How to Set Up MyFitnessPal for Keto: Set It to Maintain, Count Carbs

2017-07-31

I made this one because of a pattern I kept seeing: people still hungry on day one, and when I asked, almost all of them had set the app to lose two pounds a week (video DoSUgIr2rNo). It runs long, about eighteen minutes, and wanders into keto flu, water and fatty cuts before I wrap it up.

In this video

[0:00] The first mistake: telling MyFitnessPal you want to lose 1.5 lb a week.
[0:30] That's a big daily deficit built in from day one. I drew the line between a calorie deficit (needed eventually) and calorie restriction (not needed).
[1:00] Settings, goals, maintain weight. Step one is to stop gaining.
[1:30] The main thing keto helped me with was the lack of hunger. Macros at about 5% carbs, 30–35% protein, the rest fat. (The auto-caption says "carbs" for the remainder; from context I meant fat.)
[2:00] Month one: count only carbs. Most people get enough protein without tracking it.
[3:00] Ignore the scale and calories for at least the first two weeks.
[3:30] I logged about 500 calories of alcohol at a festival and still finished well under my 2,700-calorie app number.
[5:30] In week one you're not fat adapted; the liver takes weeks to ramp up.
[6:00] "Keto flu" lumps low energy and electrolyte cramps together.
[7:00] Weeks one and two: eat until full and avoid carbs. Tapering (150, then 100, then 50, then 20 g) is an option, though I didn't taper.
[7:30] My carb ladder: about 250 g a day on a standard American diet; under 100 "very low," under 50 "extremely low," under 20 for ketosis.
[8:30] If you willpower your way through keto, you're probably doing it wrong.
[9:30] No need to hit a fat macro when you're losing fat.
[10:00] Weeks one to three are for learning new foods, shopping, oils, sweeteners and flours.
[11:30] Stay hydrated. A lot of people lose the calories they used to drink. Flavour drops are fine.
[13:00] My disclaimer: just some guy and a selfie stick in my kitchen. Not a doctor, not a dietitian.
[16:30] Swap lean chicken breast and 85/15 beef for thighs, chuck roast and 70/30; cook vegetables in butter.

The line that holds up: don't stack a diet on top of a diet

The setup advice is the part I'd still give. Month one is already a lot: new foods, new shopping, new cooking. I said don't add hunger on top of it by also cutting calories hard (video DoSUgIr2rNo). Set the app to maintain, keep carbs low, and let the deficit show up when your appetite drops.

What the literature says about calories is more blunt than I was. In a metabolic ward study, 19 adults lost body fat at 53 g/day when carbs were restricted and 89 g/day when fat was restricted (Hall 2015). In DIETFITS, 609 adults over 12 months lost 6.0 kg on healthy low-carb and 5.3 kg on healthy low-fat, not significantly different (Gardner 2018).

Neither study disagrees with "you need a deficit." They do push back on the idea that low carb gives you a calorie bonus. Where my advice still makes sense is adherence: if you're less hungry, the deficit is easier to keep. That's a claim about behaviour, not metabolism. More in energy balance and do calories matter on keto?.

Then vs now: the numbers moved

This is one of the clearest "then" videos on the channel, because three things I said here changed later.

Carbs. Here I said work your way down to 20 (video DoSUgIr2rNo). Within days I was questioning "exactly 20" as dogma (video 1vyxuWlxT5M). In a live Q&A the same day as this one I said eat less than 50 carbs and nothing else matters, ideally 20 (video xyEZL0HuejI). By the 2018 basics video my answer to "how many?" was 50, and I said it would be unpopular (video UygKGoP_BtA). See how many carbs and why 20 grams?.

Fat. Here I said push fat where you can (video DoSUgIr2rNo), even while saying you don't need to hit your fat macro. Less than a month later I made a video telling people to stop eating too much fat (video NUJNFG6lLWw).

Protein. Here, month one meant don't count protein; most people get enough. In 2018 I was giving fixed protein targets, 80 or 100 g with modifiers (video UygKGoP_BtA). The 30–35% I gave here sits at the top of the US acceptable range of 10–35% of energy (IOM 2005). See how much protein.

None of these are contradictions so much as a beginner getting more specific. But if you're reading this video's numbers as rules, know that I didn't keep them.

Who should not set this up alone

I said in the video this wasn't for people doing keto for blood sugar (video DoSUgIr2rNo). If you take insulin or another glucose-lowering drug, eating to full on low carb while your appetite drops can still push your blood sugar lower than your dose expects. Your doctor needs to know you're starting. Same if you have a history of an eating disorder: a food-logging app can be a trigger, and "don't count calories" doesn't fix that on its own.

Key points

Set MyFitnessPal to maintain, not lose, in month one (video DoSUgIr2rNo).
Count carbs; let hunger set the rest at first.
A deficit is still required. The studies don't show a calorie advantage for low carb, so think of the lower hunger as making the deficit easier, not optional.
I later moved from 20 g carbs to 50 g, from "push fat" to "stop eating too much fat," and from "don't count protein" to fixed protein targets.
Struggling in week one? Tapering is an option. See tapering.