Dedicated Ketosis Thread (Page 8)

Totally agree...They were losing me a little in 101 especially. Like you, I don't mind the off topic stuff, it is often pretty funny...but the last few episodes kind of lost my attention.

Have you guys found The Fat Burning Man podcast? He's got some really good interviews...

Mandy

Edited by manfarr1974 2013-03-06 8:37 PM

Hey, everyone:

I need a pep talk!  Feeling very discouraged.  Dodgersmom’s observation about settling into a weight rings true.  I can’t seem to budge for the last two weeks despite clean eating and what I know are limited calories.  The one place I do need to cut back is nuts.  I am probably consuming more calories than I realize when I get home from work.  Maybe I will switch to sliced cukes with cream cheese.  With that said, I am not entirely certain my fat is high enough.  Main sources of fat are a daily half avocado, 1 oz cheddar cheese, 1 oz walnuts (plus snacking after work), 2 T organic Italian salad dressing, 2 eggs or 3 oz meat. 

I have my next oncology apt at the end of April, and I specifically requested to have an appointment with a nutritionist scheduled in at some point during what is usually a very long day of tests and doctor visits.  Was told my onc approved the request.  I received my appointment schedule Thursday and couldn’t find the nutritionist appoint listed on the agenda.  So I called to find out why and was told that Mayo only provides nutrition counseling on ketogenic diets for kids!  WTH???  You have got to be kidding me that they aren’t on to this for adults? 

I am not confident I am in ketosis despite limiting carbs to about 30g a day and certainly fewer than 50.  The keto sticks do not register any of the pinks or purple on the container but rather a weird brownish beige.  Not dark for sure.  They do change color but not to anything on the comparative chart on the bottle.  Is blood measure the best way to go?  Because of my cancer, getting to ketosis or deep ketosis is a major goal for tumor growth suppression. 

Despite my and moaning about weight, I do feel so much better having cut out carbs, wheat especially.  Onward ho!

I will say that I am surprised they didn't make it more of an option from their system. I live in podunk nowhere, and a cancer patient I know told me his oncologist always tells him "sugar doesn't cause cancer but it feeds it." So this isn't new or controversial information in oncology.

Within the world of paleo or low carb advocates, the only prominent person that come to mind is Dr. Colin Champ aka the Caveman Doctor. He is, IIRC, a radiation oncologist. I will bet that if you contacted him via email as an oncology patient, he could point you in the right direction.

Going great, discovered a few good Flax meal recipes lately, losing weight, not feeling hungry and having lots of energy. Finally got around to buying a Treadmill, life is great!

Feel like I have been struggling a bit lately. Not eating enough and not enough fat in the diet.  Causing some issues.  Need to get some more fiber into my diet.  To put it tri terms, sitting on a bike seat is not very comfortable at the moment! (Sorry TMI).

Today was better for eating.  Bacon and HB eggs for breakfast.  Leftover spaghetti squash with chile for lunch and pulled pork (cooked all day in the crockpot) for dinner.  I did add an avocado with dinner to get some fat there.

Have not used the sticks in a few days.  Need to get back to that. 

As someone who has shared the pain caused by not enough fiber, I would suggest Flax meal, that food definitely fixed my problem. It is also very high in fat, especially Omega 3.

And no I am not a Flax Seed vendor. :-)

Hi, ewjones.  Welcome to this sporadic thread.  I’m not certain a diet solely of fried chicken wings and hot sauce is the best diet approach but everyone has to find his or her own way.  Adding some low carb veggies and eggs or other more natural meat may make you feel better.

I am feeling stuck in a rut.  No weight loss but my weight does fluctuate about 3 pounds over the course of seven days with no real change in food consumption.  I am considering doing a water/tea fast next week for a couple of days to try and kick my body into gear.  Has anyone done a short term fast of two days or so?  If so, did it have any appreciable result?  What about continuing tri training while fasting?

This week I have been forcing myself to eat about 3 oz of raw broccoli with some broccoli sprouts in my daily spinach-feta-avocado salad for lunch.  I loathe raw broccoli (love it cooked) but am learning to like it.  I have switched to home-made salad dressing, too.  A liberal sprinkle of olive oil, 2 T of Bragg brand raw apple cider vinegar, and a liberal sprinkling of Bragg organic 24 herb blend.  Yum.  Will never go back to bottled dressing.

What do people think about eating 4 oz of frozen mixed berries daily?  Is that too much fruit?  Does that kill any hope of getting to ketosis?  I think I read in The Art of Low Carbohydrate Living that the body cannot metabolize fructose into anything other than fat.  Does that sound right? 

How is everyone doing?  Any success stories recently to share?

Truvia and purevia are total lies, they are only .5% stevia. Read this: http://www.dietitiancassie.com/the-truth-on-truvia/

Ketosis as we are trying to practice here is not the same as ketoacidosis which is dangerous and will tear up your organs.

I am considering ketosis to be a subset option of low carb, which I think needs to be paleo influenced. Just like you can have a messed up diet as a vegan, but keeping vegan principles, you can go into ketosis and drop weight but still be consuming a bunch of seed oils, and ignoring vegetables. It's one piece of the puzzle for me, but it's not about doing a gallon of cream a day and calling it the magic bullet.

I love berries, spent my life growing some around the house and picking whatever wild ones I can find. I always have lots of berries in my freezer for the winter, all this to say, they have always been an important part of my nutrition.

I have come to understand the way my body works, If i stay low carbs, eating berries (Even pigging out) will not cause gain weight. On the other side, even a few berries will keep me from loosing weight. It seems any strong Insulin reaction in my body will stop weight loss.

So I eat berries most of the time, unless I'm trying to loose weight. I went 8 months without berries last year, it was harder than giving up junk.

3 times in 10 hours?! Oh my. I know everyone is different, but I go about once every 1.5hrs. I drink water ALL day. It's good for you, it's vital for your body to function! 

How much are you actually drinking? Do you know?

The show is at 9am eastern time tomorrow, Thursday the 21st. You can listen live through www.wkok.com or the tuneinradio mobile app. The call numbers are 1070am, WKOK Sunbury PA.

I'm glad I found this thread and I hope it picks back up again.  Having said that, the one question that I'm really looking for an answer to is how do you fuel for a 1.5+ hour training session and stay in ketosis?  I listened to Dr. Attia and his answer was superstarch or cream cheese with berries.  Now, I've done a little bit of research on super startch and to me, it looks like waxy maize is pretty close to it and should have the same impact.....so, I'll save my money and give that a shot when I get back to training (I'm injured right now)  Sadly, most of the info I'm reading in here is reverting back to the old standby of pure sugar gu's, bars, etc. (minus the person trying to create their own gel..which I applaud you!) so I may have to be my own experiment with this.

For those who test with ketostix, do you find that you may register not in ketosis because you're drinking too much?  The diet I've been using (modified Ideal Protein) requires at least half a gallon of fluid a day; I usually take in closer to 2 gallons.

I've been doing a form of keto for about 3 weeks now.  I don't know how much I've lost because I have an injury which prevents me from putting weight on both feet...but the mirror doesn't lie, I'm leaning out nicely right now!  I've gone through all of the adjustments and have gotten to the point where I can exercise for 30 minutes and not feel that dreaded lightheadedness.....so that's a good feeling.

I'm sorry I'm all over the place with my post but one final question.  What supplements are you all taking with your keto diet?  The one thing I really focus on is making sure I take my potassium and magnesium vitamins because if I don't, I will cramp.  I've also read that post workout, you need to make sure you take glutamine/bcaa's to ensure your body doesn't become catabolic.

My longest sessions so far have only been 4 hours, and I do well with olives and some nuts. You need to try some foods and see what sits well in your stomach. Someone with longer sessions might have better solutions.

The thing to keep in  mind, is that in Ketosis you will not get the severe drop in energy you get when your body burns carbs for fuel. When your insulin is low, all your fat stores are available for fuel, so your body will find something to burn in your reserves. 

I don't take supplements, I make sure my food is varied enough to give me everything I need. 

Don't know much about Catabolic problems. Even in Ketosis, my body keeps my Glucose level normal, so I don't worry about Catabolic problems. 

Hi Madeiros13:  I am very new to this as well and have learned a lot from this thread.  My longest training was a 2.5 hour bike workout on the Kinetic.  I just drank water and was fine.  In fact, I do not use any sort of fuel during training anymore although I am contemplating looking into UCAN as an energy source during super long training rides or runs this summer.  My goal is to see the outer limits of training on stored body fat.  I would like to entirely avoid carbs, if possible.  Today I plan on a ten mile run and may just bring water or more likely nothing at all.  I have been fine and had even energy.  I just finished a 1.5 hour swim this morning, too.  Right now I am fueling up on two eggs, two slices of bacon and a half grapefruit (my weekly indulgence).  I have no clue what it means to be catabolic so I can’t answer that concern.  I do take a variety of vitamins, fish oil, flax and resveratrol daily mostly because I am addressing other health issues not because of my low carb diet.

Question:  I was reading Taubes on sugar last night.  He mentioned that fructose is metabolized by the liver into fat.  I am really confused and don’t fully understand the insulin and sugar metabolism process.  So it is right that fruits are metabolized into fat?  I love berries and limited citrus and do not want to eliminate them from my diet.  Can someone please explain this.

Can someone also explain more simply what insulin resistance means?  I can’t seem to get my arms around the insulin dynamic, which I know is fundamental but the books I have been skimming are way too heavy on science beyond my educational background.

Hope everyone is well!

The best explanation of Fructose and Glucose in your system is the Youtube video from Robert Lustig. He tries to keep it as simple as possible. If you don't want to watch all of it, start at 45 minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

The way they check people's resistance to insulin, is by checking your blood glucose level every 15 - 30 minutes after you drink a fruit juice. The quicker your glucose goes down, the less resistant you are.

Being resistant means that over the years some cells in your body will try and stop insulin from getting the food into them. Usually starts with muscles and the last cells to become resistant are fat cells. At this point you become Diabetic Type 2. Many things can affect your resistance to insulin, from genetics to life style.

Taubes has a very simple and great way of explaining the effect of insulin resistance in people. He uses the wallet analogy. I'd be happy to describe his wallet theory if you have not read the book.

The main job of insulin is to knock at the doors of cells and convince them to store Glucose as fat for fuel. Over time some of those cells get tired of insulin's visits and slam the door. The body will then produce more insulin to keep knocking at the doors and get them opened. 

The more you have insulin floating around, the more it will be difficult for your system to burn fat as a fuel. Eventually the pancreas will no longer be able to create as much insulin as you need, and you will become a Type 2 diabetic. 

Only carbs affect your insulin levels, fat and protein have no effect.

Hope this help, but I still prefer the wallet analogy.

It's nice to see this thread still has some activity in it!

RE catabolic: that is more of an individual concern as I think about it.  It is the state in which the body burns muscle for energy because it has nothing else to burn...theoretically, that shouldn't happen in ketosis but it is a concern on the Ideal Protein diet that I've been doing. (very very low calories)  The best way to prevent it is to ensure you take BCAA's and Glutamine...I have a bodybuilding background so losing muscle is always a big concern.

Thanks for the feedback on what you're taking for your food during long training sessions.  I make my own nut butter so I was thinking of making that very liquidy with some unsweetened coconut flakes for taste...and see how that goes.  I've also used chia seed gel in the past...I'd just need to figure out what to add to it...maybe MCT oil.

I looked at that UCAN product...it looks really expensive.  To expand a bit more on Waxy Maize...I'm going to put the nutritional value of both...and you can decide

http://www.generationucan.com/lemonade.html

The nutrtional value is at the bottom of the page...the only ingredient is waxy maize..its listed within another link on the site http://truenutrition.com/p-953-waxy-maize-starch-amylocel-1lb.aspx?

Hey, everyone:

Oulandluc:  I watched the entire Lustig discussion.  As with probably 98% of viewers the biology part was beyond me, but the takeaway was clear.  He makes a persuasive argument that HFCS should be regulated.  I wish he has spent more time discussing fruit (which is a current obsession on mine) as a source of fructose.  He only mentioned in passing that fruit is okay because it delivers fructose along with fiber and other nutrients.  It’s not like main veining fructose in the way HFCS is.  Still, it leaves we to conclude that our bodies metabolize fructose from fruit similarly.  Nonetheless, it was a well done presentation.  The technically dense biology segment is worth a second listen to more fully understand.  I wish I had a chemistry background.

Madeiros:  On Saturday I ended up running ten miles in addition to swimming 3000 yards.  The run was my first outdoors this winter and was very, very slow.  I had to thread my way over and through a lot of icy spots on sidewalks, stop at lights and cross streets so the run was somewhat fragmented.  Anyway, I brought only water with me.  I was fine and had no thoughts of energy deficiency.  Granted, it was not a long run but still it’s a start on testing limits of fat-based endurance.  

So I have been weighing myself daily for the last two and a half weeks plus taking my blood pressure and pulse when I get up.  My weight is ever so slowly going down after the initial five pound drop when I cut out bread and sugar.  I feel so much better generally.  I have much more even energy and no midafternoon slump.  My blood pressure is steady and is in the ~105/70 range with pulse at70. 

What events are people registered and training for in 2013?