Need help getting into ketosis!

Factual Questions
1

I’ve gotten so many different responses on what to do to enter ketosis, I figured some of the geniuses on this site may be able to help.

http://www.anabolex.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=354763#post354763

If you don’t feel like reading through the whole post, basically, I can consumre
high fat- butter , flax oil
high protein- chicken
high protein/high fat- eggs, hamburger patties, protein shakes (with or without flax and whipped cream)

Here are some stats on each:
butter- 7g fat, 0g pro, 0 carb
flax oil- 4.5g fat, 0g pro, 0 carb
chicken-1.5g fat, 26g carbs, 0g pro
egg- 4.5g fat, 6g pro, 1g carb
hamburger pattie- 20g fat, 21g pro, 0 carb

I can eat as much or as little of any of these things. Some people (in the post linked above) say eat ALL fat for a few days, some say get a bunch of protein in, but it seems that about 60%of protein converts into carbohydrates. HELP PLEASE! I really need to lose about 10pounds of fat while maintaining muscle mass. I weigh 160 pounds, BTW, and I’m around 15% body fat.

2

Forgot to mention that some said that if I eat TOO MUCH fat, it would be a worthless diet anyway…

3

…Just to note that ketosis is a very unhealthy state…

4

the starvation type is because you are breaking down protien to make glucose. If you are eating protien then you are not breaking down cells for the protien to form glucose. From that standpoint it is a normal way the body handles lack of carbs. Many early societies and some today (i.e. eskimo’s that don’t have a Mcd’s near by :wink: ) have people who are in ketosis for many months of the year - if not continously.

Normally induction, as in Atkins, takes 2 days on eating no more then 20g of carbs. You can jump start this by raising your level of activity a lot while not consuming any carbs. What I mean by a lot would be hike up a 3000 ft ascent (and back down) - add in a 1.5 hr hike to the start of the ascent. - and don’t eat carbs on the way or before or after. Afterwards you should turn the ketostic so dark purplr it should almost be black.

5

The consequences of ketosis include but are not limited to muscle breakdown, kidney problems, increased risk of heart disease, bad breath, dehydration, nausea, and even death.

The body needs a good balance of carbohydrates (found mainly in fruits and whole grains), proteins (nuts, tofu, meats, fish), and fibers (found mainly in vegetables and whole grains).

The flax oil is a good idea though. Americans typically dont get enough Omega 3 fatty acids in their diets.

On a side note, I know 3 people who have had constipation so badly because of the Atkins and the “Zone” diets that they have had to have surgery to correct them. This is because of all the meat and dairy. Meat and dairy foods cause constipation because of their lack of fiber and high fat content.

6

Not exactly many places to hike in the Louisiana area :(. I can EASILY cut out any carbs from my diet, but I am confused as to whether or not this is sufficient as many say that I need to intake a lot of fats, some say that I need to cut down the amount of protein that I consume, and some even say that I can’t eat too many fats or else the whole diet is worthless. Realize that I’m not exactly looking to stay in ketosis for a long period of time. Probably just about a month, if not less. I’m planning on quitting ketosis once I have a little bit of fat around the belly/love handles so as to convert it to muscle easily.

7

Ketosis is bad for the kidneys.
I tried this diet in the 70s and 80s and developed kiney failure
in the 90s. I am on dialysis now!

Cause and effect?
Who knows.

Why not try a more sensible diet.

8

that if you are still in the market for a good diet I have heard great things about the book

“Eat More, Weigh Less: Dr. Dean Ornish’s Life Choice Program for Losing Weight Safely While Eating Abundantly”

People (including my father) have had great results with this diet… and it is also quite healthy. Unlike Atkins’ diet, Ornish’s reduces cholesterol and reduces risk of heart disease and has many many other health benefits.

9

There’s another detriment to the Atkin’s diet, and others like it. You might lose weight while you’re on it, but how do you eat to keep it off afterwards? Specialty diets do nothing to train you to eat healthy later, and you can’t stay on them for a long time. This is the cause of the yo-yo effect–people get off a diet and immediately go back to their old eating habits, which is what got them to the point of wanting a diet in the first place.

10

But the key is that I won’t be on the Atkins diet for a very long period at all. Once I’ve lost the little fat that I need to lose (just need to lose it quickly), this is basically my daily diet that I’ve kept for the past 8 weeks. I know many of you will condemn it (please don’t bother), but I’ve been on a cycle of 250mg test cypionate a week and 50mg winstrol a day.

2 eggs in morning: 9g fat, 2g of carbs, 12g of protein
Protein shake in water: 3g fat, 4g of carbs, 19g protein
2 eggs for lunch: 9g fat, 2g carb, 12g protein
1 chicken breast after the eggs: 1.5g fat, 0 carbs, 26g protein
1 chicken breast at night: 1.5g fat, 0 carbs, 26g protein

Total: 24g fat, 8g carbs, 95g protein

Along with this, I have flax oil (4.5g fat serving- nothing else); butter (7fat seving-nothing else); peanut butter (16g fat, 6g pro, 8 carb); and hamburger patties w/o buns (21g fat, 20g protein, 0g carbs).

Basically, I need to lose ~10 pounds fat ASAP while losing as little muscle as possible. If I have to, I’ll eat nothing but butter and flax oil. After that, I’m willing to up the protein (of which ~60% turns to carbs) and increase my cardio activity to up the muscle and lower the B/F%.

11

I did the Atkins Diet about 5 years ago. I also started doing Tae Kwon Do, roughly 3 months after beginning Atkins. I had already lost roughly 20 lbs by that point, but the hightenend excercise sure did help. I lost 47 lbs in 5 months, and kept it off for almost 3 years.

The addiction to carbos is brutal, and almost all of it is back on- HOWEVER- it’s not as though it skyrocketed back on after 8 months, and then added on another 25 or something.

I’d been warned away from that diet for the reasons listed above. It did work for me, but was ( although I love a cheese omlette with sausage like nobody know will ever know… ) simply not something I could sustain.

Hopefully, a return to working out will shed some of what I find so detestable.

Anyway, to answer your O.P., you can indeed drop into a pretty good state of Ketoacidosis after 2-4 days. Maintaining that, and making sure your body doesn’t demolish itself, is the real key. You can NOT drink too much water, the kidneys are working overtime because of the increase in proteins you are taking in. Flush em out daily, drink glass after glass of water.

YMMV, IANAD.

Cartooniverse

12

Why are you doing this, Baba?

13

2 issues here - the increase of fat I think you are refering to is called a fat fast and no longer recomended by atkins. It is a way of breaking a platau not getting into ketosis (naturally your fat/oil intake will increase to make up for the lack of carbs). The 2nd is that protein intake in high %ages will cause an insulin spike just like carbs will. On a low carb diet this is what we are trying to avoid. The way around this is not to eat lean meats - make sure there is some fat on the bone and well marbled (and it will taste better too :slight_smile: .

Atkins is not a temporary diet - it is a lifestile change. The transition is admittadly hard on your body and is not something to do just to lose a few pounds in a month. That said it is one of the fastest ways to lose weight in a month - but mainly because you are depleating glycogen (which is stored in water) levels. If you return to ‘normal’ eating methods the glycogen lever will go back up right away and the extra weight of the water needed to store it will came back.

Unless you have a bet that you stand to win lots of $ this is not the thing to do and you will gain more weight in the long run. Hire a personal trainer who will kick your ass every other day would be a better option (also some will come to your house and steal all your Ding Dongs and HoHo’s at no additional cost.)

14

I don’t understand this at all. There is no magic formula or secret to dieting. Eat less and move more.

I lost 45 pounds a year ago in less than 3 months.

The only thing most people need is “willpower”. Books and Oprah can’t give you that.

If you have enough willpower to destroy your renal system, you certainly can lose weight in far safer ways.

15

I am also against the Atkins diet. I was on the diet for 8 months and lost some weight, but as mentioned above, once you go off the diet, the weight comes back on. There is no training for “after” the weight is gone.

My plan now is portion control and exercise. I’m down 22 pounds since December of 2001.

Please learn from my mistake, so you don’t have to go through the emotional pain.

Of course this is just a NAY vote in a sea of information. You may ignore it cause you feel that your experience will be different. And I must admit that everyone is different and that different diets work differently for different people. However, you had the sense to ask other people’s opinions before you take the plunge, I hope you have the sense to see that there are no short cuts for weight management. I dream of having the thyroid gland of the guy at work that can eat more than me and is a stick figure, but that just ain’t going to happen.

You need to work out more and eat less. That is the only proven, safe and effective long-term approach to weight management.

The government held a nutrition debate that had Atkins, Ornish, McDougal, The Zone guy, and a representative of the food pyramid. The text of the debate is floating around the internet. The only thing that all the panalists agreed on was that American’s eat too much sugar. They did not agree on anything else.

Exercise, of course, will not lose the weight for you. If you walk 2 miles a day, that’s only 400 calories or so. You could skip a couple of cokes to meet that amount. However, exercise will build muscle, help you sleep better, and increase your libido. It will also build your confidence when you go up fittness levels. Also, that’s an hour a day your not eating!

Of course if you eat well and exercise you will still die anyway, so make sure you know why you are trying to lose weight.

Group therapy helps to. We are holding a “Fat Boy” contest at work. We started in January and everyone pledged $50 dollars to lose 7% of their body weight in 13 weeks. The final weigh in is next friday. If you don’t lose the 7%, your 50 bucks will be shared by all that did. I made it. Whew!

Also, don’t try to lose 50 pounds, that’s really hard. Try to lose 10 pounds, then another 10 pounds. Reward yourself at each milestone. And don’t make your reward for losing 10 pounds include going out for dinner!

I lost my 7% or 22 pounds by doing the following. Every morning I got up early and worked out either on the treadmill or the recumbent exercycle. For breakfast I’d eat a grapefruit for fiber and vitamins. If I was still hungry, I’d eat some meat and/or cheese. For a snack at work I had a handful of pistachio’s. For lunch I have a chicken ceaser salad or a cobb salad. For dinner I have another salad, meat and potato or rice. Desert is fat free Jello, or a Sugar free Dole Juice Popsicle. All day I drink water, diet drinks sweetened with sucralose, and tea. The tea is also sweetened with sucralose. And once a day I have a little piece of chocolate, cause if I don’t have a little piece, it’s all I think about.

The biggest difference for me about this time’s plan is the portion sizes. I only eat half the lunch or dinner and then if I feel hungry later I go back and finish it. I also don’t eat if I’m not hungry. In the past I would have a huge lunch at work, but then feel compelled to eat another meal with the family cause I didn’t have the spine to say, I had a big lunch, I’m not hungry.

IF you ignore all the advice and you do go on the Atkins diet, read his book(s). Besides the food, he suggests you take vitamin suppliments. It is better to eat food containing the vitamins, as you get many more trace elements and phyto-chemicals. However, in the book he also says you should take a Psyllium supplement. Psyllium has lots of fiber to help push the meat and dairy through. Yeah, that might be a way to show you that the Atkin’s diet is a scam. If Dr. Atkins was really concerned about obese people, would he charge so much for his suppliments, shakes and bars? Wouldn’t he form a non-profit company to help out American’s in chrisis? But what did he do? He formed his own company and is raking in the bucks. Now do you trust him?

Good Luck,
-Sandwriter

16

“Also, don’t try to lose 50 pounds, that’s really hard. Try to lose 10 pounds”

LOL, you may have missed it, but if I lost 50 pounds, I would only weigh 110 pounds (and I’m a male)!

Again, thanks for all the responses, but yet again I haven’t gotten anything definitive. You see, what all of you people saying that the weight will come back on don’t understand is that I’ve ALREADY gotten in much better shape without losing weight over the past few years thanks to starvation diets (I was stupid), excercise, then a simple change in diet. My diet for the past few months have consisted of eating as much protein as possible due to the fact that (as mentioned in the link) I’ve been on a cycle of steroids. Please don’t get into the side effects of this, I’m willing to accept any consequences as they’re certainly worth the complements I’ve been getting. It just so happens, though, that this high protein diet IS ALREADY LOW ON CARBS, just high in protein which I’ve been told partially converts to carbs! It basically consists of a lot of eggs, a lot of chicken breasts, protein shakes, and A LOT OF WATER (between .75-2 gallons a day). I need to go on the atkins diet because there’s some excess fat around my stomach and love handles that I want to get rid of QUICKLY. I’m still going to leave some fat, though, as it will more easily allow me to turn it into muscle. I promise you that after the atkins diet, the only change in my intake will be a glass of OJ every morning, a Coke a week, and a trip to McDonalds every other week or so.

Thanks for the responses so far, but please, keep them coming so I can finally get this diet started!

17

Compliments are worth the risks you are taking from the steriods and the diet???

I don’t get it, and I lost 100 pounds on a low carb diet/exercise regimen last year, so this isn’t coming from someone who disapproves of low carb diets.

Why is it you need to lose this weight quickly, anyway? With your current weight and body fat percentage, it seems to me highly unlikely that you are going to lose the 10 pounds you want to lose quickly, although maybe the steriods will make a difference.

18

Yes these is - it is the maintance diet that allows more carbs - also know as the meat and millet diet. Basically there is no diet in the world that will work long term with out staying on it (at least the maintance part of that diet). I don’t know what study you are referring to but there was one where people when on atkins for a period of time and stopped and the people gained the weight back - well no $#!+ - that would happen with any diet once you stop. Atkins is more a lifestile change then a diet and if you take it as a diet you will be disappointed.

** BabaBooey ** it seems like you are into abusing your body for the complements - if this is how you wish to play the game of life then you might as well go for it but you have to understand that using a low carb diet for such a short amount of time will only give you temporary results and there is a good chance the weight will be back with a vengence.

I would recommend trying to up your fat intake and try to do it while you are eating the protein this should moderate the insulin spike from the protein.

Eggs are good, skip the brest and go for chicken w/ the skin (you may find dark meat tastes better), and try for a low carb shake instead of just a high protein shake.

19

You may consider it abuse, but I feel better than ever physically, and I look better than ever.

Exactly how much fat do you feel I should up? I add 9g fat from flax oil to my protein shake from “Carb Solutions” (3g fat, 4g of carbs, 19g protein) as well as a scoop of Cool Whip to cover up the terrible taste of the flax.

Although I don’t want people to stop making recommendations, I’m thinking about simply skipping ketosis while keeping my original diet and increasing my cardio activity heavily. When I first lost a lot of weight right after grammar school, I was running about 4.5 miles in an hour before I had to stop due to a leg injury (jet ski accident). I’m thinking about doing the same, but I’m worried about losing muscle in the process (didn’t have much muscle to lose at the time I did this), though I could just increase the amount weightlifting I do to make up for it.

Here is the diet I kept during my steroid cycle:

2 eggs in morning: 9g fat, 2g of carbs, 12g of protein
Protein shake in water: 3g fat, 4g of carbs, 19g protein
2 eggs for lunch: 9g fat, 2g carb, 12g protein
1 chicken breast after the eggs: 1.5g fat, 0 carbs, 26g protein
1 chicken breast at night: 1.5g fat, 0 carbs, 26g protein

Total: 24g fat, 8g carbs, 95g protein

I’ve been told that this is not enough fat or protein. How about I add a hamburger pattie sans buns for +21g fat, 20g protein, 0 carbs. Would I lose weight on this diet? Should I continue using the flax oil on this diet?

20

I am saying this as a atkins dieter for about 9 years and what I’ve found out from his radio show/ books and low carb support groups mainly.

That diet is a low carb diet and a low cal diet (about 700 cal’s /day = very low). I do not know the effects of steriods so I’m just ignoring them. This diet if kept up for 2 days will push you into ketosis so you may already be there. Have you bought a pack of ketosticks - if not go to the drug store and pick up some they will be helpful.
subbing the burger for a breast would look better from a low carb standpoint - no ketchup but you knew that already :wink: .

A small salid would help up the fiber.