Introducing myself to Keto

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Replies

  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,389 MFP Moderator
    How do people, following a low carb diet, manage with occasions when they go out? For example, to a restaurant for a celebration? Do you allow time to 'get over it', and kick yourself into ketosis again with better choices later? or. do you find it hard and forget the diet, perhaps forever? or. do you just make adjustments to keep your choices within the KETO diet while at the restaurant? It is a normal part of life to people going out, and with me, anyway, I am trying to anticipate social events well before hand, and be aware of both the calories spent, and the low carb choices, a salad instead of chips as an example...?

    It depends on how important being in ketosis is for you and if you strive to be fat adapted.

    Since i don't care if i am fat adapted or in ketosis, i try to make good decisions overall but still lean towards meat/fish and veggies. Or if i can select the place, I'll pick one more suitable to the keto diet.

    But in some places, especially while i travel, i know i can find places that are suitable to keto and those times i am ok with coming off the diet but i try to maintain low carb.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    How do people, following a low carb diet, manage with occasions when they go out? For example, to a restaurant for a celebration? Do you allow time to 'get over it', and kick yourself into ketosis again with better choices later? or. do you find it hard and forget the diet, perhaps forever? or. do you just make adjustments to keep your choices within the KETO diet while at the restaurant? It is a normal part of life to people going out, and with me, anyway, I am trying to anticipate social events well before hand, and be aware of both the calories spent, and the low carb choices, a salad instead of chips as an example...?

    I didn't do keto for that long, but most restaurants were doable if you just focused on meat and vegetables.
  • laurainottawa
    laurainottawa Posts: 64 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Not to argue with anyone's personal experience but I have no problem incorporating higher carb fruits and vegetables into my diet in a satisfying (to me) way. If you're new to eating a low carb/ketogenic diet instead of working from a list of foods you can't have go by what actually fits your carb limit.

    So what if one thing you want is nearly all of your carbs for the day? The carbs in green vegetables are negligible.

    If I wanted that 22 net carb fruit smoothie in the morning (I wouldn't I'd be starving) I'd stick to green vegetables for dinner. A quart of strawberries, a banana or a couple of oranges can fit perfectly fine. If I was having beef and black bean chili for dinner I'd have something lower carb for breakfast. If I'm roasting vegetables I'd use a small potato, some onion and more broccoli. If I was making a flour thickened gravy that would be paired with meat and a green vegetable instead of a starchy one.

    Don't take anyone else's word for what you can and can't eat. Look at the foods you like the most and see if you can't make them work.

    It's not just 22 net carbs, it is also 33 g protein and 13 g fat :)

    I'd be chewing my leg off an hour later, though. :D

    Always been someone who needs to actually *eat* my calories to get any satiety bang for the buck.

    I also need to eat my calories, but also love smoothies... intro smoothie bowls! Blend them thicker, and then you get to add wonderful toppings too for a bit of crunch!
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    psuLemon wrote: »
    Yep. I see. So this is what I wanted to know. I am still happy with a low carb diet, with exercise and counting calories. But it wasn't what I expected. I thought that the weight would suddenly go down once I went into ketosis. Still. It's been interesting so far. It's given me a lot of help with doing the myfitnesspal, and so I expect to continue, bar the very very rare occasion when I'm at a social event, where that can't be helped.

    Unfortunately, a lot of the keto sites out there are promoting bad science and frequently confuse fat oxidation with fat loss. So when people hear phrases like burn fat not sugar, they think it means body fat.... And it doesn't. Given how adaptive the human body is, you can store any nutrient... Otherwise, we wouldn't have survived this long.

    Side note: what people don't tell you is how difficult it is to store carbs and protein into adipose. Since its an intensive process (meaning it takes a bunch of energy to do so), it doesn't happen unless it's required. This process is called de novo lipogenesis. And last overfeed study i saw, suggested it occurred less than 10% of the time. But what should be noted is that carba blunt fat oxidation, so if you eat high fat, high carb, it makes it easy to store the fatty acids since they won't be used for immediate energy requirements.

    Just wanted to point up that fact. So many times when people say they struggle with carbs like chips or cakes or pastry, they are not taking into account that what they really struggle with is hyperpalatable combination of carbs and fats. This can both lead to overconsumption and is also probably the single worst combination for fat storage.

    Bottom line is, carbs and fat don't go into storage nearly as easily as fat does. To me, the most efficient strategy is keeping overall energy balance in favor of a slight deficit and eating a healthy minimum of fats and the rest high fiber carbs and lean proteins.

    I thought that I had seen you post some numbers about fat minimums in the past? Can you share that info again? And is there a difference for minimum fat intake for men and women?