luck!

just a thought - when i start keto, there's a big water woosh/weight drop the 1st week - sometimes I don't lose much weeks 2 and 3. my thought is the body is catching up with actual weight loss those weeks, then, continues downward. and, that i do still need to pay attention to total calories even with keto... I love the foods as much as other foods and can easily overeat... agree that it can be time consuming to meal plan/prep and find the balance - find the mfp tracker remains helpful for total cals - and did adjust my macro goals in the tracker to match carbs/fats & proteins... which helped visually on wrangling the carbs.

Hi @raenright

we started doing keto before we knew it was keto ~ lol. My 1st go was the Stillman, then jumpstart Atkins & So. Beach diets - so essentially similar principles. What I have found to my surprise is that calories still matter - the books on those plans talk about how lbs will just melt off - and, if you follow their meal plans - the lbs do melt off because, i think, it's a big water woosh the 1st week AND the meal plans are probably only 800 - 1,200 calories in their 'jump start' meal plans; they just ain't sayin' so!

over the years, I fell into yoyo diet/regain cycles - and shifted to the "it's a lifestyle approach - find ways to eat permanently" and back to now I sometimes still do jumpstarts or other approaches for whatever reason.

I find the "diet" and "lifestyle" a bit of circular semantics; "diet" is either the foods we eat or in many contexts "a meal plan for weight loss which is also a choice of foods and quantity" ~ and, "lifestyle" is our approach to eating which is also our choice of foods and amounts to eat - so I no longer worry about defining it.

The question for me becomes - well, what should I be doing now and why.

the main reason I ever really go 'keto' now is to break voracious appetite; which seems to take a few days, 3 or 4 and I go through the keto flu, and then appetite resets and I can stay with keto pretty well.

For awhile, I was having some medical issues that the doctors thought 'keto' might help - so I did keto for a straight 8 weeks and there was no impact on the particular medical issue from the dietary changes and keeping carbs below <50g per day and +/-12g per meal or snack. this is when i discovered again, that it is possible to gain weight if i don't pay attention to calories too.

so, upshot though for what i do as an approach is driven by the fact that I adore carbs, and find the keto diet a little too restrictive emotionally. However, the most compelling reason for me to do keto or restrict/manage amount of carbs is appetite control - if I eat too much carb (of whatever kind/threshold i am not quite sure where the line is) then my appetite roars. So, my main approach currently is 'low carb' which is +/-30g of carbs per meal or snack (100-125g/day)... This is keeping my appetite in check.

i *think* it is hard to switch between keto/fat burning energy in the body and regular/carb burning energy. I do better physically and emotionally on the low carb, and I definitely get the keto flu when I start keto - so my current thinking is 2-8 weeks of keto as a jump start if & when needed; low carb the rest of the time. Every time I venture into higher carb, appetite roars back - i don't know if that will ever change or be better, so i consider this probably to be a permanent approach, at least for now.... lol

How are you doing today? I find it helpful when the body is physically satisfied - i find my inner 2 year old wild child has other ideas though... wants to feast!