I had to go cold turkey and did about 4 keto fails. I had to stop saying “I will do keto to drop 20 pounds” (only to eat it all back in a month) and had to start saying “I am not a man who can eat sugar in any form safely.” I have been keto for 2+ years. Dropped 40 pounds, lost the violent hunger pangs, done with the sugar crashes and 3pm mind fog, no more mood swings.
My cholesterol spiked at 6 months and then returned to normal at my one year check up.
I miss eating for fun. A dozen donuts, here, three bowls of ice cream, there. And then hating myself for the rest of the day. But being in the best mental, physical, and spiritual shape of my life at age 44 is not a bad trade off.
-Parmigiano Reggiano (finely grated, chopped doesn't taste as strong. PR is a match made in heaven with practically all salads.)
I usually pair the salad with steak made from minced chicken since it's not red meat and it's low-fat. Seasoned with chicken seasoning, curry, Garam Masala, black and white pepper, garlic powder, a bit of oregano.
I could eat this for the rest of my life. That's the first thing you want: a sustainable habit.
Carbs are not unhealthy, but high-glycemic index foods will make your blood sugar spike and the drop will make you hangry. That's something you'll want to avoid. You'll also want some soluble fiber so a good option is stuff like rye bread and rye porridge. I hear in US it's hard to buy bread that isn't as sweet as pastries are here in Finland. So you might have to learn to bake your own.
As for breaking the addiction, I get accustomed to porridge without sugar in about two weeks. I usually add decreasing amount of frozen blueberries during the "transitioning period". It's bland, but once the sugar dependency eases, it'll start tasting again, but this time in a pleasant, salty-kind of way.
Take a look at this interview with Dr. Georgia Ede MD - she's is an expert on the usage of nutrition for the treatment of mental ilness. In the video (and the book below) she provides a lot of insights about how to start and maintain a medical grade ketogenic diet.
Fast. Water, electrolytes, black coffee/plain tea only. That's the best way imho. Prepare for it, make it last at least 3 days (5 is fine), the break it with fruits and fats (avocado are nice).
I started using Claude sonnet to generate a different ketogenic recipe everyday. I lost 15kg in 2 months and basically feel satiated throughout the day. Benefits also on level of energy and focus.
15kg in 2 months is silly levels of loss. I hope you were very very overweight.
1kg of fat is 7,700 kcals. To lose 2kg a week for 8 weeks you need to find a deficit of 2,200 kcals per day the entire time. A large inactive man will have roughly a basal metabolic rate of ~2,200 kcals per day, so you need a deficit of your BMR per day to be losing this level of weight. This is very very hard to do.
Do not try this at home. Do not try this on your own.
I think you are making a lot of assumptions here. Eg: It’s common for a ~200 lb male to lose 10 lbs (90 kg male to lose 4.5kg) of water weight in the first week or two. We don’t know anything else about OPs claim of weight loss over two months. We don’t know rate, overall starting point, level of activity, etc. This speaks more to the claim being ill-defined than of being a dangerous quantity.
Too much fat can stall progress in a keto diet. It’s better to give yourself a safe option. If you start craving something, ask yourself, “would I eat a hard boiled egg right now?” If the answer is, “no,” then you are probably not actually hungry.
I found that when I did the diet right, the sugar cravings largely went away. It takes some time and effort to get there so once you are, dig in and don’t let people tempt you with sugar. There is free food everywhere and it’s almost all sugar; You get what you pay for.
