Monday, February 12, 2018

Week one ketogenic diet


I have been on my ketogenic journey for one week now.  This is how week one went.

 I am still using the free simple stupid macros app, still haven't bought the pro version, don't really see myself ever doing that.  My keto macros are set at 5% carbs, 75% fats and 20% protein with a 2000 calorie limit.   Carbs and protein have been relatively easy to keep at goal. The struggle is getting so much fat in my diet without going over on protein/carbs.  If I skip breakfast, I already know I wont be able to get enough calories for my day as this is the main source of my fat (sausage, eggs).  I have supplemented my diet with MCT oil tablets and electrolyte multivitamins though.  

I have been peeing on keto sticks by healthywiser.  125 count for 10 bucks.  Not a bad deal.  This measures only ketones.  It is colored coded and has a number to correlate with the amount of ketones in your urine.  I pee on the sticks once to twice  daily.  Day one and two I was not in ketosis.  By day 3, I had a small amount of ketones and by day 6 I had a large amount of ketones in my urine.   Ketones are a bi-product of fat breakdown, so I can assume my body is using fat at this point.   

My supplements:

The MCT oil pills are from 'kiss my keto' and contain 3 grams of fat per pill.  300 capsules for 30 dollars.  I was surprised that the recommended serving size is 3 pills 5 times a day.  This would definitely help me meet my my fat goals, but I was worried about the GI side effects.  I started at one pill and have worked up to 3 pills once daily, which i take before my workouts.  I will probably increase them if I don't start to see much energy change during my workouts.  You can take MCT oil as a liquid, but I prefer not to swallow fat that way- just a texture thing.  

The electrolyte supplement/ multivitamin is from ketolabs core basics.  30 bucks- 90 tabs.  I was only taking one, then looked at the label and noticed I was supposed to take 3 daily!! These pills are large and have a funny smell to them.  The amount of vitamins/minerals and electrolytes these pills supply are way over the daily recommended percentage.  As a person who usually doesn't take multivitamin, and with the belief you can most of what you need from your diet, I have only been taking one pill a day, instead of the suggested 3.  Minus the smell these pills do turn your pee a neon yellow, so don't be alarmed.  

Diet:

Diet wise things are not that bad.  I am eating fatter meats than before on my low carb diet.  On the low carb diet I was sticking to chicken breasts- now I reached for chicken with skin, hamburgers, hot dogs.   We don't have avocados here, but we did have guacamole one day last week and that made it easy to reach my fat goal.  My daily food intake consists of the following:

Breakfast: Full egg omelette with bacon and chedder cheese (extra cheese), pork sausage and coffee.  If there are strawberries I will eat 5 of them. 

Lunch: Hamburger with cheese, no bun- full fat mayo and mustard on top with pickles.  Side salad loaded with olives, cheese and olive oil (EVOO)

Dinner: Depends on the night but usually a fatty meat with a side salad covered in EVOO.

Snacks: Depending on the day, I may have an after dinner snack. Especially after watching everyone indulge on the ice cream and cake.  I pre-ordered a couple of keto-friendly snacks  at the beginning of my journey because I knew I would miss my sweets.  I quickly found that there wasn't much to choose from in the Keto world.  I happened to find FATSNAX Chocolate chip cookies and choczero 70% dark chocolate.  Both taste amazing and give me a little pick me up when I am limiting all my sugary sweets.

FATSNAX cookies:  $35 for 24 cookies.  They come in 2 cookies per pack.  Fat: 16grams, carbs/protein: 4 grams.  Kind of expensive, but worth it! At first I didn't like how buttery these were, but the second time I tried them OMG.  They are definite must have if you are trying ketogenic and like your sweets.  I take these with me when i know people are going to be snacking on sweets.  Helps me feel like I am not missing out. 

ChocZero 70% dark chocolate: $16.50- 3 bags of 10.  Small dark chocolate squares with only 1 net carb and 4.5 grams of fat.  I love to eat one of these if I am craving sugars.  They are very good.

I also bought a meal supplement bar which is also delicious.  Keto-crave energy bar by Zenwise.  $40 for 12 bars.  16grams fat, 5grams net carbs and 9 grams protein.  I tried the cocao almond bar and it is very good.  I used this when I missed breakfast.  SO even though expensive I have only ate one this week. 

Enough about food, on to energy levels.

Energy/ training: 

I have been training for a half marathon this month and noticed that my long run on Saturday (7 miles) was substantially more difficult then my 5 miles I completed the week before while i was on carbs.   I had to take my run down to 11- 12 minute miles instead of doing 10 minute miles.  After I finished this run I felt like crap.  I felt weak, lightheaded and mentally foggy.  I stayed in bed for 4-5 hours after this.  I assume this is what the 'ketoflu" feels like- and man is it awful.  I have a whole bunch of confounding factors for that day to include not eating breakfast, the fact that I have never ran 7 miles before, in my life, and running 80 minutes straight just overall sucks.  I will see how 8 miles goes this Saturday in order to see the actual difference.  I did get through my spin classes feeling pretty well though.  Those classes are 60 minutes, so maybe it was just the length of time I ran which put me over the edge.  Hopefully, my body will adjust to ketosis this week.  Minus that run day, my energy has been about the same as before.  I had a shorter fuse and felt more on edge, but I feel better now.  

Overall, the week was not as bad as I thought it would be.  I actually was able to go out and eat in Kuwait City without breaking ketosis.  When I did low carb, I had cheat days about every week.  The fact that it does take a couple days to fully get into ketosis helps with the food cheating.  If you cheat one day/ one meal you may have to take 2-3 days just to get back into ketosis.  For me it wasn't worth eating the bread or the ice cream for that.  It also helps I had delicious snacks :-)






Monday, February 5, 2018

Cheat weeks/ day 1 keto

After i finished low carb I gave myself 2 cheat weeks.  And boy did i go overboard! My mindset was that I was going to start ketogenic in 2 weeks and i needed to binge on all the carbs.  I felt overall more fatigued and had lack of energy.  I found myself craving greens at first.  Once I continued eating carbs I fell back into craving carbs and having a insatiable appetite.


If you do decide to do low carb- DO NOT take cheat weeks- it will just make you feel miserable. 



Keto DAY1:

Feb 5th to March 31st-  Plan 75% fat, 20% protein and 5% carbs for the day

using keto urine sticks to track ketosis.  Stupid simple macros to track intake- i really love this app!
Supplements: MCT oil fat capsules and electrolyte containing vitamins

Food choices on deployment: whole eggs, beef, chicken thighs/legs, fish, bacon, greens, nuts, olive oil

I believe this will be the most challenging out here in deployment land as we don't have good fat choices.  During lunch today I thought I had enough fat, but unfortunately I had eaten all my protein for the day as well.  This might be harder than I expected.  I did ordered some FAT SNAX (cookies with lots of fat)  and keto crave bars to supplement my diet.  I did think about getting myoplex ketogenic powder supplement but have held off for now.   I would like to try this with whole food diet as much as possible.  Also I will not be able to cheat on keto as I read you kicked out of ketosis quite quickly. 

Day 1 keto measurements:

Waist: 28in
LA: 10.5 in   RA: 10in
Left thigh: 23.5in  right: 23.75
27% body fat per calculator

I peed on the keto stick this AM and am not in ketosis.  Will keep you updated!


Finished low carb- results

Well I found out i really suck at blogging.  I thought blogging would be a good way for me to keep track of what I was doing with my food and exercise, but it seemed to take much more time than I wanted to give it.  ANyways since my last post I have finished my low carb kick and have had 2 weeks of free eating.  Today I started my keto journey.  Will fill you in on the low carb food intake.


I found low carb to be difficult at first as I was looking up every food I putinto my body and checking the carb content.  As I became better at realizing what was in my food the low carb food diet was actually not hard to keep up with.  I found myself less hungry and craving less sugar.  Sugar and carb cravings went to almost zero if I kept a clean diet.  It was harder to not eat carbs when holidays, special occasions rolled around.  I also found it hard to not binge on carbs once I went over my carb counts for the day. 

I probably ate more then the recommended amount of carbs about once per week.  According to my macros app I averaged 16% crabs daily, 58%fat and 27% protein sticking to my goals.  I did work out 6 days a week whether crossfit, spin class, yoga or running. 

Energy was pretty poor at first, but then I didn't really notice a difference.  My body seemed to be adjusting.  After carb binges I def felt more fatigued and needed an extra coffee or 2.  I was also more likely to take a nap that day or the day after.

Results: 

Weight:  146 lbs to 140lbs
waist: 30 inches to 26.5 inches
hips: 41 inches to 40inches
Left thigh: 25.75inches to 23 inches
Right thigh: 25.5 inches to 23inches

Though I did not measure my bust I felt my bust size had also decreased.  Body fat % still 27% per www.active.com calculator.  The pictures def speak for themselves. 



Overall:  I think low carb is definitely doable.  It may be harder back in the states if you don't have good support and people make you feel guilty for not indulging.  I did learn that binging on carbs is not a good thing and you can restart at the next meal rather than the next day.  You dont have to be super strict all the time and oyu should give yourself a treat every now and then.  I think learning more about what I was putting into my body helped.  i also was able to eat chicken wings, hamburgers and full fat mayo which helped.