Round Two! Help?
Dyonkers
Posts: 2 Member
Hi all,
First I wanted to say Thank You for being a very positive resource throughout the journey! However, I'm here to ask a question today. I've done Keto in the past, roughly 4 years ago, I was 22 and looking for something to help me lose the weight I'd gained after leaving High School and jumping into College/Fulltime Work. I had great success, I went from ~290lbs down to 235 in roughly a year and I felt great! I met a wonderful lady, who just recently has become my wife and life is great. Except that I've gained almost all of the weight I had lost previously back.
I was following a pretty lazy keto form, I worked in retail so I was on my feet for 8 hours a day walking. So being pretty lazy with my calories and other macro's wasn't too much concern for me because I'd burn the calories I'd eat pretty quickly just throughout the work day. Now I've moved on to a desk job, a sit around at a computer for 9 hours a day desk job.
I started eating Keto again on January 2nd 2017, I weighed in at 280.7lbs - This morning I weighed in at ~277lbs. Throughout the month I've been trying to track myself and figure out what I might be missing as far as food and macros are concerned. I've got My Fitness Pal (I've slacked with logging, but my food is 90% identical day in and day out) synced up with my Fitbit to help keep track of how many steps/calories I've burnt in a day. A "regular" day for me is ~12g Carbs, ~120g Fat and ~60 Protein.
I've looked at the Keto Calculator to get an idea where I might need to be hitting certain goals as far as macros are concerned.
26/M/6'0" | CW 280 | 37% BF | Mostly sedentary
1854 kcal Goal, a 26% deficit. (774 min, 2517 max)
20g Carbohydrates
106g Protein (106g min, 176g max)
150g Fat (30g min, 223g max)
My question is three fold I suppose: Should I be trying to hit a specific caloric amount for the day? Do I need to increase my Protein to a more in-line value to what the Keto calculator is suggesting? Or could this simply be because I don't have much activity (Calorie in vs Calorie Out) that I'm holding onto this weight I'm trying so hard to lose?
I've got free gym membership at the apartment complex I live in, and I intend on hitting up the treadmills (for now) most nights of the week to increase how many calories I'm burning, but I'm wondering if there might be more to it than that?
My wife is doing great on Keto so far, this is her first time trying it - And she's down ~11lbs since we started together, so it's great to have that other person to rely on and keep you motivated when your scale doesn't want to have anything positive to say to you.
First I wanted to say Thank You for being a very positive resource throughout the journey! However, I'm here to ask a question today. I've done Keto in the past, roughly 4 years ago, I was 22 and looking for something to help me lose the weight I'd gained after leaving High School and jumping into College/Fulltime Work. I had great success, I went from ~290lbs down to 235 in roughly a year and I felt great! I met a wonderful lady, who just recently has become my wife and life is great. Except that I've gained almost all of the weight I had lost previously back.
I was following a pretty lazy keto form, I worked in retail so I was on my feet for 8 hours a day walking. So being pretty lazy with my calories and other macro's wasn't too much concern for me because I'd burn the calories I'd eat pretty quickly just throughout the work day. Now I've moved on to a desk job, a sit around at a computer for 9 hours a day desk job.
I started eating Keto again on January 2nd 2017, I weighed in at 280.7lbs - This morning I weighed in at ~277lbs. Throughout the month I've been trying to track myself and figure out what I might be missing as far as food and macros are concerned. I've got My Fitness Pal (I've slacked with logging, but my food is 90% identical day in and day out) synced up with my Fitbit to help keep track of how many steps/calories I've burnt in a day. A "regular" day for me is ~12g Carbs, ~120g Fat and ~60 Protein.
I've looked at the Keto Calculator to get an idea where I might need to be hitting certain goals as far as macros are concerned.
26/M/6'0" | CW 280 | 37% BF | Mostly sedentary
1854 kcal Goal, a 26% deficit. (774 min, 2517 max)
20g Carbohydrates
106g Protein (106g min, 176g max)
150g Fat (30g min, 223g max)
My question is three fold I suppose: Should I be trying to hit a specific caloric amount for the day? Do I need to increase my Protein to a more in-line value to what the Keto calculator is suggesting? Or could this simply be because I don't have much activity (Calorie in vs Calorie Out) that I'm holding onto this weight I'm trying so hard to lose?
I've got free gym membership at the apartment complex I live in, and I intend on hitting up the treadmills (for now) most nights of the week to increase how many calories I'm burning, but I'm wondering if there might be more to it than that?
My wife is doing great on Keto so far, this is her first time trying it - And she's down ~11lbs since we started together, so it's great to have that other person to rely on and keep you motivated when your scale doesn't want to have anything positive to say to you.
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Replies
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Congratulations at deciding to give keto another whirl. You are so lucky to have your wife join you in this WOE... the support you will be able to provide each other cannot be underestimated!
Your "regular" day seems really low in protein... especially as a 6' male. I definitely recommend changing things up a bit to match more closely with what the keto calculator says and see how that works for you.
Keep in mind, sometimes the body needs to heal before it will start dropping weight. Take measurements and progress pictures. Often the scale is a liar face!
It is suggested when first starting on keto, to concentrate on your macros and ignore calories: carbs are a limit, protein a goal, fat to satiety. I somewhat agree with this statement, but calories still need to be within reason. I think the overall intention is to lessen the stress as you learn and adjust to the WOE within the macros. Calories cannot be ignored forever if weight loss is the ultimate goal.
I am hopeful other, more experienced people with chime in!! This group is incredibly positive and supportive. If you haven't already, I also recommend you join the Low Carber Daily Forum Chat group (http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/394-low-carber-daily-forum-the-lcd-group) . It is a little more active, but also has a launchpad full of resources to help people regardless of where they may be in their low carb or keto journey.
Good luck and keep reaching out. The support and knowledge you will receive through these forums is fantastic!2 -
What she said ^^^.
Especially the more active you get, the more protein you need to intake. This supports you maintaining your existing lean body mass, including muscle, and any healing/growth from workouts. Most folks find that doing light weight training and less cardio help long term with body composition and calorie burns and overall whole body health. Personal suggestion would be to find activities that you and your wife enjoy doing together. Working out should be enjoyable - it's more likely to stay in your life that way!
Congratulations on your life successes, and on having a partner on this journey with you!
Working out will increase fluid retention - muscles require extra water to help heal and repair. This tends to level out between 6-12 weeks.
Also, monitor your consumption of artificial sweeteners, dairy, and other potential triggers. They can cause inflammation in some people. Make sure, too, to fill in any nutritional gaps in your dietary intake with healthy foods and/or quality supplements when needed. Nutritional deficiencies are very important on a ketogenic diet.
Also, really be sure to dig into the mental side of things. Without mental progress (into trigger/comfort foods, etc., we have no chance at maintaining losses for life... Best of luck!1 -
My first thought is how are you measuring your intake? 12gr carbs, 60gr protein, 120gr fat is only about 1300-1400 calories which in my mind is pretty low intake for a 26 year old male @ 277 pounds. Aren't you hungry?
As a comparison, I'm a 63 year old female and lost on about that amount with a little exercise (brisk walking). Granted we are all different but something isn't computing. Do you have a metabolic disorder that makes losing more difficult?
I guess my point is, if you're not measuring your food intake (you indicated you slacked up on logging) it might be helpful to start because as is so often said (I'll duck now) you might be eating more than you think.
I've never been good at estimating. I'm having a homemade alfredo sauce tonight for dinner and a scant 1/3 cup will have almost 300 calories. Bummer. That 1/3 cup is tiny. I'd never guess it right.2 -
The first week or two of the month were spent with the mentality that "I did this before, I know what I'm doing this should be easy" after I started to see nothing moving I've begun to weigh the foods more. I've taken the advice given and upped my protein for a days worth of food, so far its been good! I will check the scale at the end of the week to see where it shows me.
In response to being hungry at what I was eating before, no not really, but I don't know how closely those numbers were to being accurate.
Today and tomorrow's Macros put me at the .8 /lb of lean body mass of protein. I'm trying to work a little more fat in while staying at my calorie goal (which I'm slightly under today and tomorrow)
I appreciate the feedback, I've been having a great time debugging my food and the new lifestyle again. I'm confident I can make it work again, I've just got to work out some misconceptions I had going into it for round 2!2
