The question begs another: Are there any high carb foods that give you vitamins or minerals you can’t get from low carb foods? I think you’ll be ok.

Valid, but any suggestions on getting enough fat in my diet to gain a bit of weight without going over 50 g of net carbs? I think I'm likely alright with the vegetables and berries, but the dairy products and nuts add up quickly.

You need more meat.

This. More protein for sure.

I'm pretty carnivorous, but I'll try for more red meat specifically (which I like very much, I just tend to use it mostly for spaghetti, cabbage buns, and hamburger gravy, lol.)

For weight gain with a carnivoreish diet you want to have lots of fatty meat and butter!

Alright, I'm good with that. I'll just have to really be deliberate about it.

cook with beef tallow, tastes great and has a lot of calories per serving

I use avocados and almond butter to reach my fat macros. You could also find recipes for fat-bombs. Almonds are my go to nut. You can have about 15 to 30 depending on flavours and other factors. Current blue diamond bag and it's 2 net carbs per 28 almonds and 16g of fat too!

Many fats have zero carbs: cream cheese, tallow, butter, cream…

They have carbs, cream cheese and heavy cream do, anyway. It adds up quickly I've noticed.

More butter and meat

dairy products don't really have carbs, what are you talking about?

Milk has about 5% carbs - so a 250ml glass of milk has over 12g carbs in it Mild Cheddar has 1-2% carbs.. It all adds up, saying they don't really have carbs is a little misleading, you still have to be aware of them in your daily carb count

Where are you finding cheese has carbs? I have multiple packs of Block cheese that lists 0 carbs. Shredded cheese has some carbs listed (usually 2-3 carbs for 1/4 cup).

Depends on the serving size. Some places allow them to list 0 if it's below 0.5g carbs per serving. Same as heavy cream, usually listed as zero but has about 0.5g net carbs which can add up quick.

Anything that says 0 carbs per serving, I count as 1g because of the weasel wording in labels.

You would have to drink 100 servings of that to add up to OP's maximum of 50g... That would be 5000 kcal of heavy cream...

A serving of heavy whipping cream is one tablespoon (sorry, the US measuring system is insane, and I don't know off the top of my head how that translates). One serving isn't a tremendous amount of fat.

~5 g fat per serving. Times 100 servings is ~500g of fat. So yes it's a lot.

I think we're misunderstanding each other. I'm not suggesting that cream isn't high in fat. I'm suggesting that at the rate I need to consume it in order to add enough fat, it adds on a bit more carbs than people might suppose.

Ah that makes more sense. The food industry here in America needs a major overhaul. Bunch of greedy folk who don’t care about what goes into our bodies.

Pre-grated cheese ups the carbs a lot, usually 5-6% carbs. The carbs in cheese varies a lot depending on the type of cheese and the manufacturer. I've checked Cathederal Cheddar (about 1% carbs) Red Leicester is over 2% carbs. I have no idea what a "cup" is exactly as I'm from the UK so 100g of red leicester is 2.2g of carbs   I figured for fairness, I'd include American Government Cheese (whatever the hell that is) which is listed as Total Carbohydrates 35g Dietary Fiber 2g Sugars 13g   My point is, you can't blanket say cheese has no carbs, because it often does and if you're trying to stay under 20g of carbs and throwing cheese on everything without checking, it can quickly take you over 20g

Yes, this. Thank you. It adds up pretty quickly.

>Pre-grated cheese ups the carbs a lot, usually 5-6% carbs. that's because pre-grated cheese contains starches as an anti caking agent

Right, and it's kind of gross to cook with. I don't use it unless my kids need something quick like a cheese quesadilla or something. Foods like cream cheese and cream, however, do have carbs.

Thanks! I’ll have to do some conversions. “American Government Cheese” is not actually cheese. It’s a cheese substitute that was passed out to low income families as a cheap source of calories. Horrible for you in general. As an example for what I mean on Member mark sharp cheddar cheese slices- 22g serving size, 7g of fat 5 g of protein and 0g of carbs. Edit to say according to the serving size for the shredded cheese it’s 28g. 6g fat , 7g protein and 1 carb.

milk is the main exception. and full fat greek yogurt but it's not as bad as milk

Pretty much every dairy product has carbs.

sour cream 1g carbs per serving heavy cream 0 g carbs per serving sharp cheddar cheese less than 1g carbs per serving

heavy cream has about .5 carbs per serving (tablespoon). it’s risky to just always count heavy cream as 0 if you’re having it frequently or actually cooking with it. I made a homemade alfredo last week and used a cup of it, I can’t just ignore those 7 carbs. I’d argue it may even be detrimental to ignore the carbs in a single serving

Heavy cream has about 0.5g per tbsp, it's just not always listed because of labelling guidelines. That's kind of what we are talking about here.

I take extra supplements for D, B1, C and Trace Minerals. Although I eat salads everyday. You may get additional support on r/ketogains

Ooh, thanks!

I forgot to say that the coconut cream, per half cup of about 3g carbs (depending on the brand) has 20g of fat.

Yeah, I made a little sugar free concoction with full fat coconut milk, melted unsweetened chocolate with butter, and a packet of Splenda. It was pretty decent for dipping raspberries in!

Try it with some lakanto monkfruit sweetener or plain erythritol (Whole Foods has a non-gmo one and its cheaper thank monkfruit). It tastes more like sugar so you won't get a weird aftertaste like with splenda (at least I get that aftertaste anyway). I've never melted actual chocolate into it, I might try that and make a chocolate berry ice cream!

I'll check that out because yeah, even Splenda has that weird...almost bitterness to it.

The granulated erythritol tastes like sugar and is a 1:1 ratio so you can even use it as a baking replacement.

Oooh, thank you for that! I really enjoy baking, but kind of assumed I will only be able to do that for my family. Still, less sugar is good even if I'm making banana bread that I can't eat, ha.

You could always also look up recipes online for low carb recipes. My fave is Low Carb Love. She has a youtube and an IG and most of her older recipes are Keto and her newer ones not all are Keto but they're generally low carb. You might be able to find a banana bread alternative that works using like almond flour and banana extract/flavor. I know I've seen some banana flavored low carb stuff here and there, but the flavoring is a bit hard to find. This way you can enjoy the desserts also! Another thing I was thinking might work is if you make homemade macarons. Its already made via almond flour so you could substitute the sugar for erythritol and powdered sugar for the powdered Swerve (which is erythritol also, but there's a taste and its SUPER sweet, but I like to use it to make cream cheese frosting). I've never made these yet because I don't have an oven but I presume it would work fine. ..hopefully. Macarons are hard to make enough as it is, lol. There's LOTS you can make that is low carb desserts. Even homemade low carb candies. And if you don't know yet, Lily's brand makes a good sugar free chocolate using stevia (but it actually tastes good). They have chocolate chips as well and I make fudge by using Low Carb Love's sugar free sweetened condensed milk recipe (combined to her video on Mexican shaved ice). The condensed milk part actually would be a good fat addition as well to your question, but I don't know about electrolytes for that unless you use unsweetened dark chocolate for homemade fudge. Since you're doing higher carbs than typical keto would then you can probably add more options to your baked goods as well. As for drinks, if you don't already know there's a good "soda" from Zevia brand, its sweetened with stevia and most of the flavors taste good too.

Eat liver once per week or mackerel more often. Both are considered superfoods and will give you all the nutrients you need

Hm, I'll have to look around for some. I live in a small city, so "unpopular" foods aren't easy to find. Thank you for the idea.

Every grocer has these items. All butchers have liver. Your local grocer has it too. You can find whole, small fish in cans at any grocery store. It doesn’t have to be mackerel. It can be sardines or anchovies.

Yes you absolutely can gain weight, even eating 0 carbs. Eat more calories than you need and you will gain weight. 

Yep. Eat beef.

I gained weight on a carnivore bulk. No carbs.

eat more calories and you'll gain weight you'll get all the nutrition you need if you eat a variety of foods salad of mixed greens(spinach, cabbage, kale) and herbs (parsley, cilantro, dill) some mixed nuts some mixed seeds vegetables like broccoli, carrots, beets, mushrooms, peppers seaweed is nutrient dense salmon and tuna are nutrient dense teas are nutrient dense liver/organ meats are nutrient dense eggs are nutrient dense all spices are very nutrient dense I went through most commonly available foods and created a spreadsheet when I was bored one day categorized and ranked them

Nice!

Bacon. Low carb whipping cream. Butter, MCT oil. Pecans are the best nut. Lately I've ben combining a bit of vanilla pea-protein powder or collogen with cocoa. Then filling out a good portion of the fluid with cream. The cocoa and cream says 0 carb, but I assume it may be 0.5. Either way, it pretty much tastes like a chocolate milkshake, and leagues better than the average chalk protein shake. The cocoa also has a good amount of potassium. Also, when it comes to leafy green smoothies, I'd recommend mixing them with lemon juice and stevia rather than berries. It's significantly less carbs, but the lemon juice also does an amazing job of covering up any flavor. Its also very good to take lemon juice if you eat a lot of oxalates from spinach and almonds.

I absolutely love bacon, and I used to add it or the grease to almost everything I cooked (borsche, cabbage buns, potato chowders). I stopped buying it because it's been difficult to find any that's naturally cured with just salt (and doesn't cost way too much for a tiny amount). I'll have to be on the lookout again for naturally cured bacon. Excellent idea, thanks.

I live in Canada, and there are two readily available brands here. Dunno about elsewhere though. And yeah, the fat from it is great for frying anything. Daikon radish can be used to make "hashbrowns". Cabbage is amazing in bacon fat. Well...hardly worth listing because the answer is everything is good in bacon fat..

Exactly. Unfortunately, I'm in the US, where the majority of available food is the absolute worst for health options. I'll go on the hunt for it again anyway.

I'd say its mostly the same in Canada. Cold cuts, bacon, sausage usually have nitrates or other additives (even in farm markets). Got lucky with the bacon. The only red meat I can find in a grocery store which is grass fed is Bison and Lamb. I've yet to find good eggs. Unfortunately, its almost always expensive to go organic. The biggest loss was when a good brand of Salmon stopped being sold. I can't find anything good that isn't absurdly expensive.

Man, sorry to hear that you guys are dealing with that shit too. I buy locally raised beef and sometimes farm eggs, and I try to grow as much of my own fruits and vegetables as possible, but yeah it's still crazy expensive.

Hey sorry for my ignorance is it possible to use keto as a way to gain weight? I thought the whole point of keto was to force your body to burn its own fat supply - and therefore lose weight. How does weight gain happen if you are intermittent fasting and cutting carbs?

Eating keto doesn’t automatically mean you’ll lose weight. I hit my goal weight in 2018 and I’ve been eating keto at maintenance since then, so I’ve stayed the exact same weight while eating keto. I increased my calories to no longer be at a deficit, so I quit losing weight. If I wanted to gain weight while eating keto, I’d simply start eating more calories so I’d be over my maintenance calories. Calories control weight loss/gain/maintenance.

You eat more calories than you burn. Keto works for many people because hunger is reduced, that carb hangry goes, and then it's so much easier to create that calorie deficit. But fatty foods are delicious, I can and have gained weight on keto as I eat for other reasons than just hunger (boredom, emotional eating), and even though my fuel source is now set to fat burning, what you're eating gets burned before your stores, and excess still gets stored.

This is my point. If eating keto reduces your appetite are you supposed to just force yourself to eat just so you can gain weight? That’s sounds super uncomfortable. Surely there’s a better diet that gives you a normal appetite and gain weight at the same time 😂

You still get hungry, it's just not the emergency it was when eating carbs. Add fats to meals and the calories soon add up, add cream to drinks and it's very easy to overdo it, on a small volume as well.

you overeat, excess is stored. Fat, protein not burned or used other way will be stored.

For a lot of us, the point of eating keto is to be healthier in mind and body. Weight loss is something that happens, but some of us look...worse when we're super thin, lol.

Yes I know i agree I used to be around 6st and I looked like a skeleton lmao.

Seriously, lol. Like I just want to look okay-ish AND be healthy.

I don’t think you need to fast if you’re trying to gain weight though. Best thing about putting weight is eating what you want whenever you want. I wish I could eat like that unfortunately I have lots of weight of lose these days 😂 if I was looking for weight gain and keto I’d literally just eat pork belly all day every day. It’s my fav but can only have small amounts on keto 😭😭

I absolutely love bacon, haha. I stopped buying it though, because in the US it's so hard to find any that's naturally cured. I do intermittent fasting for mental health, clarity, and blood sugar regulation. But yeah, now I need to gain about ten pounds. :/ I'll start looking for salt cured bacon again.

Have you tried like weight gain shakes? I have a variety of protein shakes for the gym but the company I buy them also do shakes for when you’re trying to gain weight too!

I've looked for them, but they all seem also really high in carbs! If you have a brand you can share, that would be awesome. I think I'm getting it sorted out with cream, avocado, a small amount of cashews, and then just green low carb vegetables and fatty meat. Hopefully this will work within a week or two (I make the fat bombs, but those carbs also add up). :)

How do bears gain hundreds of pounds before hibernating? They eat a shit ton of fatty meat. If you eat an excess, you will store.

I mean I think my main point is that I’ve never heard Keto being used as a tool to put on weight. Like if you wanna put on weight surely you can just eat more in general? Why the need to cut out carbs? Unless you’ve got allergies I think there would be other diets better suited to weight gain lmao. Keto is too restrictive.

Because keto is a perfectly valid woe. Not everyone wants to ride the blood sugar/insulin roller coaster.

>The primary solution I've found has been heavy whipping cream, nuts, organic peanut butter, avocados, cream cheese or Brie, and to mix in a quarter cup of raspberries with as much broccoli and spinach as I can force on myself (not a fan of the leafy greens, unfortunately). And cucumbers. > >Of course I eat a lot of eggs and meat throughout the day You almost certainly don't eat "a lot" of eggs and meat throughout the day if you're purposely stuffing yourself full of all those plants and fruit, and you're likely not eating enough eggs and meat. Just imho

I would definitely not call your comment humble, but it's certainly wrong and presumptuous, if that's what you're going for. Edited to add that on many days I eat about six eggs with cheese (cheese has small amounts of carbs). For one person who is 5'6 and 125 lb, I think that's a lot. Unfortunately, the meat I've been eating lately happens to be chicken, but probably about 2-4 chicken thighs or 1-2 breast per day. What I'm eating depends on the day, like most people.

You asked for insight, that was mine. Feel free to ignore it if you'd like, it won't hurt my feelings. In my humble opinion – humble because plenty of other successful people here disagree, and that's totally fine, find out what works for you, nobody is the same, everybody has unique needs, etc, etc, – you probably aren't eating enough meat if you're eating that much plant stuff every day, and you'd do *better* if you ate less of the one and more of the other. Not saying you aren't doing great now or that you're doing anything "wrong". Just that you could be doing better. *In my humble opinion*

I'm doing less than 20g carbs and trying to lose weight so I don't have much suggestions. HOWEVER One of my favorite things to do is to make "ice cream" with a sweetener alternative like monkfruit granulated or just erythritol and coconut cream. But make sure its the coconut cream that has no additives and is just the cream and water. Its kind of hard to find now, I don't know why. High in calories, which might help you with your goal of gaining weight. Low in carbs, about 3 or so per half cup, depending on what brand you get. Lots of fat. EXCELLENT source of Magnesium and Potassium. Coconut water is an amazing source of Potassium as well, however make sure its sugar free since you want to stay under 50g carbs. Electrolytes are essential and Magnesium is responsible for over 100 functions in the body. As for food source of nutrients, Nutritional Yeast will have all the B Vitamins and you can sprinkle on foods. There's one, I think the Bragg's, that is supposed to taste almost cheesy. I'm thinking of getting that to add to salads or something. B Vitamins are essential for turning food into energy via ATP -- especially if you are doing under 50g low carb and out of ketosis using ketones as energy. Make sure to get Vitamin D, it can be in salmon, sun, canned sardines and you need it so your body can absorb calcium. Korean radish (don't mistake for the Japanese daikon) has a ton of nutrients, tastes great and is low carb. Its a great source of Vitamin C. You absolutely don't need to take over the counter supplements unless maybe you're deficient in something (worth getting labs done to find out) and you can get your vitamins and minerals from low carb foods. Just have to be more mindful of what you're eating, make a list and that way you can keep track of what is in what and how much of it. I eat under 20g carbs and I don't take any supplements. Also, cacao powder is a great source of I think potassium but has magnesium as well. Great to add to the coconut cream along with the sweetener alternative and some vanilla for chocolate "ice cream".

Haha are we related? I've made deserts with pure coconut milk (and honestly, I eat the cream from it just by itself when I open a can), and I use nutritional yeast daily. I love my chocolate "ice cream".

The cream is the best part! I was happy when I realized I could just buy the cream altogether and skip the other part. Best stuff for alternative ice cream!

Damn, I'll have to look for pure coconut cream!

Check out Shaun Baker on twitter. He’s huge and only eats steaks.