Food Keto Diet

I upped my salt intake over the past 20 hours and my thirst is much more manageable now.

Many thanks, snowy.

 

Allow me to be a wet noodle in the Keto Diet.

I used to be a big "fan" of the Atkins diet myself, at one point I lost close to 20lbs on it. It seemed wonderful and magical. I was eating steak and blue cheese and bacon and losing weight. It appealed to the "evolved" diet idea (which later became the paelo diet, also bullshit). I was happy, though something happened at about 20 lbs down.

I stopped losing weight. I didn't think much of it, and after a while Keto/Atkins gets boring so I blamed going off it.

Then about maybe three years ago I decided to get in REAL shape, weightlifting 3-4 times a week, compound exercises, and a real diet. I spent about two years, reading, learning, and investigating just about every article and research paper nutrition related.

The one thing about keto that no one seemed to have a good answer for is "why" it worked when it first came out. There were theories but no science. What it comes down to are a couple of factors.

#1 - Protein is more filling (you eat less)
#2 - Protein takes more energy to digest (you get less calories from it)
#3 - You get a HUGE loss of water weight early on which is a psychological advantage (you lose glycogen stores)
#4 - At first you "self regulate" eating less on all protein (this changes).

So at first, if you are over eating as most people do these days, Keto is magical. You lose a ton of water (not fat) so its like "Hey I lost 5lbs the first week!". You eat less, get less calories, and you do lose fat. After a time though your body starts to get used to all protein and you find yourself eating more. Your body doesn't LIKE losing fat, it worked hard to get it, it goes and makes you hungry.

Now I'm not against keto as a "bad" diet, I think it can be done perfectly healthy, but you MUST still count your calories in the long run. You must weigh your food, find the numbers and add them up. You MUST eat below your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) or you will NOT lose weight (water doesn't count).

When I got serious I gave up keto and just went to a high protein (.8g per lb of lean mass or so) moderate fat (.4-.5 per lean mass lb), and the rest whatever I wanted (carbs/protein fat), eating below my TDEE (which btw is about 2700 a day).

Doing so I've lost 40 lbs of fat, I also gained a good deal of muscle early on though after you start to get skinny (about 15% bf) that slows down and my muscle gains have stalled. I'm quite the stud these days and I don't say that to brag, its simply a great feeling, and I wish others can get to their potential as well Whats nice about what I do over keto is, its cheaper, eating out keto is stupid expensive. Its also harder to set mine up because, unlike how most do keto, you need to count your calories (use phone apps) but after about two weeks, you will have most of what you eat already entered. After a few weeks of measuring too, you will be able to "eyeball" quite well.

There is absolutely no scientific backing to say the keto diet is superior to simply monitoring your calories (provided you do the right amount of protein/fat).

Remixer - Its good your original PDF has calories on it, and I hope you are doing it with your TDEE calculated in which case if it works for you and you can stick to it, then by all means DO it. But if it becomes difficult, don't be afraid to go back to a regular eating plan as long as you do the monitoring. EXPECT a weight jump if you do, thats just the water coming back and its fine, glycogen is good to have for working out. Even with normal cutting (fat loss) you tend to have a water weight spike if you eat more carbs than usual. I can go up as much as 8 lbs with it, but the pants still fit

Casein is one of those proteins which I do use BUT its a bit over valued in what it does. Reality seems for muscle building you want a good bolus of protein, I favor whey over casein, but I'll still do a chocolate casein 'shake' before bed often. The whole "slow digestion/fast digestion" protein doesn't seem to matter as much as we like to think and sup companies try to push. One potential benefit for casein is you MIGHT lose less muscle on a cut overnight, but its pretty minor and I've only seen one paper showing this. Doesn't hurt though either.

I assume you are working out with it too, if you aren't you are REALLY going to want to. What got me hitting the gym hard was getting to about 200 lbs (I'm 180 now) and realizing I had NO damn muscle under the fat. Psychologically whats funny is even though I'm literally 3-4 time stronger than I was 3 years ago I FEEL weaker, fat makes me (and others I've talked to) feel like we are "bigger" than we really are.

 

This highlights one of the big misconceptions about weight loss. Exercise is not necessary at all. I personally hate cardio and I'd rather eat slightly less than spend an hour on the treadmill. Exercise to be healthy and look good naked but not directly for weight loss.

 

I started Atkins again, this is the second time in ten years. Lost 10 lbs the first week. ( mostly water I'm sure ) lost 5lbs second week. 6 weeks to go. Presently weigh 240, I will keep my friends here posted.

 

Weighed in: 235lbs

 

Oh yeah, Lindy. No fries, so sad. I really do enjoy potatoes including sweet ones. 20 carbs a day at first now 30. But it's working.
Weighed in at 231lbs

 

I've been on-and-off of Keto for the better part of 2 years. Usually what will happen is this cycle:

1. "I'm going to lose weight!"
2. -begin keto-
3. -lose some weight-
4. -fall off the wagon-
   1. Excuse: "I've lost a decent amount of weight, I should be okay for a little while"
5. -gain back most of the weight-
6. "I hate how much weight I've gained!"
   
7. GOTO 1

All-in-all I'm about 25 pounds lighter than when I started doing keto, but it's been sporadic and difficult to maintain. A lot of the time I'll get bored with the choices I can make on keto (only so many times I can eat roasted vegetables/salad with a protein).

Think I'm going to give it another shot here soon, but really start tracking my macros - I suspect I've been eating a bit too much protein and it's stalling some potential progress.

 

Still weigh the same 231lbs. Must be leveling off.

 

229lbs YEAH! I broke into the 220s!

 

@Lindy and others.
After SMS I....

 

I've put on 5 pounds, time to start over on the induction period. No carbs