[Mywifes335]

Looking to try it during my post-surgery recovery (femoral osteoplasty) which will require a high-protein, high calcium diet anyway. It seems to be similar to other low-carb diets but stricter with more science behind it - using the starvation of carbs to kickstart ketosis.

Not to be confused with the clinical Ketogenic diets used for epilepsy...which is more of a severe restricted calorie diet.

Please comment, provide your experience, tips, menu ideas, etc.

My biggest question is the portion sizes and total caloric allowances. I've seen between 1900-3800 which is a huge range. This is for an average male around 175-185lbs.

Thanks everyone!

[antych]

I've been on a ketogenic diet for about 3 years straight, so I know a thing or two.

First of all, it's not a high protein diet. Excess protein will be used by your body to produce glucose through gluconeogenesis, which is like eating carbs and it will take you out of keto. You should only get about 15-20% of your calories from protein.

Your calorie intake depends on your activity level and whether you're looking to tone up. Most likely it will stabilise by itself. Ketogenic diet suppresses hunger and you usually eat less. Portion sizes should be smaller than regular, because fat packs more calories per gram 9 vs 4 in protein and carbs.

You shouldn't really care about calories. Keep carbs under 50g, protein under ~100g and eat as much fat as you need to not feel hunger.

Stock up on coconut and olive oil. Use coconut oil for cooking and add olive oil to meals, that will easily meet your fat requirements.

[Mywifes335]

Originally Posted by antych

I've been on a ketogenic diet for about 3 years straight, so I know a thing or two.

First of all, it's not a high protein diet. Excess protein will be used by your body to produce glucose through gluconeogenesis, which is like eating carbs and it will take you out of keto. You should only get about 15-20% of your calories from protein.

Your calorie intake depends on your activity level and whether you're looking to tone up. Most likely it will stabilise by itself. Ketogenic diet suppresses hunger and you usually eat less. Portion sizes should be smaller than regular, because fat packs more calories per gram 9 vs 4 in protein and carbs.

You shouldn't really care about calories. Keep carbs under 50g, protein under ~100g and eat as much fat as you need to not feel hunger.

Stock up on coconut and olive oil. Use coconut oil for cooking and add olive oil to meals, that will easily meet your fat requirements.

Cool. What's a typical days meal like?

[antych]

Well, it's up to you. I stick to Paleo foods and avoid anything pro inflammatory, which narrows things a bit. You can eat junk, processed food and stay in keto, if that's your only goal. For me a typical day is:

Breakfast - smoked salmon with olives, cucumber, radish, added olive oil
Dinner - beef/fish/liver fried in coconut oil, spinach, kale, broccoli, olive oil

I don't eat lunch. You don't get hungry every few hours when you're in keto, so there's no need to eat every few hours.

There are other good sources of fat, like tree nuts (not peanuts) and eggs, but they can cause inflammation, and avocado which can cause indigestion (FODMAP). Cheese is mostly fat, if you tolerate dairy well, but most people don't.

There are many options, it really depends on your goals. If it's just keto, you can replace things like bread, pasta, rice, and potatoes on your plate with cheese and you're done

[Mywifes335]

Originally Posted by antych

Well, it's up to you. I stick to Paleo foods and avoid anything pro inflammatory, which narrows things a bit. You can eat junk, processed food and stay in keto, if that's your only goal. For me a typical day is:

Breakfast - smoked salmon with olives, cucumber, radish, added olive oil
Dinner - beef/fish/liver fried in coconut oil, spinach, kale, broccoli, olive oil

I don't eat lunch. You don't get hungry every few hours when you're in keto, so there's no need to eat every few hours.

There are other good sources of fat, like tree nuts (not peanuts) and eggs, but they can cause inflammation, and avocado which can cause indigestion (FODMAP). Cheese is mostly fat, if you tolerate dairy well, but most people don't.

There are many options, it really depends on your goals. If it's just keto, you can replace things like bread, pasta, rice, and potatoes on your plate with cheese and you're done

Thanks! Not necessarily have to stick to keto, but really want to couple sedentary weight loss with accelerated healing through diet.

At the hospital as we speak and the breakfast was "high protein" but still loaded with carbs. I ate the eggs, a few grapes, black coffee. For mid morning, my loved ones brought me an egg white omelet with spinach and ham, topped with pico de gallo. Ate half that and saving half to supplement lunch - green salad with olive oil and grilled chicken.

Please let me know your experience with Paleo and what your goals were.

I just want to lose the 20lbs I put on before surgery. Been maintaining muscle mass but lack of mobility was killing my cardio. Couldn't swim due to incision healing times.

Thanks!

[longress]

Just dropped 30lbs doing nothing more than the paleo diet for the last 30 days. I feel tons better too. Rarely do I feel hungry in this program.

[antych]

I used keto in the past to lose weight. Nothing major, I do weight lifting and just wanted to look ripped. Then I had to avoid processed food for medical reasons, and over many years I tweaked the way I eat to achieve multiple goals, mainly health and lean body composition. I also find it convenient that I can eat once or twice a day and not feel hungry. It's a lifestyle choice for me now.

Paleo is a great starting point to eating healthy. You can tweak it for keto, by eating less sugary fruit and more fat. Depending on your health and tolerance to food, you might want to look at Paleo autoimmune protocol and FODMAP diets. You may not need this, but if you have any problems with digestion or chronic fatigue, brain fog, etc check it out. Either way, Paleo is a great start, because it eliminates all the junk they make in factories, that rarely even resembles food. That alone should do the trick for most people.

I recommend this site (there's an app as well) http://www.fatsecret.com/. It has great food diary. Put in the stuff you eat, it will give you breakdown of your macros. Don't worry about total calories, it's more important where they come from. You should aim for about 15% calories from protein, 80% from fat and 5% from carbs. I can have a look at your diet and suggest changes.

You can also get a ketone breath analyzer, which allows you to experiment more with the diet. The general advice is to stick with less than 50g of carbs a day. Perhaps you can tolerate 100g and have more fruit and veggies. With the breath analazyer you can tweak your diet and see how it affect your ketone production. You don't really need it, but it can be useful.

Keto is the way to go if you want to lose weight without exercise. You force your body to use stored fat for energy and conserve muscle tissue. That's the whole science behind it.

[Mywifes335]

Originally Posted by antych

I used keto in the past to lose weight. Nothing major, I do weight lifting and just wanted to look ripped. Then I had to avoid processed food for medical reasons, and over many years I tweaked the way I eat to achieve multiple goals, mainly health and lean body composition. I also find it convenient that I can eat once or twice a day and not feel hungry. It's a lifestyle choice for me now.

Paleo is a great starting point to eating healthy. You can tweak it for keto, by eating less sugary fruit and more fat. Depending on your health and tolerance to food, you might want to look at Paleo autoimmune protocol and FODMAP diets. You may not need this, but if you have any problems with digestion or chronic fatigue, brain fog, etc check it out. Either way, Paleo is a great start, because it eliminates all the junk they make in factories, that rarely even resembles food. That alone should do the trick for most people.

I recommend this site (there's an app as well) http://www.fatsecret.com/. It has great food diary. Put in the stuff you eat, it will give you breakdown of your macros. Don't worry about total calories, it's more important where they come from. You should aim for about 15% calories from protein, 80% from fat and 5% from carbs. I can have a look at your diet and suggest changes.

You can also get a ketone breath analyzer, which allows you to experiment more with the diet. The general advice is to stick with less than 50g of carbs a day. Perhaps you can tolerate 100g and have more fruit and veggies. With the breath analazyer you can tweak your diet and see how it affect your ketone production. You don't really need it, but it can be useful.

Keto is the way to go if you want to lose weight without exercise. You force your body to use stored fat for energy and conserve muscle tissue. That's the whole science behind it.

This is great stuff. I'm checking the site out right now! Thank you!

Is it really 15% protein and 80% fat? Holy!

Really appreciate it. I've got good muscle underneath so shedding that fat would be huge. It's funny because some guy at the gym called me a "juicehead" last week arguing because I asked him to stop having a speakerphone conversation while pacing back/forth in front of me), while supersetting 2 machines. My thought was, "shit, if I look juiced now, I wonder how I'd look if I trim back down". Such a vain motivator, I know....

[Mywifes335]

Originally Posted by longress

Just dropped 30lbs doing nothing more than the paleo diet for the last 30 days. I feel tons better too. Rarely do I feel hungry in this program.

Damn! From what weight? What resource did you use to construct your diet plan?

And when I say diet...I plan to shed the weight then tweak it into a lifestyle.

[antych]

Originally Posted by Mywifes335

Is it really 15% protein and 80% fat? Holy!

Yep, but it's not exact science. If your protein intake goes up to 20% it's no biggie. The diet should be self adjusting really, just eat natural food in reasonable quantities and your protein intake will remain fairly low. Even higher protein level might be ok, but it doesn't benefit you, and you risk going out of ketosis, so just err on the side of less if in doubt.

If you're looking to lose weigh, your fat intake will be a bit lower, perhaps around 65-70% of calories. Once you're done, just add more fat to close the deficit which should take you to about 80% for maintenance.

[antych]

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting. If you go keto you may need to up your sodium intake. Your insulin levels will drop, telling your body to stop storing fat, but that also tells kidneys to dump sodium. You might get enough from eating food like olives and salmon, but I suggest adding some sea salt to your meals.

[Mywifes335]

Originally Posted by antych

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting. If you go keto you may need to up your sodium intake. Your insulin levels will drop, telling your body to stop storing fat, but that also tells kidneys to dump sodium. You might get enough from eating food like olives and salmon, but I suggest adding some sea salt to your meals.

Thank you! I just downloaded the app.... It's really helpful. I also can't believe two things:

1. What I thought was a low carb day...ended up being 30% carbs, 37% protein, and 33% fat

2. I still have 1300 calories to eat!

I gotta adjust my intake somehow at the hospital. My wife is going to being a bunch of slim jims.

[antych]

I wonder how medical staff at the hospital will react to your dietary requirements. For most of them it will be heresy. They have been brain washed for decades with bad science. Even in the face of obesity epidemic and metabolic syndrome, they still stick to dietary guidelines that caused it.

Good luck and let me know if you need help. There are some great books on the subject as well, so you don't have to listen to a random stranger on the internet.

[Mywifes335]

Originally Posted by antych

I wonder how medical staff at the hospital will react to your dietary requirements. For most of them it will be heresy. They have been brain washed for decades with bad science. Even in the face of obesity epidemic and metabolic syndrome, they still stick to dietary guidelines that caused it.

Good luck and let me know if you need help. There are some great books on the subject as well, so you don't have to listen to a random stranger on the internet.

I just order a bunch of stuff and pick/choose the good stuff.

I've read...sort of..."Why We Get Fat" by Taubes. Really horribly written but I get the point.

Do you suggest any books?

[antych]

If you want more technical in depth knowledge, this is a low carb bible http://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Lo...dp/B005CVV2AE/

This is keto for dummies, if you want something lightweight http://www.amazon.com/Keto-Clarity-D.../dp/B00MEX9B4C

[UncleWede]

bacon is fat AND has sodium???


OK, I can still dream.


Seriously, for those of us "blessed" with insulin-dependent diabetes, are there guidelines for getting there without ending up in the hospital in hypoglycemia? The best I ever felt was when I went 40-30-30, but #HispanicwifewhocooksWONDERFULfood . . .

[antych]

Originally Posted by UncleWede

bacon is fat AND has sodium???


OK, I can still dream.


Seriously, for those of us "blessed" with insulin-dependent diabetes, are there guidelines for getting there without ending up in the hospital in hypoglycemia? The best I ever felt was when I went 40-30-30, but #HispanicwifewhocooksWONDERFULfood . . .

Bacon is processed food, so I personally wouldn't indulge too much, but it's pretty much perfect food for keto, considering the macros. If you like it, knock yourself out

Regarding diabetes. Keto is known to reverse symptoms of type 2 diabetes. It seems to be used with type 1 as well, but I don't know that much about it. I've seen few books around. I'm sure you can still do it, and it will probably be better at managing it than a regular western diet.

[UncleWede]

All that time in spent in ketoacidosis before the diabetes diagnosis. . .

Not sure my endocrinologist would help me get with this, but it wouldn't be the first time I bucked what the MD told me, and ended up feeling better.

[antych]

Ketoacidosis is pretty serious. I would do a lot research on my own before experimenting with type 1 diabetes. A quick google search seems to indicate that it works quite well. According to this case, they even cured it in a 9yr old kid http://www.ijcasereportsandimages.co...-full-text.php

[longress]

Originally Posted by Mywifes335

Damn! From what weight? What resource did you use to construct your diet plan?

And when I say diet...I plan to shed the weight then tweak it into a lifestyle.

I was around 255 at 6' 3". What helped was my girlfriend, she's the cook and read this book on whole30 (whole30.com). I was bloated and just generally felt like crap. Feel great now and again there was no hunger spikes. We are doing the lifestyle change because it worked so good. The plan includes many many recipes.

[Mywifes335]

Originally Posted by longress

I was around 255 at 6' 3". What helped was my girlfriend, she's the cook and read this book on whole30 (whole30.com). I was bloated and just generally felt like crap. Feel great now and again there was no hunger spikes. We are doing the lifestyle change because it worked so good. The plan includes many many recipes.

Good gf! With the lifestyle change, have you introduced some "cheat" foods back into rotation?

[longress]

No I've only missed a couple things - beer and good bread :-)