I'm 45 yrs old and my wife and I just started the keto diet (today is our seventh day on the diet). My starting weight was 190.3 pounds and I'd estimate a starting body fat percent between 22-25 percent. So far I'm down 7.5 pounds. I understand the initial weight loss is mostly just water weight, but my pants are already fitting me looser. My goal is fifteen percent body fat and I've been very diligent watching my calorie count (currently 2,000/day), keeping my macros in check, and staying at or below 20 grams of carbs per day.

But since starting the diet I'm experiencing the following:
1) I'm constantly fatigued and tired. It's just slightly noticeable in the morning and throughout the day, but in the late afternoon starting around 3pm and through the rest of the night it hits me hard.

2) I've got this constant gnawing hungry feeling in my stomach, even after eating a good size meal. It's not that famished feeling I used to get in the 30-45 minutes leading up to a meal (before starting keto), but just a constant slight hungry feeling. And even after eating a meal, even a good sized meal, I don't have that full and satisfied feeling, just that constant gnawing hungry feeling.

3) My sex drive is absolutely gone. Prior to starting keto I would get that horny feeling a couple times per day, but since starting keto I haven't had even the slightest desire. Even my wife getting amorous doesn't get my motor running.

5) I've have absolutely no motivation to do anything. I just don't have the gumption to do anything, even things I really enjoy (hobbies, pastimes, working out, etc.). And this isn't laziness, because I've had lazy Sundays in the past where I didn't want to do chores and just wanted to lounge around playing video games or watching movies. This is something different.

I've never experienced any of these symptoms before starting keto and they all started about day two of the diet. I haven't consulted with my MD yet and was thinking maybe these were some keto-flu like symptoms and would pass after the first week, so I was waiting to see what might change in week two.

Anyone else experience some or all of these on when starting keto?

I believe that's called the Keto Flu.  It should pass and at some point you will have more energy and sometimes actually have to make yourself eat.  That has been my experience.

Probably normal. You are eating in a deficit, and you are skipping the most important macro. (Fully prepared to get flamed for that )

I would be hungry and grumpy too.

Keto flu. Lasts several days to a week or so.

Dissolve some bullion cubes in warm water, then drink.

Sounds gross, but what will that do?

Electrolytes

Your brain/body is calling you a big asshole for not eating the delicious foods that brought you such joy before.

I've gone through those same things while "dieting" before. I find myself getting pissed at myself because I know I won't be eating any cheesy potatoes for the foreseeable future. It can be depressing - until you push through and your brain/body discovers it doesn't NEED cheesy potatoes. (Even if they are one of nature's perfect foods)

False, the perfect food is pizza.

You have your carbs, your fats, and your delicious proteins (usually from a pig). How can you beat that?

Most addicts get upset when you deny them their addiction.

Sodium, potassium, magnesium more specifically the first two.
If you quit today the puffiness will come right back. After doing 16 months Keto and dropping 99.5 pounds I jumped back up 13 pounds in 3 days. After about a month holding true carb restricted you should be fully fat adapted. Keto blood strip tests will give you more scientific feedback if you feel the need.

After quitting Keto for lifting Jan 1 2017 I'm up 30 pounds though I've been heavy lifting and forcing extra protein but trying to keep carbs <100 a day.

I will probably have hit my weight goal before that. I started at 190.3 and my goal is 175 lbs. One week in and I'm at 182.8. Maybe keto is better for people needing to lose a lot of weight and/or fat, and I needed something less restrictive.

Just eating at a deficit will likely get you down 15 lbs easy enough.

Weigh all your food, track it with myfitnesspal, and shoot for like 2000 calories a day (or less if you can deal with it)

Keto Flu is normal.

Get some potassium based salt substitute and use it on everything.
You can also add it to water for an electrolyte drink.

No.

Make some bone broth of go buy some from the store.  Or cook some turnip or beet greens and eat them with salt if you really want electrolytes.

Bouillon cubes are shit processed food and have gross ingredients like cottonseed oil.  Knorr bouillon cube ingredients:

What electrolytes are in that besides salt?  If all you need is salt, just eat a pinch of sea salt.

Bone broth is awesome.

True. Wife wanted to try keto because she has a body fat percent of ~40 percent and needs to lose 40-50 lbs, but she wanted me to do the diet with her to support her. The big difference is I only need to lose eight percent of my current weight, whereas she needs to lose twenty-four percent of her weight.

Potassium and magnesium supplements as well as a lot of salt. Some people have an easier time if they keep protein on the higher side.

Agreed.  In addition to electrolytes, bone broth has glycine, an amino acid that offsets the possible carcinogenic effect of consuming large quantities of lean muscle meat.  Additionally, bone broth contains the minerals that are in bones - magnesium, calcium, phosphorous - along with glucosamine and chondroitin.  Bone broth has collagen, which is protective of joint health.

What bone broth doesn't have is a bunch of industrially processed seed oils prone to oxidation.

I used to use bouillon cubes all the time until I read the ingredient list.

It will work for her too.

Last time my wife wanted to cut I prepared all her meals for her, she did the tracking. Her daily goal was 1500, but often came in around 1200.

The stuff I make is like jello when it's in the fridge.

Of course keto also works, and it seems to be currently working for them too so...

Mine is not quite that thick, but I skim the fat off the top, melt it, and then consolidate the fat in a single container so that I have tallow to use in high temperature cooking - like chicken livers or searing steak (or to make candles I guess).  Sounds like you may have more collagen in yours as well.

I intentionally buy bones that have a lot of it. Big shank bones, marrow bones, and ox tails.
Eggs are awesome in beef tallow.

Drinking a cup of it right now.

This.

Nutrition is just math.

There is one macro that is basically just energy.  That's its purpose.

You aren't eating it.  So you have no energy.

Weird. I don't eat it either, and I have plenty of energy.

I've cut way back on tallow and coconut oil of late and am cooking more at low temps and with olive oil.

Do you mean calorie deficit, or carb macro deficit? Because I'm eating the same number of calories (that was my maintenance caloric intake) from before I started the diet. So, I'm [technically] not in a caloric deficit, just a carb deficit (from previous carb macros).

I don't care for the taste of olive oil.

"Better than Bouillion" isn't so bad and tastes way better than some cubes....

OP you haven't really given it a chance yet. You need to change some things as far as increased water and salt intake to support the metabolic changes you're going through, as said above. Take 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of "lite salt" which is 50% Potassium and add it to a quart of water and drink the whole thing. If you feel better do that once a day. Too much K is actually potentially really bad for you, but that is only a ~10% DV supplement. Also salt all your food liberally with sea salt.

I've been out of keto for a while and honestly miss how I felt. You have to get over the initial hump to make an informed decision for yourself.

Unless you stay low carb your initial experinced weight loss will not hold. You just depleted your stored glucose. Once you eat carbs again that glucose bloat will return. If you want to hold at 175lbs go past that using Keto to allow for the bloat back. If I want to do another Keto cut my first 13 lbs account for really a fake loss as that would bloat back within the first few day off.
Keto works well for people because you see an immediate result and that encourages one to keep at it. I gained weight on Keto many times by over eating within my ratios. Within the same weight range my loss ratios on Keto and Weight Watchers were exactly the same. Keto I felt great, on WW I hated everyday feeling the carb craving.
Specifically in Ketosis or not, existing caloric deficit will get the losses. Unfortunately in a cut you loose both fat and a percentage lean muscle mass too.

That is truly a shame.  I love it.  2 years in southern Italy was the best eating I've ever done.

You are maintaining at 2000/day at 190 lbs?

Seems low.

I still think the magic of keto is how easy it is to eat below TDEE and not feel hungry, that's why people fail with balanced macros while tracking, they get hungry and lack self control.

As far as being in or out of ketosis, you will still gain or maintain weight if you are overeating.

I get it, it's tough to cut, I've done it before when there wasn't much going on, if there is no work to do to keep your mind busy you notice your stomach gurgling a bit more and act on it.

Yes, 2,000 calories when I was 190 pounds was my maintenance level at my activity level. That is where I started. One week later I'm at 2,000 calories per day and am now 182 lbs. But I haven't exercised at all this week. Normally I work out every other day.

Actually, this!

LOL,

About week 4 or 5 you will start feeling better, at 60 days you will feel the best you have in years.  I'm about 110 days in, feel great, eat great and under 25 carbs a day.  Only 2.2 lbs  from my goal if 40 lbs lost.  I haven't weighed this weight since the 1980's.

It takes 3plus weeks to get your liver producing ketones so you are burning fat for energy instead of glucose.  Also, as others have said take a vitamin and extra magnesium and potassium.

There is always exceptions.

Herschel Walker was an elite athlete on one meal of soup per day.

He also had multiple personalities so maybe every one of them ate a meal of soup lol.

You can argue all you want but the main purposes of each macro are pretty well established.  Carbs are the only macro that are not essential.

But.

Keto isn't really conducive to anything I want to achieve.  Of all the people I've met or known that were in great shape and very active,  I've never met a single one that got that way on keto and met very few that maintained it on keto.

I just don't see the purpose other than for sedentary people.

To me it's simple.  Math.  Calories in,  calories out.  High satiety whole foods.  Moderation.  I lost more weight than most people on this board have with any method and I was using keto and IF.

I don't recommend either other than to say,  everyone is different if you like it try it.  If it works keep on it.

It is not just "keto flu" if it is even that at all.

There is kind of a two step to keto, the first happens quickly and the second can take weeks to months to a year +.

Step 1:  induce the liver to begin producing ketones by managing your carb intake.  This can happen in a day or three for most people.  When it does, you will test positive for ketones on urine strips, your breath my smell/taste like acetone and weight loss kicks in, especially water loss.  Proper hydration and electrolyte maintenance in the beginning.

Now that you are producing ketones, your body's cells will start to use it for their energy source vs glucose... except not - or not yet.

Step 2:  nearly every cell in your body is configured for glucose consumption and each has to literally reprogram its mitochondria to leverage ketones as an energy source.  This is sometimes referred to as becoming keto adapted.  You can track this in a limited fashion with the urine strips.  In the beginning of ketosis, the strips will have very high readings - because your liver is doing it's part with the ketone production but your cells are not yet making much use of them, hence they are being expelled in the urine.  In the coming weeks/months, the urine strips should show lower and lower readings - and even no positive results - as your cells increase their ability to consume the ketones and very little is expelled.

Until step 2 is underway, you ARE running on less energy and you will feel lethargic, etc.

Keep on it, hydrate, and give your body a few weeks to ADAPT.

Congrats and good luck!

It's interesting to me that the Keto diet poster boys, the Inuit, don't actually experience Ketosis

Is there a reason why?

Two hypotheses that I have read:

1) The Inuit have some genetic mutation that precludes them from being in ketosis.  If true, that doesn't speak well for the benefits of a ketogenic diet over the long term from an evolutionary perspective.

2) The Inuit have relied on the raw meat of sea mammals.  Because sea mammals stay submerged for very long periods of time (anaerobic), they have very high muscle glycogen.  Since the Inuit are eating their meat raw, most of that glycogen is preserved and they consume enough carbohydrate as glycogen to stay out of glycosis.

I read an article that made a point similar to #2 about a more tropical tribe of hunter-gatherers.  The early dietary analysis of folks who studied the tribe showed high fat/protein consumption from hunted animals, but the scientists never went on hunts.  They just stayed in the village.  When the men were out hunting, they would consume large amounts of wild honey.

It would be interesting if they have a mutation that makes them super efficient at gluconeogenesis, so efficient that they can just make as ass load of glucose for fuel.

I haven't had potatoes in a couple of years now and I still have dreams about KFC mashed potatoes and gravy.

Not Keto, just restricting calories here, but I’m averaging 1000 calories/day for the past couple weeks. It’s totally doable and pretty painless. I just can’t get MyFitnessPal to go below a 1200 cal goal.

Wow, that's only about two doughnuts.

I’m not dropping any inches off my waist either. I don’t get it.

Could it be your bones? I'm pretty sure I'll never be under a 36" waist.

You aren't eating enough.

The majority of women I have seen can lose body fat at 1400-1600 calories a day easily if they do it correctly.

I had a 21 inch waist and weighed 97 lbs at 18. I’ve gone down to the 70s when I was 16 and even though my ribs showed I still had boobs and a butt. I just want to look like Kate Beckinsale.

I’m 5’1. It should work. I’ve lost weight by not eating before, I just don’t know why it’s not working this time. I lost about 5 lbs and stalled at 127. My height, I should be able to get to 115 without a problem.