Eating a "well formulated" ketogenic diet
dawlfin318
Posts: 227 Member
I keep reading ( The Art and Science of a Low Carbohydrate Living - Phinney and Volek) and watching youtube videos (low carb down under, Jimmy Moore etc.) on how people do well on a "well formulated" keto diet, but do not see anywhere where it says what foods would form a well formulated ketogenic diet.
I know what not to eat, but I wonder if I need a multivitamin to cover any deficiencies beyond supplementing sodium, magnesium, and potassium. How do I ensure I am getting vitamin C, enough calcium, the B- vitiamins and other stuff that is added to processed foods (enriched with "this and that" ) to supplement our foods that lack enough of it- like milk with added vitaminD, o.j. with added nutrients, salt that is iodized and the like.
I know to watch the macros, but not all foods come with a nutritional fact sheet (like a ribeye steak for example) unless they are processed- which I am really not eating except for a quest protein bar some mornings.
Where is the instruction manual for what to eat to meet all the nutritional needs of modern humans? One that is not our current pyramid, or the Standard American Diet (SAD, :-( ) .
Would love any education, links, books and the like , that you can share. And thank-you for always sharing your knowledge!
I know what not to eat, but I wonder if I need a multivitamin to cover any deficiencies beyond supplementing sodium, magnesium, and potassium. How do I ensure I am getting vitamin C, enough calcium, the B- vitiamins and other stuff that is added to processed foods (enriched with "this and that" ) to supplement our foods that lack enough of it- like milk with added vitaminD, o.j. with added nutrients, salt that is iodized and the like.
I know to watch the macros, but not all foods come with a nutritional fact sheet (like a ribeye steak for example) unless they are processed- which I am really not eating except for a quest protein bar some mornings.
Where is the instruction manual for what to eat to meet all the nutritional needs of modern humans? One that is not our current pyramid, or the Standard American Diet (SAD, :-( ) .
Would love any education, links, books and the like , that you can share. And thank-you for always sharing your knowledge!
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I don't know about any other deficiencies, but definitely watch the electrolytes.
I find that most non-packaged foods have to be looked up manually. MFP has nutritional info for most of it, but you need to know how much you ate. (Kitchen scales are a good investment if you cook a lot.)
Go to http://www.reddit.com/r/keto and search for specific questions in the side bar. There's usually something!0 -
Choosemyplate.gov is the resource my nutrition class uses to calculate all macro and micro nutrients.. For those of us doing ketogenic diets you'll have to look past the carbs/protein/fat reccomendations but it will put everything in a flow chart as far as micro nutrients ..all micro nutrients.
We had to use the site for our major grade assignment.. I was doing keto then and I think it surprised that instructor that I was getting what I needed..
Track there and see where you're lacking and then research foods that meet your needs0 -
I know what you mean: confusing! I have wondered if it meant whole foods not junk food that might still meet keto macros?0
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I think when Phinney and Volek say well-formulated they are talking about macros and eating nutritious food. I don't think they are specifically talking about micronutrients. Also remember that, in the U.S. anyway, vitamin and mineral guidelines were developed based on 1) preventing deficiency and 2) for those eating a SAD diet. For example, I believe Phinney and Volek discuss how vitamin C needs are likely much reduced in a LCHF diet. That's why arctic explorers eating the foods they brought with them got scurvy, and those who ate like the native/First Nations peoples they encountered did not.
I personally am not convinced of the utility of a multivitamin, but I do supplement with vitamin D3, vitamin K2, magnesium (currently magnesium taurate), and I have been eating one Brazil nut most days recently for selenium. I suppose the Atkins shake I drink for breakfast is fortified with a number of vitamins as well, but that's not why I drink it. I used to take fermented cod liver oil capsules instead of the vitamin D but I haven't done that in a while.
Another good nutrient database for many foods is the USDA National Nutritional Database: http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/0 -
dawlfin318 wrote: »I keep reading ( The Art and Science of a Low Carbohydrate Living - Phinney and Volek) and watching youtube videos (low carb down under, Jimmy Moore etc.) on how people do well on a "well formulated" keto diet, but do not see anywhere where it says what foods would form a well formulated ketogenic diet.
I know what not to eat, but I wonder if I need a multivitamin to cover any deficiencies beyond supplementing sodium, magnesium, and potassium. How do I ensure I am getting vitamin C, enough calcium, the B- vitiamins and other stuff that is added to processed foods (enriched with "this and that" ) to supplement our foods that lack enough of it- like milk with added vitaminD, o.j. with added nutrients, salt that is iodized and the like.
When you're not stuffing yourself with a loaf of bread worth of grains per day (no joke, the old recommendation was 6-11 servings -- that's about a loaf of bread!), your diet becomes much more rich in nutrients, because the nutrition in grains suck and grains contain compounds that inhibit absorption of nutrients from other sources.
The amount of vitamin D added in milk is laughable. You can't get your RDA for vitamin D from food, period. The vitamin D added in milk is meant to aid absorption of the calcium. If you're worried about your vitamin D levels, get outside without sunscreen whenever you can. If you can't, then supplement with a D3 supplement.
Vitamin C is an interesting beast, because the fewer carbs we eat, the less we need. Mistizoom already went into this. If it still seems hard to believe, hit up @FIT_Goat. He eats carnivore style and has personal experience with the whole Vitamin C thing.
As for calcium, there's evidence that we don't need nearly as much as the USDA says we need. The USDA numbers are based on what's absorbed as part of a SAD diet. It's not about how much you consume, though, but how much you absorb. Without a bunch of antinutrients from grains, you absorb a lot more, and when your food sources are green vegetables, bony fish, and bone broth, instead of fortified processed foods, the calcium is more readily absorbed.
Humans aren't technically carnivores, but we are arguably carnivore-leaning. We can get all the nutrients we need from animal products, and several societies have done so for many, many generations.
If you're worried about a specific deficiency (after you've seen if you have said deficiency), then simply look up the foods that contain that nutrient (ideally in the most bioavailable form). Worried about iodine? Work plants and bivalves into your diet. Vitamin A? Make butter your primary fat and eat liver once in a while (liver's better than any multivitamin, by the way). Still worried about Vitamin C? A cup of chopped broccoli will give you 135% of your RDA for a "whopping" 6.2g of net carbs (10g total). B vitamins? Pick an animal product (full disclosure - some have more of a given B vitamin than others, so which one you'd favor depends on the vitamin you're looking for; however, they all have some amount of several of them).
A note on the "well formulated" quote from Phinney and Volek -- I don't know if this is exactly why they specifically state this, but a lot of the old clinical studies of the ketogenic diet used crappy meal replacement shakes. The subjects were basically living off of soybean oil and artificial nutrients, and their water and calorie intake were restricted to 60-75% of what they needed. Needless to say, those subjects suffered in the long term (go figure). A well formulated ketogenic diet, then, is pretty much anything but that. ie - a variety of real food.I know to watch the macros, but not all foods come with a nutritional fact sheet (like a ribeye steak for example) unless they are processed- which I am really not eating except for a quest protein bar some mornings.
The USDA has that information for such foods. It's partially how nutrition information is determined in processed foods and recipes. Just do a Google search for "[food item] nutrition" and you'll get the information you need (Google pulls up a nifty little chart for the vast majority of unprocessed foods).Where is the instruction manual for what to eat to meet all the nutritional needs of modern humans? One that is not our current pyramid, or the Standard American Diet (SAD, :-( ) .
This quote embodies everything that is wrong with modern society as it relates to nutrition. There's shouldn't need to even be an instruction manual for how to eat. (This isn't a dig at you, but rather at modern society in general.)
Just eat real food. That alone will get you 90% of the way there, if not more.0 -
Well said.0
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Wow, thanks for all the great responses, all of you! I feel quite a bit better about what I have been eating. Like, who knew that broccoli has vitamin C? Lol, I have been adding a squirt of lime juice to my water so I get it from there. I love broccoli and spinach, and eat one of them pretty much every day.
Also, I got kelp granules and put it on my food about 1x/week, to get my iodine since I salt with sea salt- kelp has a ton of iodine in a very small amount.
I salt my food with sea salt/Himalayan salt, not Morton's Iodized salt. I also use organic bouillon for a sodium source.
I would love a good recipe to make my own bouillon cubes that have the electrolytes I need. They have electrolyte powders for sale on Amazon, but they are sold in small amounts and are more expensive than I expected. Would love to hear from anyone who found a cheap way to make their own bouillon, that is condensed- so I can drop it in some hot water and have my "salt hot tea"- that is what I call it, when co-workers ask wth I am drinking- tell them that I don't get enough salt since I am not eating processed foods.
I love Google so I will check that out for the whole foods I buy that don't have vitamin/mineral breakdown in the packaging. I just wish they had a list of foods out there that can be eaten to get all the nutrients I need from a ketogenic diet- then I would make sure I ate "said food". It is amazing how the USA makes it so difficult to navigate the "whole-food" WOE. Gotta love the giant lobby of the processed food giants, making it appear healthy to eat their crap.
Dragonwolf, thank-you especially, for sharing your knowledge, you always have the answers and I was hoping you would respond. ;-)
Thanks again all!
-Dawl0 -
Another good nutrient database for many foods is the USDA National Nutritional Database: http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/
Going there now!
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I think it would be a rare low-carber who struggles to get enough sodium. If anything, the opposite is likely true if you're eating cheese, sausage, bacon, canned tuna/fish, and other keto-friendly foods. The things I know I could use more of much of the time are the other electrolytes -- specifically potassium and magnesium. I will sometimes get muscle cramps if I don't supplement these. But I also run and bike a lot, so I probably sweat out more of these than a lot of folks.0
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I get leg cramps at night with extremely low levels of exercise! Magnesium supplements help, but haven't dared supplement potassium. I do use a lo-salt potassium/sodium mix, but I don't use it a whole lot because, as @zoom2 says, feel like my food is salty enough for me!
I do however often wake up around 4 or 5 am sweaty and palpitations. I really don't think it's blood sugar problems which I used to think it was and now I am stumped what is causing it. I was wondering it is was early menopause (I'm 41) but it doesn't happen any other time. Some other deficiency?0 -
totaloblivia wrote: »I do however often wake up around 4 or 5 am sweaty and palpitations. I really don't think it's blood sugar problems which I used to think it was and now I am stumped what is causing it. I was wondering it is was early menopause (I'm 41) but it doesn't happen any other time. Some other deficiency?
I'm 42 and have had this issue for a couple of years. Perimenopause can start anytime around mid-30s. I've been in this camp solidly since about then. Cycles getting increasingly short and my "thermostat" is totally screwed-up.0 -
dawlfin318 wrote: »Wow, thanks for all the great responses, all of you! I feel quite a bit better about what I have been eating. Like, who knew that broccoli has vitamin C? Lol, I have been adding a squirt of lime juice to my water so I get it from there. I love broccoli and spinach, and eat one of them pretty much every day.
Also, I got kelp granules and put it on my food about 1x/week, to get my iodine since I salt with sea salt- kelp has a ton of iodine in a very small amount.
I salt my food with sea salt/Himalayan salt, not Morton's Iodized salt. I also use organic bouillon for a sodium source.
I would love a good recipe to make my own bouillon cubes that have the electrolytes I need. They have electrolyte powders for sale on Amazon, but they are sold in small amounts and are more expensive than I expected. Would love to hear from anyone who found a cheap way to make their own bouillon, that is condensed- so I can drop it in some hot water and have my "salt hot tea"- that is what I call it, when co-workers ask wth I am drinking- tell them that I don't get enough salt since I am not eating processed foods.
I love Google so I will check that out for the whole foods I buy that don't have vitamin/mineral breakdown in the packaging. I just wish they had a list of foods out there that can be eaten to get all the nutrients I need from a ketogenic diet- then I would make sure I ate "said food". It is amazing how the USA makes it so difficult to navigate the "whole-food" WOE. Gotta love the giant lobby of the processed food giants, making it appear healthy to eat their crap.
Dragonwolf, thank-you especially, for sharing your knowledge, you always have the answers and I was hoping you would respond. ;-)
Thanks again all!
-Dawl
It's not quite the store bought bouillon, but you can make your own bone broth and make it more concentrated. Make the bone broth (toss a chicken carcass or three into a stock pot or slow cooker, cover in water, add a little vinegar, bring to boil, then reduce to simmer for 12+ hours), then allow it to cook down to a more concentrated level, add your salt and other herbs/spices as desired. Allow to cool slightly, then pour into small molds (ice cube trays work well for this) and freeze. Once frozen, you can pop them out and store them in a container. Standard ice cube trays hold about an ounce. When you need one, just toss it into a pot to melt and heat up and add water to desired concentration level.
As an added bonus, doing it this way gets you a bunch of other minerals (calcium, magnesium, etc), including most of your electrolytes, as well as a bunch of joint-supporting things like gelatin and glucosamine (especially if you toss chicken feet in while making the base).
I'm with you on the annoyance over lack of a convenient comparison chart or aggregated source of information for whole foods that's easy to reference like that. However, I've found that as long as you're eating a decent variety of foods in general, but a variety of animal foods especially (and a variety of cuts), you're probably not lacking in much. It also helps to remember that your fat sources, especially the whole food based ones, like butter, strips of fat on meat, and avocados, aren't empty calories, but nutrient rich sources of energy. Even better, is that the nutrients in animal fats are usually directly bioavailable, so it doesn't take much to cover our needs (the Vitamin A and K in butter, for example, are the active kind that we use -- the same Vitamin A form found in liver, and Vitamin K2, which our body can use directly; likewise, the Omega-3 form found in things like eggs are the EPA and DHA forms, which the body doesn't need to convert -- the body sucks at converting ALA, found in plants, to EPA, and so, we'd need more if we just got it from ALA).
And "variety" doesn't have to be huge. Our staple animal foods are bison (or beef, in a pinch; we like bison better), chicken (and eggs), pork, and high-fat dairy (butter, cream, and cheese, mainly). Sometimes, I'll grab deli turkey when the mood strikes, and I'll sometimes have venison as a treat, when I can get some from my parents. That's about the extent of it. My veggies tend to be broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, onions, carrots, and lettuce. I'm also a fan of tomatoes and fresh garlic. Sometimes, I'll get spinach to toss into a green smoothie, for something different.
whfoods.com has an awesome database, too. It's great for "what foods are highest in X nutrient?" types of queries. It gives a nice list of %DV of various items for the given nutrient.0 -
When Phinney & Volek say "well-formulated low carbohydrate diet", this is what they mean:
(from the summary in Ch.11 in ASLCP)
* Carbs under 50g
* Protein between 0.6 to 1.0 grams per pound of lean body mass
* Fat is variable depending on goal of weight loss or gain, and should be monounsaturated and saturated (avoid polyunsaturated)0 -
Dragonwolf wrote: »It's not quite the store bought bouillon, but you can make your own bone broth and make it more concentrated. Make the bone broth (toss a chicken carcass or three into a stock pot or slow cooker, cover in water, add a little vinegar, bring to boil, then reduce to simmer for 12+ hours), then allow it to cook down to a more concentrated level, add your salt and other herbs/spices as desired. Allow to cool slightly, then pour into small molds (ice cube trays work well for this) and freeze. Once frozen, you can pop them out and store them in a container. Standard ice cube trays hold about an ounce. When you need one, just toss it into a pot to melt and heat up and add water to desired concentration level.
As an added bonus, doing it this way gets you a bunch of other minerals (calcium, magnesium, etc), including most of your electrolytes, as well as a bunch of joint-supporting things like gelatin and glucosamine (especially if you toss chicken feet in while making the base).
Why the vinegar? I've never heard that before, so I've never added it. Have no problem doing so, just wondered why... Wish I could find more "odds and ends" to toss in. Need to get off my duff some weekend and make friends with one of the butchers...0 -
I'm 42 and have had this issue for a couple of years. Perimenopause can start anytime around mid-30s. I've been in this camp solidly since about then. Cycles getting increasingly short and my "thermostat" is totally screwed-up.[/quote]
Oh woe... but just at night? I think I am in denial...
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in this video he states a set of macros and i have changed my macros to match. Here's what mine are (of course i had to round since this is MFP)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFD2q5iqevY
Protein 28%
Carb 13%
Fat 59%
i do not stress a ton about macros-i would rather my weight loss take a little longer and be a little more flexible. But since it's "right from the horses" mouth i decided to try it.
i enjoy reading alot about keto but the downside is i often get overwhelmed.0 -
KnitOrMiss wrote: »Dragonwolf wrote: »It's not quite the store bought bouillon, but you can make your own bone broth and make it more concentrated. Make the bone broth (toss a chicken carcass or three into a stock pot or slow cooker, cover in water, add a little vinegar, bring to boil, then reduce to simmer for 12+ hours), then allow it to cook down to a more concentrated level, add your salt and other herbs/spices as desired. Allow to cool slightly, then pour into small molds (ice cube trays work well for this) and freeze. Once frozen, you can pop them out and store them in a container. Standard ice cube trays hold about an ounce. When you need one, just toss it into a pot to melt and heat up and add water to desired concentration level.
As an added bonus, doing it this way gets you a bunch of other minerals (calcium, magnesium, etc), including most of your electrolytes, as well as a bunch of joint-supporting things like gelatin and glucosamine (especially if you toss chicken feet in while making the base).
Why the vinegar? I've never heard that before, so I've never added it. Have no problem doing so, just wondered why...
It's the minerals & electrolytes he mentioned: the vinegar helps extract them from the bones.
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in this video he states a set of macros and i have changed my macros to match. ... But since it's "right from the horses" mouth i decided to try it.
Which part of the video did you pull your numbers from? The only specific ones I heard were a 100g max of carbohydrate for a hypothetical person who was fully keto adapted and looking to find the upper limit of their insulin sensitivity, and 150g of protein as a round number based on Phinney's personal body size and activity level.
p.s. how milquetoast was that interviewer?? lol
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KnitOrMiss wrote: »Dragonwolf wrote: »It's not quite the store bought bouillon, but you can make your own bone broth and make it more concentrated. Make the bone broth (toss a chicken carcass or three into a stock pot or slow cooker, cover in water, add a little vinegar, bring to boil, then reduce to simmer for 12+ hours), then allow it to cook down to a more concentrated level, add your salt and other herbs/spices as desired. Allow to cool slightly, then pour into small molds (ice cube trays work well for this) and freeze. Once frozen, you can pop them out and store them in a container. Standard ice cube trays hold about an ounce. When you need one, just toss it into a pot to melt and heat up and add water to desired concentration level.
As an added bonus, doing it this way gets you a bunch of other minerals (calcium, magnesium, etc), including most of your electrolytes, as well as a bunch of joint-supporting things like gelatin and glucosamine (especially if you toss chicken feet in while making the base).
Why the vinegar? I've never heard that before, so I've never added it. Have no problem doing so, just wondered why...
It's the minerals & electrolytes he mentioned: the vinegar helps extract them from the bones.
I'm having a Homer Simpson, "DOH!" moment. Vinegar is part of the process for extracting the gelatin, et al from bones in creating gelatin commercial, so I don't know why I didn't think of that!!! I've just never seen a recipe that used it, so naturally my brain asked, "Why?" LOL Thanks for clarifying.0 -
17:00 minute mark here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP6DtqmZ3Mw#t=1064
(look at the macros on the chart)
and a quote from the first: "weight loss entails eating a lower fat percentage, and maintenance involves eating more fat." But also on the first go to 16:22 and listen for a few. He actually defines a well formulated diet. 100-150g carb, 150 protein and the rest fat. He also talks about how it can last for decades at these levels. (approx 19:00)
He also says a metabolically resistant person may have to go to 20g carbs per day.
"introduce carbs back to the point of carb tolerance"
i interpret this as starting out keto (20-50g of carb) and increasing in maintenance to the 100-150 listed above-although i think that would be too high for me.
jen0 -
and yes, that interviewer in the first is awful. i should have put a disclaimer!
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This is all fantastic information, how do we keep it on the front page so new people can access it?0
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Might I add: Organ meats are our friends. Liver has tons of nutrition, and can be ground & frozen into tiny pieces you can just swallow, if necessary. I occasionally get a blend of meat from one of the local ranchers that has heart & liver in with the ground beef.0
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Caught me by surprise the first time --- thought it'd be "free" (
) like most meat so I ate a bunch. Then it's like, doh!, where is all the glycogen stored? Oh yeah: the liver...... 0 -
Might I add: Organ meats are our friends. Liver has tons of nutrition, and can be ground & frozen into tiny pieces you can just swallow, if necessary. I occasionally get a blend of meat from one of the local ranchers that has heart & liver in with the ground beef.
this. i try to diversify my diet as much as possible. this means eating offal on a regular basis, and other off the wall things like beef heart and chicken gizzards, etc. salmon, canned sardines and oysters (like liver, a bit higher in carbs), steamed. mussels in addition to a cup of bone broth daily or every other day and as many varied kinds of greens as i can incorporate.
lots of good quality fats - lard and talloe left over from cooking, ghee or pastured butter, avocado, coconut oil, olive oil on salads.
i supplement with carlson's super 2 daily and their fish oil, a tsp. of himalayan or real salt (the stuff from utah) in my "keto lemonade" or bone broth daily. warm lemon water in the a.m. and natiral the calm (mag. citrate) at night. lots and lots of water.
i have been adding sea vegetables (dulse, wakame) to my bone broth for added potassium and sodium. with some garlic salt (trader joe's sells a great one that you grind: parsley, gray sea salt and dried garlic) and coconut aminos, it's quite tasty!
and probiotics - fermented foods like raw sauerkraut and water/coconut kefir for lactic and a supplement for soil based.
i think that's about it! sounds like a lot, but it's all really simple stuff to add in where you can.
good luck!0 -
that would be tallow! (:
one more bit - i have found a good trick to using up bone broth in a timely manner (my kiddo doesn't usually want much so it's usually just me):
i pour whatever portion of my pot of broth i wont use into ice cube trays and store them once they're frozen in ziplocs, 8 cubes per bag (1 cup). then just pop those in a saucepan in the morning - the broth is defrosted and hot to drink in a few minutes!
using bags isn't super ideal from an ecological standpoint, but i reuse them.0 -
totaloblivia wrote: »I get leg cramps at night with extremely low levels of exercise! Magnesium supplements help, but haven't dared supplement potassium. I do use a lo-salt potassium/sodium mix, but I don't use it a whole lot because, as @zoom2 says, feel like my food is salty enough for me!
I do however often wake up around 4 or 5 am sweaty and palpitations. I really don't think it's blood sugar problems which I used to think it was and now I am stumped what is causing it. I was wondering it is was early menopause (I'm 41) but it doesn't happen any other time. Some other deficiency?
I'm 43, following LC, and was just in the ER in November for palpitations. They couldn't figure out why, no heart attack, stoke, not my diet....but they went away. I was overdosing myself on magnesium. When I stopped taking that supplement, the palpitations stopped. You might try that. 0 -
totaloblivia wrote: »I get leg cramps at night with extremely low levels of exercise! Magnesium supplements help, but haven't dared supplement potassium. I do use a lo-salt potassium/sodium mix, but I don't use it a whole lot because, as @zoom2 says, feel like my food is salty enough for me!
I do however often wake up around 4 or 5 am sweaty and palpitations. I really don't think it's blood sugar problems which I used to think it was and now I am stumped what is causing it. I was wondering it is was early menopause (I'm 41) but it doesn't happen any other time. Some other deficiency?
I'm 43, following LC, and was just in the ER in November for palpitations. They couldn't figure out why, no heart attack, stoke, not my diet....but they went away. I was overdosing myself on magnesium. When I stopped taking that supplement, the palpitations stopped. You might try that.
I have had heart palps on and off for the past few months...definitely diet related for me. To ease this, I chug down water with a little salt in it...then chug more water w/o salt.
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