I had an epiphany 6 months ago.
Getting real close to 60, and I have never been thin in my life. Never tried to lose
weight either. I was eating fairly well but did not realize the impact that carbs were making
on me. I had toyed with a "keto" diet a year earlier, but according to the urine test strips I was never in ketosis. Not realizing how little I knew at that point in time, I forgot about this experiment, until about 6 month ago, when I ran across a YouTube that convinced me that maco nutrient tracking was a smart thing to do. I spent about a month at MFP when thank God, I found CM.
There are a lot of improvements that I would like to see, but that being said, CM is head and shoulders above the competition.
Oh yea.... I started out at 208 pounds about 5 months back and yesterday I was 149. I am eating much better food, both nutritionally, and taste-wise I have taken up martial arts and have much more energy as you would expect.
I have to put a plug in for Dr Mercola, and his new book "fat for Fuel". The book filled in most of the blanks for me, and made things incredibly easy.
The one piece of advice that I would give someone starting down this path would be to get exercise EVERY day. It is hard to eat an 800 kcal diet so that you can have a 700 kcal deficit from your 1500 kcal base metabolism needs. You will feel much better if you can get 500 kcals of activity and can bump yourself up to 1300 kcal per day and still have a 700 kcal deficit.
I wish you all luck!
We all have so much more to learn.....
Joe Tittiger
Seymour MO
joe ATT Tittiger DOTT com
Comments
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@tittiger - congratulations on your weightloss! I'm also following a high fat / low carb way of eating and have it soooooo much easier to follow than simply counting calories and eating high carb. It's not for everyone, but I love this way of eating and the complete lack of hunger and cravings that used to sabotage me on previous diets! I'm currently not concerned about whether or not I am in ketosis, and am simply low-carbing it (I try to stick to less than 50g/day with limit of 100g/day). I agree with you 100% on the exercise front, I never eat less than 1200kcals a day, frequently going up to 2100kcals, and getting plenty of activity (my "exercise" usually consists of walking to and from work) in helps balance out the high intake days to make sure I'm losing weight overall.
There's always more to learn, and this is the first time I've felt truly invested in my way of eating, and thinking of it in terms of improving my health and life, rather than just a short term way to lose weight. Treating this as a permanent change in my way of eating has been the key for me!
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You are spot on when you observe that it is MUCH easier to run a calorie deficit if your body is burning mainly fat. You don't get that constant gnawing hunger in your stomach like you do if your body is burning mainly sugar.....
I have not tried anything over 20 net grams of carbs a day. I have accidently eaten up to 60g. Now that I have lost most of the weight that I wanted to, I will probably experiment, and see how much I can increase my carbs and still remain in ketosis.
The fact of the matter is that 20g of net carbs is a LOT of carbs if they come mainly from vegetables. I usually can not fit that much in every day and get some carbs from other sources such as a little extra homemade kefir.
Joe Tittiger
Seymour MO
joe ATT Tittiger DOTT com -
I've been doing keto for about 2.5 months now and I'm a plant-based eater....I thought it was going to be impossible, but I found that most vegetables do not "break" keto. Mostly because the carbs normally come with fiber. Which I'm sure ya'll know lessen the insulin spikes.
There are exceptions like potatoes, beans, squash, etc. The very starchy ones.
Ones I've found not to break keto:
1. Anything green (peppers, spinach, kale etc,)
2. Mushrooms (fungi I know)
3. Carrots, onions, celery (1/4 cup a day salads)I also used the urine strips to verify keto states.
Nuts are great for keto, I rank them best to worst almonds, pecans, walnuts, peanuts(legume I know), brazil nuts, macadamia...
I'm 32 5'5" started Jul-5th at 144lbs 17%BF ended Aug-30 at 132 and 11.8%BF and followed a 75p/25nc/103f macro plan.
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Early in the summer I was 88 kg. My clothes were getting too tight! I am 58 and didn't want to get a new wardrobe. Over the course of the summer I started my 5bx exercise routine that I have followed off and on through the years. Then I read about HIIT and started to do 3 sets of my 5bx in the evening without having supper and then going to bed hungry and having a good breakfast the next morning. Eventually I switched to eating only in the evening and only eating after exercising. This was because my wife didn't like eating alone. Later I discovered that this is called intermittent fasting (and I thought that I was the only one doing this!)
Anyway, I stalled at 78 k. Was there for 3 weeks. One Sunday I was fasting (a monthly religious two meal fast that Mormons do) and I just decided to keep doing it. As I fasted, I read up on fasting and discovered that I was doing a 'dry' fast and that doing this for an extended period would result in being in a state called Ketosis which results in body fat being used as fuel source. So I bought some keto strips ($9 for 100 strips at London Drugs) and found that I was in ketosis in my second day of the fast. I ended my fast after 84 hours weighing 73 k and followed the keto diet for 10 days. I ended up at 73 k with a 33 inch waist. At that point I stopped because my clothes weren't fitting anymore. (Sometimes you just can't win!) I'm not going to complain too loud though because I can run like the wind again having dropped 15 k over 3 months.
The cronometer app and gold membership really helped me with the keto diet part because I had no clue about what foods met the keto criteria. -
Early in the summer I was 88 kg. My clothes were getting too tight! I am 58 and didn't want to get a new wardrobe. Over the course of the summer I started my 5bx exercise routine that I have followed off and on through the years. Then I read about HIIT and started to do 3 sets of my 5bx in the evening without having supper and then going to bed hungry and having a good breakfast the next morning. Eventually I switched to eating only in the evening and only eating after exercising. This was because my wife didn't like eating alone. Later I discovered that this is called intermittent fasting (and I thought that I was the only one doing this!)
Anyway, I stalled at 78 k. Was there for 3 weeks. One Sunday I was fasting (a monthly religious two meal fast that Mormons do) and I just decided to keep doing it. As I fasted, I read up on fasting and discovered that I was doing a 'dry' fast and that doing this for an extended period would result in being in a state called Ketosis which results in body fat being used as fuel source. So I bought some keto strips ($9 for 100 strips at London Drugs) and found that I was in ketosis in my second day of the fast. I ended my fast after 84 hours weighing 73 k and followed the keto diet for 10 days. I ended up at 73 k with a 33 inch waist. At that point I stopped because my clothes weren't fitting anymore. (Sometimes you just can't win!) I'm not going to complain too loud though because I can run like the wind again having dropped 15 k over 3 months.
The cronometer app and gold membership really helped me with the keto diet part because I had no clue about what foods met the keto criteria.
