chris

About chris

Chris Bair is a computer geek and SalesForce.com system administrator for his "day job". He became involved in the powdered foods (aka "soylent") movement in January 2014, originally with a conventional recipe and later switching to a high fat, low carb "ketogenic" variant on October 2014. In January 2015 he created the recipe for Keto Chow and released it without restriction for anyone to use, at the same time he began mixing the recipe up for people that wanted a finished product and has seen steady growth in the business every month since. Conversely since starting Keto, he has added 6 new holes to his belt and recently bought a far smaller belt. He has also eaten far more bacon and cheese than in all his previous years combined trying to avoid fat but still slowly gaining weight. Chris has lived in Utah for most of his life, except for a few years living in Chile where he learned Castillian. Chris and his wife have two sets of twins with a couple singltons thrown in for good measure.
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Recommended Reading: Good Calories, Bad Calories

This entry is part 61 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

I’m finally finishing up Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Healthby Gary Taubes. He wrote another book “Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It” that apparently covers much of the same info but is simpler and easier to take in, I’m going to read it next. Good Calories, Bad Calories has been very informative. It’s thoroughly researched (like drinking from the fire hose) and does a good job pointing out the inadequacies in the research behind “fat = bad, carbohydrates = good, cholesterol = bad, red meat = bad, overeating = obesity”. I listened to it as an audiobook whilst on the commuter train and bus since I get motion sick if I try to read at all. Aside from how the narrator pronounces “fructose” I enjoyed it and learned a lot. In particular, some of the notions I understood as “fact” turn out to have been refuted study after study, many of them decades ago. At the end he has a summary of the points he’s made during the breadth of the book:

Good Calories Bad Calories Page 454Each and every one of those points are supported by so much research and information it’s staggering. If you disagree with anything in those 10 points, I invite you to read the book =). Point #5 (and 6), in particular, was revealing to me. The book significantly strengthened my resolve to stay on a high fat, low carbohydrate diet in perpetuity. No way am I going to go back to eating that junk again.

 

By |2016-10-13T07:28:10-06:00May 20th, 2015|Weight Loss, Ketogenic|Comments Off on Recommended Reading: Good Calories, Bad Calories
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More in depth presentation on Ketosis by (another) doctor

This entry is part 60 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

Really excellent presentation about his own N=1 experiment with Ketosis. Gives quite a bit of info but doesn’t overwhelm with details.

Same guy from TEDMED

By |2016-10-13T07:28:12-06:00May 15th, 2015|Weight Loss, Soylent, Ketogenic|Comments Off on More in depth presentation on Ketosis by (another) doctor
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Great TEDx talk by a doctor: “Reversing Type 2 Diabetes Starts with Ignoring the Guidelines”

This entry is part 59 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

Last night I watched this really great presentation. She sums a lot of the concepts surrounding Keto very well. I didn’t ever get “The Diabetus” but I was heading down that path and I’m abcolutely insulin resistant, probably worse.

By |2016-10-13T07:28:12-06:00May 7th, 2015|Weight Loss, Ketogenic|1 Comment
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Blood test for 6 months of Keto compared to earlier results

Yesterday I got back my new blood tests. For comparison I have the same figures from:

  • March 2014 after 2 months of People Chow when I weighed 247
  • January 2015 after 3 months of Keto when I weighed 226 (the full test results for that can be see here)
  • May 2015 after 6 months of Keto when I weighed 208. They only tested a few things this time (it was a “healthy at work” thing, hey it was free) so I’ve only included the ones that are in all 3 tests.
3/20/2014 1/6/2015 5/4/2015
Cholesterol 142 135 161
Triglycerides 160 96 75
HDL, Cholesterol 43 45 49
LDL (calculated) 67 71 97

My triglycerides are WAY down compared to when I was eating carbs, more than anything else this is a very good sign. HDL is up but so is my LDL. This lab doesn’t do a thorough analysis of the LDL particle sizes so it’s difficult to say that number is bad or not.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

By |2016-10-13T07:28:12-06:00May 5th, 2015|Ketogenic, Keto Chow, Soylent|3 Comments
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Wife wants to do P90 again and WARNING! shirtless man progress pics.

This entry is part 58 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

Yesterday my super hot and awesome wife informed me that I was going to be doing P90 with her again starting this morning. I did it back in November 2013 with her (oddly enough, right before I started People Chow) and it’s not as bad as P90X:

I’m interested to see what it does to me now that I don’t have very much glucose running around available for bursty exercise. It wasn’t that bad today, though I was taking Tony’s advice and taking it really really easy. Like not using weights easy =).

Well, I’m throwing it all out there now. Here are shirtless before and after pics. You’ve been warned. I’m 258lbs in the one on the left and 210 in the one on the right.

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By |2016-10-13T07:28:12-06:00April 27th, 2015|Weight Loss|3 Comments
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New Before and after progress pic

This entry is part 57 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

I decided it was time for a new progress picture because I put on my “Breakfast – It’s what’s for dinner” shirt. Anyhow, the before is from October 2014 less than a week after I started keto at 258.7 but I was already down to 255. This morning I weighed 209.2 so I’m half a pound away from 50lbs.

Before and after April 2015 209

Yes, it’s a shameless selfie in the bathroom; that’s so ratchet. Now I’m off to mix up about 50 packs of Keto Chow. Just feeding the world =).

By |2016-10-13T07:28:12-06:00April 25th, 2015|Weight Loss, Soylent, Ketogenic, Keto Chow|Comments Off on New Before and after progress pic
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6 months of Ketogenic soylent, I’m 81% the man I used to be

Apparently I drank too much water yesterday and my weight ticked up from 209.4 to 210.7 – wasn’t the direction I wanted to go for my actual 6 month keto anniversary. I was hoping to reach an even 50lbs lost but it was not to be (that would have been 207.8) and today I’m sitting at 47.1 lbs lost.

6months_keto

Aside from the weight loss I’ve also

  • lost 2 shirt sizes (XXL to L)
  • lost 4 inches (38 to 34)
  • Made 4 new holes in my belts
  • Won second place in a weight loss contest
  • MyFitnessPal says I’m on a 182 day streak.
  • My scale says I’ve gone from 36.9% body fat in November to 26.6%
  • From a BMI of 34.0 (“obese”) to 27.8 (“overweight”) and am getting closer to the “magic” 24.9 where I won’t even be “overweight”!
  • My blood pressure has gone down from 142/98 to 128/84 (it was actually lower last week but whatever)

Here’s a really brief summary (you can real the whole story here) of my experience that I’ve stolen from one of my own posts on Reddit:

I’ve tried 5 different formulations of Ketogenic soylents over the last 6 months and it’s what I’m currently using as my staple (although I do still eat some beef jerky, kipper snacks, bacon and whatnot).

I’ve tried:

  • QuidNYC Induction Phase Ketofood – WAY too much chia seeds and other stuff. I couldn’t even do a full week
  • QuidNYC Ketofood for ongoing ketosis was tolerable compared to the induction. It tasted far better though it was still really gritty. I changed the recipe a bit to suit my own tastes
  • Ketosoy – made by fellow redditor /u/ketosoy – it’s pretty good, especially compared to Ketofood. Far less gritty, it was was opened me up to the possibility the ketogenic soylent could actually taste good. Full review here.
  • Kennufs Keto 9.3 – by /u/kennufs this recipe changed everything for me. Hardly any grit at all, tasted amazing thanks to ample heavy cream, even my wife thought it tasted good. I cloned his recipe, changed some stuff around and made my own…
  • Keto Chow – I aligned many of the ingredients with stuff I had from making super carby “People Chow”, took out the coconut flour, added moar fiber and changed the protein to one I could get quicker (next day vs. 9 business days). I’m currently consuming Keto Chow and plan to do so for the foreseeable future. It’s tasty enough that even when I do hit my target goal I won’t have any problem continuing with it as my staple.

For any that are insanely curious, here’s my weight for the last 15 months drinking soylent. You can see where I started People Chow, slowly gained the weight back and then started Keto.

15 months of soylents

By |2016-10-13T07:28:12-06:00April 21st, 2015|Weight Loss, Soylent, Ketogenic, Keto Chow|7 Comments
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Goodbye old clothes

This entry is part 56 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

I was pretty surprised a few days ago to discover I had gone from a XXL size shirt to a L and from 38 pants to 34. Yesterday I gutted my closet, boxed up everything that was larger than size Large and donated it to charity. Last night I used up most of what I won in the weight loss challenge and bought new clothing.

Super hot wife for scale

Super hot wife for scale

By |2016-10-13T07:28:13-06:00April 19th, 2015|Ketogenic, Weight Loss|1 Comment
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