Just starting to do keto as I have found I feel better and sleep better when I remove carbs from my diet, can anyone help me work out my macros for keto? I'm finding a lot of stuff on the internets contradicting itself.
I find best results keeping protein at 2g/lb of lean mass
Then filling in the rest of the calories with fats
So whether you're trying to gain or lose weight, depends on the type of meat you eat.
Regular ground beef is a good start. I found fats at 1g/lb and protein at 2g/lb to be pretty much perfect for a recomp. I did this very simply, just ate meat until I had hit my fat intake then filled in the gaps with protein shakes. If I couldn't finish my food, I switched to a fattier meat and if I was going hungry, I chose a leaner meat
I am finding that I'm getting stronger on 1200kcal a day, but I need to play around with things a lot. I throw in two ultra high unlimited calorie days twice a week, one high fat and one high carb and this keeps me getting stronger while staying in a caloric deficit. I also need to keep the weights down in training and do lots of low rep sets. I also find doing exercises you haven't done in a while helps, as you're getting mainly neurological adaptations
Basically you need to accept that this will take a lot of trial and error until you find your sweet spot. I'd start off one 1g/lb in fats and 2g/lb in protein and making adjustments from there. For an 80kg male at 15% this would be 150g in fats and 300g of protein, roughly 2500kcal a day I think. This is for a very active person that trains every day though.
You'll find that either protein or fats will fill you up more also, as well as different foods filling you up more. Yesterday I had my keto cheat meal and ate 2kg of sausages (a 24 pack) in 3 hours. I was so full I didn't even feel hungry today so just drank shakes all day. Feeling a little hungry now, so I'll have maybe 500g of kangaroo with some veg later in the evening. I find this "intermittent eating" works well for me, waving the calories through the week keeps my energy very high.
Also on lower calorie days, you'll want to spread the meals out as the body will absorb the nutrients better. When you want a cheat meal, restrict it to 2-3 hours and the body won't absorb all of it, especially if it's high in fats. Obviously eating a tub of ice cream isn't the best thing to do here as that will sit in your small intestine until it's all absorbed lol. But the same amount of carbs in say, potato, will pass through before it's all absorbed.
On that note, I recommend a carb up once a week after the first 3 weeks if you wish to support heavy training. I tried to go full keto but found that only worked if calories remained very high. When calories dropped I needed glycogen replenishment for sure
