Monthly Archives: February 2016

Days 055, 056 & 057 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)

This entry is part 46 of 81 in the series 100 days of keto
  • Weight: 204.8
  • Blood ketones: 0.3 mmol/L
  • Weight: 204.1
  • Blood ketones: 0.3 mmol/L
  • Weight: 205.7
  • Blood ketones: 0.2 mmol/L

This weekend went great, mixed a bunch of Keto Chow powder and completely filled up all my recycle bins with Dymatize 5lb tubs (the picture is after I was already half done crushing the ones from Saturday). I finished off a week consistently losing weight by… gaining some water weight. Meh, I’ll have that gone in a few days easily. Today I’m doing stuff in the yard and I completely forgot to eat breakfast until just now, maybe I’ll use that to my advantage and just Intermittent Fast today.

By |2016-02-29T08:54:40-07:00February 29th, 2016|Keto Chow, 100 days of keto|Comments Off on Days 055, 056 & 057 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)
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Day 054 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)

This entry is part 45 of 81 in the series 100 days of keto
  • Weight: 205.0
  • Blood ketones: 0.2 mmol/L

Weight stayed the same, I’ll take it. I totally called it with the food yesterday, lunch was a bunch of food trucks – while I’m sure it was yummy, everything either had a sugar glaze or whatever. The only ray of light was breakfast there was a giant bowl of bacon (and no plates) so I grabbed a half dozen slices in a cup and ate those. I was happy I had brought my own food =)

Today I have off my “day job” so I’m just at home prepping ingredients for Keto Chow. Went through eight 12lb bags of psyllium husk already – fun times!

By |2016-03-01T06:54:29-07:00February 26th, 2016|Keto Chow, 100 days of keto|Comments Off on Day 054 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)
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Day 053 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)

This entry is part 44 of 81 in the series 100 days of keto
  • Weight: 205.0
  • Blood ketones: 0.8 mmol/L

Weight is still going down and my ketones are getting up into happy territory. At the weigh in yesterday I was down 5 lbs compared to the week before, which wasn’t hard since I was up 4 last week. Today I’m going to be at Snow Force – I’m guessing there won’t be anything I can eat so I got two HydroFlasks full of Keto Chow, a bag of macadamia nuts, some pork rinds and some diet root beer in my backpack. That said I might just do intermittent fasting and not eat until dinner. Going to see how it goes.

Yesterday this was posted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7_Ejb29bJ0 He does actually mix up some Keto Chow about 2/3 of the way through. It’s surreal seeing stuff I make reviewed in a vlog.

By |2016-10-13T07:27:49-06:00February 25th, 2016|Keto Chow, 100 days of keto|Comments Off on Day 053 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)
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Day 052 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)

This entry is part 43 of 81 in the series 100 days of keto
  • Weight: 205.3
  • Blood ketones: 0.6 mmol/L

Still down compared to last week, sticking to (almost) 100% Keto Chow is working well. I have another weigh-in for the city weight loss challenge today, shouldn’t be hard for me to be lower than last week since that was +4 lbs compared to the prior week. Even though I was terribly tired I ran on the treadmill last night. I’m still tired today but at least it’s my last day at work for this week (tomorrow I’m going to an off-site and I have Friday off; four 10s FTW!)

This morning I got a chance to test out the ketone strips on the Precision Xtra blood tester. I’m worried the ketone strips for the Nova Max aren’t being accurate so today I did both. The Precision Xtra uses a LOT more blood so to do both from the same “poke” I needed quite a bit of blood, that wasn’t fun. End result:

  • Nova Max – 0.5mmol/L
  • Precision Xtra – 0.6mmol/L

That’s close enough, looks like it might be accurate – which is a good thing since I still have about US$100 in Nova Max ketone test strips for the reamining 48 days of this “experiement”

By |2016-02-24T07:50:14-07:00February 24th, 2016|Keto Chow, 100 days of keto|Comments Off on Day 052 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)
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Day 051 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)

This entry is part 42 of 81 in the series 100 days of keto
  • Weight: 205.5
  • Blood ketones: 0.1 mmol/L

Probably going to I.F. (Intermittent Fasting) until this afternoon, might not though – we’ll see if I get hungry or not. The revised formulation of my custom vitamin mix is ordered (with magnesium citrate instead of chloride to see if that removes the metallic aftertaste), hopefully it gets here soon!

I recently switched over to using ShipStation for order logistics and it seems to be working quite well so far. It has some really nice features and speeds up the process of shipping stuff out. It also supports multiple carriers which hasn’t been an issue but is nice just in case I need it down the line. There was only one really big issue I saw: I’m using woocommerce product bundles for the “build a week”, “build a month” and “sample all the things” bundles and they kept coming through into shipstation with a “Part of: Sample all the things” tagged onto them. It was all well and good until we tried to use the ShipStation picking list – the list that gives you a run-down of all the inventory you need to fill the current orders. The problem was the bundled products showed up separately  from the non-bundled items so we would end up with something like the image at the top of this post, but for every flavor and size permutation. Didn’t fly and we went back to using the old “variation report” (on a side note, I’ve sat through enough aquanauts that we’ve taken to calling it the “creature report” – it’s a whole syllable shorter).

I got a response from the WooCommerce support guys on a ticket I opened and they gave me some code that disables the bundle metadata. The basic premise is you follow this guide and add the following code, using whichever of the 3 methods you prefer:

     add_filter( 'woocommerce_bundles_filter_order_items_part_of_meta', 'wc_ninja_disable_bundled_part_of_meta', 15 );
     function wc_ninja_disable_bundled_part_of_meta() {
          return false;
     }

I ended up doing the “write a custom plugin” option since it can easily be activated/deactivated and will survive changes in themes and other tomfoolery. In case some random internet search led you here because you have the same problem, here’s a handy plugin, ready to go: woocommerce-disable-bundles-filter.zip

 

By |2016-10-13T07:27:50-06:00February 23rd, 2016|100 days of keto, Keto Chow, Site or Store Stuff|Comments Off on Day 051 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)
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Science: Metabolic Effects of the Very-Low-Carbohydrate Diets: Misunderstood “Villains” of Human Metabolism

This entry is part 121 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

In a recent thread on reddit I was directed over to an excellent journal article from 2004 “Metabolic Effects of the Very-Low-Carbohydrate Diets: Misunderstood ‘Villains’ of Human Metabolism” – it does a really great job explaining some of the actual science behind a ketogenic diet and debunks several myths including “you need 100g of carbohydrates a day to survive”. I would recommend checking it out if you ever have a doctor question you about ketogenic diets (or just want to learn new stuff!)

Abstract

During very low carbohydrate intake, the regulated and controlled production of ketone bodies causes a harmless physiological state known as dietary ketosis. Ketone bodies flow from the liver to extra-hepatic tissues (e.g., brain) for use as a fuel; this spares glucose metabolism via a mechanism similar to the sparing of glucose by oxidation of fatty acids as an alternative fuel. In comparison with glucose, the ketone bodies are actually a very good respiratory fuel. Indeed, there is no clear requirement for dietary carbohydrates for human adults. Interestingly, the effects of ketone body metabolism suggest that mild ketosis may offer therapeutic potential in a variety of different common and rare disease states. Also, the recent landmark study showed that a very-low-carbohydrate diet resulted in a significant reduction in fat mass and a concomitant increase in lean body mass in normal-weight men. Contrary to popular belief, insulin is not needed for glucose uptake and utilization in man. Finally, both muscle fat and carbohydrate burn in an amino acid flame.

By |2016-10-13T07:27:51-06:00February 22nd, 2016|Uncategorized, Ketogenic|Comments Off on Science: Metabolic Effects of the Very-Low-Carbohydrate Diets: Misunderstood “Villains” of Human Metabolism
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Days 049 & 050 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)

This entry is part 41 of 81 in the series 100 days of keto
  • Weight: 205.4
  • Blood ketones: 0.4 mmol/L
  • Weight: 206.4
  • Blood ketones: 0.2 mmol/L

Still down from last week, last night there was asparagus and really good salad so I ate some. It’s funny: trying to do 100% keto chow what I consider “cheating” is still eating keto friendly food =).

Last night I made 2 batches of 6 Chocolate Peanut Butter Keto Chow, looking forward to it. I would have made 3 batches since it only take a few more minutes but I didn’t have enough clean bottles in the cupboard. Turns out there were two in my backpack from THURSDAY. Fortunately for me I always try to wash out my blender bottles at work and then let them dry so the bottles have a slight dried residue instead of really nasty 4 day old keto chow.

By |2016-02-22T08:24:21-07:00February 22nd, 2016|Keto Chow, 100 days of keto|Comments Off on Days 049 & 050 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)
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Day 048 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)

This entry is part 40 of 81 in the series 100 days of keto
  • Weight: 205.9
  • Blood ketones: 0.1 mmol/L

Hey, only up 0.1 and still down like 3 from 2 days ago. I’ll consider that a win. Today I’m trying something new: powdered coconut oil in my Keto Chow. Cost wise it works out to be $0.89 per day compared to $0.59 for the same 301 calories. $0.30 isn’t bad. In a previous post I talked about a powdered MCT oil that used maltodextrin as a “powdering” agent – maltodextrin is essentially pure carbs and isn’t suitable for ketosis at all. Quest, the makers of the ever popular Quest Bars makes a powdered MCT oil that uses corn fiber as the powdering agent. In theory it has 0 net carbs. The MCT oil powder is a little pricey but their powdered coconut oil is a larger container (20 oz. vs. 16) and it’s less expensive. The only problem: regular coconut oil doesn’t like refrigerated liquids and turns into big clumps; maybe powdered coconut oil is different?

Last night I made a test batch of 6 blender bottles in a gallon pitcher and replaced the normal 78ml of MCT oil with 86g of powdered coconut oil. The immersion blender did a fine job of mixing it all up, then it was into the fridge overnight! This morning I tested the result and it was completely unremarkable. Win! Now if I could only find this in large bulk bags that would be awesome. I’m still wary of the “corn fiber” not impacting ketosis but I can test that.

By |2016-10-13T07:27:52-06:00February 20th, 2016|Keto Chow, 100 days of keto|1 Comment
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Day 047 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)

This entry is part 39 of 81 in the series 100 days of keto
  • Weight: 205.8
  • Blood ketones: 0.1 mmol/L

I did a good job at mostly only eating Keto Chow yesterday and so far today. My wife is making spaghetti squash  with chicken alfredo for dinner tonight, gotta stay strong =). Posting later today because it’s been so busy. I got the formulation revision sent off and approved, hopefully I’ll be getting a new test batch to sample soon.

I visited my parents, my dad took the remaining Keto Chow product photos and my mom measured my suit pants so she can hem them. She’s awesome =)

 

By |2016-02-19T17:45:26-07:00February 19th, 2016|Keto Chow, 100 days of keto|Comments Off on Day 047 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)
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Day 046 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)

This entry is part 38 of 81 in the series 100 days of keto
  • Weight: 208.5
  • Blood ketones: 0.4 mmol/L

 

Yesterday was interesting, I received in the mail the sample of the new vitamin/mineral mix. I made a 1 day batch, split it between 3 blender bottles and put it in the fridge for 3 hours. When it finally came time to taste it I was disappointed to get a definite metallic aftertaste. My best guess (based on past experience) is it’s caused by the magnesium chloride that I had them use instead of the magnesium citrate. The plan was to help the potential tummy issues (that’s the technical term” of new users by using something besides magnesium citrate. The mixing place can’t get malate and I’ve tried glycinate and it had the same metallic taste as what I’m getting now. I could have tried taurate too but it’s supposed to similarly have the same strong taste. So I’ve requested a re-formulation and a new sample. Will add a week or more to the process.

Didn’t have time to run last night, probably because we were mixing Keto Chow from 4 until 10 last night. But hey: we got 65 weeks and 84 days of Peanut Butter mixed (to name a few).

I think I may have figured out the trick to getting correct readings on the Ketonix, I’ll have to wait until my levels are higher though (which should be easier now that the Jalapeno Poppers are all gone).

By |2016-02-18T12:54:00-07:00February 18th, 2016|100 days of keto, Keto Chow|Comments Off on Day 046 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)
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