Dedicated Ketosis Thread (Page 3)

I thought I'd post this for those of you curious about the diet, here's a summary of the book "The Ketogenic Diet" by Lyle McDonald that I found very interesting: http://ladysixstring87.blogspot.ca/

Also, here's a good list of foods that are acceptable for this diet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ah8MbmZepQxWdGo4bnB2QmxxMUlmTzZUTXYzMURRLWc#gid=0

Thanks for posting, I've been eating 2-3 carrots a day and they are not on the list, uggg.  

If done right, you should lose 2-3 lbs of water just in the first week. You will not lose as much weight as you do when starting other types of diet on the first week.

We have become used to big meals when eating carbs, and I have noticed that most new Low carbs people tend to still eat too much for the first few weeks. Eventually you realize that you don't need as many calories when eating high fat, so you eat less often and still don't feel hungry. 

There was a period of 3 months last year where I was training 1-2 hours a day and living on 1800 - 2000 calories a day, with no hunger and plenty of energy.

You don't have a huge weight loss at the starting point, but then it becomes easy to lose 3-4 lbs a week, and mostly fat instead of muscles.

It is a full on paradigm shift when you move to burning fat instead of glucose as a primary way to fuel. It is not recommended for everyone. Even most low carb advocates say that most people should only stay in it for short periods, depending on your profile. Some of us have more damage to undo,so it's a longer process. Little research is there on long term ketosis, though there is mot much indication against it.

The thing is, the paradigm shift is also getting away from only thinking of calorie in calorie out, because the first law of thermodynamics is insufficient to describing the body's metabolic processes. I used to roll my eyes at any diet with an "induction phase." But now that I have at least a cursory understanding of the hormonal systems involved, they do not change overnight. I use the metaphor of switching from gasoline to diesel. You rebuild an engine entirely to burn it.

With that in mind, the short term minded people will always fail, because it may or may not do what they want right away, which is move a scale. This is why the scale as a solo metric is useless. Sure, when you're enormous iike me, it certainly is a pretty good indicator, but waist size is #1. Listen to the podcast Smarter Science of Slim. The cohost is a woman who has had the experience of dropping fat, dropping dress sizes, looking awesome, but not seeing the scale move.

This is what makes movements like paleo, low carb, or even full ketosis as a subgroup so different: you really have to be the kind of person who pays attention to all the details and goes into life as a n=1 experiment. Triathletes are a great group for this, though we tend to start out buying into the high carb fueling dogma at first..... But we are all about maximizing our efforts, and looking beyond a two week quick fix. We all know those people from our families or at work who have that "your diet sucks cause it didn't cure me instantly while I still down wine and chocolate all the time and post it on facebook!" mentality.

I dropped so much water in the first two weeks, it was insane. But I knew that it was water, I had researched what to expect, and well, I'll just say my schedule and experience were not subtle. Now, if my last week of slowed weight loss convinced me this was not working anymore and was the wrong direction, that is my own fault for being short sighted.

I chose to go fully ketogenic to really commit to the low carb thing while doing long course training. By June we shall see how this N=1 turns out.

For those of you really into logging food and if you want to keep track of specific macros, try out the calculator below.  The recommended percentages for a ketogenic diet is 65% fat, 30% protein and 5% carbs.

http://keto-calculator.ankerl.com/

Also, if you want to configure My Fitness Pal with your macros, instructions are found on this site

http://cavemanketo.com/configuring-mfp/

I do enjoy the fact that with Ketosis I lost all that weight and was able to become a Triathlete, but I don't think I want to stay in Ketosis all the time. Not because I think it is bad for you, as I believe it is the normal way of living, humans evolved into, but simply because I find it too restrictive and life is too short :-) 

If I go into Ketosis for a specific challenge, I will stay in it for as long as I need. I will then enjoy food a bit more in the periods between challenges. I will never go back to the food I used to eat, and will always stay Low Carbs, but a Pasta meal once in a while won't kill me :-)

This is how I hope to proceed.

I started tracking food yesterday, let's get things going in the right direction!

It's a personal choice. You will get most of the benefit even at moderate. The thing to keep in mind, is the lower your insulin reaction in your body, the less physical hunger you will feel.

So it is a personal choice to how much carbs you want to eat.

In full ketosis, I need to remind myself to eat, as I feel no hunger even in full training.

If you worry about the need for a minimum of Carbs, the following link is very interesting reading. It is the research done at the Bellevue Hospital in NY, and published in the Journal of The American Medical Association in 1930.

It follows two scientists Stefansson & Anderson who were explorers of the North and had lived with Inuits eating their diets for years. Other scientists would not believe you could live on fat & protein only, so they did it for a year while being followed by Doctors.

The regular blood works are very informative.

http://www.jbc.org/content/87/3/651.full.pdf

I have been on NSNG (no sugar no grains) since Dec 28. I've lost 19.4 pounds since Christmas.

Give it another couple of weeks. This takes time to convert. It is not a small change.

I forgot to post that not only am I a mnth in with notable weight loss, I ran a local 5k yesterday afternoon at a pace that was on par with my fall times, and that is with almost no run training since an early Deember half marathon,

My N=1 takeaway is that it definitely comes back.

Welcome aboard, now all you're missing is the blood work as the final nail in the coffin and you can say adios to 40 years of misinformation :-)

This is very interesting and so timely!  I recently read an article about ketogenic diets as a tool to thwart cancer cell growth.  I am keenly interested in trying a high protein/low carb diet specifically for this reason but an concerned about compatibility with training for IMWI. 

Can someone please provide a general guideline for what she or he eats daily or weekly.   What is a typical day and how many calories are consumed?  The ketogenic diet for cancer is high protein, high fat, low carbs and low calorie. 

Has anyone consulted with a nutritionist with specific knowledge of ketogenic diets?  If so, what did the person provide?  Meal plans?  Recipes?

The whole concept of high protein, high fat low carbs turns on its head everything we are told about nutrition.  I am having a hard time getting my arms around this.  I rarely eat meat, eat a lot of fruit, cheese sticks, non-fat greek yogurt, and whole grain bread I bake from scratch weekly.

I'm also curious what people are eating.  I'm experimenting with lower carb (<150 g, usually < 100 g once fiber is subtracted) and intend to gradually lower as the food available in the house transitions.  But I'm having a really hard time with keeping it under 100 total.  

Plus how are you all addressing food costs?

All I can do, and hope it helps, is share my own experience. Good luck finding a nutritionist who agrees with Ketogenic, we are still seen as nuts.

At the beginning of this tread, I list a typical day for me. I posted a link for Linda's low carb menu. Hundreds of recipes that are very low carbs. I have tried many of her breads and some are fantastic. I make the Sesame seed sandwich buns all the time. I can enjoy a burger that actually taste like a burger with only two grams of carbs.

Here is a quick list of all I eat. Different meat everyday, peanut butter, Jam (I make my own with Xylitol), Low carb bread, nuts, olives, cheese, full fat no sugar Yogurt, cold meat 3 meals of fish a month, eggs, and lots of vegetables. Butter on everything and mayonnaise for burgers. Lots of Guacamole, sour cream and salsa. I always loved milk but have returned to full milk (used to drink skim). In some of the recipes I use Cream cheese a lot, Linda's thin & crispy Pizza crust is fantastic.

No sugar, no potatoes, no bread with grains, no pasta, no rice.

The other day i tried the Recipe for Onion rings from Anna Vocino (Angriest trainer) Used Almond meal and Peanut oil, had to fight off my wife, who does not follow low carb

It is very difficult at first to be convince that what you're doing is not killing yourself. 40 years of being told something is difficult to ignore, but look at the result of 40 years of listening to them, look at the population. My Blood work after 6 months was the final nail in the coffin. My Doctor could not believe the results.

Having used myself as an experiment lately, I now know that 3 days with regular carbs is enough to increase my heart rate by 10-15 beats/minutes and my blood pressure to 120/70.

2-3 days of Ketosis, and I return to 52 HR and 117/65 blood pressure.

If you're serious, start by reading some very smart people Robert Lustig, Gary Taubes, Peter Attia and the Podcast from Vinnie Tortorich. Read the book from Yudkin, "Pure, white and deadly" and no he was not talking about Cocaine. He warned 35 years ago about exactly what happened to our society because of sugar. He even mentioned that he felt cancer was related to sugar and carbs, but we did not have the technology to prove it back then.

Here is the link again for the low carbs recipes. My suggestion, is if you want to try it, go all in and forget all you believed about food. In 3 months, get a blood work done by your Doctor and compare the numbers. 3 months of high fat, will not kill you, and the numbers will convince you.

http://www.genaw.com/lowcarb/index.html

After being on Ketosis for a while, you start eating a lot less, plus rice, bread and fruits are not exactly cheap. When you're no longer buying snacks, I actually eat for a lot less money that I used to.

Today I had two slice of Almond bread with PB and jam for breakfast, I was not hungry for lunch so only had a piece of cheese with a dozen olives, and left over meatloaf with steamed veggies (Covered with butter) for supper.

Played two hours of Badminton, 1 1/2 hours of shoveling snow and I'm not hungry this evening.

Though ot keto specific, if you want to open up to a different philosophical approach, which can aid in the undoing of all the "conventional wisdom" then find the Latest in Paleo podcast. Well prodcued, full of information, great reasoning.

Should have mentioned %, some people like numbers.

I exercise 1-2 hours a day, sometimes more. I work 12 hours days, so my time for training varies a lot. I don' eat more on the day I train more, I average about 2000 calories a day. 1000 at breakfast, 250 and 750 the other 2 meals. I never snack, simply not hungry for it.

I average 15% carbs, 25% Protein and 60% fat.

Typical day breakdown;

Breakfast; two slices of Coconut bread one with sugar free cheese whiz, one with PB & Jam. Glass of milk, two cups of coffee.

50% Fat, 20% Protein & 30% carbs

Lunch: Piece of Triple cream Camembert cheese (2 Ounces, 55% Fat, melts in your mouth - Yum ), a dozen olives and a cup of Sliced sweet peppers, radishes and carrots. Cup of coffee.

60% Fat, 25% Protein & 15% Carbs

Supper; Taco Bake with Guacamole and sour cream (Linda's recipe). Diet Coke

65% Fat, 31% Protein, 4% Carbs

Obviously I vary the food everyday, but it's pretty much similar %. If i try a new food or recipe, I will weight myself the morning before and after to see how I reacted to the food.

Hope this helps.

I'm noticing this too.  I'm tracking calories with MyFitnessPal so I can compare to previous intake, etc.  I've not been hungry, so I'm staying well under the calorie goals set from that.  

And I'm not remotely getting to what I would consider low carb (usually 100-200 g per day, usually under 100 net).  I think I may have to get some of the strips to get an idea of where I'm at.

I'll probably stay in that range for a while as we transition over what food is in the house.  

It is rather interesting to see people's reaction.  I'm doing this as a personal experiment, and people look at me like I'm nuts.  Of course, I'm an exercise science professor, so...

Then you definitely need to get the Phinney and Volek book, Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance. And it is out of print, or at least it was hard for me to find, but Bob Seebohar's Book Metabolic Efficiency Training would be right up your alley.

Of course, we do this for ourselves, and no ne else, but to convince the people that we actually talk to about these things that we are not nuts, stay the course and get bloodwork done. Show them the numbers. But get a full lipid panel that breaks out LDL-A and LDL-B. you will have to ask your doctor specifically to order it, they don't do it by default. When I asked my doctor's office why my A1C wasn't included in my diabees diagnosis workup, they acted like I was a jerk for doing some research.