Keto questions

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  • KittensMaster
    KittensMaster Posts: 748 Member
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    If I don't work out I avoid all that fake sugar and near sugar stuff

    Yesterday was an intense cardio day so I had some to keep at max effort level to get a good fast ride time

    For this ride I had 300 calories of straight up sugar. It was an all out effort kind of ride

    ksq5ju7qg8hj.jpg
  • rckk18
    rckk18 Posts: 27 Member
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    Okay , Today starts day 4 for me on low Carbs. I seem to be able to get down to around 25 carbs a day. Is that okay to start ketosis ? I am starting to feel better.
  • monikker
    monikker Posts: 322 Member
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    If I don't work out I avoid all that fake sugar and near sugar stuff

    Yesterday was an intense cardio day so I had some to keep at max effort level to get a good fast ride time

    For this ride I had 300 calories of straight up sugar. It was an all out effort kind of ride

    ksq5ju7qg8hj.jpg

    Ah, ok. Yeah I am not working out right now. I will soon, thinking I will just have a few more berries or something like that before the workout instead of processed stuff though. Buuuut I think my plan is to return to more intense weight lifting in a month or two and at that point may do some carb loading around the workout, so will likely include dextrose then. And then return to LCHF for the rest of the day. So for you it may be good to have dextrose and that stuff.
  • KarlaYP
    KarlaYP Posts: 4,439 Member
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    @rckk18, it's a great start! Hope you continue to feel well and the keto flu doesn't hit too hard for you. Check out the Launch Pad at the top of the group forum for information to help with the transition to becoming a fat burning machine!
    @KittensMaster, wow, that's a ride! Wtg!

    @monikker, I agree with the general consensus about the quest bars. I didn't do any sweets for about five months, but now I have been having just a bit of dark chocolate, just twice this week. It's satisfied a taste for something sweet, for me, but won't be a regular thing. I've had to make myself resist it because my brain wants to keep reminding me it's there (stimulated cravings for chocolate? Yea, probably). That's why it won't be a regular thing for me.
  • ElmerLourens
    ElmerLourens Posts: 6 Member
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    HI, I count total carbs using myfitnesspal, I keep it below 25 a day were possible and I am In Ketosis (2).
  • KarlaYP
    KarlaYP Posts: 4,439 Member
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    Very likely that you are @ElmerLourens!
  • monikker
    monikker Posts: 322 Member
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    Put half a packet of "truvia" stevia in my bulletproof coffee and it makes it taste like poopy crap. The aftertaste is so nasty. Anyone just get used to that over time? I'm going to drink it slowly so I don't throw up or get a stomachache hopefully
  • KarlaYP
    KarlaYP Posts: 4,439 Member
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    @monikker, lololol! It's definitely an acquired taste! I can't stop laughing! Tears coming out of my eyes laughing! I hated it the first time I tried it! It was a few months before I tried it again. "Poopy crap" lol!
  • monikker
    monikker Posts: 322 Member
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    It's already a little more tolerable after drinking it for a bit

    :smile:
  • KarlaYP
    KarlaYP Posts: 4,439 Member
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    :smiley:
  • radiii
    radiii Posts: 422 Member
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    rckk18 wrote: »
    Okay , Today starts day 4 for me on low Carbs. I seem to be able to get down to around 25 carbs a day. Is that okay to start ketosis ? I am starting to feel better.

    25 is great and yes you should absolutely get into ketosis and stay there if you stick with that amount (as long as you are also following the "high fat" part of LCHF of course. All protein and no fat would mess things up)
  • SuesNewImage
    SuesNewImage Posts: 743 Member
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    25 or below is my magic level, any more & I'm out of ketosis.
    And stevia i tried for mañy weeks & cant get past the aftertaste. I have now dropped coffee totally instead (&actually feel better for it).

    Have now shed 20kg (44lb) in 15 weeks so it is all worth it & I'm not hungry and no longer craving sweet foods.
  • JessicaLCHF
    JessicaLCHF Posts: 1,265 Member
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    monikker wrote: »
    1) Net carbs or full carb count needs to be under 25? I find this one boggling, like how do you know that you're not throwing yourself out of keto if you count net carbs.

    2) Fiber? I assume by counting net carbs you will get enough fiber, but if not counting net carbs I'm wondering if that would cause any issue. I'm not worried about not being able to poop (coffee makes me do that), just overall being healthy. I wonder if we have evolved to need fiber...?

    3) Avoiding plant-based foods apart from sugary fruits seems counter-intuitive to me.

    1. 25 net carbs is an excellent goal IMO. I started at 20 net but when I'm keto adapted in do around 40-50 and still stay in heavy ketosis with weight loss and good blood sugar control.

    2. I do not delete sugar alcohols. Reason one, I want to discourage myself from eating what I consider fake food, and number two, they impact my blood sugar in a bad way. I only delete fiber because like you, I want to get a lot of fiber. I'm older, and my body needs it and I think it's a good thing. My goal is 25g but I'm usually around 16g.

    3. I found when I was not deleting fiber, my veggie intake was stifled. That's another reason I delete fiber carbs from my net count. I believe veggies are good for you, and I eat a wide range of them as possible. I used to eat a giant salad every day for lunch which is a habit I need to get back into.
  • JessicaLCHF
    JessicaLCHF Posts: 1,265 Member
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    monikker wrote: »
    More questions...I remember reading about coffee affecting blood sugar. Do all of you doing keto still drink coffee? Has it affected your keto status?

    How long did it take you to stop missing or craving bread, grains, sweets?

    More answers (my opinion of course). ;)

    1. I'm finally back to coffee! After a bout of gastritis and surgery recovery that caused nausea I am so excited!! Lol. I drink a cup of coffee every am (or a cup of chai tea made with a teabag) with a large dose of HWC and a half a pkt of Splenda. Doesn't seem to affect my blood sugar or ketosis is a negative way. Been doing this for about a year.
    2. The strong cravings it usually takes a week back in. The seeing a steaming hot loaf of bread being broken on TV and the thought, "I want that!" never has gone away for me. I deal with it two ways. First of all, I try to make substitutes available, and secondly, I plan a monthly cheat meal (not a day) and promise it to myself later. Sometimes I still want it later, sometimes I don't, but one meal of high carbs is worth a month of LCHF to me. I plan those meals around holidays or birthday/anniversaries. Works for me.
  • chaoticdreams
    chaoticdreams Posts: 447 Member
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    On the Quest bars, they recently changed their recipe from the fiber source that was causing blood sugar issues to corn soluble fiber. I couldn't tell you if this is better or not on blood sugar, just that the new formula tastes to me like paper and makes the bars really dry and chewy? The only ones I can tolerate are the double chocolate and the cookies and cream, but I don't eat them that often. When I really want something sweet, I just eat dark chocolate square or make a sugar free something another with Swerve. :)

    I don't like Stevia. The aftertaste is yuck to me and I never adapted to it, but YMMV. Right now I prefer liquid sucralose or swerve (erythritol), and neither affect my blood sugar or cause me to want sweets, but once again YMMV. :)
  • asyroyez
    asyroyez Posts: 50 Member
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    FIT_Goat wrote: »
    asyroyez wrote: »
    I'd be interested to see fiber intake from evolutionary point of view, since previous Homo- species used to eat nothing but vegetation. That was back when we were hairy though.

    Another line of evidence for the diet of H. habilis comes from some of the earliest cut- and percussion-marked bones, found back to 2.6 million years ago. Scientists usually associate these traces of butchery of large animals, direct evidence of meat and marrow eating, with the earliest appearance of the genus Homo, including H. habilis.

    Homo erectus (which goes back almost 1 to 2 million years into our past) was well known for cracking open bones and eating out the marrow and scavenging animal foods. Stone tools also suggest that they used stones to cut meat.

    Homo neanderthalensis (130k to 350k years into our past) are well recognized for their hunting and the amount of evidence left of their meat consumption.

    Homo sapiens (190k years to present) are also well known for being hunter gatherers.

    There's no evidence that the genus Homo ever ate "nothing but vegetation." Even if we go back further to Australopithecus africanus (which is 1.2 to 4 million years back), we find that there is evidence that they were opportunistic hunters and animal protein made up a small but recognized part of their diet.

    In short, we've never been natural vegetarians/vegans. It's a commonly held belief that is pushed by the vegetarian side. If you want more information, I recommend the movie "The Perfect Human Diet" which can be streamed for free online. I'm not saying that everyone needs to go full carnivore, but there's a place for meat in a healthy human diet.

    I actually saw that movie a while back, it was good. The production value could have been a bit higher, and the tone was a little too professorial for me but good info regardless. Note though, that I've not made any argument against eating meat. I am fully aware of the important role eating meat has played in our evolution. The information I was casually referencing was actually from "The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health and Disease" by Daniel Lieberman. I don't have the book handy to pull out the exact info I half-remember, but it had to do with Australopithecus apes. Here is a link to a super good academic source that says I'm right! :P So yeah, I do think our distant ancestors ate fruit/vegetation, but our relatively more modern ones have hunted, hence us.
  • FIT_Goat
    FIT_Goat Posts: 4,224 Member
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    That site also notes that they consumed animal protein as was discovered in the 90s. It's actually one I have read before. The amount of animal protein in their diet may have been small, but it was likely not zero. More importantly, the genus Homo is strongly associated with animal butchery and meat consumption. It's not that you're advocating against animal protein (I didn't feel like you were), it's just that the idea that our ancient ancestors (of the genus Homo) were ever vegetarians is commonly asserted by vegetarians but unsupported by science. We are not vegetarians turned omnivore, at least not when you limit the scope to creatures we'd recognize as human. Ancient humans were very likely omnivores from the start, with a varying amount of plant matter in their regular diet.
  • monikker
    monikker Posts: 322 Member
    edited September 2015
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    More questions:
    -I've read that the state of ketosis can be induced in 2-3 days or can take up to 8 weeks to be fully keto-adapted...why such a big difference? Can you be in ketosis without being "fully keto-adapted?"

    -Do I need to continue mass consumption of electrolytes (e.g. chicken broth, powerade zero etc.) the entire time I'm planning to consume a keto diet or only when I'm converting to keto at the beginning (first few days, first 8 weeks, etc...)?

    -If at some point later I begin lifting weights again and decide to consume sugars before, during & after lifting but then proceed with regular keto diet the rest of the time - maybe 3 days a week, will I likely go in and out of ketosis, or will I just go out of keto for the most part since I'm regularly getting a good dose of sugars?
  • DittoDan
    DittoDan Posts: 1,850 Member
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    monikker wrote: »
    More questions:
    -I've read that the state of ketosis can be induced in 2-3 days or can take up to 8 weeks to be fully keto-adapted...why such a big difference? Can you be in ketosis without being "fully keto-adapted?"

    -Do I need to continue mass consumption of electrolytes (e.g. chicken broth, powerade zero etc.) the entire time I'm planning to consume a keto diet or only when I'm converting to keto at the beginning (first few days, first 8 weeks, etc...)?

    -If at some point later I begin lifting weights again and decide to consume sugars before, during & after lifting but then proceed with regular keto diet the rest of the time - maybe 3 days a week, will I likely go in and out of ketosis, or will I just go out of keto for the most part since I'm regularly getting a good dose of sugars?

    #1 Yes, you can be in ketosis, but not be adapted. But the goal of all ketoers is to be adapted in order to get all the health benefits. Your body switches over its hormones to processing fat instead of carbs. The harder and faster you reduce carbs, determines how quickly you adapt.

    #2 All the time. There is a "goldilocks" amount of electrolytes. For Magnesium, enough to keep your legs from cramping (charlie horse) but not so much that you get diarrhea. Usually this is 400mg day Mag Citrate (other types have different amounts and absorption rates)
    Salt and potassium: enough to not feel dizzy, weak. But not so much that you retain water or get dehydrated.
    Different Forms of Magnesium
    "Keto-flu" and Sufficient Intake of Electrolytes
    Are You Having Charlie horse/leg cramps?
    Need Potassium?

    #3 If you "carb up" BEFORE a work out, that is a particular Keto Diet. It has a certain amount of carbs and there is a "timing" to it in relation to when you start your workout. You use the carbs for exercise only and "burn" the carbs off. So you are always in ketosis. You never carb up AFTER exercise. This type of Keto diet is called a: SKD, TKD CKD. Here is a site that will explain it:

    https://www.reddit.com/r/ketogains/wiki/index#wiki_skd.2C_tkd.2C_ckd_-_what.2C_when_and_how.3F

    I hope this helps,
    Dan the Man from Michigan
    Keto / Water Fasting / E.A.S.Y. Exercise Program
    110 pounds down, 14 to go.
    It's Ketogenic or Bariatric Surgery! How I Found the Ketogenic Diet
    Previous Discussions on the LCD & Keto Groups
    Blog #10 Keto: Abbreviations, Acronyms & Terminology Used on the LCD & Keto Discussion Groups Updated
    DittoDan's Keto Sub Groups Blog
    Blog #13 DittoDan's Milestone's, First's And Good Changes Since Starting the Ketogenic Diet Updated
    DittoDan's Keto Blogs
    How I got Off of Diabetic Prescriptions Drugs Since I Started Keto Updated
    Blog #11 Really Good Keto Websites
  • monikker
    monikker Posts: 322 Member
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    Ok, another one I forgot: I anticipated my skin clearing up even in the first few days, but indeed I've gotten at least a couple new zits. Is this from female hormones or are my hormones possibly just in crazy places right now from the new diet? If so then why aren't I more emotionally unstable?