Dedicated Ketosis Thread (Page 6)

Just as I suspected, scale is up .8 of a pound this week.  Crud!  I hate set backs.  Buckle down and keep clean. 

What's everyone eating today?  Do people plan menus for the week and shop accordingly?  What about regularly weighing food?  I bought a  small scale and weigh my daily walnut one ounce portion as well as one ounce cheddar cheese portion.

Throw out all your scales. Human and food.

While we may vary in intensity of lowcarb, and some other details, I am going to make assumptions in this thread that if you've found your way here, you are willing to buy into the ancenstral health umbrella of approaching health. If that's so, then there are some things I think we need to let go of. Things like worrying about less than a pound fluctuation (I intentionally don't call it a gain), a day or two of imperfection being called a "setback," and setting arbitrary goals based on scale weight.

the scale is one, only one, of a long list of markers we should be aware of. For very very overweight people like myself, it can usually be an easy concurrent marker, but it can lie for me too. I have put mine away for lent.

Get beyond the mentality of glossy magazine diet strategy for weight loss. Move toward a whole health model, where we recognize natural fluid fluctuations, and hormonal processes taking time to change.

These things do not happen overnight. If we continue to obsess over calorie counts and ounces on our scales, we set ourselves up for frustration, depression and failure.

Free yourself of that way of measuring, and watch how you feel. How does our body respond? If it's major shift, like very low carb, give it more than a month to see.

This way of approaching life is what I have been seeking in pieces for years. I am so much more at peace with the process right now. It took me years to make myself as sick as I believe I was. I can heal in a fraction of the time, but it's still some time.

I prescribe any four random hours of Latest in Paleo as a healing mechanism.

Edited by TheClaaaw 2013-02-16 7:27 AM

I do the groceries every two weeks and plan a few meals accordingly. I am the only one in my house on Low Carbs, so I need a plan of attack to keep temptations at bay. I have been going down the list of Linda's Low carb recipes and eating like a king.

I partly agree with Claw that low carbs need to be a life approach and we need to change our "I'm on a diet approach" habit, but it is not always that simple, especially when we are surrounded by people eating plenty of carbs.  I think our addiction to carbs is more difficult to live with than alcohol and drug addiction.

If friends know you are a recovered alcoholic, they will do all they can not to tempt you, but they all think low carbers are nuts, and go out of their ways to feed you carbs :-)

I still like to weight myself and do it every day. I will never again trust someone else to tell me what food I should eat, not even the low carbs Guru. I now have a two part approach.

1- Does this food make sense, is this something a Carnivore would have evolved to eat.

2- How does my body react to it. Check heart rate, check weight, pay attention to hunger feeling, how long before I need food again. Am I loosing weight or gaining.

The reason I take such a complicated approach is that I have more than 40 years of misinformation and experiments (Diets) to eliminate. I need to find what foods make my body perform at its best.

The one approach that does not work for Low carbs, is a food scale. If you keep your insulin low, you will receive the messages from your brain concerning fullness or hunger. I might have confused some people when I mentioned the amount of calories I eat. I counted those calories after the meal. I eat when I'm hungry, and stop eating when I am no longer hungry, and 1800 to 2000 calories seems to be what i need to function, but I don't usually count the calories. I might do it if i tried something new and by body did not react well to it, and I'm trying to find out what went wrong.

One of the difficulty of Low Carbs, is to reprogram ourselves to stop eating when no longer hungry, or to stop following a set time and quantity of meals during the day. I have come up with some understanding with my wife, when we make a nice meal, i will sit with the family and enjoy my Low carb version with the whole family at the table. We always make too much, so a day or two of leftovers will follow, and i will then eat at very different times, depending on hunger.

Claaaw and Outlandluc:  Thank you both so much for your thoughts.  I agree .8 of a pound in the grand scheme of life is laughably inconsequential.  Thanks for the reality check.  Life is way too short to be so consumed by the scale. 

I have always been one who gravitated toward healthy food despite a raging sugar addiction.  My sugar came from home baked cookies and bread.  Store bought was not my thing because of all the additives. 

I stumbled upon this ketogenic food strategy coincidentally during the weekend my MIL was buried following her death from metastatic melanoma (secondary brain tumor).  There was an article in the Health section of the NY Times that weekend about the book “Cancer as a Metabolic Disease” and specifically a ketogenic diet as a treatment approach to brain cancer no less.  I’ve been following a blog and explanation of the diet written by another M.D. who is into nutrition bug time.  Here’s a link:  http://diagnosisdiet.com/ketogenic-diets-for-cancer-and-beyond/

When I received my cancer calling card about a year and a half ago I knew diet was the key to recovery.  I radically altered my diet but still struggled with sugar.  This article on the efficacy of a ketogenic diet for cancer patients is my real motivation for adopting this eating philosophy.  Trust me, my natural inclination toward vegetarianism.  Eating so much meat and fats is a real mental cluster f. 

Cancer issues aside, I am totally intrigued by the basis for a ketogenic diet.  It really makes sense.  I look forward to how it will play out as my marathon and IM training ramp up in the coming weeks.

So I bought a package of ketosticks at Walgreens today.  Walgreens brand.  When I got home and opened up the box I was dismayed to see they expired in June 2012!  I tried one out anyway and it registered a small amount of ketones.  This was mid morning after a 3600 yard swim and a spin session on the bike.  Should I return them?  Do  they lose efficacy?  Is first morning pee best for testing?

Another great video on the subject is the following link. From the Director of one of the Leading research center for cancer, the Sloan-Kettering center. Show this video to family members who think you are crazy to go Low Carbs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUlE1VHGA40

Outlandluc-thanks for the video link.  It was interesting.  I wonder why it didn't continue to record the other two speakers?

Abbie-yesterday I was at 126.4 and today 124.6.  Talk about wild weight swings.  You are so right about the couple of pound fluctuations.  Not sure what's up with that.

Dinner tonight is going to be stir fry chicken and veggies.  Can't wait.

They did, they show up on your screen as related videos once that one ends. Not much added concerning nutrition, more to do with cells and research.

I spent the hours when I should have been sleeping, producing a very thorough, in depth analysis of my favorite podcasts. I did a quick survey here before, but this is much more detailed and mentions more shows. It's at wp.me/p1jSDD-qV.

And so I am not in violation of posts that just say "come read my blog" I have another topic. I am really intrigued by the use of ketogenic diet in cancer prevention and for slowing it. When I fist started hearing this, I had a skeptic moment of "oh, be careful when anyone claims their point of view cures cancer." But the more I pay attention, the more I am having my eyes opened. I talked with a leukemia survivor I know about his doctor's recommendations. The oncologist put it this way: "sugar doesn't directly cause cancer, but it sure does feed it." I have a better understanding of what that means after listening to hours of these podcasts. The caveman doctor is in oncology, fwiw.

As I mentioned before, this moment happened to me in November 2011, when after eating no sugar for 20 months, I realized I had not caught a cold or Stomach flue for that long.

I now believe sugar is a double whammy. Not only does it feed the cancer, it lowers your immune system, making it too weak to fight the cancer.

So, let's talk about Splenda and artificial sweeteners in general.  Doing a little research today, learned that while Splenda says that a packet has 0 carbs, in reality it has .9.  I guess since it is not 1, it can say 0 on the packaging.

This makes it easy for carbs to unknowingly creep into the diet.  I am OK with it, only 2 packets a day (one per cup of coffee).  But I can see how you could use more if you are a bigger coffee or maybe iced tea drinker.  I understand that the liquid Splenda had true 0 as they carbs in the packets come from the filler material.  Will be switching to liquid today.

Also, does anyone know of any powdered drink mixes that contain Splenda rather than Aspertame?  Really want to eliminate it from my diet as all you read about it is evil.  But, the mixes really help me drink enough water every day.  So far I only found one brand called 4C that does not see to be available here in Texas.

I use Xylitol for my Jam. It has calories, but I'm not worried about calories, I'm happy with the fact that it has a very low glycemic index. 

I don't worry about aspartame, I lost 130 lbs drinking it, so obviously it does not affect weight loss. As for the evil info on it, I notice that it often comes from research backed by Sugar companies. I only average a diet cola every second day, compare to the damage I used to do with sugar, my body seems happy 

I think it would behoove us all to consider a totla breakup with sweetness, so we don't feed the craving halfway constantly.

Edited by TheClaaaw 2013-02-21 11:12 AM

Claaw-I totally agree on working toward a complete break with sugar and sweetened foods (and this is coming from a Charter Member of the Sugar Addiction Club).   It is curious to me that substitutes for real foods are created to replace the natural food people are trying to give up.  Artificial meat products are the pinnacle of weird.

Has anyone here completed marathon or IM training on an exclusively low carb diet?  If so, what was  your experience like?  How did you fuel up on super long runs (say 20 milers) or 50+ mile bike rides?

Today I spent the day at a CLE and box lunches were served.  I chose the chicken salad lunch and only ate the chicken salad I scraped off a totally yummy looking french bread roll.  Brought the chips and cookie home for the kids.  Tossed the rest.  The chicken salad was heavenly.  I haven't had it for eons.  Must make some this weekend.

I have not reached that level of training yet, although I managed three 45 miles bike rides last summer with only breakfast. My legs and other soft parts took a beating, but the energy level stayed steady the entire time.

Peter Attia gives a good sample of testing he did on himself for long endurance and the effect on Ketosis which could help you. Here is the link;

http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/the-interplay-of-exercise-and-ketosis-part-i