To ask your experience of a keto diet?

[Atticusblame]

Just started this today. It's basically a very low carb diet. I have low carbed before, but not quite to the keto extreme.

Has anyone found it works well for them? And how long is it until results show? And what alcohol can I drink on it?

You still need to count carbs & protein though, right?

And achieve a certain amount of each.
That's a lot of work if you're not used to counting anything you eat.

I’ve never counted anything. I eat the foods I listed above and don’t eat sugar or starch. Job done.

I counted at the very beginning but don't bother now.

I mean if you want a way of eating that doesn't restrict you, you don't count anything, you don't have to plan for or think about and you eat just like everyone else on a night out, that the Seafood Diet. See food, eat it. You won't lose or get any healthier of course.

Unlimited meat, fish, cheese, eggs, green vegetables

Presumably some fat, too, though, I mean, do you have any sort of other fats like oil or butter?

For me, that's restrictive since the only things I like on the list is green vegetables and small amounts of cheese & eggs, even smaller amounts of dead animals. I doubt I'd get to the protein threshold if I didn't make an active effort by counting. From what I can tell about keto theory, getting to the protein threshold is very important.

Yes, you put butter on your vegetables, mayo on your salad, cream in your coffee. It sounds as if it’s not for you @ragged.

But no one is saying you have to try it! If it's not for you, do something else.

I think sometimes people get confused about the evangelising we do. It worked spectacularly for us. I don't get IBS any more, I don't get as many migraines, I've lost weight and sleep less while feeling as refreshed by an hour less. I look and feel great. But I LOVE butter, mayonnaise and salt, all things you can have a lot of. I control myself well on this and poorly on other ways of eating.

If you hate butter, love low fat food and don't like many proteins, of course it feels restrictive to you; so don't do it. It's fantastically liberating for me!

According to most sites I read/people I've watched on you tube the only thing you truly need to count is carbs. You should only have 5% of your intake from carbs so for me that's 17g.
I use Carb Manager which also counts cals but if I'm hungry I eat regardless of what the cals are. Over eating on cals has never impacted my weight loss. The only thing I track is my carbs

Funnily enough Atticus my goal was to get to 10st and I never thought I’d do it but once you get into it it happens and am easily in the 9s

Chiming in about women’s cycles. I can vary by 5lb when due on. And I need more carbs when I’m on day one of my period, feel totally wiped out.

I'm just curious how people make this work which I think is on topic for what OP was asking... hence questioning if folk are fair to say it's not restrictive. I eat a lot of fat, incidentally. Just not 60-75% of my total energy intake.

I was confused by posters saying 'green veg' when they probably actually meant some fruits as well. Since others are saying fruits like peppers, olives, tomatoes, courgette, cucumber & avocado are keto-compatible (I guess in small portions). Pulses, legumes, Beans and nuts are out, though, right?

I mean, one avocado seems to be about 14grams carbs, so I couldn't realistically have more than half of 1 avocado a day. 2 cherry tomatoes would only be 1 gram carb, though, so probably sliced thinly could get plenty of flavour into a small salad portion. Realistically I'd have to aim for 8-9 g carbohydrate per meal to be on target.

I mean, if you don't strictly count the carbs & protein, are you sure you're really following keto at all? Maybe you're just on another type of low carb diet (that works fine for you) but isn't truly keto.

I only tend to eat broccoli, cauliflower and asparagus. I tend to have a small salad for lunch but add nuts, seeds, eggs, tuna and olive oil etc.
For me, having 17g of carbs means I have to limit my veg quite a lot. I don't always intend to be on keto though and will eventually move to low carb which will mean I can eat much more veg.

ragged less than 5% carbs is quite extreme. I'm somewhere between keto and low carb and I have about 12-15% carbs - mostly from really healthy sources (rainbow veg with an emphasis on the green ones).

2500 calories seems a lot. Admittedly I'm short (and now quite slender) but my recommended calories are half of that. I don't bother about calories but I do pay attention to portion size, and I try to notice, while I'm eating, the point at which I feel satiated. And then to stop.

I didn't really follow your post about the 5 eggs per day / 200g chicken... Just keep it simple. What do you currently eat? Make a daily list. What do you want to achieve?

Nuts are fine, so are avocados and tomatoes in moderation. Green peppers, courgettes, cucumber and olives are also fine. The Idiot Proof Diet was my bible, it’s exactly what it says on the tin.

Gosh, all this maths. I've done this on and off for a decade at least, always works for me, and I've genuinely never counted anything.

I eat cheese, meats, sea food, fish, veg, salad, eggs, avocados, etc and I avoid, crisps, ice cream, sweets, chocolate, bread, rice, pasta etc and it's all good.

I seriously could not be arsed with something I was counting out half an avocado or some such shite.

@ragged
Click on here. This is the plan we’re following. It’ll give you an idea of the means we’re eating. I’ve not felt hungry once, loads of veg and salad and I’ve really enjoyed every single meal we’ve made

www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/get-started/week-1

I'm only satisfying my own curiousity gals, I'll stop posting after this.
I'll spare you the maths, but I calculated the carbs & kcal & protein amounts from this "keto" recipe.

Came out as 17 grams carb for 525 kcal (serving) if I swapped avo for the bacon, and 15 kcal if I stayed with bacon no avocado. 16-18 grams of protein. That would mean ...
14-16% of energy intake as carbs.

12-13.7% of energy intake as protein

Next I read that protein intake should be < 60 grams /day to make ketosis happen. If still 20%.. so that would imply I should only have 1250 kcal/day. How confusing. Seems like there are many definitions of keto out there!

... ok, last post, promise.
I followed up this recipe on the dietdoctor link.
Came out as 8.3% of calories as carbs, & 24.3% of calories as protein, which is closer to the supposed targets.
I'd still like more veg than that recipe allows, though.

You could have more green vegetables or a salad with that.

Then, basically, pick a lean meat, pick some veg, and pick healthy fats up to those macros limits. A lean meat? Not a fatty cut?

It depends how healthy you want to go about it. Animal fats store all the nasties. So unless you are eating organic grass-fed cuts of meat you will be eating unknown quantities of additives, hormones and omega-6s in that fat. I, personally, choose lean meat then add fat I know the source of. But if your goal is just weight loss then do whatever gets you through. I'm only 4 months in but I kinda want to do it as healthily as possible to start with. I have PCOS and psoriasis and I'm seeing an incredible difference already.

Do weigh your carbs though. You'd be surprised how quickly 30-60g adds up.

And don't weigh yourself at the start! If you're keeping under your limits you WILL be losing fat. There is a complicated transition going on in your body. Insulin, sugar, fat, proteins, water are all shuffling about within your cells. It wont be shown accurately on the scales for a while. Fat loss is the goal, not weight loss. Take measurements instead and go by how you feel.

@PotatoesDieInHotCars I thought Britain doesn’t allow hormones to be given to animals. Or do you mean the animals own hormones?

@ragged lots of info here about calories

I know I said I'd shut up but I am still intrigued about what are people actually doing when they think they are doing keto.
This recipe. Claims 4 g carbs/serving.
6 servings.
I calc'd it out as 3320 kcal, 61g carbs, 153g protein, in the entire dish.
That's 9% energy as carbs (10 grams carbs per serving)
18% energy as protein.

I think I wouldn't trust any of those recipes, tbh.
Maybe they mean

The 4g is net carbs. Total carbs (10g) minus fibre (6g) gives you the net carbs (4g). Insoluble fibre is not counted as available energy. Which is why leafy veg is better than starchy veg on keto. That's the simple explanation.

Ragged eggplant is listed on the dietdoctor page as 3 not 6.

I tend to say I do low carb, not keto, because true medical keto is so extraordinarily low carb. But at any rate I think most people who say keto just mean they don't eat anything with flour or obviously sugar so no bread, pasta etc, no rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes. Generally no beans, very low or no root vegetables. Peppers, onions and tomatoes are quite high carb as veg goes. No fruit except sometimes some berries.

You really don't need to overthink it, for most people just the cutting out of flour, sugar and very carb heavy starchy veg will go a long way to beginning to sort out the insulin issues that are preventing weight loss. When I'm being more strict I track on myfitnesspal (I generally put all my food in myself to calculate as the stuff already on there is inaccurate or based on US net carb levels etc) and I stick to below 30g of carb a day which tends to make carbs 5-10%ish of my macros. This generally allows for plenty of leafy greens, spinach, a bit of courgette or aubergine.

I think you're a bit over obsessed as to whether people are really doing keto. It's almost coming across like you want to catch people out. If you back away from the detail and labels, and instead look at the mechanisms that mean many people lose weight and get healthier on keto/low carb, you can see there are gradations of strictness that will just have more or less rapid effects. Even moderate low carb is wildly different to the general western diet and is going to make a difference. I tend to go as liberal low carb as I can while still getting the results I want. It's not all or nothing. Anyone who limits even just sugar and flour is going to experience great health benefits even if just in blood numbers like cholesterol or triglycerides.

@ragged, we’ve established it’s not for you. Not just because you don’t seem to like most of the food, but because you’re insisting on complicating something that’s very simple. What are you trying to achieve?