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Hunger Pangs

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go to a library or book store and look at paleo cook books with pictures. Those are normal portions. Just swipe off the carbs. If you're trying to be keto, all that fat is not going to work. Fat does not put you into ketosis. The absence of carbs and the moderation of protein with JUST ENOUGH FAT TO SATISY is the ticket to ketosis. Over eating any macro as well as calories is SURE to keep you out of ketosis. Keto is your body burning YOUR body fat and if you eat so much your body will burn your dieatary fat and never get to your fat stores. Fat is not a free food. It's a calorie for carb replacement.

I agree with azure. Stop counting and obsessing. Just a eat reasonable amount of food and balance your meals.

I digest fat very well but fat will still make me fat if I over eat it. So will protein and if course carbs. If I over eat anything it will make me fat and kick me out of keto.
 
And I am - as I have said many times now - very grateful that they have. Would you have me leave the forum? I think it's safe to say that in a low carb forum, it's reasonable to expect people to advocate or discuss that way of eating.

I appreciate your sympathy, but know that I have been around the block with the mental health system we have and, unfortunately, the reality is not positive.

With regard to giving up keto, I am trying to explain that I am 5 weeks in. I dont know if these cravings are merely a temprorary symptom of adaption or not. They could ease tomorrow for all I know - or not and then last for weeks. This is not a diet you can flit in and out of by its very nature. I do not want to continue to have this negative experience with it, but I do not want to just abandon a month's worth of progress without being absolutely sure that is the best thing for me to do. It is not about being a panacea nor a crutch, it is about finding a healthy way of eating that addresses blood sugar issues as well as the benefits of weight loss. I believe those two are present, but there also appears to now be a potential cost: intense hunger cravings.

Others seem to believe that i need only consume more fat, and that this is a symptom of the body craving more food of some kind. Clearly it wants something. But I do not know what the truth of that is and that is what I'm trying to find out. If there is no answer available then I would have to reconsider what i do going forward. Please respect that; it doesn't mean not listening to people, in deed there are people here who are fat adapted and eat keto, nor does it mean not being grateful. I do and am.
 
Since you have continuously ignored/not acknowledged my posts I will happily bow out and leave you alone. With my last words being maybe it's not something your body is craving, maybe it's something it just doesn't like. Like everything drowned in fat. Finding balance is key.

Best of luck!!
 

I have never heard that eating too much fat kicks you out of ketosis. I thought ketosis occurs because carb intake is low. This happens after a few days of LC eating. The other issue is that of the body adapting to the use of fat as a fuel, which is my goal, not least of all because of the purported benefit of a better managed appetite and not constant cravings.

As far as that is concerned, given that i am craving a lot, I can't really be adapted yet. I would think.

I agree that tracking and measuring and counting are problematic. It's tedious and obsessive, but if your goal is to lower carbs sufficiently, you have to at least monitor that. So if i snack on some cream when i get a craving, I have to take into account how much is in a tablespoon because cream contains some carbs.

Again there is a lot of contradictory information regarding LCHF. What you say makes sense: eat just enough to satisfy (I thought I had for lunch, but my body thinks otherwise) but not so much that the body burns the incoming fat and not the body's stores. Yet there are many people, rightly or wrongly, arguing the opposite. HOw do i know who is correct?

I was attempting, today, to take Azure's advice and return to the successful mealplan i began with, when i didn't have these cravings. I did so for breakfast, but it didn't make much difference. Lunch was enormous, but i will try again for dinner.
 
I have just responded to your post, as soon as I saw it.

You might be right about stuff being drowned in fat. But who knows? How can i determine which it is?

If you wish to leave that's up to you, but please don't think I have deliberately ignored you because that would be wrong.
 

Eating too much? Well, I can't say if that's true or not. As I said, I don't believe eating too much of anything (ie fat) can take you out of ketosis, though even fat is limited. You aren't 'meant' to eat unlimited amounts.

I don't know what constitutes too much though?
 
Some keto people eat lots of fat to stop losing weight.
I have researched keto to death. Keto forums can be over the top on fat. Low carb books like Adkins, rosedale, Primal body Primal mind explain how keto is healthy and not the same as ketoacidosis as many people confuse that. All of those books I referred advise vlc, MODERATE protein and just enough fat to satisfy. They all ( except atkins) use .8-1 G protein per kg of LEAN body weight and just enough healthy fat to satisfy. I have been down your road drowning things in fat and all I did was get fat despite NO carbs at one point. I also way over ate protein. These two things made me fat and hungry. I couldn't get satisfied either and all cravings!!! All day long. All I thought about was food. Then I found the Rosedale diet that talked about protein raising bs and insulin!!! Keeping I insulin low is important because it's a fat storing hormone as well as raises lectin which is a hunger hormone. I drastically reduced protein, ate salads and smaller meals . I added some fat to all meals but by no means a lot. My body fat reduced fast!! I now can eyeball my veggies and use some fat at all meals. I eat avocado with all as it is my perfect fuel and ward off hunger for the first time in my life. I STILL weigh my protein as it's very easy to over eat. I do loads of batch cooking my proteins and freeze in single serving baggies. 2 oz. I eat that 3 times a day with 4 hours in between. If I need snacks it's a few nuts or olives. Maybe vlc veggies in a mayo dip but everything is small.

Sounds like your insulin and lectin are 'off'. They can be and you can still have normal bs. If you trigger insulin you trigger lectin. So you'll store any food you over eat as fat and your hunger hormones will turn on.

Eating fat DOES NOT put you into ketosis. It's just so when you eat low carb and moderate protein you need some calories to come from somewhere. If I just ate 20g carbs and 6 oz protein without fat I'd only be eating 250 calories. Once I add an avocado, a few nuts and some mayo I eat around 1000 Cal's. That's enough for me and the macros are 80/15/5. Keto is high fat in the sense fat is the highest macro but doesn't need to be high fat. Just the highest percentage of calories.

I really think your hormones are being triggered wrong. Please try much smaller meals and stop gobbling fat. I was stunned how much better I felt with so little food. I'm still shocked but it works wonderfully. Your body won't drop fat if your supplying too much food. Then you'll never get into keto. The fastest way to get into keto is fasting. No food. Then you deplete your glycogen stores. Keto is also about keeping glycogen store empty or at least not full. Food fills glycogen stores.
Meals don't have to fancy. Make a salad with some protein and olive e oil. Or an egg with mayo and eat it on a big piece of lettuce. Have avocado. Have a few veggies.

That's my story on keto. Apply what you want
 

Thank you for this in depth reply.

All i have been exposed to, from FB and reddit as well as sites like ruled.me advocates following macros. Whenever one raises an issue the first thing asked is "what are your macros", followed by "are you tracking and measuring everything".

So the notion that one should only eat fats enough to satisfy is countered by the advice to ignore calories and eat more fats.

That said, I think those are two points of view that are ultimately talking past each other. Normally I don't eat loads of fats per meal, but then that begs the question "how much is too much". I struggle with the idea of 'adding fats just to satisfy' because again, how much is that? I could eat a large very protein heavy meal for example and probably feel satisfied but there might be minimal fat. So I don't know how to do this, and do it right. It's very easy to just pour butter over everything, or fry everything in butter, or snack on cream.

As for protein macros, i've heard everything from 1g/kg to a total that's double that. People have advocated to me all sorts of different ratios. Prior to eating this way my main source of protein was a large piece of chicken for dinner. Now i'm eating meat most meals because low carbs and fat. Breakfast is meat, lunch has some meat and a fair amount of cheese, dinner has meat. People also say that eating too much protein triggers glucose, but again noone explains what the trigger point is. I normally eat about 108g protein a day. At your rate that would be 67-70g, at most. That means eating a lot less, but I don't know what to eat instead and if I eat a meal that isn't filling me up, I really feel rough. I have to feel full or sated.

It is entirely possible I'm eating too much protein, but not feeling full is of real concern to me. Could you perhaps provide some examples of the meals you eat, as you eat 3 times a day. Was there a period of transition from larger protein and fat keto meals to what you eat now? Would you say you have keto or fat adapted as a result, or perhaps before?

Thank you for your answer, I'm sorry you felt i ignored you before, this is really relevant stuff. I too like avocados, I just wish they were cheaper to buy.
 
@ghost_whistler , can you tell me how you are assessing your state of ketosis, and why you believe it to be so important to you?
 
AndBreathe said:
@ghost_whistler , can you tell me how you are assessing your state of ketosis, and why you believe it to be so important to you?
Click to expand...
I'm not assessing it. It's my understanding that one enters ketosis after a few days or so of not eating carbs.

What is important is the goal of becoming adapted to it because it seems to address a lot of health issues and make for a more efficient way of eating. Less hungry, less of an appetite, more stable blood sugars etc.
 
Ok girlfriend, here goes. It'll be long. You might want to take notes lol.

First and foremost, you can find anything opposing or validating anything you want on the internet. So much conflicting advice. I can only share my knowledge and experiences over 25 years or low carb.

Keto is when your body burns fat as fuel. If you have weight to lose it can use your body fat to make ketones. Dietary or body fat make ketones. If you supply it with enough dietary fat it will never go to body fat. Protein, spikes insulin. When I over eat protein I need much more insulin. Insulin is a fat storing hormone. It also spikes lectin which is a hunger triggering hormone. If inober eat protein, I am HUNGRY. It took years to figure that's out. Different meals at different times of day act different. I cannot eat much protein at bf or I'm hungry all day. I ramp up as the day goes on. I need a fatty fibery bf. Low protein and low to no carbs. I eat 2 oz avocado and a thin small piece of turkey ( less than one ounce because that's what it comes in) I either smash it all together or slice it and make stuff itnin the turkey. I eat it with about a 6 inch slice of celery. Adding sea salt and basil or cilantro. Lunch is 1.5 oz protein with 1.5-2 oz avocado, a few celery chunks and onion. Maybe a few other veggies. If I have tuna or egg salad, chicken or turkey, salmon as my protein I add about 1-2 tablespoons mayo. Dinner is 2.5 -3 oz protein, 1.5-2 oz avocado and either a lettuce wrap or a few steamed vlc veg like asparagus, bok choy, mushrooms. If using green beans, broccoli or higher carb veg then less. About 2 oz. never ever going over 20 c per day. I eat bf at 7-8 and at noon I have 3-4 olives or 3-4 pecans or Macs I could easily go without lunch but I don't as I need the calories. I do get hungry for dinner but I think I just need insulin to feel balanced. I will also snack on celery, mushrooms, asparagus. I don't mind cold food at all. I have a huge variety of precooked and packaged and frozen foods in my protein quantities. I defrost in cold water for about 20 min and meal is ready. Just add avocado and veggies. Rare sirloin or lamb, chicken, turkey, shrimp. Canned salmon and tuna. Fresh frozen cod and salmon. I buy fresh minced meat and freeze uncooked in 3 oz portions. Tons of frozen veggies. Always chopped celery in water in the fridge. Prechopped onion in a bowl. Easy to make meals and little time in the kitchen.

So. Bf is mostly fat and fiber. Avocado
Lunch is some (1.5 oz) protein and avocado and some raw veggies.
Dinner is 2.5 protein, avocado and about 2 oz vlc veg.
Snacks are a few nuts or olives.
Some meals have mayo or a drizzle ( not pour) of olive oil.
I have maintained my weight of 120 for 25 years , through menopause as well.

The Rosedale diet and Primal body Primal mind explains the negative effects of over eating protein. Raising insulin and turning on leptin hormones. They can all be googled.

Too much of any food or more calories than the body needs will all take us out of ketosis. It's not as simple as low or no carb. All macros matter. The idea is just eat a higher percentage of fat than carbs or protein. Not loads of calories. Or loads of fat. Seems maybe I eat really small meals but that is what keeps my body burning fat. If I indulge in any food I will gain which says I'm out of ketosis. Calories and portions matter. It would be beautiful if just keeping carbs low answered all our prayers but it's just not so.

So , maybe you could try avocado bf with celery. Then split your dinner chicken into lunch. Add some avocado, mayo etc and a few veggies.

I had times I gorged on fatty meats and butter with no carbs. Nothing made me hungrier. I was always ravenous !! Like you, I could never understand why. Again with the Rosedale diet finding higher protein and saturated fats onLy turned on leptin, the hunger hormone. That was my missing piece of the puzzle. Truly.
Your jaw must be dropping thinking how can that fill you up? It doesn't fill me up, it keeps me very satisfied and not hungry or uncomfortable for the first time in my life. It's finding your perfect fuel. Avocado is mine. Yes it can be expensive but I don't eat loads of food so it's actually cheaper. It's such a healthy fat too!

It does seem one big thing you changed is protein at bf. Does not work for me. Makes me starving all day. And like you I need it more at dinner. Again, different foods act different at different times of day.
It was hard to wrap my head around so little protein compaired to what I was eating but amazed me how much better I felt.

Ok. Dinner time. Hope I didn't just waste a ton of time typing. Lol

Try it and see. Might take a few days to adjust but I KNOW you are not fat adapted or keto yet!!
 
Thanks, that was really helpful.

I think there's some equivocation on the term keto; it seems to get used for both the state of being adapted to fat, as well as the state of producing ketones after cutting carbs which isn't the same thing. I believe I'm in ketosis. I just haven't adapted to using fat yet.

Yes, it makes sense to state consuming large dietary fats means that the body's own stores down' tget used. that said, how are people losing weight if that's the case while eating a lot of fat. It has been repeatedly said to me that i need to eat more, not less fat. Whether that advice is correct is dependent on the person's knowledge of the process, as well as my metabolism. Yours seems to require less fat, perhaps mine does as well.

So what you seem to be alluding to is insulin resistance and leptin resistance. So the former prevents the body from accessing natural stores of fat due to the high levels of insulin floating around. I don't know if this is strictly the case for me as I have lost weight eating this way. That may be water weight from cutting carbs, I don't know. Insulin resistance makes sense, as an overweight person I may well be resistant. Certainly OW people are much more likely to be leptin resistant.

As far as I can tell, a low carb diet is the treatment for leptin, while eating less as well is the means to lower insulin resistance. So I have lowered my protein intake: today so far I have eaten 60g protein. I could probably manage a few more g safely. My ideal bodyweight is about 63kg. I have also consumed only about 90g fat as well, which, in terms of keto orthodoxy, would be seen as very low. I have supplemented my diet today by drinking lots of water to stave off cravings. THis has been reasonably successful, and I managed to avoid eating at night, despite cravings. I hope this is not going to be a long term thing, and I don't know if it's the best way to deal with this 'problem'. Should I be eating when hungry instead? The diet experts seem to suggest when it comes to insulin/leptin etc one shoudln't snack, nor even eat late at night. Is that true? Who knows.

I don't know if fat raises insulin for me, there's no way to know. But having experienced cravings regardless of fat intake, it doesn't seem to have affected my satiety. Or perhaps only a few large meals isn't really enough to tell. Should I add more fat? 90g isn't much, that said why is my body not consuming my body fat?
 
Now you've just leapt into diagnosing yourself with another problem. There are tons of theories on the Internet, tons of diets. You could waste your life obsessing over them.

I asked you originally about insulin resistance and you said that the doctor had ruled out diabetes, implying you didn't need to be tested again. As you then believed you had hypoglycaemia, you said your blood sugar was low, but it wasn't, according to what you wrote here. You then implied that your blood sugar goung up and down within the normal range was a problem - it isn't.

Your original symptom was dizziness/feeling off, but now your main symptom is hunger. Or is it cravings?

I stress again, saying something may be due to anxiety isn't minimising it's impact or suggesting it's not real. Have a read of this. It's written in a slightly simplistic tone which initially sounds a bit patronising, but that's because it's aimed at a number of different readers. It contains good info in it and a useful bibliography at the end:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/hypochondria/Documents/Health Anxiety A4 2010.pdf

There is also a list of helpful organisations.
 

I have no idea if I'm insulin resistant as there is no way for me to find out beyond just guessing. Diabetes has been ruled out twice in my life, I have never claimed to be diabetic either. I said that I have hypoglycemia on the basis of having low blood sugar episodes which I have had for almost 20 years. Just because the few BS results over a few days that I put here do not conform to what you might expect does not reflect the lived reality that I have had for a very long time. Whether or not resultsare within normal ranges doesn't rally concern me rather than the effects. I have had significant hypo experiences, most of them without access to testing equipment.

It seems that you think I'm being inconsistent in presenting symptoms and that, consequently, they are the product of stress rather than the body. But that doesn't mean they are not of the body. It is entirely possible to present different symptoms as they appeaer. If I had experienced hunger right away on keto I would have said so, but I didn't. I'm experiencing it now and the symptoms are, as far as Im concerned, extremely real. I cannot just dismiss them as the product of anxiety and I don't think it's fair to expect me to. this could be a serious matter and I would like to know what physical elements coudl provoke such hunger. It is preventing me from sleeping properly. The hunger experienced is profound and excpetional and very physical. I do not believe this to be normal, and I am not convinced to simply explain it away as anxiety.

I do not want to abandon this way of eating without exhausting a physical line of inquiry. I respect your opinion, but I feel it to be a very easy diagnosis and too convenient. I am not saying it is incorrect, but unless the physical element can be ruled out - as with any percieved illness - I cannot accept it.
 
Read what I wrote again - I said that somatic symptoms caused by anxiety are real. You keep thinking that people saying your concerns may be related to anxiety is somehow an insult or a diminuation of them. It is not.

You're also overly defensive about your choice of keto. Don't be. Eat what you want. Keto, vegan, meat only, eggs and grapefruit, etc, etc. Its totally your choice and the motivations guiding your choice can be whatever you want. The issue is that most people don't obsess over their food choice to the extent you do. It's not necessary. You're becoming mired in dietary concerns that can't be helping your anxiety.

You said that you weren't hungry initially on keto, but then had become hungry. So I suggested you eat exactly the same breakfast (the sausage one you detailed above) so that you could verify whether this was true. But you said you were trying to,avoid sausages or something similar. That's a good example of many of your responses. You overcomplicate or prolong simple decisions, or make a deflecting statement so the problem is never solved, necessitating further excruciating post mortems of your food choices and prolonging every discussion beyond a normal length.

I don't doubt you feel hunger, but hunger may be benign. We all feel hunger. You've been advised to snack between meals, but I've seen no response about whether you've tried that. Genuine suggestions of how to augment meals, such as I made above (soup, salad, veg) have been tossed aside with a brief reply, almost as though you don't want your problem solved. That's why I made the comments about a crutch. You're over-focussing on this problem and, in my opinion, that has become your raison d'être.

That's why I said I thought you should shift your focus more outwards than inwards. If you were busy, with other people, doung new things, helping others, etc, etc, you might find your symptoms were less at the forefront of your mind.
 

I'm not saying they are not real. I'm saying that you think the hunger cravings are created by my mind. I don't believe that and I think it serves the discussion no purpose to persist. I've already acknowledged that's a possibility but since neither of us know for sure and there's no way to find out it takes us nowhere. I would rather exhaust the physical aspect before accepting it to be psychosomatic. Just because one presents with anxiety, it does not follow that their issues are psychosomatic.

I am not saying you are being insulting, I'm saying that focusing on this is fruitless and, because it can't be proven by either of us, I think its unproductive to persisting with the notion this must be the explanation.

What you call defensive is my wishing to stick to a particular diet until it kicks in or it becomes counter productive. To do that I need to determine what is happening. this is why simply saying 'it's anxiety' is not helpful. Just saying to someone that's six weeks into a woe that requires commitment to make it work to just do something else is counter productive. It may turn out that is the correct thing for me to do, but, as i have tried to explain before, you can't just chop and change with keto. Either you stick with it, or you abandon it. You can't just eat a few carbs, see how you feel, do whatever. The whole purpose of this is to adapt the body to use fat instead of sugar. This is more than just eating less carbs. I am interested in the goal of fat adaptation. For all I know it could kick in tomorrow, or next year. There is no way of knowing and, unfortunately, the diet relies on a lot of hearsay and anecdote as a methodology - what works for one person may not work for me. Heck, it is entirely possible that 20g carbs may be too much for me. I may be that carb sensitive - or not! You can't know these things.

You had said I should try the meals I was eating initially. I agreed and did so. It didn't make a difference. I had said previously that I wanted to move away from sausages (because they are processed and largely offal, not a regular cut of 'proper' meat). I think you've confused those two statements. Since one is eating a greater amount of meat on this diet, it's important to eat good quality meat.

Yes, obviously everyone feels hunger. But I am referring to a degree of hunger that, imo, is not normal. Certainly not in my experience. I have never experienced hunger of the like that I have had these past nights. That in my view is not a product of mere stress, nor is it the norm for me. Ever. So understandably it needs to be looked into. Some people believe it's part of the adaptation process, how can I be sure? Do I wait a couple more weeks and then decide whether or not to continue?

Yes, I have tried snacking, hence the response above: when discussing leptin and insulin resistance, from what i have read online (and where else will you find out?), that should be avoided, particularly at night, because it further exacerbates the problem. You need to normalise your leptin system which won't happen when your body receives mixed signals about when to eat and when not to eat, plus each time you eat you produce insulin. Now i will snack if i have to, i'm not about to starve myself to death, but again I want to find out what's causing this. If it's anxiety, will giving in to the cravings reinforce the problem? However the cravings are severe. I don't think I can continue enduring this much longer and i can foresee in the next few days making some changes.

But that's my right, as it's my body.
 
Whether your symptoms are caused by a medical problem or not, over focussing and dissecting them is unwise, in my opinion. By that, I don't mean the logical things you're doing like trying out keto for X amounts of weeks - that's sensible. I simply mean the over attention to minutiae and over- questioning of everything in a way that goes beyond normal querying.

You asked how you could check for insulin resistance - your doctor could arrange a C Peptide blood test that looks at the amount of insulin your body is producing. Too much insulin can be one cause of hunger as can higher than normal,blood sugars (and many other causes too, of course).

Yes, it's your body - that's the point. What suits you may be different from what suits other people. Do what you find works best for you. That's all any of us can do.
 

The physical feelings of anxiety are real. They are the biological response to chemicals, caused by anxiety, flooding your body. The idea of separating mind and body is inaccurate. You cannot dismiss these physical reacts or anxious feelings by an act of will. But you can recognise that they are caused by anxiety, and initiate relaxation techniques to help them subside.
 

How many calories are you eating a day? You may feel hungry because you are hungry. I seem to remember, on this thread, you mentioned quite a low calorie figure.
 
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