Welcome to Week #3
By now, you are likely in ketosis – burning fat for energy.
Following a strict keto diet, you will track everything that goes into your mouth. Focus on consuming whole foods only; no processed foods or treats.
During week 3, you should also work at consuming all of your calories and macros within an optional 10-hour window (14 hours of fasting). Here is what a typical 10-hour eating window could look like:
Refer to the Recipes – Week 3 post for some great keto-friendly recipes.
This week, the following topics will be addressed:
It can be super frustrating when you embark on a weight loss challenge with others and they lose weight more quickly than you do. I experienced this when I joined my first challenge group; after already following the keto lifestyle for almost 6 months. In week 1, I lost 1.4 pounds and in week 2, I lost 0.8. A 2-week loss of 2.2 lbs. I was pretty content with this (keeping in mind that I had previously lost 40 lbs). However, when I began reading others’ posts, I was downright pissed. There were ladies who had dropped anywhere from 10-18 pounds in the same time frame! Ready to throw in the towel, I took some time to figure out why I was the not in the running for the ‘biggest loser’.
I needed to remind myself that I had already been following a keto lifestyle for 6 months. Recall that last week, I talked about that initial ‘big’ loss that many experience; the water loss. By the time I started my challenge, my water weight was gone and I was only 10 lbs away from my goal weight.
One of my challenge group members made a comment that truly resonated with me. I made a complaint about my minimal weight loss in our group chat. She responded with, “How I wish! Your starting weight in this challenge is my long-term end goal weight.” So, rather than comparing my 2.2 lb loss to the 10+ pound loss of others, I celebrated my loss … and congratulated those who were elated at their huge losses. I reminded myself that, only 6 months ago, I was in the ‘big weight loss’ category myself. That comment from my fellow challenge group member sticks with me each time I experience a plateau or when the scale goes up by a pound or two. You also need to remember this … your starting weight is someone else’s goal/dream weight.
Even if you are new to keto, there will always be someone who loses more than you. It typically stands that those with more weight to lose, lose more quickly … at least initially. Additionally, the keto community reports that the closer you get to your ideal weight, the slower the weight loss.
Take away point – worry about and focus on yourself and yourself only. Congratulate others on their successes and don’t compare their loss(es) with your own.
Side-note: Please don’t try and reduce your calories to lose more weight. During the preparation week, you calculated your calories and macros. If you followed the guidelines in the post What Are Macronutrients? your calories and macros were calculated in such a manner that, if followed, you will lose weight. Too many people think that lowering calories will help the process. But, this can send messages to your body that you are starving and your body will hold onto that fat.
I didn’t realize how much I snacked until I started keto. Some of my snacking was habit, some was emotional eating, and some was a result of cravings and just being plain old hungry!
By the time I was done week 1 of keto, I found that I didn’t have any real desire to snack. I was full after my meals and my cravings were gone. If you are still experiencing cravings at this point, don’t worry. We are going to talk about that next week.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with snacking on keto – as long as it is happening within your eating window and fits your macro and calorie allocation. The key to ‘good’ keto snacking is to ensure that your choices are low or zero carb. Many people opt to go with super healthy, low-carb snacks. Other prefer to snack on products that are high in fat – to produce the ‘full-stomach-feeling’ effect. (Keto people call these ‘fat bombs’ and this topic is addressed later in this section). Neither is necessarily better than the other …. although there is something to be said of the added vitamin and mineral benefits that come from munching on veggies. Then again, veggies contain carbs …. but the net carb total in veggies gets reduced if one is counting net carbs. Regardless, snacking is – clearly – an individual choice.
Below you will find some great visuals of low-carb and zero-carb snack ideas.
Fat bombs are energy bites for people following a ketogenic lifestyle. They are small snacks whose primary ingredient is fat. The best types of fat bombs are those that contain healthy fats, natural sweeteners, and only a small bit of protein. The two most widely used ingredients in fat bombs are coconut oil and high-fat dairy. Coconut oil provides the body with supplemental ketones (it contains medium chain triglycerides [MCTs]; a type of fat that is absorbed quickly and used as fuel).
Why would I be interested in consuming a snack that is likely 90% fat?
Most people find that fat bombs can be easily incorporated into daily macros and calorie counts. Fat bombs help us to burn more fat for fuel and to stay in ketosis. For those new to keto, they can kick start you into ketosis. For more experienced keto people, they can provide an increase in energy and enhance weight loss.
You will recall that fat macros are only a lever and do not need to be met everyday. However, when first starting out on keto, it is a good idea to meet all of your set macros, including fats. Some people find it difficult to meet their daily allotment of fat grams, so they turn to fat bombs. Others get a bit ‘hangry’ when first starting out. Fat bombs are perfect to suppress the appetite (fat is filling) and curb those cravings.
Try googling ‘fat bombs’. There are thousands of recipes out there. With so many options out there, how does one choose? I expect that this is they key reason that there are so many recipes. People can’t decide so they take their favorite flavors and create their own. The recipe gets shared and soon finds its way to the internet.
Fat bombs can be sweet, sour, crunchy, chewy, cheesy, spicy, etc. The flavor and/or texture that you are looking for will be the driving force in your fat bomb choice. You may also have a ‘fat base’ preference. Virtually all fat bombs have a fat base that solidifies when refrigerated and stays solid at room temperature. The most common fat bases are coconut oil, butter, and cream cheese. Once you’ve decided on your fat base preference, you can start to think about the other ingredients to add to your fat bomb. (Be sure to always have salt, calorie free sweeteners [erythritol], and powdered herbs and spices on hand).
The following is an incomplete list of options to add to your fat bomb:
To make your fat bomb, melt or soften the base (fat), blend/mix in your other ingredients and form the mixture into balls or bars. It’s that easy! Hence the plethora of recipes out there!
I don’t actually remember the last time that I bought a food product without reading the label. Since starting keto, I have become very aware of the importance of reading labels to ensure that the food is keto-friendly. (Incidentally, you will come across lots of food products with the words ‘keto-approved or keto-friendly’ on the packaging. Don’t believe everything you read. Always check labels).
Ingredients
This is one of the first things that you should be checking. Does the product contain ingredients that are to be avoided on keto? Obviously, products with sugar, honey, and/or syrup should be on your no-go list. Focus on products that are sweetened with stevia, monk fruit, erythritol, or xylitol and try to limit or avoid those sweetened with sucralose, aspartame, saccharin, or cane sugar, to name but a few. (This would be a good time to refer back to the ‘avoid these sugars’ visual from the preparation week section). It is also important to avoid starchy filler products like cornstarch, flour, oats, soy, wheat, barley, millet, and bran … just a few examples.
Serving Size
The nutrients, calories, etc. on food labels are all based on serving size. As an example, if you read just the food label on an 90% pure cacao chocolate bar, you might be overjoyed to discover that the calories and carbs fit into your daily macros. But, you need to mindful of the serving size. The macros listed are likely for 4 pieces of the bar, not the whole thing! Be aware of serving size or you could blow yourself right out of ketosis.
For the most part, the amount of fat grams typically isn’t an issue on a high-fat diet like keto. But, the type of fat can be an issue. A good rule of thumb is not concern yourself too much with monounsaturated fats; as long as the grams fit into your daily macro allotments.
Always, always, always check to see how many grams of carbs are on the label. Always! When striving to keep carb grams 20 or under each day, this is a critical piece of information. Even if the carbs are coming from a good source, high carb foods are always good ones to return to the shelf.
Recall that earlier, we learned about the difference between total carbs and net carbs. You learned that to calculate net carbs, you can subtract fiber and sugar alcohols from the total carbs. This rule applies to sweeteners like erythritol and stevia. Other sugar alcohols cannot be subtracted at face value. Malitol (a key ingredient in one of my favorite snacks; Russel Stover’s sugar free pecan clusters), can only have ¾ of the grams subtracted, and sorbitol and others, ½ the carbs. This further validates the importance of reading ingredients.
When counting carbs, it is also important to be aware of both hidden carbs and rounding errors. Labeling laws follow the rule of rounding. Just like we learned in math in school, we round down with numbers 1-4 and round up with numbers 5-9. Here is how this applies to carbs in food:
If a food label states that the product has 0 grams of carbs, this could mean that the product has anywhere from 0.1 – 0.4 grams of carbs in it. That doesn’t sound like much. But, if you consume 3 servings, you may not necessarily be consuming 0 carbs. You may, in fact, be consuming up to 1.2 grams of carbs. Let’s apply this to hwc, a common keto food. If you are making a recipe that calls for 1 cup of hwc and the nutritional label states 0 carbs/tbs:
Therefore, 1 cup could contain 6.4 grams of carbs!!!!
Unfortunately, due to labelling laws, we don’t have any way of knowing how many carbs are really in a serving. My understanding is that these hidden carbs are most typically found in dairy products; namely cheeses (cheddar, mozzarella, cream, etc.), nut milks (almond, cashew, coconut), and hwc.
Side-note: Many people state that although they adhere to their macros, they are not losing weight. They find that if they drop dairy products from their diet, they begin to lose again. This is a prime example of those ‘hidden’ carbs impacting weight loss.
Second side-note: Below the carbohydrate line on the food label, there may also be few other lines; fiber, sugars, and/or sugar alcohols. When these numbers don’t add up to the total number of carbs, you should know that the missing numbers are likely starches as they are not required to be part of a nutritional food label. Recall that starches are not keto-friendly!
I hope that you have been able to familiarize yourself with your tracking app and are finding it easy to navigate. If you are using MyFitnessPal or Carb Manager, make sure that you are taking advantage of the bar code / UPC scanner feature. If I am too lazy to input, by hand, each individual ingredient from full recipe into my app, I always use the bar code scanner feature from MyFitnessPal. What a huge time saver! Rather than typing in the food and doing a search, I simply scan the bar code of each individual ingredient, enter the amount of the product used and voila!!!
One thing to be aware of, the macros on tracking apps are not always correct. Regular every day people enter products and macros into this app and, sometimes, their inputs are off. I have actually only encountered this a handful of times. I simply did a manual input rather than using the stored food entry.
The menu for next week is anything that falls under the strict keto umbrella. You will carefully log and monitor all of your macros and calories. You can follow an optional 10-hour eating window, fasting for 14 hours each day. Remember, fasting is recommended, but optional.
See the post entitled: What Is Intermittent Fasting? How To Do It?
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