Starting Keto Diet tomorrow

[JustMoved123]

Hi, I’ve not tried Keto before so any advice welcome.

Anyone else just starting out, we could support each other.

@hamstersarse oooh id love if my gums healed. I am making myself sound like steptoe here but i have to see a periodontist twice a year.

Thanks for the warning @hampsterarse, when i fall off the wagon, i feel ok now, but it would be unrealistic to say "if", i will tine in to the hunger that follows and tell myself it is carb withdrawal not hunger and make sure i break that cycle before it becomes habit again

@justgoingforanap totally helps with period pain, @Turkeydrumstick found thecsame thing (upthread)

@justgoingforanap i just turned 50 and im really hoping that i switched to keto and IF in time to sail through menopause! Ive read a few threads on menopause and i know that that expression "sail through" is highly triggering to those who have suffered badly, but here"s hoping!!

Hamsterarse
Thanks so much for that post. I feel exactly the same. It's nice to feel calm around food and not feel a total failure if you have a few carbs now and them. Last week I was premenstrual and needed something more.
It helped but wasn't the treat I thought it might be. And I was back low carb the next day

Hello please can I join this thread? I am a towering 5ft 3. I have started keto today. I have slowly piled on the weight over the last few years and am now officially overweight. I would love to lose 2 st but this seems like a wild dream at the moment! I am already feeling tired after less than a day without carbs. How have the rest of you coped with this? How long does it usually last for? I'm scared!

Join the club! Ive lost 17lbs in 9 weeks i think. My weight had never crept up that high, but ive been amazed how easy it's been. I even fell off the wagon. Once in big way!

It passes @ladyflower23
I found first 4 days hard. I got keto flu+bowel explosion. But since then no tiredness or cravings

@ladyflower23 welcome! The first few days are tough I was a tired and grumpy nightmare! Once you’re through it though like @KetoWinnie says cravings and hunger weirdly vanish. I’ve lost 5lb in 2 weeks and I did it straight after slimming world (which had taken me 3 months to lose 6lb!). Plus food is delicious when it’s full fat .

Stick with it @ladyflowers

I think I felt ill for at least a week. But it was a weird ill as I felt more alert, was sleeping better and I can only describe it as cold turkey!

Remember what you are doing to your body - FORCING it to use fat for energy rather than glucose. Your body loves glucose because it’s easy and a quick hit. To use your stored fat takes some effort and It’s just not used to it.

I promise it’s short lived and you’ll feel energy like you’ve never felt before in a week or so!

The stricter you are on keeping below 20g for the first few weeks, the faster the transition to FAT BURNING! So really really try to be strict ( I’m not saying forever but your body is in training right now!)

Thank you for the supportive welcome messages it really does feel like I am forcing my body into a new way of living, but I am determined I will power through. Hearing all of your amazing weight losses is spurring me on! How often do you weigh yourselves? I'm trying to hold out for at least 4 days before I get back in the scales.

I've done my usual evening weigh in and am 82.1 instead of this mornings 81.7 so still a loss of 600g or 1.3lbs. I'll be so happy to get under 80kg (I don't know why I use kg, I started when weighing my daughter and I find stones/lbs depressing and find it triggers me into negative thinking. I am never going to be 8 stone again!

Hello @ladyflower23

Yes, to begin with it feels like you're soaking your body in fat I think.
Now I feel completely normal though.

Just once a week for the weigh in for me. Because that way you can have a good day and a bad day and know that it will even out in the end.

I had 3 weeks of a plateau quite quickly. And then another loss, and the following week, another smaller loss!

It took me a while to get to grips with it. Like for the first few weeks I was still using cows milk and so every cup of tea had a net gram of carb. Every time I had a cup of tea I was provoking an insulin response.

So weeks in, I figured out to use almond milk. It's ok in morning coffee but I've given up tea during the rest of the day because almond milk doesn't work in tea. Trying to drink herbal teas the rest of the day. Love coffee but wouldn't have it after 11.30

So. That's my big tip!

Also, Olives. Macademia nuts. Very hard to know what to eat when toast was your previous go to. I know some people eat less dairy than I'm eating but I also find a babybel cheese quite portable.

@justgoingforanap

I've done my usual evening weigh in and am 82.1 instead of this mornings 81.7 so still a loss of 600g or 1.3lbs. I'll be so happy to get under 80kg (I don't know why I use kg, I started when weighing my daughter and I find stones/lbs depressing and find it triggers me into negative thinking. I am never going to be 8 stone again!

I think I need to get one of those digital scales. It's hard to tell if you've put on or lost weight on those old scales. I take a photo and then enlarge it!!

[quote Turkeydrumstick]**@ladyflower23* welcome! The first few days are tough I was a tired and grumpy nightmare! Once you’re through it though like @KetoWinnie* says cravings and hunger weirdly vanish. I’ve lost 5lb in 2 weeks and I did it straight after slimming world (which had taken me 3 months to lose 6lb!). Plus food is delicious when it’s full fat .[/quote]
That is embarrassing for slimming world isn't it?

The 'usual' pattern of weight loss in keto (i.e. most common not the same for everyone) is:

• You will lose a lot of water weight in the first few weeks. This is typically about 6-10lbs. For every one gram of carbohydrate stored in the body (as glycogen) there is approximately 2-3 grams of water retained. So you will lose that pretty quickly when you cut out the carbohydrate. That is also why you need electrolytes!

• Then you will probably stall for a few weeks. BUT during this stall, your body starts from the inside. All the fat around your organs which is REALLY unhealthy starts to be used up. This is why you need to measure and not just go by the scales. You will start to see your body composition change - usually for us women around the abdomen

• Then a good few weeks in, you will start to really lose weight everywhere and before you know it you will be where you never thought you'd be. All without the huge and awful pain of calorie restricted hunger.

Thanks hamster that's really useful info, I'll keep it in mind when I start stalling as a good insentive to keep going.

Hello all, can I join too? I am on Day 2 and the thing that is confusing me is the limited protein and higher fat recommendation - so 70% of my intake is fat. I am struggling with this. What does this actually translate to in reality? What are people actually eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner?

Yesterday I had:
B: 2 eggs, 2 portabella mushrooms and an ounce of cheese
L: 1 Chicken breast with skin on, 1 avocado, green salad with a couple of cherry tomatoes and 30g of walnuts, olive oil dressing (about 2/3 a tablespoon.
D: 2 x salmon fillets, 1 roasted small aubergine and 1 roasted courgette (in olive oil and seasoned)

I also had a mug of beef bouillon.

Today I had the same breakfast, but two chicken thighs, half an avocado and the same salad as yesterday with 40g walnuts as a snack and the beef bouillon as that is recommended on Diet Doctor.

My apps say that the protein is too high by about 30g. But my carbs are too low. How do people do this? What are you actually eating?

I should also say I am a bit full up now, so may halve the amount of chicken in tomorrows lunch ( I have cooked up a load).

On the plus, it was nice not to wake up hungry this morning, and also to not be starving by 11am and aching for lunch at 12.

The protein thing is quite difficult at first. I would recommend ditching (expensive) chicken breasts which are very high protein and go for the fattier cuts - legs and thighs (cheap!).

Also get back in the swing of things like pork belly and pork chops with all the juicy fat on ! If you have steak, you want a rib-eye never a fillet as that has no fat.

But honestly, don't sweat it. The main thing is to keep your carbs below 20g at this stage. It seems really really odd at first to be going for full fat things and the fattier the better ( I have been known to eat a lump of butter straight out the packet!) and so it takes some time to adjust. If you are a little out on your protein at this point, it really won't matter.

If you really want to up your fats and keep 'on plan', it's about fatty meats, adding butter to everything and basically wedges of cheese! Some people use MCT oil, I never got into that, but I know when starting out a lot of people do that to up their fats.

Really glad your hunger seems to have been thwarted already. It is one of the greatest joys about this way of eating. I spent far too much time in my life trying to 'fight hunger' and cravings when all along it was as simple as this and nothing to do with my willpower.

Thank you for the advice. Carbs are definitely below 20g, so I will stick at it and see how the weigh in goes on Monday and whether or not the flu thing kicks in.

I did Atkins in 2003 for about 8 weeks and lost a load and my appetite disappeared almost completely. But back then the approach/advice was just fish, meat, cheese and some leafy green veg, nothing else for the first two weeks, so it is nice to have the veggies that I can have.

@KetoWinnie thank you for the advice. With the almond milk does it matter whether you have sweetened or unsweetened?
Is there a problem with having a lot of dairy? I've just realised cheese featured heavily in 5 out of my last 6 meals
That's a great tip about photographing the scales! I've got the old skool ones too and can barely see them.
@hamstersarse Thank you for the timetable of what to expect. That's really good to know. So it sounds like you need to stick with it for a while to actually start burning your fat stores?

Hello @OuzoWoozo

I’m glad the timetable helps

This graph is loosely what I’m talking about. It’s good to have it in mind if you hit a stall pretty quickly into starting...your scales might not show it but your body is doing good things and if you feel better you can be sure your body is doing all sorts of magical things

Ladyflower yes it would have to be the unsweetened!