Hi ladies!

Still doing Keto and loving it. I saw above that you are discussing ratios. The group that I am following suggests not worrying so much about calorie intake when first starting. It takes 4-6 weeks to become "fat adapted". During that time the focus should be on grams more than ratios. Average for a woman: 50-60 grams of protein, double the protein gram amount in fats, so approx. 100-120 grams of fat and keep carbs under 20 grams. Some count total carbs, others deduct fiber to get net. I do net. I'm averaging 1500-1600 calories a day, which is way under the 1700 that I set for myself in Maint. and I feel so much better, not hungry at all. Not working out much except for walking and bike riding and I am not eating back my calories when I do exercise.

Liana, I also use the free MFP and I was able to set up 5% carb, 20% protein, 75% fat. I focus on the grams per day than the %. So far I'm down 5 lbs and inches all over, with 3 alone on my waist. I don't feel hungry and just this week I'm no longer feeling the need to snack in the afternoon and I don't even feel hungry for dinner until at least 7. I usually eat lunch around 1. Last night...I had Pork Belly for the first time in my life.:stir: It was amazing!

Thanks for sharing Catlady! I think maybe I have a few too many carbs slipping through - I tend to be around 30 net carbs. I am maintaining beautifully after 4 or 5 weeks but I really need to be losing weight. I am trying to do this in lieu of IP Phase 1.... I may give that up though and go back to IP to lose and come back to keto for maintenance.

Do you have a sweet tooth? Do you have any recommended keto friendly sweet food items?
thanks
cheryl

Hi Cheryl,

OMG yes! I have a total sweet tooth. I especially love fat bombs, and you can get so many recipes on Google or Pinterest. If you don't want to bother with making something, Lily's brand chocolates is sweetened with stevia and is Keto friendly.

Hi Catlady,

How long have you been doing keto? Have you lost from the outset? Did you switch from IP to keto for weight loss or just doing it as reboot? Are you stats currently correct? I am asking all these questions because I am planning to transition off IP in 2 weeks and lose remaining 25 pounds on keto so I am doing a lot of planning for how to be successful from the outset so anything else you can share would be much appreciated!

Hi Ro and all other Maintainers!

I started Keto on 10/3. I had a drop of 5lbs the first two weeks but seem to have stabilized right now at 150 lbs. That's ok. I know from IP it takes the body a while to catch up. But I am steadily loosing inches. My belly bloat is definitely going down. I did P4 style 3:1 for most of 2015. Towards the end of last year I eased into a more "traditional" style of eating, not SAD, but adding more carbs than I had before because I was so tired of tracking and figuring ratios. It caught up with me and I went from my 143-145 happy place to 150-155. I wasn't happy so I went back to P1. That didn't work because I was so hungry all the time. I tried a mix of P1/P2 and that got me back to around 147-148 but the minute I reintroduced carbs I went right back up again. I started looking for a way to reduce carbs but not be so hungry and through my research I found Keto. I had previously done Paleo before IP but wasn't successful. Too many carbs for me. I have become seriously carb intolerant.

I look at lots of different sites, but here are a few of my favs: Maria Emmerich(I also have her cookbook, Easy Ketogenic recipes, which I highly recommend), I Breathe I'm Hungry, All Day I Dream about Food. I have Jimmy Moore's Keto Clarity book coming from the library. That is sort of the Keto bible. Do all the research, follow the guidelines, 5% carb/80% fats/15% protein and you should loose that last 25 lbs with ease.

The Facebook group I joined is called Ketogenic Success. Lots of encouragement, just like on this page, and great recipes and discussions.

You can do this.

Hiya Andrea. The IF and keto is going good for me. I do keep losing and gaining the exact 2 lbs every other day. Sort of funny but I am svelting down lol. So I just need to close my eyes to the scale because I DO KNOW BETTER. One thing I need to focus on is getting all my protein macro in. It can be difficult when you really only feel like 1 meal and I need to remember that I don't have to eat to my fat gram limit. Just to satiety. For me carbs can be 5 net or 25 net but I'm trying not to go over. I have really good news about my thyroid but I'm on patrol at work and don't have much time to get into detail right now. I'll post on that within the next couple days on multiple platforms.
Carry on Maintainers!
Liana

Thanks! Ruled.me is another great site. I have that book along with recipes from the sites you mentioned.
I have all of George Stella's cookbooks - I think he (and his family) has an amazing story! And, I love his mindset about his recipes which were to make low carb versions of the things he enjoys.

Other sites I have recently found are damndelicious.com, wickedstuff.com, laughingspatula.com, healthylivinghowto and sugarfreemom.com. I found these plus ruled.me to be great sources of main meal recipes as I was lacking those along with many other recipes.

I had a such a big drop on IP on Monday that I may just stay with this a bit longer to ride the weight loss wave. This month and next were my biggest losses the last time I did this so I'm checking to see if that holds true this time. So far, I am off to a good start with a 6.3 loss in the first week of Month 5!
To prepare for keto, I started my blood testing today so I can get baselines of my reactions to IP products and meals to alternatives and then to keto so I feel I have a good plan.

Keep up the good work!

Hi Ladies! Checking in to see how everyone is doing. After finishing my reboot in Sept, I am back at the gym and enjoying it.

I still feel like I continue to battle the same 10lbs again and again. I noticed when I get off P1 I tend to have wide swings (either 100% OP or heavily struggling). It's like I feel so "deprived" I kind of lose my mind a bit...and undo a lot of my hard work. . It takes me some time to settled down into one splurge day a week, a day of recovery and P4 the rest of the week. Of course this time of year starts getting tough with all of the parties and food. I swear, if it's not at home, it's at work.

Some fun news. My IP coach was choosen to beta test some new IP products and she had to pick 10 of her clients to participate. I am her P4 client. It is an app, activity monitor and scale. It is a 4 week program and I am nearly a week in. Lots of testing and feedback. Still trying to decide what I think about it. Since I have been using a Fitbit and Aria for the last 1.5yrs I have a literal side by side comparison. Will keep you guys posted!

Hey CTC,
Good to hear from you!
To be honest with you, I wish I could have your "problem" of fluctuating 10 pounds - I'd feel like a huge success if I can achieve that in maintenance!!! For me, it is more like 50+, but I am bound and determined to break this 3 decade yo yo-ing.

I had to read your post twice to understand as when I read "products", I just assumed you meant new foods but it sounds like they are designing some monitoring devices. It is interesting that they think there is a market for their stuff as the ones you mention are popular and it will be tough to get a portion of that market share. It is funny that you bring this up as I have been doing some of my own comparison analysis too in preparation for phasing off. I started testing blood glucose and more frequent blood ketone tests. I wanted a baseline from IP which I got this past week. This week I will get comparison metrics for alternative products as I run out of IP products in a couple of days but I have some HealthSmart and Quest stuff that I'll test to compare to IP. I will then compare those to my phase off with a keto lifestyle. I'll be able to tell without a doubt if my body reacts to dairy, whey protein or fat, etc. I find it pretty enlightening so far.

Please continue to share what you find. And, on a serious note, Congrats on your maintenance - from the surgery to keeping the weight off!

:haphal:Happy Halloween Maintainers!

I'm so happy to see some action in this thread again.

Week 5 of Keto starts today and I'm still going strong. The discipline of IP has stuck with me. No point in cheating and I don't even want to. Haven't seen a big drop but I know better than to measure myself by another's yardstick. This last 10 pounds will probably be similar to when I was on IP. It drags out for what seems like forever.

Liana: Happy to hear that Keto is working out for you at last. I'm excited to hear your thyroid news. I take it it's good news?

I am participating in a No scale November. Today I weighed and I'm going to try my very best not to get on the scale again until Nov. 30. I am a scale addict. I looked back and I have been weighing myself every day since Feb. of 2011. I live alone so hiding the scale will not work. But I have to trust this process. I dropped to 149 yesterday, but bloat is still going down and so are inches. Annddd... the biggest plus for me is that I'm not hungry. Some days I only eat two meals! Plus I can have sweets in limited quantities and sauces and bacon & CHEESE!!!

Ro22: thanks for list of the websites. I will definitely check those out.

Whatever method we are using we are winners! We are maintaining our weight or catching it before it spirals out of control because we know we are in charge.

Happy Halloween! 🎃🕸👻 Hope everyone is having a great day. Dealing with some middle school girl drama. Boy, I never had this with my son and it is all new to me. Yikes!

Sorry for the confusion on my prior post. I can see how it could be confusing.

And thanks Ro and Catlady for the reminder to celebrate the wins. Success can seem relative and I needed the reminder how far I've come. You, of course, are totally right. Thank you!

Hi Maintainers!! About the thyroid news.... Thanks to 200 mcg of selenium daily I have gone from 1108 U/ml TPoAb (thyroid antibodies) down to 407 U/ml in 6 months. That's an amazing 63% decrease! I'm keeping it up as studies show the decrease will continue. I need to get it down to normal <60 U/ml. That will mean no immune system attack killing off my thyroid. I'm sooo glad to have caught this before it actually becomes full blown Hashimoto's Thyroiditis and requires meds.

Sounds like everyone is doing great on their plans!! Keep it up!
Liana

Liana,

I don't know much about it but congrats on finding this treatment for yourself!

Hey Ro22: here's the study in PubMed:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17696828

Thanks!