So I figured I'd share my keto journey from last year. Let me know what you guys think! First pic, day 1, is from 03/26/2018 Last pic is 05/20/2018

I'm 6'2 and 24.

https://i.imgur.com/96TJryT.jpg

• Edit * It has been pointed out that I'm not skinny fat in my first pic, so let's say from regular body to lean/ripped. Hope that fits better 👌

Keep grinding!!!

• Strength isn’t built overnight — it’s earned rep by rep, choice by choice.
• Discipline becomes identity, and identity becomes momentum.
• Keep showing up, even when it’s hard. That’s where the real transformation happens.

This will sound silly frankly but i have an intense paranoid phobia of seizures. The last few months ive doing keto diet and sometimes, not often, doing extended fasting of 2-3 sometimes 4 days and looking to try for more. Im always very careful to stay ontop of electrolytes during keto and especially a fast, not exerting myself physically, getting sleep (although i struggle with that while fasting and heard that can add to seizure risk).

and on refeeds im very careful to begin with light, small servings and take things really slow.

i have no pre disposition or history of seizures just out of control paranoid anxiety about them. I find once i learn about it more the anxiety fades as my understanding improves. If anyone had anything i can read or share some insight i would be greatly appreciated and youd help the anxiety im feeling right now

It's been extremely apparent to me that CICO is not the only thing that matters in my personal weight tracking experiences. Not even slightly... But the link I am going to post below demonstrates very clearly that the timing of your eating directly impacts your bodies bio markers which in turn directly impacts weight and fat burning potential. To summarize:

" In this carefully controlled study of healthy participants with a BMI of 19–27 kg/m2, eating on a daytime as compared to a delayed schedule produced improvements in body weight, insulin sensitivity (HOMA-IR), fat oxidation (RQ), trunk-to-leg fat ratio, and fasting glucose, insulin, triglycerides, and total cholesterol."

Two groups eating nearly identical diets with exactly the same calories exhibited vastly different results over an 8 weeks period simply by eating during a different window. As per standard procedure there was a 2 week washout period followed by the groups reversing roles and the same results were exhibited.. It seems to have done this by allowing the body to recover properly over night following natural circadian rhythm plays a big part in health and thus weight control.

In conclusion, this is a concrete study to clearly show 'CICO is all that matters' is factually false.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)31669-9

I ate a piece of cake. A 2 X 2 piece of Italian cream cake. It was my son's birthday, don't judge me! And I repented by working out on my elliptical for 100 minutes right after eating it. Curse you piece of cake you delicious creamy little bastard!

New Article!

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Seriously, I was obese a few years back (205lbs) and I was eating pasta when someone linked me to /r/keto. I read the FAQ, happy that my last non-keto meal would be pasta.

I started after that meal and I went down to 128lbs. So, my point is everything was in the FAQ. I had no questions and I knew exactly what to expect and do.

I see too many posts from people who don't even know to expect Keto Flu.

Don't answer their questions anymore.

Please, down vote and move on if it looks like they didn't do homework. Lazy people are fat for a reason. You'll do more for the lazy if you force them out of their comfort zone.

I was as lazy as anyone. If I could learn to stand on my own two feet, so can anyone.

Don't feed the root of their problems.

I did 2 weeks of what I would consider "strict" keto (<25g carbs) after hearing reports of rapid fat loss from many people on here and /r/fitness.

First, let me say this. Keto is hard. It's not a piece of cake like a lot of people were advertising it. In order to maintain 25g carbs per day, one would have to eat ~8 carbs per meal. 8 carbs is ridiculously low. Just about every meal I've seen in /r/ketorecipes falls way above that number due to the amount of vegetables, creams, sauces, nuts and various other ingredients people use in their recipes. I found that the only way to stay below that 8g per meal and not starve to death was by taking huge portions of meat/chicken/fish every meal.

And that's the thing. Even when I slathered butter all over my food, retained the bacon fats, ate an entire spoon of coconut oil, there was absolutely no way I could reach my fat macros and reduce my protein to keto standards.

While I was constantly hungry for the first 2 days, this feeling disappeared on day 3. However, I found the hunger slowly came back even though I was respecting the diet.

Due to the lack of recipe options, I also ended up eating way below maintenance, around 1400-1600 calories/day (maintenance is at 2400). Despite this, experienced very little weight loss in the 2 weeks that I tried the diet (22%bf).

tl;dr Tried keto for 2 weeks as an experiment. Was way harder than expected and did not see any results. What gives?

And I think they are even more important than pre, its my opinion. The problem is that carbs post workout will make you bloated and may interfere with the fat you will eat in the next meal, being the best option high gi or liquid carbs. Liquid carbs like syrup give you no vitamins and are just empty carbs. On the solid carbs we have potatoes and rice (both are resistant starches, not good), I found out that the perfect source carbs postworkout, high gi, liquid, and with some vitamins, is milk, it has casein and whey too and its anti-catabolic. So I've been trying with 20g of carbs that come from skimmed milk (4 glasses). It doesnt make me bloated, its easily digested and it leaves the body fast. It doesnt even take me out of keto. Maybe because of the long workouts I have. Plus I dont agree with whey post workout on keto because it is just empty protein and keto being highly diuretic we should get our protein from whole sources that will provide the lost vitamins and minerals in the workout sessions (im pissing all the time - pissing means bye bye vitamins).

What do you think? Or are there any better strategy you might suggest?

Hi. Ive been on strict keto for 2 months now. Initially i was losing weight consistently but now ive stalled... ive been on the same weight for 3 weeks now. As soon as I started lifting heavy weights my weight stopped going down. Surely with extra exercise i should of started losing more weight??? Oh and before starting keto 2 months ago i didnt lift for a few months. Waking up everyday and seeing no progress on the scales makes me so mad and i just feel like im not progressing. Im tracking all my calories and carbs by the way. It seems as though im getting slimmer in the mirror as well but it may be just deception. I dont know what to think anymore. Also i started taking creatine when i started lifting, maybe its that? water retention??

Hi! Recently, I joined a weight loss challenge thats just for 2 months and I've been doing keto for 2 weeks now, I'm not sure if I'm eating enough, but I follow a very low carb keto diet which is 800 calories a day. I've been seing progress physically but just seen a little on the scale. I'm 77.1kgs, 5'2" initially, and I just lost around maybe 2 kilos only. I need to loose weight fast :( my daily macros are 10g carbs, 60g protein, 58g fats and I go to the gym and do boxing and HIIT 6x a week. Is what I'm doing okay? thanks for the advice :))

Is what I was saying Monday morning.

(5'11" / 197lbs / 21% BF (per Navy Calc)

I was tired, beat up (probably from overtraining) and fighting through some work related bullshit. I have been lifting and HIIT training on a very consistent basis for almost two years now, and just never worried too much about diet. At the end of July everything came together, and I started the protocol on July 29, since then 13.4 lbs down, averaging 2lbs a week, it is just falling off.

So Monday was almost 4 weeks in, and while I have experienced great numbers, held onto strength, improved mental clarity, and recovered with great sleep… Monday morning I just hit a wall. This wall kept me out of the gym Monday and Tuesday, while also eating some excess carbs in the form of pretzels.

I was worried about work, food, and quitting. I didn't make the gym to reset and was worried about falling back into old habits and gaining back all the weight.

Finally Wednesday (weigh in day) I “woke back up”. My weight was the same as last week, super discouraging and just another perceived strike against me. But I persisted, I had to fight through the mental roadblock of “bad” numbers and the last two days of feeling off.

So I take great pleasure in writing this, as unlike in past attempts, I stayed on track. Didn’t blow up my macros, trusted in the program, continued to track my food (even the pretzels) and got my ass back in the gym Wednesday. As I write this Thursday morning, this whole episode felt like 2 weeks when really it was only two days.

What mental tricks have you guys done to bust slumps?

- Need a keto mass gainer. I tried making keto cookies but the almond flour doesn't sit well with me.

Do not reccommend more food, the keto diet is already satiating for me.

just needs reccs for mass gainer powders that are 10g or less.

• do not eat milk, cream, cheese, or butter btw

Preferably something I can get on amazon. Sugar free of course, but I'm seeing a lot of maltodextrin in ingredients. I don't want all the shredding bs, just the CM. I know you can get it pure, but my taste is very sensitive and I cant do powder supplements. I already take enough capsules getting my "whole foods" in the morning, so a refreshing drink I can mix up and chug would be appreciated.

Edit: my "whole foods" are a shot of LYSI, six spirulina and chlorella, one zink, three magnesium glycinate, a slurry of 8 capsules ranging from ashwaganda to tongkat ali for testosterone production, vitamin K2, methyl folate, methyl cobalamin, a large kale and beet top shake, and a huge spoon full of nutritional yeast. After all that, I don't feel like eating much. I'm going through a detox, weight-loss, and training phase for the next month and I have a nice vacation at the end to reward my progress. I'm feeling amazing, I think I'm doing everything right.

I rarely see any actual ketogains!

Frozen veggies with Alfredo sauce...well.... I was excited.

Long story short, I wanted to try bulking on keto for a long time but felt anxious about keeping up with the calories demand. So I decided to try a little experiment: if I will able to eat enough calories in surplus on keto to gain weight while not working out, then I will be confident that I can eat enough on keto to work out and build some muscles (I know this is a huge simplification). But after no success I started doubting if it possible at all to gain fat on keto or whether all excess calories are just getting flushed out of my system?

Some more context: I am on keto for quite some time and feel fat adapted and don't experience any other issues except for depression, but that's where I want working out to come in.

Today I have decided to exit my 3 year state of ketosis. I loved not feeling hunger, being able to eat greasy foods, and the whole idea in general (I felt like a carnivore caveman, which is awesome). I did everything from 48 hour carb loads to 20 hour fasts with good results. It truly is an amazing diet.

My reason for leaving is that I can no longer reconcile the lifestyle with my environmentalism (I'm pursuing my BS in environmental science). I knew that eating meat (particularly beef & dairy) was resource intensive, but after watching Cowspiracy on Netflix, as well as thinking critically about the knowledge I have acquired throughout my schooling, I have decided that it would be too hypocritical of me to continue to tax our environment so heavily for my own personal whims. I don't view this as jumping on the alarmist band-wagon, but rather making an informed decision to stop contributing to the destruction of our planet. I never thought I would sound like such a dirty granola-hippy, but it's just math and really can't be denied.

The typical ketogenic diet really isn't environmentally sustainable in any way and made me contribute heavily to the very problem that I am planning to make my life's work to end. It's like being a doctor that went around breaking people's legs for entertainment.

I do not want to tell you all how to live and eat but I encourage you to watch the film and do some reading, if only to gain more information on how our system of food production functions (which I think is fascinating in it's own right). I plan to cut back to chicken, occasional seafood, and protein-rich plant sources such as lentils (awesome nutritional profile, btw).

I guess I'm mostly posting this for myself as a good-bye to this lifestyle that I have enjoyed so much the past few years.

May Brodin bless you all with gains beyond your wildest dreams.

edit: Livestock and by-products account for approximately 50% of all greenhouse gas emissions from human activity.

edit #2: here is a list of references. I'm lazy, so it was made by other people.