Trying keto! I need help!

The biggest thing with keto is you must track your total caloric intake. Many people simply eat too much. I cycle between keto and low carb because keto is very difficult to do long term. I am severly type II diabetic and other things that respond well to keto. I manage without any medication as long as I watch my diet and exercise regularly. The second thing is to watch your protein intake. Most of our fat sources are animal based and they always contain too much protein. Your liver will convert protein to sugar and this will throw you out of ketosis. Being in ketosis will control your hunger and keeping your fat burning metabolism going all the time makes burning body fat easier. There is an adjustment period while your muscle cell build fat burning mitochondria. Once your body is fat adapted your ketone levels will drop and your muscles wil burn body fat directly. Once you reach your goal you will probably stay in a low carb diet. To keep the fat burning metabolism going I suggest using intermittent fasting. I eat all my food in an eight hour window, usually from noon til eight pm. This forces your body to burn some body fat every day and keeps that mechanism open all the time avoiding the low blood sugar crash that kills so many diets. Right now I am on a 1200 cal diet and I am a 6' 2" man, and hunger doesn't bother me. I am losing weight now but in a couple weeks my metabolism will slow and so will the weight loss, then I will cycle into low carb for a while. Good luck and track those macros for success!

nvmomketo wrote: »

dcimo6603 wrote: »

The biggest thing with keto is you must track your total caloric intake. Many people simply eat too much. I cycle between keto and low carb because keto is very difficult to do long term. I am severly type II diabetic and other things that respond well to keto. I manage without any medication as long as I watch my diet and exercise regularly. The second thing is to watch your protein intake. Most of our fat sources are animal based and they always contain too much protein. Your liver will convert protein to sugar and this will throw you out of ketosis. Being in ketosis will control your hunger and keeping your fat burning metabolism going all the time makes burning body fat easier. There is an adjustment period while your muscle cell build fat burning mitochondria. Once your body is fat adapted your ketone levels will drop and your muscles wil burn body fat directly. Once you reach your goal you will probably stay in a low carb diet. To keep the fat burning metabolism going I suggest using intermittent fasting. I eat all my food in an eight hour window, usually from noon til eight pm. This forces your body to burn some body fat every day and keeps that mechanism open all the time avoiding the low blood sugar crash that kills so many diets. Right now I am on a 1200 cal diet and I am a 6' 2" man, and hunger doesn't bother me. I am losing weight now but in a couple weeks my metabolism will slow and so will the weight loss, then I will cycle into low carb for a while. Good luck and track those macros for success!

Protein is actually not a big threat to being thrown out of ketosis. The body does not create sugar (via gluconeogenesis) when there is excess protein eaten. It creates sugar only when there is a need. That being said, excessive protein will lower your ketones, but excessive protein is well above 200+ g.

Cycling into more carbs will not speed up your metabolism, as I understand it. I believe eating more will increase your metabolism, and so will more protein, but replacing fat with carbs will probably not increase your caloric burn. I could be wrong.

Congrats on your success with controlling your health issues with diet!

Cycling carbs, in fact, does not increase metabolism. If a person does a two day refeed (well at least two), with very low fat very high carb (like 2x bw) than it can reduce cortisol levels and restore leptin. This is a strategy that is very beneficial for the very lean as it will help reduce huger issues and stress caused by being in a deficit. In fact, this a good strategy that is very beneficial and should be utilized more as you get more lean.

Additionally for @dcimo6603, a 6' male consuming 1200 calories is a great way to increase muscle loss, driving a lower metabolic rate (since muscle drives BMR). IF does not improve metabolism at all. The misinterpretation of increases to HGH while IF, which occurs at 4 days and is a starvation response, doesn't mean one will gain or maintain muscle more. No one gains tons of muscle fasting. That just isn't how it works. A person gains or maintains muscles through progressive overload lifting, adequate protein (which drives protein turnover) and taking a more moderate approach.

Regarding fat burning.. yes, a keto diet will burn more fat.. but you will store more fat; it's very simple; eat more fat burn more fat, eat more carbs burn more carbs, eat moderate fats and carbs burn moderate fat and carbs. Substrate utilization doesn't mean anything really until you are an endurance athlete, powerlifting or doing highly anaerobic exercises (where carbs are king) . There is no advantage to losing body fat while on a low carb or ketogenic diet. When you equate for calories and protein, multiple studies have shown not additional benefit. If any diet has been demonstrated to be more beneficial than any other, it's a high protein diet. When calories are equated for, but protein is higher in one group, the higher protein group always loses more body fat.