Keto diet - two weeks in

[TheMoaningViolet]

I have spent 2 weeks eating keto way with TRE (only breakfast and lunch, so no food after 4pm) and here are some of my experiences.

I was worried about the amount of food I was eating, and my weight loss was not spectacular (1.6kg, and most of it during the first week), but I noticed a few extraordinary changes. Most significantly, I don't crave food all the time and can happily delay lunch by several hours without much hardship. This I find liberating and encouraging as I suspect my calories intake will naturally be reduced as a result. I am finding the idea of eating meat somewhat off-putting by now, so I will focus on eggs and cheese. I had to make an exception and eat a slice of cheesecake I made for my husband's birthday but it was made up mostly of eggs, cream and cheese, so I decided not to fret about it. I added berries to my breakfast from Friday as I really needed something to make it more appetising and I discovered that if I blend my coffee with a spoonful of MCT oil and a bit of cream, the taste of this is starting to grow on me.

From next week, I would like to include 2 low calories days and 3 days (including those 2) when I am not eating much protein. I suspect this will have a more significant impact on my weight loss.

Any opinion on the idea of protein cycling and any easy guides on what 20g of protein looks like.

(I apologise for the image).

[MikePollard]

I would not row back on protein, it is very satiating and nutrient dense so long as it's not messed around with in a factory. Fat in place of carbohydrate is where we need to go, but fat is essentially a pure energy source and very little or no essential minerals and micronutrients.

[TheMoaningViolet in reply to MikePollard]

I do get very good quality meat, but I am not a huge fan and I fear this is going to fail long term. Perhaps I could try eating more fish. I did read that reducing protein a couple of days each week is helpful with autophagy?

[MikePollard in reply to TheMoaningViolet]

My go to fish wise is John West tinned kippers. Eat hot (with butter) or cold straight out of the tin. No bones and super tasty.

[Purplelady02 in reply to MikePollard]

Sounds nice, I'm just starting this LCHF way of eating and need some ideas.

[MTCee]

I’ve also been doing Keto for a couple of weeks. I eat lunch and dinner instead of breakfast and lunch. Its lovely not feeling hungry. Meals are more enjoyable rather than necessary. I eat a lot of low carb veg, lots of eggs, more fish than meat and some dairy like Greek yogurt, cream and cheeses. I also make my own low carb seed crackers and low carb ‘bread buns’ to have occasionally. My meals are mostly salads and stir fries. My health has improved greatly even though I was following a low carb lifestyle before and I’m feeling good ☺️ The sunny weather might be helping......

[Subtle_badger]

I googled protein cycling, I don't think it's a thing you should do. The hits were body building sites, where people eat extreme amounts of protein to build muscle. I think they cycle back to maintenance amounts to let their body rest. I am not sure, because I closed the page when I read something about "eating fat will make you fat" and realised I did not trust their nonsense.

If you wanted to protein cycle, you need to over indulge on some days as well. If you don't do that, your body will end up cannibalising your skeletal muscles to keep your essential organs in repair.

Don't worry about autophagy at this point. Just get the food right. Once you are fat adapted and comfortable with this way of eating, you can start to mix things up.

20g of protein is roughly 100g of food, so a piece of meat the size of a pack of cards for example.

[TheMoaningViolet in reply to Subtle_badger]

Thank you for making an effort to look this up. I certainly was not looking at bodybuilding sites for my information, but I have seen suggestions to have 3 non-consecutive low protein days (i.e. protein below 20g (or 25g on some sites), about 2 eggs, so it does not seem very drastic. I suspect you are right that I would need to eat protein with abandon on the other days in order to balance it out. Perhaps I don't need to worry as I don't eat as much protein as I thought.

[Subtle_badger in reply to TheMoaningViolet]

Links to the sites you have seen might help.

FWIW, I started my journey with a month of VLCD (very low calorie diet). I think it was a wise move, as it gave me a big enough change that really prevented any backsliding. The weeks and weeks that I'd didn't lose any weight were OK, because I wasn't putting any on, and the contrast between my before body and now meant I was not tempted to blow the diet.

It's worth noting that first month I thought I was on a diet; I did not realise it was a lifestyle.

healthunlocked.com/fasting-... (you will have to join that group to see the post, but you can leave it again immediately afterwards)

[TheMoaningViolet in reply to Subtle_badger]

Thank you for that. A very impressive achievement and this is indeed what I need, a bigger impact now when I am trying to make the switch.One of the sites I looked at is ancientandbrave.earth/blogs...