So after months of interest and reading and genuinely scared of it (lots of fat? What the f?) I jumped in this past Monday to get rid of most carbs and go keto. Just so you have an idea of my current health and fitness Here's an overview :
275 pounds.
6'2
Pre Diabetes
Hypothyroidism
High blood pressure
Lazy Vesicle
So as you see, I am quite screwed. It's just been thanks to a series of life decisions : constant drinking, bad food, overall high levels of stress always, etc. What kicked me in into this? Sugar. My fasting glucose was about 100 for the past several months but lately I am getting readings over 115. This has scared the hell out of me. I do not want to live with diabetes.... NO. So I decided to jump into doing the ketogenic diet this past Monday. On Sunday I went shopping and following several guides here in Reddit I bought some foods I wasn't buying due to being "bad"... Bacon, sausage, more red meats, avocado oil, coconut oil and like 3 dozen eggs. I cut my carbs cold... I am trying to track them but I am pretty sure I've been under 30 these past days. My only carbs are from coffee with milk and the veggies and some almonds.
Truth be told, I am scared. I spoke with my doctor about it and it was a straight "No, you are gonna die" type of thing but I shrugged it off and jumped in. I have been taught since little that fat is bad. I am going to give this a long chance. Hopefully I'll post updates and I'll get some people to join over to this ho journey. My support system is weak, since most of my friends keep saying "WTF are you doing?" and even my girlfriend is a bit wary although giving me a chance.
I am on the third day, no keto flu yet. I do have a slight headache but that's about it. I've been drinking tons of water (I usually do, I like water) and I upped sodium intake today. I am walking 3 miles every two days since February and so far I haven't had to change that due to the diet. This weekend will be challenging as people are coming over and the peer pressure to drink and eat will be there. I read that Michelob Ultras are a good substitute since they are low carb so I may drink a few just to avoid the pressure. If some of you have tips for this I'd appreciate it.
I will weight myself this week but this Monday I weighted 275. I expect to post updates every few days. I don't have a weight goal honestly just feel better and be slightly healthier. That's all I want. /rant over
Why are you upping your sodium intake? Are you upping your potassium intake as well?
use a tape measure. we want you to lose fat not weight on its own.
tell me about your week. what you do each day and how it ends. Losing fat is not just about food. its about the life network you put yourself in that makes you eat the way you do.
Your never mentioned any vegetables in your post. where are you getting your micronutrients from? dont say just multivitamins. its not optimal to say the least.
Speaking of micronutrients can you tell me about your bloodwork and if you have any micronutrient deficiencies.
I eat a fairly low carb diet. I am in ketosis most of the day but I eat a lot vegetables. I do however burn of most of my glycogen with the exercise i do. I only eat twice a day and once every few months I will skip a day or two of eating if I am too busy with work.
Can you tell us what you think you know about ketosis? 50 grams of carbs per day is not a magical number. If you can walk an hour a day that's about 200 calories for your size and thats 50 grams of carbs so how about we put you on a walking plan.
Also do you have a blender? I mean a good one. Not asking about a fucking juicer, a blender like vitamix. Can you cook? You should cook blending is cooking, making a salad is cooking.
here are some foods and their carb content. don't be afraid to eat these.
Fruit/Vege Carb/100g
Beets 10
Kale 12
Carrot 5
Celery 3
Lettuce 3
Avocado 9
Blueberries 10
Strawberries 8
Arugula 4
Cabbage 6
Tomato 4
Banana 12 (50g serve)
cucumber 4
Broccolli 7
Cauliflower 5
total 1.5kg or 3.3 pounds 102g total carbs thats equivalent to about 32 ounces of coke
Milks
1 cup almond milk 4g carbs
grains
1/2 cup cooked quinoa 12g carbs
Nuts and seed mix (make your own ratio of 1:1 weight)
Flax,sunflower,pumpkin,chia,sesame,almond,pecan,walnut,cashew,poppy 10g carb per 50g serve average use in salad about 20g and smoothie about 30g
.
you can eat a combination of this this raw in salads or blend them into smoothies or you can cook them
lets say that you need to eat about 2500 calories for your weight because you said you were about 275 as the minimum amount of energy you need depending on height and age of course and activity, but lets say you are sedentary, so we will cut your calories by about 400 a day and exercise about 300 calories to get a 700 calorie deficit. Now it is up to you how much calories you want to eat less per day, which is about 60-80g of fat stores lost per day as you need to get that energy from your body. so about 1.8kg - 2.4kg or 4-5.3 pounds per month of actual fat lost.
We also want you to eat say 144g of protein since you will need to do some exercise but you aren't a pure athlete yet so we wont go over this. thats 576 calories.
you can supplement protein I would say a 50g serve of spi wpi is about 48g protein
2 eggs 12g (you can even mix this into your smoothies)
125g beef mince 30g
50g seeds and nuts 28g (average)
1kg of fruit and veges (average about 2% protein content) 20g
that takes you to about 138 so thats close enough its going to be in the range anyway and yes its not much meat all. surprising but 1 serve of protein powder does that
heck a medium can of sirena tuna has about 36g of protein and 15g of fat if you dont drain it. you can go a whole day without even using the microwave or stove if you eat this way.
the rest wil come from fat around 106 grams. maybe lets say
125ml 1/2 cup almond milk 2g fat
125ml 1/2 cup coconut milk 3g fat
10 ml of olive for your salad 10g fat
10 ml canola to grill your meat 10g fat
half an avocado 100g so about 15 grams of fat there
2 eggs a day thats about 12 grams per day.
50g grams of nuts and seeds mix about 30g of fat
125g 1/4 pound mince beef 20g fat
thats 102g of fat so close enough
Lets also give you a moderate target of carbs at lets say 120, so thats about 480 calories.
but you will mostly be using these carbs in fruits and vegetables prob in a ratio of 4 servings fruit and 6 servings of vegetables so around 2.2 pounds of fruits and veges lets say per day. that should be around 80g of carbs. so you have another 40g to come from your proteins and nuts and seeds. definitely there will be 30 at least coming from the example above.
The 300 calories of exercise will require you to walk about 30 minutes every other day at 6km/h or 3.7m/h this will burn you about 300 calories. 30 minutes weights which includes warmup of 5 minutes jumping jacks 15x45 second sets of something with about a minutes rest between sets. this should burn you another 200 calories. you can choose not to do your walk on these days
It is important you do not lose your muscle mass as it is possible you will lose 30% of you muscle mass when losing weight without exercise if your diet is poor. we dont want that since your body is already around 165 of pounds of lean muscle. It would be great if you can in the first year gain another 16 pounds of muscle, for your height its doable. After 1 year you should be around 230 pounds with 60 pounds of fat lost and about 16 pounds of muscle gained and around 20% body fat.
In the second year will want to to a more advanced resistance training program that includes pushups and pullups and weights and you will need to increase your carbohydrate intake by maybe 30 grams a day so you can have a bit of glycogen for sprint work. In this second year we want you to stay about 230 pounds but we want you to lose about 16 pounds of fat and gain about 16 pounds of muscle which will be twice as hard to gain compared to your first year. at the end of this year you will be at around 10% body fat and at 230 pounds you can wield thors hammer.
You can still get in ketosis for about 12 hours of the day with a moderate cut on carbohydrate if you exercise 30 minutes a day. a macro ratio of about 25% carb 40% protein and 35% fat is good enough and very tasty and lots of micronutrients if you eat like above.
Look people say dont weight your food, but its possible you just dont know what these amounts look like until you weigh it infront of you. after a couple of months you get used to it and you dont need to weigh your food. I mean for example 40 almonds is about 50 grams. which is like a half a handful for you.
calories in = calories out with a giant caveat. the calories out should come from your fat stores. in this case about 700 per day. the calories in, is your macro ratio and 2100 per day you need 2500 just to make sure you are getting to the right amount of protein and not overeating it causing gluconeogenesis as protein can be turned into glycogen as well. Remember a caloric surplus regardless of the macros will cause weight gain whether it is fat gain or muscle or both is up to what you do in your activities. you want a protein caloric surplus to build muscle and which will come from the protein you eat and the body fat you have or your food to carry the proteins into your cells for synthesis. YOu want a caloric deficit to lose fat by cutting your carb and your body fat making up for the rest during ketosis.
Your carbs will be turned into glycogen by your liver and can hold 120g pretty easily. During your 24 hour day even if you don't do much you can probably lose about 50 grams glycogen so if you lose 300 calories through exercise then 120 will keep you in ketosis while you sleep and until you have your fist meal. for me I dont eat past 9-10 and my first meal is around 1-2pm but you do what you feel is best for you. You want some muscle glycogen enough for your walks and workouts 70 is enough. these are quick and dirty numbers but by the time you sleep your body should be deplete of muscle and liver glycogen or have only 50g and you will be in ketosis.
Maybe the reason overfat people are not in ketosis when they sleep usually, is because their liver glycogen and muscle glycogen is full (already from yesterdays food and when they are in a caloric surplus on a high carb die that day, they just aren't doing enough work to burn the glycogen to be able to begin to rely on ketones, so it will turn into fat when they sleep because you need to turn most of your food for that day into glycogen, again in a high carb diet. It becomes a vicious cycle for some the less muscle you have the less glycogen you can burn through the slower window to get into ketosis and so on and so on until obesity hits. Obviously there are biochemical pathways to consider and it is more complex than I my oversimplification and i haven't touched on hormones but think of it in this way to start with.
You don't need to be in ketosis 24 hours a day. 16 is plenty. Yes by all means go on hardcore keto for a week or so to deplete your muscle and liver glycogen then when you know it is depleted go and up it to 120 and I can bet you you will be losing weight and gaining muscle and enjoying learning to respect food.
