Keto lifestyle and Calories

A lot of times people are told that in the Keto life their is no need to count calories but that's incorrect. When I embraced the lifestyle I didn't bother to factor in my calories because I felt eating low carb and high fat would mean eating lesser calories. Although I wasn't entirely wrong since high fat keeps one fuller for longer, their is satiety from the protein and the fibres found in the veggies ensure maximum fullness but even the fat isn't a calorie free food but is quite the opposite.

What exactly are calories? 

A calorie is a unit that measures energy, originally from the Latin word calor , which means heat when directly translated. A calorie is therefore the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1g of water to 1 deg Celsius. To cut long story short calories are energy that fuels our bodies; much like petrol fuels cars. Every food we eat contain calories, which are broken down into energy by our Metabolic System. Our bodies unfortunately are not like cars that when you over fill it with petrol the excess flow over, excess calories in human bodies get stored as fat within the body. Tell all those people that think their extra folds and humongous tummies are "evidence of good living" that they are "evidence of excess feeding"

Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) and calories

 For those that their sole purpose of switching to the Ketogenic lifestyle is to lose weight, calorie counting is very important especially at the initial stage. In other not to suddenly hit a plateau, one is encouraged to weigh their meals with a food scale to get a rough estimate of what they are eating. Make use of the numerous calorie counters online to understand the makeup of your meals. If you can calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) even better cos it will give an idea of the amount of calories your Metabolic system can break down when you are resting.

BMR simply means the amount of energy expressed in calories that a person needs to keep the body functioning at rest. Now even at rest our bodies expend energy through breathing, blood circulation, digestion, contraction of muscles etc. BMR affects our rate of burning calories and how we lose, gain and maintain our weight.

BMR Calculation

Since 1919, there have been several attempts to calculate BMR but the only one a bit close to accurate is the one formulated by  Mifflin St Jeor which is

For Men: 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) - 5 x age(years) + 5

For Women: 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) - 5 x age (years) - 161

So let's say a 34 years old lady of height 168cm and weight 65.8kg, her BMR calculation will look like this

(10 x 65.8) + (6.25 x 168) - 5 x 34 - 161 = 1,377 calories.

Now for this lady, her body expends 1,377 calories while she is at rest. Without breaking a sweat her body can easily metabolize this amount of energy.
Please note that this formula isn't 100% accurate because stress, endocrine issues, activity level etc can moderately or slightly modify BMR but knowing this estimate is a step in the right direction in keeping a check one's diet.

Keto & Calories

For some people that embraced the Ketogenic lifestyle, it's a huge challenge to be able to calculate the amount of fat and protein that is within the approved 70% fat & 20% protein. Lots of people end up taking way too many fat or protein and this leads to either slow burn of the excess fat, a complete stall in weight loss or even worse weight gain.
This is were calorie counting comes into play in a Ketogenic diet. Let's keep in mind that

Energy stored = Energy in - Energy out

Using the example above, the lady's BMR is 1,377calories and she eats 1,077calories. Weight loss would occur cos her body would roughly burn 300 calories from her body fat to cover for the missing 300 calories in her diet.

-300 = 1,077 - 1,377
This is simple mathematics.

What if she eats 1,800 calories when her body can expend 1,377

423 = 1,800 - 1,377

there will be an excess calories of 423 which won't just disappear but will be stored in the body. It is important to note that Fat with 9 calories per gram is provides more calories than carbohydrate and protein which are 4 calories per gram. Now if this lady increases her activity level through non-strenuous exercise she would still be able to burn off these excess calories.

Some Keto compliant foods have more calories than others, so taking too much of it can actually lead to a stall or even a weight gain. Take for example a 1 medium size Avocado has a whooping 250 calories and that sweet Egusi soup with chunks of protein is 700 calories!!!! 25g of Groundnut that's your N50 worth contains 125 calories and most of us can finish 1 bottle of it in a blink of an eye.

Remember even in a Ketogenic diet, it is possible to eat too much calories and not lose weight.