My first Fad Diet.
In honor of it being 1 year since I wrote my first blog post, I wanted to start focusing on it again. So here is a glimpse of the going-ons of my life right now. More writing coming soon.
If fat is stored energy I would like to turn on that generator please. After reaching a couple of milestones in the fitness world I had to take a hard look at the progress I've made. That lead me down a road of admittance that I don't have a lot of self control. Wanna race? You betcha. Wanna eat a whole pan of brownies? Absolutely. Drink all these beers? I'm already 4 ahead.
So what's the answer to burning fat? Is there only one? (Preview....Of course not! This is a post about the one I am trying though)
It took quite a few years and an abundance of exposure but eventually the Ketosis diet/lifestyle peaked my interest. Mostly because of a fitness expert/adventurer/bio-hacking podcaster I listen to swears by it. The big issue is that everyone says it's hard. Of course its hard. Diet plans are hard. But the secret is, its almost 30 years hard. What I mean is that for almost 30 years the government has told us that the key to healthy eating and living is the Food Pyramid. The Food Pyramid is the opposite of Ketosis and all of it's ideals which is the biggest reason the Keto diet made sense to me. A couple decades ago the pyramid was introduced, and a few decades later obesity is a chronic killer in our nation. Maybe it's the culprit.
Again, fat is stored energy. But Glucose is energy. Alcohol is energy. Why don't we just use our tummies and flabby arms to function on a day to do? I'm chubby, why do I still need to eat? Well, because there are different ways our bodies uses energy. The easiest is burning alcohol, but it's dirty and leaves icky byproducts in our bodies. The second is glucose which is also a quick source of energy, but can be a little longer also (think Carbo-load). But fat is the long term energy. It's the one we really could use as an energy source if food legit runs out. Our bodies would switch over to Ketosis and we would burn fat. There is a great documentary on Netflix called Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead where a guy goes on a juice fast and just lives off his own body for a few months. It's amazing. But it was hard. It wasn't an easy switch. He had a lot of withdrawal, and it took a long time before he adapted. But as humans are known to do, he did adapt. And thrived. In fact it saved his life and a lot of others along the way.
The documentary is extreme and not necessary for everyone. There are so many ways to get healthy. But the idea made sense to me, so I was on a mission to figure out how to turn on this built-in-winter-coat-energy-reserve. I found the ketosis diet.
High Fat, Moderate Protein, Low Carbs.
There are plenty of other places to find info on the science, I'm just here to talk about my personal experience. My thought was to pick a difficult thing and spend my energy and focus on that rather than eating an unnecessary amount of food just because my eyes landed on it. Well, just like the posts say I immediately saw some benefits. I dropped a bunch of retained water, inflammation went down, my gut got really regular, and I was even super sluggish and tired the first 3 days as my body ran out of it's stored glucose. But I started struggling pretty quickly after that. There are difficulties like the pee strips. 160 strips for like $5, and I tested a couple times a day. No biggie, except I was like never in ketosis unless I went for a long run. 2 weekends in a row I ruined that long run ketosis state by eating or drinking something that turns into sugar. 3rd weekend I fell out of the ketosis state and didn't even know why (I followed the diet). I was frustrated. So on Wednesday this week I threw in the towel went to the donut store and balled out.
I followed up the donut excursion by eating healthy the rest of the day, drinking lots of water, and the next morning packing up my meals and snacks for a day of legit Keto eating. And I'm going to do the same tomorrow. And the next day. After some re-grouping yesterday I'm going to follow through and give this diet plan a real honest go until I finish the Flying Pig Half Marathon. My performance compared to previous years will likely dictate my loyalty to the plan afterwards.
If fat is stored energy I would like to turn on that generator please. After reaching a couple of milestones in the fitness world I had to take a hard look at the progress I've made. That lead me down a road of admittance that I don't have a lot of self control. Wanna race? You betcha. Wanna eat a whole pan of brownies? Absolutely. Drink all these beers? I'm already 4 ahead.
So what's the answer to burning fat? Is there only one? (Preview....Of course not! This is a post about the one I am trying though)
It took quite a few years and an abundance of exposure but eventually the Ketosis diet/lifestyle peaked my interest. Mostly because of a fitness expert/adventurer/bio-hacking podcaster I listen to swears by it. The big issue is that everyone says it's hard. Of course its hard. Diet plans are hard. But the secret is, its almost 30 years hard. What I mean is that for almost 30 years the government has told us that the key to healthy eating and living is the Food Pyramid. The Food Pyramid is the opposite of Ketosis and all of it's ideals which is the biggest reason the Keto diet made sense to me. A couple decades ago the pyramid was introduced, and a few decades later obesity is a chronic killer in our nation. Maybe it's the culprit.
Again, fat is stored energy. But Glucose is energy. Alcohol is energy. Why don't we just use our tummies and flabby arms to function on a day to do? I'm chubby, why do I still need to eat? Well, because there are different ways our bodies uses energy. The easiest is burning alcohol, but it's dirty and leaves icky byproducts in our bodies. The second is glucose which is also a quick source of energy, but can be a little longer also (think Carbo-load). But fat is the long term energy. It's the one we really could use as an energy source if food legit runs out. Our bodies would switch over to Ketosis and we would burn fat. There is a great documentary on Netflix called Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead where a guy goes on a juice fast and just lives off his own body for a few months. It's amazing. But it was hard. It wasn't an easy switch. He had a lot of withdrawal, and it took a long time before he adapted. But as humans are known to do, he did adapt. And thrived. In fact it saved his life and a lot of others along the way.
The documentary is extreme and not necessary for everyone. There are so many ways to get healthy. But the idea made sense to me, so I was on a mission to figure out how to turn on this built-in-winter-coat-energy-reserve. I found the ketosis diet.
High Fat, Moderate Protein, Low Carbs.
There are plenty of other places to find info on the science, I'm just here to talk about my personal experience. My thought was to pick a difficult thing and spend my energy and focus on that rather than eating an unnecessary amount of food just because my eyes landed on it. Well, just like the posts say I immediately saw some benefits. I dropped a bunch of retained water, inflammation went down, my gut got really regular, and I was even super sluggish and tired the first 3 days as my body ran out of it's stored glucose. But I started struggling pretty quickly after that. There are difficulties like the pee strips. 160 strips for like $5, and I tested a couple times a day. No biggie, except I was like never in ketosis unless I went for a long run. 2 weekends in a row I ruined that long run ketosis state by eating or drinking something that turns into sugar. 3rd weekend I fell out of the ketosis state and didn't even know why (I followed the diet). I was frustrated. So on Wednesday this week I threw in the towel went to the donut store and balled out.
I followed up the donut excursion by eating healthy the rest of the day, drinking lots of water, and the next morning packing up my meals and snacks for a day of legit Keto eating. And I'm going to do the same tomorrow. And the next day. After some re-grouping yesterday I'm going to follow through and give this diet plan a real honest go until I finish the Flying Pig Half Marathon. My performance compared to previous years will likely dictate my loyalty to the plan afterwards.
But today has been great. I was amazed how much I learned about hidden carbs literally in 1 day by actually measuring out my portions and counting nutrition. I followed Calories, Fat, Protein and Carbs for everything I ate. my numbers for the day would be both correct and not correct depending on who you talk to and how serious you want to be. The proportions are correct. more protein than carbs, and more fat than protein. But the goal was less than 25 grams of carbs for the day. I exceeded that.
The food was awesome though! totally delicious, and I can see myself eating like this every day with work and more planning than I'm used to.
Breakfast was 2 eggs, 3 slices of bacon, and 1/2 an Avocado
Snack 1 was Ham and Cream Cheese rollups with Tomatoes
Snack 2 was Cucumber slices with Spicy Hummus and Pepperonis
Lunch was homemade Kung Pao chicken and Spaghetti Squash (it didn't exactly look picture worthy after the microwave)
Snack 3 was a Cookie Dough Fat Bomb that I made from a recipe on the Keto Connect YouTube channel. (Lots of great content, I highly recommend)
Dinner was actually free Donatos Pizza for the office, but my boss very courteously ordered me a Salad instead. Pretty awesome.
Drinks throughout the day were 3 cups of black coffee and about 90 oz. of water.
I reached the proportions I wanted, but the carbs were still a little high. All of this food added up to
1,542 Calories
113.7 Grams of Fat
81.1 Grams of Protein
52.7 Grams of Carbs
If this was a workout day I definitely had room to add some calories in, but it wasn't. I've basically been chair bound with some mild stretching here and there. I'm pretty excited to continue this journey a little longer and to keep coming up with good food to keep myself interested.
Leave any comments or questions you have and I'll be happy to answer and share this journey. I do not have a scale at home and am using my energy levels, running performance, and how my clothes fit to determine my progress. Here's to good food, good support, and having a great time at the Flying Pig this year!
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