Discouraged and Looking for keto friends

I'm doing keto as well, please add me

Have been doing the keto diet for a month and haven't lost any weight. Pls what am I doing wrong

Hi...I started the keto diet last Monday and I'm down 8lbs and not even completely adapted yet. So far so good. Add me. I'm starting at 411 lbs and hope Keto can get me to a point where physical activity doesn't hurt my knees and ankles so bad.

Hello! I've been doing keto for the last month or so and have lost 13 pounds already. I'd like to have more keto friends too

andy, I snack if I'm hungry. I like to have nuts, cheese, seaweed snacks, for some ideas!

I have been doing low carb. But probably need to play with my macros just a bit more to be actually in ketosis. I have lost 14 (or so) pounds in the last 28 days. ADD ME PLZ!

Hi all,

The keto and low carbers are over at:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/394-low-carber-daily-forum-the-lcd-group

Newbies, experienced, the ones doing it for health and the ones doing for weigh loss, or both.

Lots of really good support and information over there. Come and join us!

IAmSagittarian82 wrote: »

inskydiamonds wrote: »

Hello! I've been doing keto for the last month or so and have lost 13 pounds already. I'd like to have more keto friends too

andy, I snack if I'm hungry. I like to have nuts, cheese, seaweed snacks, for some ideas!

Way to go! I have lost 14 lbs in the last 28 days myself! Great job!!!

I've never had the weight fall off this fast. Super exciting!

Hi there,
Looking for Keto friends as well. Looking for friends that will let me peek InTheir diary to help me get things right with Keto. I have been on and off for a while but I struggle to keep it below 20 g of carbs. I am 43, married living in Canada. My starting weight was 247 and I am currently down to 195. Please add me

Chiege wrote: »

Have been doing the keto diet for a month and haven't lost any weight. Pls what am I doing wrong

What's have you been doing? Have you used a calculator? Where are you keeping your carbs at? Happy to help, need more info!

Chiege wrote: »

Have been doing the keto diet for a month and haven't lost any weight. Pls what am I doing wrong

sae12 wrote: »

I have started the Ketogenic diet and I'm just came back to Fitness Pal. I can use all the advice anyone can offer.

If you don't open your diary to the public, it's hard to propose anything other than very general, possibly not very useful "advice". Not that I'll claim to be an expert, having only started keto 2.5 weeks ago, but I've lost 7kg so far and my blood pressure is going down. Much of that loss was probably water, so get back to me in a couple of months to see if the trend continues. Also note that I started out really fat, so that 7kg is a tiny proportion of my total body weight. Still have at least 45kg to go! Still, I hope I'm doing something "right". I might therefore be able to pass on some of what I've learned during the last month of intense research. I'm good, even very good, at research, but not usually so good at execution. This project seems to be the exception.

For general advice here is the advice I'm following for myself:

• RESEARCH. Know what the hell you're getting into. Keto can be quite complicated. Those who claim that keto is "easy" aren't paying attention, or are already experts and have totally forgotten the learning curve they went through when they started. Like any knowledge base it's only "easy" once you've learned a lot more about food than you ever thought possible. Which can take a while.
• You'll need to track carbs, protein, and yes, calories. Just because you're on a keto diet doesn't mean you can eat 4000 calories a day on a sedentary lifestyle and expect to lose weight. Personally, I try to weigh and record everything I eat, and I'm trying to develop an "eye" for how much a certain quantity might weigh so that when I start eating out again I don't have to bring a scale with me. That would be silly.
• Anyone who says "eat all the veg you want" aren't talking about a "strict" keto diet, or are outright wrong. Veg, even spinach, contain digestible carbs, albeit in relatively small quantities. If you want to meet a max 20g carbs a day, you're going to have to count carbs in veg as well.
• Don't eat too much protein, since it can be converted by the body to sugars instead of the internal fat reserves you're targeting with a keto diet. Rule of thumb is 1g protein per kg of your weight. That's a MAXIMUM. Target for somewhat less, because keeping protein AND calories down while eating enough fat isn't as simple as it might sound. I often miss my protein target, but because it's already a bit low I seem to be "OK" so far.
• No alcohol. Sure, they're zero carb and calories only. But alcohol itself can also be converted into sugars by the body. Wonderful thing, the body, very adaptable. The LAST thing it wants to do is use up those fat reserves it put away, and it's very, very good at fighting you.
• I should note that I'm also doing intermittent fasting, specifically a 16:8 fast. However, I take my last meal at 15:00 or 16:00, then don't have breakfast before 07:00 or 08:00. Instead of the "wake up hungry and keep going till noon" thing that others seem to do. I figure if I'm going to be hungry, I might as well be sleeping.
• Again, and I can't stress this enough, do what works for you, and only use what works for others as general guidelines until you determine that it works for you. I got lucky in that keto + intermittent fasting seems to be working. Lucky because it's the first thing I tried after doing weeks of research prior to starting.
• Reward yourself. Hasn't been an issue with me so far, but I'm starting to crack. So now I get to eat one square of a particular dark chocolate/almond chocolate bar for every kg I lose. I make sure to do it on a day where I've managed to keep my carb intake down. We'll see if it helps or harms - that's what experience is for.
• Learn to read nutrition labels on any food you purchase, if one is included. Note the "serving quantity". It will often be ludicrously small, which allows them to round values down to "zero". Which IS A DAMN LIE. You'll need to learn to look at the USDA Food Database or UK Food Composition Dataset for information, which provide values for many foods per 100g rather than for 1g or 1/2 tsp. Again, it's part of "research" if you want to know what you're actually putting into your body.

Finally, there's no point being an evangelist for ANY diet, keto included. People have different genetic structures and different environments. MUCH more scientific research needs to be done. Unfortunately, it seems that it's much more profitable to take a small, inconclusive study and spin that into a money-making evangelist business that can, in some cases, include untested, potentially harmful advice in a bid to make yet more money. I counter that by doing large amounts of research in scientific, peer reviewed journals. That's not for everyone, I just happen to be very good at it due to years of prior work and education experience. For the beginner, probably "Google Scholar" is going to be a good friend. Wikipedia is not your friend.

Other thoughts:

What works for me or them might not work for others. Anyone saying "it worked for me, therefore it must work for you, and if it doesn't it's because you're doing something wrong" is what I would call an "ignorant religious nutter" and deserves only to be slapped across the head with a frozen kipper. Which, by the way, is a good fish for keto diets, so don't waste it after you've done so.

If one diet doesn't work for you, make sure you're doing what you think you're doing. I.E.: are you really on strict keto, or are you just forgetting to count the carbs hidden in some processed food somewhere? In North America it's especially hard since they even put sugar in mayonnaise, the heathens! Strict keto often means "stay the hell away from packaged foods", especially in North America! Luckily I was already a good cook. I'm turning into a much better cook thanks to the diet I'm on.

There, I hope that helps a few folks. Back to shopping for raw or minimally processed ingredients I can turn into tasty and filling low-carb meals.