I lost 25kg just by just counting carbs and another 10kg by counting carbs and calories in about 6 months total. I hit 12% bodyfat and have been maintaining since while building muscles. I have never been in better health in my whole life and I'm still amazed that at almost two years in that I can maintain a low and healthy weight without having to be hungry all the time. Which wasn't the case when I tried to just do CICO on a regular diet.
Some tips that come to mind:
- Ease into keto. For the first two or three weeks just limit your carbs and ignore calorie counting. If you try to change to what fuel your body runs on while pushing a calorie deficit and going through sugar withdrawals it's going to be rough. Keto works so well because it will suppress your hunger. Let the calorie deficit come naturally as you get adapted to keto instead of trying to force it.
- Same thing goes for Intermittent Fasting. IF should be something you do when you feel like you can do it with zero effort. If you need to "push it" to hit the fasting duration it's not going to be sustainable and it will likely cause you to crash hard. If you feel the need to eat, then eat.
- Keto is low carb, adequate protein and fat until satiety. This means you need to stay under 20g carbs (For some this might be a higher number but 20g is recommended to guarantee that you stay in ketosis at all time). Eat enough protein as defined by your lean body mass to prevent muscle loss. And eat fat until you feel you're satiated, no more. You might need more fat some days and less fat some days. As long as you're in an overall calorie deficit you will lose weight.
- Use as much as possible of your 20g carb budget on healthy vegetables like broccoli, zucchini, cabbage and so on. Keto is a low carb, not a no vegetable way of eating. Don't be the person that only eats meat and cheese for every meal. This is not healthy because you need to get the necessary nutrients and vitamins that meat and cheese won't give you. Vegetables also help fill you up while being low amounts of calories.
- Try to avoid drinking your calories. It does very little to satiate you and is an easy way to kill your calorie deficit. However this means that if you're coming up short on your protein goal due to the loss of appetite you can easily drink protein powder to make up for it.
- Don't worry about going over on protein, especially if you're physically active or exercise a lot. You might feel the need to eat more of it to feel satiated. If you do eat more protein, you will have to compensate by eating less fat to maintain a calorie deficit.
- Exercise is not necessary for weight loss. It has plenty of other health benefits but in the end losing weight is down to what and how much you put in your mouth. I do however recommend that you start lifting as soon as possible because building muscle takes much longer time than losing weight and if you get rid of all that unnecessary bodyfat you want something to replace it to make you look good without a shirt.
- You'll have to experiment regarding diet soda and other sweeteners. They might help stave off your carb/sugar cravings or they might spur them. I find that erythritol is the best sweetener in baking.
- Drink lots of water. Keto is diuretic and you will pee like a horse while your body adapts. Keep an eye on the colour of your urine to know how much you need. It shouldn't be clear as water and it shouldn't be dark yellow.
- Keep up on electrolytes. Because you are peeing a lot, because you eat less processed food and because carbs are what promotes sodium and water retention in the body you're likely going to be low on sodium. The usual recommended amounts are 5000mg sodium, 1500mg potassium and 500mg magnesium. You're going to have to feel your body and experiment to see how much you need to supplement if any. Either get them through food or supplements. Use regular salt for sodium, no/light salt for potassium and magnesium citrate for magnesium. The longer you keep at Keto the less you will need to supplement. But as soon as you start feeling lethargic, muscle soreness or brain fog it's likely going to be a deficiency in one of these three.
- Constipation might become a problem. But don't be worried if you only go once every 2-6 days. Keto is low waste because most of what you eat gets absorbed by the body. However, constipation is when you feel the need to go but can't. To help with this make sure you drink enough water and get enough magnesium and sodium. I cannot stress how important hydration is. Eating more fiber might help you to be more regular and you will have to experiment to find out, but if you're already constipated it's a bad idea to suddenly add a bunch of fiber that will act like extra mass and push on the blockage.
- Eating out is not a problem. Every place I've been to will gladly replace the fries/potatoes/rice/bread with a sallad if you ask them.
- Alcohol is easy. Stick to unflavored spirits like whiskey, cognac, vodka, rum, gin and so on. They're all zero or close to zero carbs. Dry wine is also okay in moderation and is around 2-3g carbohydrates per glass. Be sure to pace yourself because your alcohol tolerance will go down when you loss body mass and when you don't have a stomach full of carbs to soak it all up.
- Social pressure is not an excuse to eating unhealthy. If someone starts giving you shit for the way you eat, tell them that you do not question their eating habits and you would like them to return the favor.
- Weight-loss is a marathon, not a sprint. Your weight will fluctuate up and down by 2kg every day. If you feel like you're the person that will obsess and feel demotivated when the scale doesn't show a lower number every day then weigh yourself once a week or month instead.
- Weight is not always the best way to measure progress. You might find that you lose inches all over your body while your weight stays the same. It's why a lot of people suggest using a tape measure instead of a scale.
- I wouldn't recommend breaking keto even once during the first five weeks because it sets back your progress to becoming fully fat adapted. This might take anywhere from five weeks to several months and it's when the body is fully efficient at running on fat as fuel. If you exercise you'll know you have achieved fat adaption when your performance will have returned to the levels before you started keto. When you have achieved this you can start experimenting with raising your daily carb limit by 5g for a week at a time to see how much you carbs you can eat while maintaining ketosis. If you feel the return of extreme hunger and carb cravings you know you've gone over.
- The longer you do keto the easier it gets. I've been doing Keto for almost two years and I eat "normally" at major social gatherings without it having any effect on me and my ability to get back to keto the next day. Though, I find that I still gravitate towards eating low carb because it simply tastes better.
Whoops, that turned out to be a lot longer than I expected. If I've made any mistakes someone else feel free to correct me.
tl;dr Keep the meals simple, stay under 20 carbs and listen to your body. There's no need to over complicate things.
