Help :(

fitter_happier94

Day 10 on keto. Yesterday and today I had about 30g of carbs, every day prior to that was <20g. I've eaten more than I usually would these last two days (in general, including kcals, not just carbs) because I've been pretty active (my mam is ill at the minute so I'm essentially running a house and walking dogs 5 miles a day, on top of the intentional exercise I do). It's not great, because I think at my size that's too high a figure for keto, but it isn't how much I've had that's bothering me, it's how much I want. I've been having some really heavy carb cravings (even bananas, I would have never reached for a banana before). I've pre-planned tomorrow's food in my diary and in it is my last Quest bar for at least a week, I think the sugary chewy stuff is preventing me from "weaning" myself off carbs.

Please tell me there's someone on here who's been in the same boat and has overcome it? I thought it might be because in addition to the cleaning of the house and the walking of the dogs I was doing my regular exercise, (my muscles were getting so sore and I've been exhausted) so I'm taking a break from that. Is this normal when first starting out? Will the cravings go? Need to know that it gets easier. I could easily stay under about 40g but these last couple days of 20g have been killing me. I'm not used to having "cravings" so it's pretty uncomfortable for me to be dealing with them, I'm used to just eating when I'm hungry. I'm not usually bothered what my food tastes like so long as it satisfies my hunger but I literally can't get my mind off carbs right now. Background: I've been known to eat like 6+ slices of bread a day in the past... Delayed withdrawals, maybe? Sorry for the lengthy rant. Feeling desperate. I need to lower my BF% and successfully doing keto for at least another fortnight is really important to me. After that, if I'm still having these difficulties, I'll settle for 50g/day carbs.

AngInCanada

I think most of us have been there done that. I think the biggest piece of advice is to give up the quest bars. Not forever....but just for now. You will notice your cravings for sweet things starts to dissipate and when you DO eat something sweet it may not even appeal to you. Another thing that was suggested to me was to eat fat. If I had an intense craving I'd pop a little cube of butter in my mouth and the craving lessoned quite a bit!

fitter_happier94

You're right, got one Quest bar left and I've included it in my plan tomorrow, not buying anymore this month. I have ice cubes I made for bullet proof coffee which are just essentially cubes of frozen butter, hazelnut creamer, and coconut oil. They're pretty nice on their own so I'll try to stick to them if/ when I need a sweet fix. Comforting to know other people have gotten over this... I hate cravings :-(

annieboomboom

You don't look terribly overweight. Are you? Maybe you don't have a lot of fat to lose.
It took me 3 months at <20 grams, learning to eat enough fat ( huge obstacle) who eats more fat?
to finally begin to lose weight. 3 months. I read about all these rapid drops and instead of giving up, it made me more determined. I am smaller. I don't use a scale and am guessing I am losing .5lbs a week. Not a lot. No miracle cure.
You simply have to be ready to commit. Otherwise, it won't work.
Decide.

fitter_happier94

@annieboomboom I don't really have any weight to lose, I'm trying to lower my body fat percentage and build a little bit of muscle so I'm eating maintenance calories (or thereabouts). I'm very active and so eating back my exercise calories often puts me at about 2200 a day, on which it's very difficult to stay below 20g of carbs, so yesterday and Sunday I was on approx 30g a day (prior to that it was <20). Eating enough fat is difficult for me too, but I usually hit 60% in terms of macros. It is a big effort though because I don't particularly like high fat food, so a lot of it tends to come from coconut oil and olive oil that I add in. I'm not concerned about losing weight per se, I just want the cravings to stop (I've never had cravings before in my life really, so it's a bit uncomfortable for me to be having them now). Never been too interested in food but since starting keto I can't get my mind off carbs. Hopefully it's something that'll stop once I'm "adapted". Not sure if keto is something I can keep to in the long term - but I have only been doing it for 11 days. I can definitely keep below 30-40, but 20 is getting increasingly difficult.

wabmester

Just curious -- how did you choose your macros? Why 20g carbs?

Your brain normally consumes around 120g/d glucose, so if you just want to make a few ketones, you can restrict carbs below that level.

The "normal" recommendation is below 50g, which not only makes ketones, but also quickly depletes glycogen. That only takes a couple days.

At below 40g or so, you are not only maximizing ketones, but you are guaranteed to be converting protein to glucose via gluconeogenesis to meet your minimal brain needs of about 40g/d. I.e., you are guaranteed to be catabolizing protein, which is probably not ideal from a bodybuilding perspective.

Experiment a bit. There's really no reason, in theory, to drop below 50g.

fitter_happier94

@wabmester Little to no research (not around ketosis, just around what specific carb value to set myself), just went with 20g because of the "guaranteed ketosis" malarkey surrounding it, suppose it's a nice safe figure. I'm gonna buy a breath analyser and so long as I'm making some ketones that's fine by me so I'll try to stick to <40g for some peace of mind (for now), when I'm feeling a little more confident I'll probably up it and just intersperse my diet with the odd period of <20 to burn some fat. I'm just throwing a strop really because I had initially hoped to stick below 20 but I'm shocked by how hard I'm finding it, especially after it being so easy for the first week, haha.

I'd heard about how too low a carb count can make gaining muscle difficult (didn't think it was applicable to me because I only want to gain the slightest amount). Didn't know that ketosis catabolised protein though? I thought so long as I was meeting my protein reqs (approx 70g a day for me) I'd be fine? I tend to eat most of my carbs prior to exercise, but aside from the odd calisthenic workout, I'm mostly doing high intensity cardio to burn carbs. Any recommendations on how I should approach keto/ LCHF/ meal timing/ exercise et cetera? I'm not looking for huge results really, I just want to lower by BF% (from about 21.5) to about 18 and figured the easiest way to do that was keto to lose fat and body weight circuits to build a little bit of muscle. Oui, non?

wabmester

70g protein might be fine, but if you want to stay below 40g carbs, I'd bump up the protein a bit just to help ensure you have enough to build muscle (if that's your goal).

If you're exercising a lot, you can get away with more carbs since exercise will help you burn more glucose.

Have you looked at the carb cycling that the bodybuilders do?
http://www.reddit.com/r/ketogains/wiki/index

fitter_happier94

I've been meaning to look into it, had a Firefox session saved with loads of links to resources but of course I accidentally deleted it this morning haha. I'm buying some whey protein and casein so that should sort out the protein issue. Thank you for the link, I'll read that now