Just curious. I don’t always count my carbs, but I have been journaling the lat few days for my Endo. I noticed I’d been taking in around 12g carbs a day. This varies, of course. I don’t always eat perfectly and I hardly ever count my carbs so precisely as I have this week (weighing things out and looking them up and doing calculations). I stick mostly to a low carb diet, but make educated guesses for the most part for my veggies and stuff.
I don’t think many would eat less that 20g. you start cutting out too much veg/salad. Though I wouldn’t do it,. A pre-insulin recipe book may help …bolus for carbs and 25-50% of the protein grams
I eat less than 20! Five meals per day, usually the 2nd and 3rd meal will contain vegetable carbohydrate in the form of zuchini, spinach, okra, or something very similar to these. This amounts to less than 15g per day typically. Every meal is centered around protein. Its so much easier for me to manage. I think if you cant count carbohydrate and keep your bg under 120 then this is a viable alternative. I never mastered carb counting, so i gave up.
how does one feel full on less than 20 carbs per day? I can’t sleep if I am not full and hard to be full with that low of carbs. I think I eat 50 carbs per day or maybe more but don’t count and so busy hard to do it. Guess I need to try to write down. Meat can fill me up, protein nuts fish, etc. I just don’t know how one is full on that low of carbs?
Personally, I find protein to be most filling, then fats, and least filling are carbs. I eat moderate to low-carb (less than 50g per day, including fiber, most days), and sometimes I have to force myself to eat more protein because I’m just full already…
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I think from what people say, there is a transition period. You start feeling awful at first, and then after about a week or so, your body adapts to burning fat as its primary fuel. Or at least, that’s the lore… I have tried these low carb approaches and always feel uniformly awful for at least a week, and then I typically give up. For me, the issue is not feeling full; typically people who eat low-carb report a reduced appetite. It’s just that I always felt lethargic and ill and grappled with a constant headache and the feeling of being mentally dull. Then again, I’m not a diabetic, so there was little reason for me to persevere.
I think it works better for some people than others. We recently did an analysis of our son’s insulin/carb needs and we found that reducing his carbs too much was inducing high levels of insulin resistance and we were concerned it was tied to his development of moderate ketones. We started letting him gorge on his carbs, upped his basal, and this is what his last few days looked like:
Compared with the four days prior, when he was eating fewer carbs. Total daily dose of insulin was the same, just distributed differently:
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Everyone is different i suppose. I had been “low carb” since the age of seven, and it never worked for me. Blood sugars bounced back and forth even while eating supposedly good carbs like oatmeal, sweet potatoe, brown rice, etc. It took eliminating all carbs but the few vegetables for me to get flat, consisent blood sugar. I just couldnt do it on low carb, even with how rediculously fast humalog works, i would spike and rebound constantly. I personally have felt a huge improvement in all aspects of life physical, mental, and emotional since removing sporadic blood sugar.
My son is four years old, nondiabetic, and he eats this way as well. He was easy to convince, all i had to do was tell him that muscle is built out of protein and now that is all he wants. He is doing very well and seems to be completely normal in physical and mental development. His energy is extremely high. Not sure if this is sustainable long term, that remains to be seen 
I am currently on Day 11 of Keto diet. I am trying to do this to lose weight, as nothing works for my middle aged hypothyroid and diabetic body.
I am trying to eat as follows: 15 g of carbs, 120 g fat, 60 g of protein. I am mostly hitting close to range.
The first 2 days I felt nothing. Apparently lost about 2 kg over the first 5 days. Then gained most of that back over the next 5. So much for rapid water weight loss! I am cutting calories a bit further and today finally saw a drop after 4 days of rises.
Day 4 and 5 I had bad headache all day, day 6 and 7 also upset tummy with lots of running to the toilet. That is now resolved. Also pretty bad brain fog and short term memory problems. Even drove the wrong way into a 1 way street. Thank goodness that ended safely and without a ticket! Don’t how that happened - but very scarey. Don’t drive or handle heavy equipment when entering ketosis!!! Brain feels back to normal now - though I don’t know how I appear to others… :\ I am still feeling hot a lot of the time. I think this is to do with burning fat as main energy source. I am still having a bit of indigestion. I am still try to wrap my head around eating so much fat!
Weight is currently 1.7 kg lower than the day I started and seems to be up and down quite a bit. Nothing to get excited about. Also my calories are pretty low 1200 - 1500 / day before exercise.
I still need basal insulin. Currently 8 - 12 units every evening. The amount depends on how many calories I ate that day / evening… more I need 12 units, less I need 8 units. I am not using bolus insulin with this diet (with both lowish protein and very low carb), though i have done corrections here and there with a unit or two of fast acting insulin.
Oh, I am also feeling hungry. Thought you’re not supposed to on keto. I am still waiting for that to stop.
However, I do feel that this is a diet plan I can fairly easily stick with… and I plan to until I’ve lost the 20 or so kg I need to lose - maybe 6 months? After which I plan to increase both the carbs (maybe 25 - 30 g), and the protein (75 g) to a level where I neither gain nor lose.
Let’s see if I can stay the course.
I would be concerned about your body going into starvation mode and holding onto weight for dear life with a diet of less than 1600 kcals per day… But every body is different. I wish you the best of luck with losing weight; I’m trying to do the same. 
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I reckon I’m one of those people who would survive any famine. I can gain weigh on 1600 cals a day. 2000 is a steady trajectory up. Does it make sense? Not from what i know of physiology and sports science, even logically… but if energy is good, blood sugars pretty stable, and feeling well - then what works works…
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I’m squarely in your camp as well and have been for most of my adult life. I must average between 1400 and 1500/day or I’m gaining.
I am about a month into a keto diet after trying the Zone. Couple of thoughts that have helped me, you may not be drinking enough water and/or may vitamin or mineral deficient.
For water take your weight measured in pounds and cut it in half, this is the number of ounces of water you should drink in a day. For me that is 150 pounds divided by two equals 75 oz of water. That is over TWO LITERS of water a day!! I can tell you if I don’t hit that mark I do not loose weight or feel well (for me I get headaches).
I would also recommend a really good multivitamin and don’t be shy with Salt. I find Costco or your local health food store will have a pretty reputable selection of vitamins. As for Salt, Keto diets make your body excrete Sodium so you need a higher intake. A Glucose based diet makes the body retains sodium hence all the general nutritional warnings you see about lowering sodium intake. I make sure there is between 1/2 and 1 teaspoon per day added to my meals.
Try the water and multivitamin, if you still feel lowsy try adding 1/4 tsp of sea salt at each meal. When I feel a headache coming on I add another 1/4 to 1/2 for the day.
Good luck!
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Like you guys, I think my daily caloric requirement is well below 1,600 calories. I would guess i eat 1,200 to 1,400 calories a day. I am not overweight and am not trying to lose weight…this is what keeps me at equilibrium. I feel fine on that amount of food. Dipping below 1000 calories, meanwhile, makes me pretty miserable.
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In the months leading up to my T1 diagnosis I was a carbohydrate eating machine. I was eating at least 2200 calories a day, mostly things like yogurt, bread, cake, and cinnamon toast. People talk about weight loss as a symptom, but for me it was eating like crazy and not gaining an ounce. Ever since being diagnosed and going on insulin, I’ve been hyper vigilant about my food intake because I refuse to let T1 make me gain weight. To bring it back to the topic of the thread, I’ve always thought I would probably be fine hunger-wise on keto because I find the satiety of fat to be very high for me.
Thanks for your inputs. Am drinking more water than i ever did. I’m. Always generous with salt. Need to work harder on taking vitamins regularly, though…
Hey there, glad to help in any way. I would STRONGLY encourage you to measure your water intake. One thing I have learned with this diabetes ordeal is what “dosage dependent” really means. Just because you are drinking more than you ever have doesn’t mean you are drinking enough to loose the weight or remove the toxins that are trapped in the fat you are starting to burn. Honestly if I am off by a cup and that would be 8oz of the 75-85oz I drink every day I either don’t loose weight or start to feel crappy.
Couple of other points to remember when calculating your water:
- coffee, tea, juices, sugar free sodas DO NOT count towards your water, they are water neutral.
- If you drink alcohol you need to up your amount by about the same volume of alcohol you drink. Since it is a powerful diuretic you have to make up for the water you loose from it. Personally I add oz for oz with wine and half the oz I drink of beer. So if I have a couple of glasses of wine with dinner I add another 8 oz of water to my intake that day.
- Be sure to have all your water consumed before your last meal of the day. You definitely want to be done drinking a minimum of 2 hours before you go to bed for the night.
I used to think I was the king of hydration before I was on this plan. But I wasn’t, I would drink a liter to a liter and a half if I was active maybe a little more. What an amazing difference this has made for me.
Good luck and be well. Oh yeah get some vitamins!!
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Drinking lots of water is a good thing. But I just want to caution people that it is possible to drink too much water. “Water toxicity” is a very real thing and, in extreme cases, can lead to serious electrolyte imbalances that cause cardiac arrhythmias, some of which are serious enough to lead to death. Unfortunately, I have seen this occur.
How much water is too much? It varies from person to person, so I do not have an answer to this question. Just be mindful of not overdoing it…
hyponatremia… familiar with it from triathlon organising and participating days… we saw it in athletes very occassionally. 2 L /day should not be extreme. For now I drink to thirst. Drinking much more than usual, as prior I wasn’t thirsty ever. Now I feel thirsty… new sensation! But I will measure how much now. I have a really cool 600 ml water bottle sitting on my desk at work now.
Good news. Apparently down 6 lbs in 2 weeks of effort (that is a record in my life), while still actually eating something (the only time I have ever lost this much weight before in this time frame was when in hospital on IV and unable to eat for 2 weeks, and when I had dengue last year (but that was only 5 lbs lost)…
The weight has been up and down, but this seems almost miraculous. And I am feeling good energy wise.
Blood sugar is stable. I am now on my ‘minimal’ basal dose of 12 Units in the evening, and only occassional 1 - 2 unit corrections needed during the day (i am trying to keep blood sugar ideally in the 80s). Fasting this morning was 82! Looks like I can’t ‘Stop’ insulin as all my ‘fanatic’ friends have been promising. On the other hand they are type 2 and I am ???. If this keeps up I might just get an hba1c below 5.0 next time… happy dance…
I saw a friend yesterday who I haven’t seen in a few weeks. She took 1 look and said. What have you done! You look different, you look terrific. i replied; I’m wearing makeup for a change and i coloured my hair! Hahah! But it’s true, my skin and complexion has changed! This seems to agree with me. And I am not finding it hard to do… nor feeling deprived. Certainly helped by the fact that I can still enjooy a glass or two of wine on this plan, with apparently no impact…
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I feel full eating keto. I still crave chips, pasta, sushi…but when I eat those things, I ride the roller coaster of horrible highs followed by lows for sometimes days. Plus, I’m never satisfied hunger wise. Eating keto, I’m not “thrilled” to eat my meat and low carb veggies meal, but I am never hungry and get fantastic blood sugars. That’s why I’m choosing to eat this way.