Hi there,
I would try to get your fat up to 70 %, 25% protein and 5% carbs. 20 - 30g of carbs is a good number.
I personally do not deduct fiber from carbs and if youre struggling with weight loss, then maybe this is your answer.
Sugar is a NO! try sweetener? but be careful with the granules as they have carbs, try the syrup if you can.
Unless youre doing alot of heavy lifting do not do a cheat day... seriously.. you will be kicked out of Keto - Gain 5 - 10 pounds and then take a few days to get back into Keto.. there will be no point.. if you MUST have a cheat day - try for once a month... I find once im deep in keto i dont even crave the foods though...
Sweet things that you can have are whipped cream with some sugar free chocolate to make some chocolate mousse, sugar free jelly with cream... cream and some berries... a whole bunch of stuff!
Fruit - Berries are the lowest in sugar.. strawberries and blueberries are my favourite...

With keto.. your body will often hold on to water whilst it adjusts to loosing fat out of its fat cells.. make sure youre drinking as much water as possible... you will likely experieince what they call a "woosh" effect where your body will let go of all the water.

Have you bought some ketostix to test if your body is producing ketones? if not i would suggest that, theyre fairly cheap and although a rough guide, still a guide ..

I started LCHF diet about a month ago and just had a few questions to clear up my confusion.
So your macros should be 65%fat..25%protein,and 10%carbs?I try to stay under 30g of carbs.
Do we deduct fiber from carbs?
Can we have any sugar or absolutely none?
Is it okay to have one reward day a week or is that a no-no?
Do we still count calories?
I'm confused about the whole calorie thing,,,not sure how high my calorie intake should be..
And last I guess when it comes to fruit,only berries are allowed?
Sorry for all the questions I just want to get on track and be in ketosis..
I have lost inches,,But have only lost 4 pounds so far..Is this normal?
Thank-you so much:)

in no particular order..
Sugar is a gigantic no no..splenda or some other low carb sweetner. The longer you're lchf the less of a sweet tooth you'll have.
I always deduct fiber from carbs
no cheat days, not worth it, you only cheat yourself
I don't worry about calories too much, in the beginning don't worry about them at all, just eat lchf and get into that habit.
losing inches but little weight is pretty normal, I do that alot,
fruit..well berries are more low carb, most fruit is very high in sugar hence not good to stay in ketosis
macros are generally 65/30/5 but listen to your body and adjust as needed..some people lose more weight faster at 70-75% fat..some don't.

One more reply. The following post by Kiramaniac in another thread was a lifesaver to me when I was first learning and researching what things to do and not do. Kiramaniac is SO helpful and knowledgeable!!! (Thanks Kira)

Aww.... shucks.... :blushing:

So how do you stay away from carbs for long term?? does it get easier?

I have been eating "low carb" since last June. The first 3 weeks was brutal. I craved bread, pasta, cookies, whatever all day long. It was sheer will power. I did it totally cold turkey too ... went from eating half a plate of pasta with my chicken one day to no carbs that didn't come in veggies the very next day. On about week 3, day 3 I decided I could have some of the bun on a hamburger I ordered at lunch cause I'd been so good and lost weight and yada yada. My wife thought I was going to toss my cookies. It really upset my stomach badly. Probably cheating with a hamburger bun wasn't the greatest cheat idea ever ... processed, full of corn syrup, wheat, gluten ... what was I thinking!

Anyhow, that experience helped immensely. It also helps that I love steak and salad :happy:

Anyhow, by about week 4 the addictive cravings were more or less gone. Recently (like yesterday) I ate two chocolate chip cookies right after my workout. Yummy, but I'm paying the price today. I CANNOT feel full for longer than a couple hours right now. This is certainly because I re-introduced glucose and spiked my insulin. Silly boy. Bad choice, argh. That's how people end up falling off the wagon on this thing.

Just remember, your ancestors thousands of years ago could not buy bread any time they wanted it. So, when they caused themselves to have lots of insulin, fat storage and glucose by eating high carbs and/or fruit, they just had to tough out the cravings later on and stick with their wooly mammoth steaks and leafy greens.

Honestly, it gets easier. Carbohydrates are an addiction that you have to break. Once you break it, way easier to do this.

He says longterm ketosis is dangerous ...Is it?

Hmmmmmm .... ketoacidosis is dangerous. This is a condition that occurs in insulin dependent diabetics (happened to my brother, he ended up in a coma during diabetic onset, almost didn't survive. Story for another day). But ketosis is not ketoacidosis.

There have not been enough randomized, controlled clinical trials over a long enough period of time to know if long term ketosis is dangerous, or not. THat's the only way to KNOW, from a scientific perspective. We do have observational evidence ... Dr. Atkins and Gary Taubes, to name two, are people who have lived in ketosis for a long time. Neither suffered dangerous effects (Obviously Atkins is dead, but not because of ketosis).

Finally, we can do a thought experiment. The typical human prior to 1900 tended to live in a state of ketosis for 6-8 months a year. Think about it, they could only get a lot of carbohydrates and sugar in the summer and fall. The rest of the year they were living on the foods that could be hunted, gathered or stored from the harvest. They also had much lower rates of cancer, heart disease, diabetes and obesity than we do. If we think it through, it would seem that the normal state of the human body is to be in a low carb scenario for the majority of the year and for the long term. It seems unlikely that we evolved to have this be dangerous (i.e. anti-survival) .... flies in the face of everything Darwin taught us.

I do not agree with other advice that suggests using artificial sweeteners. For me, a keto lifestyle is about health not just weight loss (there is some evidence that artificial sweeteners do NOT at all help with weight loss).

I lead a fairly strict keto lifestyle for health reasons. I am able to keep my carbs to about 5% of my calories without artificial sweeteners. I think whole, healthy food should be the foundation of any lifestyle. Replacing natural food with non natural food doesn't make sense to me IMO.

If this were a Paleo or Primal forum I'd agree with this, but since we are talking Keto, I disagree here. I think this is a personal choice and a YMMV thing. And if having sweetener is the difference between someone feeling like the program is livable, or feeling they are deprived and potentially falling off the wagon, then I think sweeteners are the better option. ALWAYS monitor your progress though. If you are seeing stalls, this may be something to cut back on.

I am new to keto (less than a week) and did a lot of research before I started this so I kind of have a general idea of what I am supposed to be doing and what ideally is supposed to happen. Wondering though about whey protein, I plan on real food for the diet but wondered in a pinch if protein shakes will affect ketosis, what is the best low carb powder etc? Thanks for :happy: any suggestions

I think protein shakes are fine as long as you stick to your fat/protein/carb intakes and watch your sugar. This thread on powders was helpful to me.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/920191-the-lowest-carb-protein-powder-available?hl=low+carb+protein+powder#posts-13962815

Good luck!