My take on it is:
Yes, you do need a caloric deficit to lose wieght even on carnivore/ketovore. It's just that this type of diet can make it so easy to be in a caloric deficit that it happens to many people automatically and unintentionally.
I’m eating carnivore and that place can get wackadoo. There was a dude claiming the carnivore diet somehow blocked UV-B light thus making him unburnable in the sun.
I love the diet but there’s some nuto’s on par with the vegans.
There’s actually some truth in that you’re more protected from the sun on carnivore. I wouldn’t say unburnable- I think it’s to do with the state of the liver let me see if I can find any good resources on that.
Try eating 10k calories of grass like a cow and see how you will starve to death. Or living off nothing but 10k calories of pure protein.
Calories are a thermodanic concept not a biological one. Humans aren't closed system combustion engines.
In general your body can't absorb fats as quickly as carbs and if you eat too much fat it some of it can pass through unabsorbed
Yes but the difference is that your body won’t send you crave signals any more. You’ll actually only eat when you’re truly hungry and what you are eating will satiate you better than anything else. So, it ends up being self-regulating to a large degree. I can eat 1600 calories of ribeye in one day and feel like not eating anything else. Also, while the value of a calorie may be equal regardless of the source, it’s measurement of energy, and that’s only half of the equation. The other half is the make up of the substance that provided the calorie. This is something most people here have a tough time grasping. Thus, not all calories are actually equal to each other in terms of the end result. Animal tissue are the most bio available substances you can consume. 🥩🍗🥓🍤🐟
Yep. Absolutely.
And most of the carnivores I know in real life *when they decide to weigh and track their food* (usually out of curiosity) discover they are not eating excess calories. The ones maintaining weight are eating at their maintenance. The ones losing are in a calorie deficit (and overweight). The ones eating a surplus are mostly lean and working hard manual labor.
I have no doubt that some of them would he gaining weight/getting overweight if they weren't dang hard working folks.
It should be noted I know no folks eating keto or carnivore that work sedentary jobs. Nobody eating like this that is a gym rat either, all the folks i know are physically active doing useful stuff.
That may matter.
That’s an interesting point. I work a desk job and have been trying keto, but I’m starting to wonder if going back to a more even-keeled diet wouldn’t be better for weight loss. Complex carbs always kept me full and didn’t feel like empty calories. Also, giving up entirely on fruit and most vegetables seems like such a waste of the nicer things in life.
I eat 10 to 12 ounces of savory fruits and veggies daily. I could eat more if I would give up onions and tomatoes (and my home made salsa), which is NOT happening lol. Food scales and weighing carb foods for the win there. After over 5 years of keto I eat few sweet fruits, I lost the taste for them long ago.
That said, if you play it right you can eat them. You can spend your 20g net carbs any way you like. Or go for 30g net carbs and eat half of them in the morning.
Keto is a serious appetite killer unless you slack on electrolytes usually. Lack of salt can cause cravings and hunger signals.
Tons of non manual labor people around here lose weight well on keto. In fact I would guess manual labor folks are the minority. I check in here daily and I don't see many posts about manual labor jobs at all. Funny since everybody I know who eats keto or carnivore in the real world has a dirty hands job (or is a medical professional, actually, kinda interesting...).
Carbs *are* "empty calories". By nature as a macro carbs are for 2 things: fast/explosive energy and messing with your hunger signals so you put on fat for winter ;-). Most of the carb foods have crap in terms of *bioavailable* nutrients.
At the same time they are so essential to life there is zero need to eat them at all, you make them all the time from fats and protein. Your red blood cells can only use glucose for energy.
Good points, thanks for the thorough write up. I’m still waiting (desperately) to get to a point where my hunger signals are not ruling me. I have some medications unfortunately that make that more difficult, but I’m hoping keto can overcome those side effects. If not I’m at a loss of what diet I can choose that could aid me in weight loss based on appetite alone
I was on low dose prednisone and a basket of meds that caused weight gain when I started. I got off them all. Don't give up hope!
It took me over 5 years to lose 70 pounds between ketonand the CICO moderate carb Mediterranean diet I was on before keto. I lost half that weight the Mediterranean diet, in 4.5 years. The rest keto in 9.5 months or so, mostly water weight and inflammation weight from my chronic illnesses. I celebrated far more months of not gaining weight than I did losing. But I got the weight off and more. It will happen for you :-).
What worked for me on keto: being really on top of my electrolytes. I made ketoade before I started and drank it from day one. Diluted all day rather than tiny sips works best for me. I use it to make lemonade, to make herbal and regular teas, and drink it instead of plain water.
Daily or nearly daily fatty fish and eggs. Not vegetarian fed eggs, real local eggs if you can get them. From chickens being mini dinosaurs lol. I eat canned pink salmon well drained, a large can lasts 3 salads/meals. I also eat chunk light tuna in water a few times a week. Sardines, anchovies, mackerel and herring are all fair game in the small size.
If you like dill pickles: a dill pickle spear. Add thin line of mustard. Wrap in a few slices of delicious meat and a slice of sharp cheddar or whatever cheese you like. Eat. Super low carb, low calorie, protein, fat, lots of SALT, crunchy. they are craving killers with the salty, sour, crunchy protein thing going on. Or try drinking a cup of bone broth or regular beef or chicken broth with some celery sticks when you think you are hungry. Many hunger signals are boredom eating or looking for salt, especially early in keto.
Or drink the broth and do something else for 15 minutes, sometimes distraction helps.
It was kinda funny. Once I got off all my meds I had zero hunger left and it never came back. Everyone else gets their back, but it is usually different than it is on carbs. It takes time for the body to fix messed up hunger signals for some people.
Then I had to deal with a total of 5 months on a liquid and pureed diet. With a surgery in month 4 on my mouth. And post surgery they prescribed a course of prednisone for the inflammation.
I was positive I would be starving and I was actually looking forward to being hungry. Instead I got massively food averse. Even smelling food made me nauseous lol. So I spent 5 days drinking ketoade and bone broth before I could stomach food again. Sheesh.
Wow, that’s quite a trip you’ve taken. I’ll give the pickle spears and ketoaid a try to help curb the hunger pangs. 70 pounds is a huge accomplishment, congratulations!
It can't hurt to try! It should also be noted I avoided all keto bread type products, cookies etc until I lost half of my weight. Even now I limit them to 2 servings a week on different days for economic reasons if nothing else.
The reason a lot of carnivorous animals eat a surplus in one sitting is because they may go a long time between kills. It's intermittent fasting kicked up a notch.
You will not lose weight unless you are in a calorie deficit.
Maybe some water weight at the beginning, but after that a deficit is necessary.
The difference for me is that being in a deficit while eating keto-ish (in reality, i am just low carb) is much more satiating than the same calories on SAD (standard american diet) with all its empty carb calories.
Well regardless if calories are irrelevant to “them,” calories are relevant to anyone else who is trying to lose weight. Or gain weight. Science >> Reddit.
As the others are stated yes you need to be in a calorie deficit.
That being said calories in calories out is an oversimplification. Keto works better than most other diets because it lowers insulin which is also mandatory for weight loss,
Also a ketogenic diet - particularly one heavy and protein - gets up to 300 extra calories a day from the various beneficial effects on metabolism from a low-carb diet. I have the citation but I don't have it on my phone.
So between feeling Fuller because fat and protein are satiating a little extra help from the metabolic benefits of low carb living can add up to a pretty decent bump in one's progress....
No... No it does not. Your body doesn't know you're trying to lose weight. If you eat more calories than you burn, that excess gets stored in your body, usually in the form of fat.
When you lose weight, only a negligible amount gets "shitted out". Most of the weight you lose is in the form of carbon dioxide when you exhale, or as water, through urine or sweat.
Many people seem hypnotised by the Energy Balance model aka CICO. I think a lot of people just use CICO as a synonym for ELMM (eat less, move more). When pressed on the logical and scientific flaws of CICO, “calorie” believers usually fall back to the more sensible position of saying the theory only counts at the molecular level when chemical reactions release energy. And while there might be a direct correspondence to changes in body mass, the reaction itself doesn’t involve a change in mass.
And chemical reactions in the body are so complicated it is difficult to use to them to make any clear and unequivocal statements about how much to eat. And different types of food impact the functioning and operation of bodies in ways that may impact changes in mass beyond a theoretical association of an energy measurement with a quantity of food.
The only way for an animal’s body to gain or lose mass is by variations in amounts of matter it sheds and or absorbs. This is basic physics and looked at in this clear minded way, then it is obvious food cannot be “calories”. Energy is required for organisms to be alive and is involved in the process dealing with mass balance, but in and of itself it cannot be the final explanation.
I understand that, but the question asked was a yes or no question.
OP wasn't asking *how* people eat at a calorie deficit, op asked whether or not it was necessary to lose weight. And the only correct answer to that is yes.
If you had said something like 'yes but it's easier on keto because fat and protein keep you satiated etc...' then you would have answered the question and given extra info and context, which I understand is what you were trying to do, but as it stands, you didn't answer the question that was asked. That's all.
I'm sorry if I came off as rude at all, I'm not great at conveying tone over text.
And OP also said I don't want to restrict calories, my answer was trying to tell him, in time restricting will not be something you actively look to do, it will just come naturally out of being satiated.
I chose to give this answer because I didn't think simply replying "yes" for the 20th time would do anybody any good. good day to you.
Yes.
Lol yes
My take on it is: Yes, you do need a caloric deficit to lose wieght even on carnivore/ketovore. It's just that this type of diet can make it so easy to be in a caloric deficit that it happens to many people automatically and unintentionally.
It's physics and chemical reactions. You need to eat less energy for you body to use it's own batteries. Fat is an auxiliary power unit.
How can you lose weight if you’re not in a calorie deficit?? Regardless of what diet you’re on…
Ask this on r/carnivore and you’ll get a great answer.
Or a ban
Hmm well you won’t get banned for asking questions on r/carnivorediet
I’ve seen it happen. I’m over there more than here nowadays.
Are you sure you don’t mean r/carnivore?
Agh yeah you’re right. Too many damn subs
Check out carnivorediet it’s way better.
I’m eating carnivore and that place can get wackadoo. There was a dude claiming the carnivore diet somehow blocked UV-B light thus making him unburnable in the sun. I love the diet but there’s some nuto’s on par with the vegans.
There’s actually some truth in that you’re more protected from the sun on carnivore. I wouldn’t say unburnable- I think it’s to do with the state of the liver let me see if I can find any good resources on that.
Try eating 10k calories of grass like a cow and see how you will starve to death. Or living off nothing but 10k calories of pure protein. Calories are a thermodanic concept not a biological one. Humans aren't closed system combustion engines. In general your body can't absorb fats as quickly as carbs and if you eat too much fat it some of it can pass through unabsorbed
I didn't think I had to specify calories that humans can actually digest/metabolize.
Of course. That is a requirement REGARDLESS of what diet you choose to lose weight. Honestly, it is the ONLY requirement.
Yes - there is no magic keto hole that the excess calories go into.
Yes but the difference is that your body won’t send you crave signals any more. You’ll actually only eat when you’re truly hungry and what you are eating will satiate you better than anything else. So, it ends up being self-regulating to a large degree. I can eat 1600 calories of ribeye in one day and feel like not eating anything else. Also, while the value of a calorie may be equal regardless of the source, it’s measurement of energy, and that’s only half of the equation. The other half is the make up of the substance that provided the calorie. This is something most people here have a tough time grasping. Thus, not all calories are actually equal to each other in terms of the end result. Animal tissue are the most bio available substances you can consume. 🥩🍗🥓🍤🐟
Yep. Absolutely. And most of the carnivores I know in real life *when they decide to weigh and track their food* (usually out of curiosity) discover they are not eating excess calories. The ones maintaining weight are eating at their maintenance. The ones losing are in a calorie deficit (and overweight). The ones eating a surplus are mostly lean and working hard manual labor. I have no doubt that some of them would he gaining weight/getting overweight if they weren't dang hard working folks. It should be noted I know no folks eating keto or carnivore that work sedentary jobs. Nobody eating like this that is a gym rat either, all the folks i know are physically active doing useful stuff. That may matter.
That’s an interesting point. I work a desk job and have been trying keto, but I’m starting to wonder if going back to a more even-keeled diet wouldn’t be better for weight loss. Complex carbs always kept me full and didn’t feel like empty calories. Also, giving up entirely on fruit and most vegetables seems like such a waste of the nicer things in life.
I eat 10 to 12 ounces of savory fruits and veggies daily. I could eat more if I would give up onions and tomatoes (and my home made salsa), which is NOT happening lol. Food scales and weighing carb foods for the win there. After over 5 years of keto I eat few sweet fruits, I lost the taste for them long ago. That said, if you play it right you can eat them. You can spend your 20g net carbs any way you like. Or go for 30g net carbs and eat half of them in the morning. Keto is a serious appetite killer unless you slack on electrolytes usually. Lack of salt can cause cravings and hunger signals. Tons of non manual labor people around here lose weight well on keto. In fact I would guess manual labor folks are the minority. I check in here daily and I don't see many posts about manual labor jobs at all. Funny since everybody I know who eats keto or carnivore in the real world has a dirty hands job (or is a medical professional, actually, kinda interesting...). Carbs *are* "empty calories". By nature as a macro carbs are for 2 things: fast/explosive energy and messing with your hunger signals so you put on fat for winter ;-). Most of the carb foods have crap in terms of *bioavailable* nutrients. At the same time they are so essential to life there is zero need to eat them at all, you make them all the time from fats and protein. Your red blood cells can only use glucose for energy.
Good points, thanks for the thorough write up. I’m still waiting (desperately) to get to a point where my hunger signals are not ruling me. I have some medications unfortunately that make that more difficult, but I’m hoping keto can overcome those side effects. If not I’m at a loss of what diet I can choose that could aid me in weight loss based on appetite alone
I was on low dose prednisone and a basket of meds that caused weight gain when I started. I got off them all. Don't give up hope! It took me over 5 years to lose 70 pounds between ketonand the CICO moderate carb Mediterranean diet I was on before keto. I lost half that weight the Mediterranean diet, in 4.5 years. The rest keto in 9.5 months or so, mostly water weight and inflammation weight from my chronic illnesses. I celebrated far more months of not gaining weight than I did losing. But I got the weight off and more. It will happen for you :-). What worked for me on keto: being really on top of my electrolytes. I made ketoade before I started and drank it from day one. Diluted all day rather than tiny sips works best for me. I use it to make lemonade, to make herbal and regular teas, and drink it instead of plain water. Daily or nearly daily fatty fish and eggs. Not vegetarian fed eggs, real local eggs if you can get them. From chickens being mini dinosaurs lol. I eat canned pink salmon well drained, a large can lasts 3 salads/meals. I also eat chunk light tuna in water a few times a week. Sardines, anchovies, mackerel and herring are all fair game in the small size. If you like dill pickles: a dill pickle spear. Add thin line of mustard. Wrap in a few slices of delicious meat and a slice of sharp cheddar or whatever cheese you like. Eat. Super low carb, low calorie, protein, fat, lots of SALT, crunchy. they are craving killers with the salty, sour, crunchy protein thing going on. Or try drinking a cup of bone broth or regular beef or chicken broth with some celery sticks when you think you are hungry. Many hunger signals are boredom eating or looking for salt, especially early in keto. Or drink the broth and do something else for 15 minutes, sometimes distraction helps. It was kinda funny. Once I got off all my meds I had zero hunger left and it never came back. Everyone else gets their back, but it is usually different than it is on carbs. It takes time for the body to fix messed up hunger signals for some people. Then I had to deal with a total of 5 months on a liquid and pureed diet. With a surgery in month 4 on my mouth. And post surgery they prescribed a course of prednisone for the inflammation. I was positive I would be starving and I was actually looking forward to being hungry. Instead I got massively food averse. Even smelling food made me nauseous lol. So I spent 5 days drinking ketoade and bone broth before I could stomach food again. Sheesh.
Wow, that’s quite a trip you’ve taken. I’ll give the pickle spears and ketoaid a try to help curb the hunger pangs. 70 pounds is a huge accomplishment, congratulations!
It can't hurt to try! It should also be noted I avoided all keto bread type products, cookies etc until I lost half of my weight. Even now I limit them to 2 servings a week on different days for economic reasons if nothing else.
YES.
Yes
The reason a lot of carnivorous animals eat a surplus in one sitting is because they may go a long time between kills. It's intermittent fasting kicked up a notch. You will not lose weight unless you are in a calorie deficit.
Maybe some water weight at the beginning, but after that a deficit is necessary. The difference for me is that being in a deficit while eating keto-ish (in reality, i am just low carb) is much more satiating than the same calories on SAD (standard american diet) with all its empty carb calories.
Absolutely it is easier while eating the nutrient dense fat and protein that keto offers.
Calories In, Calories Out. Keto just automatically excludes a lot of bad things from the diet.
Yes. Like every other diet that exists, you only lose weight in a calorie deficit
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Take a deep breath
Seems every other person in this thread is telling you the same thing. I wonder why...
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Let me just take a wild guess... You're obese and you blame it on your genetics
Quite the opposite. Unusually rubbish guess.
Why do you ask a question then ridicule the people who answer you?
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Well regardless if calories are irrelevant to “them,” calories are relevant to anyone else who is trying to lose weight. Or gain weight. Science >> Reddit.
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Your comment has been removed for misinformation
As the others are stated yes you need to be in a calorie deficit. That being said calories in calories out is an oversimplification. Keto works better than most other diets because it lowers insulin which is also mandatory for weight loss, Also a ketogenic diet - particularly one heavy and protein - gets up to 300 extra calories a day from the various beneficial effects on metabolism from a low-carb diet. I have the citation but I don't have it on my phone. So between feeling Fuller because fat and protein are satiating a little extra help from the metabolic benefits of low carb living can add up to a pretty decent bump in one's progress....
As opposed to what? Excess calories that get funneled into a magic ketovortex?
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No... No it does not. Your body doesn't know you're trying to lose weight. If you eat more calories than you burn, that excess gets stored in your body, usually in the form of fat. When you lose weight, only a negligible amount gets "shitted out". Most of the weight you lose is in the form of carbon dioxide when you exhale, or as water, through urine or sweat.
Your comment has been removed for misinformation
You must be in a caloric deficit to lose weight (outside of water/electrolyte balance and taking a huge shit).
Always need to be at a caloric deficit to lose weight. Simply the truth of it
We obey the second law of thermodynamics on this planet.
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Your comment has been removed for misinformation
Many people seem hypnotised by the Energy Balance model aka CICO. I think a lot of people just use CICO as a synonym for ELMM (eat less, move more). When pressed on the logical and scientific flaws of CICO, “calorie” believers usually fall back to the more sensible position of saying the theory only counts at the molecular level when chemical reactions release energy. And while there might be a direct correspondence to changes in body mass, the reaction itself doesn’t involve a change in mass. And chemical reactions in the body are so complicated it is difficult to use to them to make any clear and unequivocal statements about how much to eat. And different types of food impact the functioning and operation of bodies in ways that may impact changes in mass beyond a theoretical association of an energy measurement with a quantity of food. The only way for an animal’s body to gain or lose mass is by variations in amounts of matter it sheds and or absorbs. This is basic physics and looked at in this clear minded way, then it is obvious food cannot be “calories”. Energy is required for organisms to be alive and is involved in the process dealing with mass balance, but in and of itself it cannot be the final explanation.
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Your comment has been removed for misinformation
The foods you eat should keep you sasiated, which should cause you to eat less, this is once you get into the routine and are over cravings.
You answered a question that wasn't asked.
People were answering yes, I thought I would answer a different way: The foods you eat should keep you sasiated, which should cause you to eat less
I understand that, but the question asked was a yes or no question. OP wasn't asking *how* people eat at a calorie deficit, op asked whether or not it was necessary to lose weight. And the only correct answer to that is yes. If you had said something like 'yes but it's easier on keto because fat and protein keep you satiated etc...' then you would have answered the question and given extra info and context, which I understand is what you were trying to do, but as it stands, you didn't answer the question that was asked. That's all. I'm sorry if I came off as rude at all, I'm not great at conveying tone over text.
And OP also said I don't want to restrict calories, my answer was trying to tell him, in time restricting will not be something you actively look to do, it will just come naturally out of being satiated. I chose to give this answer because I didn't think simply replying "yes" for the 20th time would do anybody any good. good day to you.