Keto, Carb Levels & Appetite

Alexandra100

Well-Known Member
Messages
3,738
Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
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Tablets (oral)
Just early and late, two meals a day. No snacks.
That must be really convenient. Since adopting low carb, I find meals take a lot more preparation and it gets in the way of living! Also, eating out of the house is much harder. Not sure I could follow your system though, as I am coming to the conclusion that fasting raises my bg.
 

Resurgam

Expert
Messages
9,849
Type of diabetes
Type 2 (in remission!)
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That must be really convenient. Since adopting low carb, I find meals take a lot more preparation and it gets in the way of living! Also, eating out of the house is much harder. Not sure I could follow your system though, as I am coming to the conclusion that fasting raises my bg.
Me too - I need to eat early and have fewer carbs for my first meal, but I have meat or eggs - a proper meal and I am not hungry for the rest of the day. It keeps my BG from continuing to rise and then going into a sharp drop, which is unpleasant and gives the feeling of hunger. With two meals spread as far apart as is convenient my BG is fairly steady.
 

JamesW2612

Active Member
Messages
33
Type of diabetes
Type 2
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Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
Diabetes
I've been going very low carb and high fat for about a week, hoping that I'd experience the phenomenon that I can eat what I want and lose weight, due to the idea that one doesn't crave fatty foods as much as carby foods, and one feels more satisfied after eating fatty foods.

My experience so far is that I've been eating an awful lot of fatty food and am gaining weight.

Things I really love and can easily eat too much of:

* Belly pork with veg e.g. green breans, broccoli, asparagus.

* Mixed nuts with blueberries / raspberries / blackberries & double cream.

* Nut butters. Could eat a whole jar of e.g. peanut butter.

But when I think about it, could it be that I'm not trying hard enough to eliminate carbs? Because:

* With the belly pork meals, I'm having a small bit of English mustard (e.g. a level teaspoon)

* With the Mixed nuts & double cream & berries, I've often added 3g of raisins (=2g carbs) for a bit of sweetness, especially if the berries are bitter.

* Peanut butter is still 8% carbs, so who am I kidding?

Do people find that just the smallest amounts of carby additions such as English mustard ruin the 'satiety' effect of a very high fat meal?

I've been getting a bit disillusioned with the idea of keto and even had some dark chocolate today, so I'm looking for advice for types of keto food combos which strike a really good balance of being appetising, healthy but not so nice that as soon as I've finished eating it, I make some more!

I feel your pain... I tried keto for a while but i found trying to keep track of my macros was too difficult for me. Especially when you consider there are carbs in veg as well, so you have to keep an eye on how much veg you have with your meat. I have to say, on keto i did well with long periods of not eating, but i still always got cravings for the carbs... I am addicted and i tried to make teh carb monster happy with sweetners and so on. But in the end, i would fall off the wagon.
I now follow a zero carb diet (its only been about 5 or 6 weeks) but its been easier for me than keto... Zero carb is basically just meat and water. I only eat from the animal kingdom and drink water (well coffee too!)

Its helped me massively but we are all different.

Good luck
 

Nick1974

Member
Messages
7
Type of diabetes
Type 2
I've been going very low carb and high fat for about a week, hoping that I'd experience the phenomenon that I can eat what I want and lose weight, due to the idea that one doesn't crave fatty foods as much as carby foods, and one feels more satisfied after eating fatty foods.

My experience so far is that I've been eating an awful lot of fatty food and am gaining weight.

Things I really love and can easily eat too much of:

* Belly pork with veg e.g. green breans, broccoli, asparagus.

* Mixed nuts with blueberries / raspberries / blackberries & double cream.

* Nut butters. Could eat a whole jar of e.g. peanut butter.

But when I think about it, could it be that I'm not trying hard enough to eliminate carbs? Because:

* With the belly pork meals, I'm having a small bit of English mustard (e.g. a level teaspoon)

* With the Mixed nuts & double cream & berries, I've often added 3g of raisins (=2g carbs) for a bit of sweetness, especially if the berries are bitter.

* Peanut butter is still 8% carbs, so who am I kidding?

Do people find that just the smallest amounts of carby additions such as English mustard ruin the 'satiety' effect of a very high fat meal?

I've been getting a bit disillusioned with the idea of keto and even had some dark chocolate today, so I'm looking for advice for types of keto food combos which strike a really good balance of being appetising, healthy but not so nice that as soon as I've finished eating it, I make some more!
 

Nick1974

Member
Messages
7
Type of diabetes
Type 2
the ketogenic diet is much harder than it seems...its not just cutting sugar (which is the easiest macronutrient to cancel)...or the carbs, its the protein..From what u have written down it looks like u not eating much lean protein. Stay away from any type of seafood ,turkey , lean beef or chicken w/o skin for 7 to ten days. It depends on the person. For those few days u have to only eat green leafy veggies in a small plate (be careful of salad dressings, most are loaded w sugar). If u feel hungry u are probably not eating enough. Remember fatty, fatty fatty, which psychologically is hard given what we have been hardwired to believe. This is only for the first week or so. By the way what meds are u taking, if insulin be extremely careful u can become hypo, u will become hypo in few days!!! I take metformin. U can not get hypo from that. Do u exercise, pounds are harder to get rid of if u are a couch potato. The reason why no carbs for the next 3 to 5 days and little protein is u need to deplete glycogen storages in your liver which depending on person takes 3-5 days When u blood sugar runs to low your body takes protein that is not being used(which u have eaten) and makes glucose through a process called gluconeogenesis and stores it in the liver to be used whenever the body needs. This is ok for a normal person, but type 2 diabetics it is not because your body does not know u are a type 2 diabetic and releases to much stored sugar in your liver (which is called glycogen) and your body does not react as fast as a normal person so u will have a slight sugar spike which will take u out of ketosis. So first week little to no carbs and little protein. U will need ketone urine test strips to test if and how much u in ketosis and blood glucose monitor to get a feel for how different foods effect your body. Everyone is slightly different..Then after those days of strict eating u will feel it...The keto flu..U have probably heard some bad stories bout this but only because of lack of preparation and education. U will feel like u have the flu, headaches, cramps fatigue and lethargy while your body becomes accustom to a different fuel(fat instead of sugar)..U need a multivitamin especially one in electrolytes, potassium, sodium, chloride(sodium chloride is salt) calcium magnesium and phosphate..Depleating carbs and sugar from the body is a natural diuretic so u are going to need to drink more water than usual. I made an 8 ounce glass of broth which covers the sodium chloride plus ingesting the water .I don't know your routine but if u work out or exercise vigorously this will take a hit for a few weeks Remember this lifestyle is not to melt of the pounds, it is to get your body less resistant to insulin because type 2 diabetes is chronic, it only gets worse with age..A few weeks ago I ate 2 scoops of strawberry ice cream with no cone and my blood sugar was 127..Normally it would be more than twice that..Good luck it is worth the slight hassle in the beginning....this is my first time on this site and first reply. I hope I help someone because I was helped by someone.
 
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Robbity

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That must be really convenient. Since adopting low carb, I find meals take a lot more preparation and it gets in the way of living!
But you can make your meals as simple or as complicated as you wish - stir fry is quick and easy and fish done in microwave or fried just takes minutes - salmon piece with some asparagus and a dollop of sour cream and fresh dill for example.

Robbity
 
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Alexandra100

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3,738
Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
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But you can make your meals as simple or as complicated as you wish - stir fry is quick and easy and fish done in microwave or fried just takes minutes - salmon piece with some asparagus and a dollop of sour cream and fresh dill for example.

Robbity
Yes, those are the sorts of cooking I do. But they are nowhere near as quick as a glass of milk + some fruit + bread and peanut butter.
 

SueJB

Well-Known Member
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3,316
Type of diabetes
Type 1
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Insulin
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cold weather
Me too - I need to eat early and have fewer carbs for my first meal, but I have meat or eggs - a proper meal and I am not hungry for the rest of the day. It keeps my BG from continuing to rise and then going into a sharp drop, which is unpleasant and gives the feeling of hunger. With two meals spread as far apart as is convenient my BG is fairly steady.
I'm trying out chia seed puds for breakfast, good flavour, low carb 2g in what I have and it tastes good and flat BG
 

Alexandra100

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3,738
Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
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And if you had to make the bread?
In the olden days when I ate bread I would have walked a very hilly 4 miles to Waitrose and back to buy the wonderful Village Bakery sourdough bread which contains nothing but organic wholemeal rye flour, water and salt. Nowadays the unavoidable cookery I am doing cuts into my exercise time. The ingenuity required to make enjoyable and nutritonally balanced meals while minimising carbs is probably good for my brain, but I'm not going to fudge the fact that it also has a downside.
 

Bluetit1802

Legend
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25,216
Type of diabetes
Type 2 (in remission!)
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The ingenuity required to make enjoyable and nutritonally balanced meals while minimising carbs is probably good for my brain, but I'm not going to fudge the fact that it also has a downside.

Can you batch cook and freeze the meals that take ages to make? Then they become home made ready meals. We don't do this because other than Sunday roasts we never spend more than 20 to 30 minutes in the kitchen for main meals, a lot less for lunch, and virtually zero for breakfast. Yet everything is cooked from scratch.
 

Kristin251

Expert
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5,334
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LADA
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That must be really convenient. Since adopting low carb, I find meals take a lot more preparation and it gets in the way of living! Also, eating out of the house is much harder. Not sure I could follow your system though, as I am coming to the conclusion that fasting raises my bg.
I batch cook loads of proteins and freeze in my and my hubbies portions. I defrost in cold water and then decide what I want to do with it. Lately soup I just pour some broth on the protein, add some fat, herbs, seasonings and a few chopped veg. Super simple and could make a few meals worth. I e some that and frozen them in individual servings and jus took out the night before. I keep things very simple. Protein seasoned after defrosting and added fat, avocado and a few veg
 

Alexandra100

Well-Known Member
Messages
3,738
Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Bluetit and Kristin, thanks very much for your suggestions. The thing is, any cooking takes longer than no cooking, which would be my preferred option. Timewise, I am always in the red, and sinking deeper each day. Every moment I spend on cooking or food preparation I have to try to block out the awareness that behind my back things undone are piling up: letters unopened, bed not made, laundry not washed, exercise skipped, friends and family uncontacted, on and on.
 

Bluetit1802

Legend
Messages
25,216
Type of diabetes
Type 2 (in remission!)
Treatment type
Diet only
Bluetit and Kristin, thanks very much for your suggestions. The thing is, any cooking takes longer than no cooking, which would be my preferred option. Timewise, I am always in the red, and sinking deeper each day. Every moment I spend on cooking or food preparation I have to try to block out the awareness that behind my back things undone are piling up: letters unopened, bed not made, laundry not washed, exercise skipped, friends and family uncontacted, on and on.

You are worrying me now. What do you spend your time on? Do these things go by the board because you are lacking in energy rather than short of time?
 

Brunneria

Guru
Retired Moderator
Messages
21,889
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
@AdamJames

Only just seen this thread or I would have chipped in much earlier. :D

Please don't fall for the thinking that keto=weightloss.
That is an assumption that many people make, usually because keto=weightloss for them.

I'm always amazed to hear of people who go VLC/keto and then lose weight while eating low carb baking, regular berries, cream on everything, and unlimited meat intake. I envy them, but it certainly doesn't work that way for me.

And there is a surprisingly large number of us who don't experience that auto-keto-weightloss even when we cut out all the indulgences (like cream and occasional berries, and dark choc) that are usually permissible on a keto diet.

The longer I hang around the forum, the more I read here, and elsewhere, the more I realise that there is a sub-group of us with sufficiently deranged metabolisms and wacky hormones for whom the normal keto needs to be combined with calorie restriction too. Or even greater carb restriction. Or cutting dairy. Or restricting protein intake. Or eliminating all sweeteners. Or eliminating all carbs. Or fat fasting occasionally. Or any number of other measures which will depend on the unique 'derangement' involved.

In addition, those of us with these 'derangements' are often the ones most likely to have hair trigger metabolisms that react astonishingly quickly to reduced calories by slowing the metabolism down to reduce calorie expenditure. Someone with a 'normal' metabolism can usually count on weeks of weight loss on a calorie restricted diet before the body slows the metabolism to fit the new calorie intake. My body makes the change in less than 5 days. And I have seen numerous posts by people on this forum whose weightloss is agonisingly slow on severe calorie restriction, and who then regain rapidly afterwards.

In my case, I did 5 weeks of one meal a day Mon-Fri and 2 meals at the weekends, calories around half my usual amount, and I lost 2 pounds in 5 weeks. I don't call that sustainable. It was boring, inconvenient, tiresome, frustrating, and would mean a constant starvation diet for years. When I went back to my usual 2 meals a day, I regained those 2 pounds within a couple of days. Like a cork in a bucket my weight just bobbed back up and stayed there on double the calories. Sigh.

I now try to vary my number of meals and calorie intake daily, so that my metabolism never gets any settled pattern that it can fix on and reduce basal metabolic rate.
 

Nick1974

Member
Messages
7
Type of diabetes
Type 2
@AdamJames

Only just seen this thread or I would have chipped in much earlier. :D

Please don't fall for the thinking that keto=weightloss.
That is an assumption that many people make, usually because keto=weightloss for them.

I'm always amazed to hear of people who go VLC/keto and then lose weight while eating low carb baking, regular berries, cream on everything, and unlimited meat intake. I envy them, but it certainly doesn't work that way for me.

And there is a surprisingly large number of us who don't experience that auto-keto-weightloss even when we cut out all the indulgences (like cream and occasional berries, and dark choc) that are usually permissible on a keto diet.

The longer I hang around the forum, the more I read here, and elsewhere, the more I realise that there is a sub-group of us with sufficiently deranged metabolisms and wacky hormones for whom the normal keto needs to be combined with calorie restriction too. Or even greater carb restriction. Or cutting dairy. Or restricting protein intake. Or eliminating all sweeteners. Or eliminating all carbs. Or fat fasting occasionally. Or any number of other measures which will depend on the unique 'derangement' involved.

In addition, those of us with these 'derangements' are often the ones most likely to have hair trigger metabolisms that react astonishingly quickly to reduced calories by slowing the metabolism down to reduce calorie expenditure. Someone with a 'normal' metabolism can usually count on weeks of weight loss on a calorie restricted diet before the body slows the metabolism to fit the new calorie intake. My body makes the change in less than 5 days. And I have seen numerous posts by people on this forum whose weightloss is agonisingly slow on severe calorie restriction, and who then regain rapidly afterwards.

In my case, I did 5 weeks of one meal a day Mon-Fri and 2 meals at the weekends, calories around half my usual amount, and I lost 2 pounds in 5 weeks. I don't call that sustainable. It was boring, inconvenient, tiresome, frustrating, and would mean a constant starvation diet for years. When I went back to my usual 2 meals a day, I regained those 2 pounds within a couple of days. Like a cork in a bucket my weight just bobbed back up and stayed there on double the calories. Sigh.

I now try to vary my number of meals and calorie intake daily, so that my metabolism never gets any settled pattern that it can fix on and reduce basal metabolic rate.
 

Nick1974

Member
Messages
7
Type of diabetes
Type 2
keto is not weight loss, it is a lifestyle. If you are grossly overweight and start this specific diet you will shed pounds quickly in the first few weeks mainly because you are loosing water. When your glycogen storages run out or start to run low, you loose water. Keto diet is a natural diuretic, which is why when your on a keto diet you need to drink more water and intake more salt. This will also help you eat more because on a keto diet when you measure the macronutrients you will find it very hard to eat 1500 calories a day at least. Don't worry about high amounts of sodium in your diet making your blood pressure shoot up. Sugar and processed foods are the biggest culprit of raising blood pressure, more than salt. Brunneria are you doing this to loose weight and fix type 2 diabetes.. It works for loosing weight which is a consequence for fixing t2d. You have to be on it on average for at least 4 months. After that time your body will be extremely adaptable from burning sugar to oxidizing fats for fuel. Even if you are thin this is good because it burns deep fat that mainly surrounds your heart and liver. Reading your article it sounds like your going all sixes and sevens (had to ad that in there, sorry) on starting this diet like when I did years ago. This stress could increase your cortisol levels and cause you to gain weight or prevent you from doing so. Their is no such thing as quick weightloss. You have to keep with it over a long period of time, Enjoy the journey, not the destination. The BEST thing I did for t2d and to drop 30 pounds which took over 6 months is TO LEARN HOW TO COOK AND STUDY ABOUT NUTRITION!!!!! Not diet or exercise. I do not want to make this article too long. Take a length of time like on a sunday night and make a plan and cook your meals for the next few days. Do this when you have the time so you are not cooking everyday. Make it simple at first, do not make it a giant rigmarole. Make it fun, pretend your the iron chef or something, take a few shots if you can while cooking. I became good friends with two things my steamer and olive oil. I do not like using other oils and studying nutritional biochemistry I avoid frying anything because it is researched that it does create carcinogens and negates any health effects of any oil including olive oil. Steaming chicken with skin on actually tastes good. A steamed burger without the bun and worstershiere sauce and mustard is so good and juicy. This is coming from an American who used to live in Texas so trust me on this one. Watch sauces, they contain lots of sugar which is why they taste so good and addictive. Learn to make your own. Nobody has a hair trigger metabolism, It takes 3 to 4 months of severe caloric restriction to considerably lower metabolism which you do not do in keto diet. Their is a difference between starvation and caloric restriction which you do not do in a keto diet. Make sure u eat enough so u not hungry and stop counting cals so much. Trust me u will find it hard to get 1500 2000 cals in your diet.