Change of Plans

I love keto; the more I read, the more I discover how much I've been doing it wrong.

This week was a wonderful example. I have weighed almost the same every morning since Friday. The last couple days, I decided to attempt a strategy recommended for breaking plateaus. That strategy was simply not consuming anything but water for 20 hours of every day. That meant a 4-hour window in which I could stuff my face and try my best to get upwards of 1,000 calories, with 175g protein (believe it or not, I have been having trouble all week meeting my calorie quota - minimum 1,000 - so as not to burn muscle). This lasted one and a quarter days. Wednesday went fine - I really don't have much trouble fasting when I have other things to keep my mind off food. But today, well I won't say that temptation got the best of me, but it certainly helped my decision.

Let me explain. What I read today on the Reddit keto faq was that ketosis, essentially the actual burning of fat, is usually not attained until 3-4 weeks in, and for me it has only been 2 weeks. I also discovered that it is not abnormal for a stagnant period early on in keto. This new learning, coupled with an hour of cooking food I wouldn't be able to eat for 4 more hours, led my to my decision to stop fasting immediately.

Also, based on the newly acquired information, I have decided to alter my diet, not only focusing much more on fat intake, but also upping my caloric intake even more, to around 2,000 (it had been 1,500 for the last couple days). This number gives me much more breathing room as far as fat and, in particular, protein quotas. Yesterday, I barely managed 100g protein, when really I should have taken in over 200g considering a hard workout. My absolute minimum is something like 140g, and I failed to reach even this. In general, this change is geared towards adhering closely to a ketogenic diet, keeping in mind the challenge presented by muscle building. Remember what I said a while ago about both weight loss and muscle gain being possible? Well, technically, I was right. But it's a LOT more difficult than I'd anticipated.

To sum up, the key thing here is that for the next couple weeks, in order to get myself into strong ketosis, I am not going to worry about what the scale says (I'll probably still weigh myself every day, though, because I'm an idiot). In any case, this is a significant turn of events.

Here are my quotas from now on:
Calories: ~2,000
Carbs: <25g = ~5%
Protein: 210g+ (175g+ on rest days) = ~35%
Fat: 133g+ = ~60%
(Percentages are of caloric intake)