottom of my handbag to add to drinks when I'm out, it'll come in handy now, but will be even more important in summer.

English Breakfast 2 rashers bacon, 2 fried portobello mushrooms, grilled tomato, 2 egg scrambled egg)
30g Cashew nuts

634 calories.. 18g carbs, 51g fat, 22g protein
 
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