Ketogenic

Leveling the playing field

This entry is part 34 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

On Wednesday I have my initial weigh in for a local weight loss contest. It’s based on % of body weight lost. In the past the winners have lost anywhere from 15 to 21%. I figure that no one else doing it is going to be starting out without glycogen in their system so I’ve been building back up my reserve. Glycogen comes with a lot of water weight, this is the major 5-10 pounds that most people lose in the first week of Keto (and it stays off so long as you don’t eat carbs).

In other words: I just ate some biscuits and gravy, yesterday was Mexican food and on Wednesday I’ll have pizza and soda.

It’s been interesting having carbohydrates again (if only for a few days). Yeah I do feel sluggish and rather crappy. And thirsty, I keep making myself feel ill from drinking so much water but I’m still thirsty. I’m really not looking forward to carb cravings on Thurdsay (or the keto flu). I had completely overcome that and intentionally putting myself back into that is actually kinda stupid.

I guess one good thing is it’s given me some perspective: Carbs aren’t as delicious and I thought they were. Eating a Kit-Kat or strawberry oreo was anti-climactic. Yeah, it’s good but not good enough to cheat on next week. Frankly melted cheese, bacon and other 0 carb foods are good enough there really isn’t a reason to cheat.

Now excuse me as I go eat the last tortilla chips I’ll eat for at least 6 months.

By |2015-01-18T09:44:42-07:00January 18th, 2015|Ketogenic, Soylent, Weight Loss|3 Comments
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Best “customer comment” on an order yet

This entry is part 33 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

Got an order today, there’s a box where people can add a note. This was in the box:

$ ./configure $ make $ make keto

My first thought was:

Proper User Policy apparently means Simon Says.

Proper User Policy apparently means Simon Says.

I had a good laugh.

By |2015-01-18T07:21:21-07:00January 18th, 2015|Keto Chow, Soylent|Comments Off on Best “customer comment” on an order yet
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Customizing the calories in Keto Chow to your requirements

This entry is part 32 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

On the Keto Chow page I have this:

This recipe has the added benefit of being customizable for people with different caloric requirements. Without any oil or cream it’s right around 500 calories/day and still hits all the right nutrients except protein, and the different fatty acids. Following the directions you’ll get 1269 calories/day (woohoo, deficit!) but you can raise that up to whatever level you want by increasing the heavy cream and/or the oil. It’s super flexible.

So how exactly do you do this?

  1. First you’re going to need a nutrient profile. Head over to the DIY profile calculator page: http://diy.soylent.me/nutrient-profiles/calculator
  2. If you don’t have an account on the DIY site you’ll need to make one; either log in or create an account, then co back to the calculator page if necessary.
  3. Enter in all your information. You’re going to need to set the sliders to 5% 20% and 75% (maybe a bit more protein if you lift weights a lot). I use “chris.bair’s Keto New” as the DRI profile, I found it last time by typing “chr” three times in the dropdown menu but women might want to check out another profile. There’s a full list at http://diy.soylent.me/nutrient-profiles. Here’s what I put in last time I made one:
    Nutrient Profile Calculator
  4. You can play around with the requirements a bit if you like.
  5. Go to the Keto Chow recipe page http://diy.soylent.me/recipes/keto-chow-10-2
  6. Click on the “Copy” button.
    Copy Recipe
  7. Type in a name and such, make sure you select your nutrient profile that you made earlier. It should be at the very top of the list.
    Copy Screen
  8. Once you have that saved you can start customizing. You’ll need to switch over to the “Recipe Editor” tab
    Swithc to Recipe Editor
  9. At the bottom it will show you the percentages you’re hitting. You may get red flags on Sodium, Potassium and a few other minerals depending on the profile you selected. Ketogenic diets need more electrolytes than normal so I’ve edited my own DRI profile to require the higher amounts. I’ve also taken out the maximum values on saturated fat and several others since the lipid hypothesis is false (watch Fat Head).
  10. To edit a nutrient just click on the quantity in the recipe and then change the values in the pop-up.
    Editing ingredient
  11. You can hit the + and – just look at the percentages as they change. Once you get them where you’d like hit the “Save Changes” button.
    Increasing ingredient amount
  12. Bug: the bottom numbers don’t recalculate until you refresh the entire page.
  13. For the most part you should really only need to modify the Heavy Cream and/or the MCT oil on the Keto Chow recipe (unless you’re a nursing mother or pregnant, then your vitamin needs might be wildly different)
By |2016-10-13T07:28:21-06:00January 18th, 2015|Soylent, Keto Chow, Ketogenic|8 Comments
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Additional Flavors for Keto Chow

This entry is part 31 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

The flavored protein I’m using for Keto Chow comes in more than the 3 flavors I’m going to keep stocked so I added an option to special order any of the other available flavors. It does cost $15 more than the chocolate mint, strawberry or vanilla since I have to get a tub of that flavor just for the one order; and it may add an additional 2-5 days to the time it takes to get your stuff but hey, you’ve got the option if you’re so inclined. The other flavors are:

  • “Butter Cream Toffee”
  • “Cafe Mocha”
  • “Chocolate Fudge”
  • “Cinnamon Bun”
  • “Cookies & Cream”
  • “Pina Colada”
  • “Rich Chocolate”
  • “Smooth Banana”

I grabbed some Cookies and Cream and some Butter Cream Toffee to test and both are good (who am I kidding? the Cookies and Cream is better than any I’ve tasted until now, it’s crazy good).

By |2015-01-31T16:52:19-07:00January 16th, 2015|Soylent, Site or Store Stuff, Keto Chow, Ketogenic|8 Comments
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Powdered Cream not suitable for Keto soylent

This entry is part 30 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

I guess I’m supposed to do clickbait titles if I want more traffic, but I prefer to get the conclusion out there and then back it up in the body.

A question came up about how well powdered cream could be used for Keto Chow instead of the liquid heavy cream. The Amazon Page doesn’t show any nutrition information and I couldn’t get a response from the manufacturer… so logically I bought some.

Here’s the nutrition information. Pay attention to the grams of fat + grams of protein + grams of carbohydrates != serving size.

Powdered Cream Rear LabelOK, so the math doesn’t add up. Besides that I can work with the calories and carbohydrate numbers to see how many carbs would be in the same calorie amount as liquid heavy cream. For reference, here’s the nutrition for Darigold 40% cream:

40 percent heavy cream nutrition info

0 carbs, none. Granted, in the US you can call anything below 1g 0 but I’m inclined to believe the 0 figure. So let’s do math. To equal the 518 calories in the heavy cream we’re going to need 58 servings (maybe 4g, maybe 7g going by my math) of the powder. That will give us 29g of carbohydrates (specifically sugars thanks to the #1 ingredient “sweet cream”) that aren’t there when using heavy cream. That would bring your daily net carbs up from 10.9 to 39.9. Did I mention that it will cost you $2.30/day for the powdered cream vs $0.75 for the liquid.

So yeah, not suitable.

Powdered Cream Front and Side labels

 

By |2016-10-13T07:28:21-06:00January 15th, 2015|Keto Chow, Ketogenic, Soylent|4 Comments
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For fun I tried making Keto Chow cookies

This entry is part 28 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

Just for fun I decided to see what making Keto Chow into a solid would be like. I did People Chow cookies several months ago so I thought I’d try that form. I just put a meal’s worth of powder into a bowl, added the oil and the heavy cream and mixed it up.

Mixing up the oil, cream and powder

Mixing up the oil, cream and powder

"dough" mixed up and ready

“dough” mixed up and ready

Ready for baking

Ready for baking, 10min @350

The Finished, baked, cookies

The Finished, baked, cookies

It’s hard to see in the above picture of the finished “cookies” but they’re sitting in a pool of oil that came out during cooking. Mixed up liquid Keto Chow tastes sweet like a milk shake (kinda) but the sweeteners in the protein don’t seem to be doing much in baked form. I’m not sure if it’s because the stuff didn’t actually dissolve in the little water that was in the cream or what. In the end, the potassium citrate and salt ended up making them markedly salty. They’re not awful but the liquid form is better.

I’ll probably try it again but I might try not cooking or maybe with an egg added in too. I’ll also likely use the vanilla flavor instead of the chocolate mint (can’t even taste the mint in the baked form).

By |2016-10-13T07:28:21-06:00January 9th, 2015|Keto Chow, Ketogenic, Preparation, Soylent|Comments Off on For fun I tried making Keto Chow cookies
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Blood test for a year on DIY soylent, 1/4 of that doing keto

I just got back my blood tests and they look good (at least as far as I can tell =). The last time I had it all tested like that was March 2014 after 3 months of People Chow. So here’s how they stack up to each other:

Name 1/6/2015 3/20/2014 target
Sodium 141 142 135-145 mmol/L
Potassium 4.7 4.4 3.5-5.1 mmol/L
Chloride 103 106 99-111 mmol/L
ECO2 28.2 29.6 21.0-32.0 mmol/L
Glucose 87 79 74-106 mg/dL
BUN 21 19 7-18 mg/dL
Creatinine 1.11 1.1 0.6-1.3 mg/dL
BUN/Creatinine Ratio 18.9 17.3 8.0-27.0 Ratio
Calcium 9.5 9.2 6.5-11.8 mg/dL
Alkaline Phosphatase 79.2 83 50-136 U/L
Cholesterol 135 142 0-200 mg/dL
Triglycerides 96 160 0-200 mg/dL
HDL, Cholesterol 45 43 40-60 mg/dL
LDL (calculated) 71 67 0-160 mg/dL

My wife points out that I really should have done a blood test before I started People Chow last January but hey, I forgot to do it at the time.

Clearly I’m dying due to the massive amounts of saturated fat I eat every day on my ketogenic diet… or not =) I do think it’s funny that my glucose level is slightly higher even though I hardly consume any glucose anymore.

By |2016-10-13T07:28:21-06:00January 8th, 2015|Ketogenic, Soylent|2 Comments
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Tried Vanilla Keto Chow. I think it’s good enough, beta’s over: v1.0

Last night I mixed up 3 meals of vanilla flavored Keto Chow, it’s really good. My wife tried some and said “mmm, that’s good!” Later she asked about the possibility of me mixing her up a few blender bottles for her to have on hand for meals.

I’ve decided that after the most recent changes to the recipe I’m declaring it “version 1.0” (yay!). It will be more stable for a while with maybe a few minor changes here and there but it’s good enough for me.

After yesterday’s price changes I also went through the store part of the site and updated descriptions, links and other fun stuff. I also split the Keto Chow samples from the 1 week product so it’s easier to find the samples vs the 1 week.

By |2016-10-13T07:28:21-06:00January 7th, 2015|Keto Chow, Ketogenic, Soylent|1 Comment
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A year in review

This entry is part 27 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

Weight for 2014

Hey, how about a “year in review” post? I started mixing soylent almost a year ago, starting January 13, 2014. You can read my full exploits Here (in chronological order!). It’s been an interesting year with a lot of downs and a few ups (most notably there in October when I gained back everything I lost in February. I’m approaching the lowest weight I’ve been since I started tracking in October 2006. When I hit 220 I’ll probably do a post with that graph for the morbidly curious =).

Doing a ketogenic diet has made a huge difference in my life. When I first started I said I’d probably get my weight down and then go back to People Chow but with the way Keto Chow is shaping up I think I’ll stick with Ketogenic soylent as my primary food. I probably won’t be as strict with snacks but with how good Keto Chow is I don’t see a need to switch back. Honestly it’s far better tasting that People Chow, less gritty and low carb to boot.

As they say on /r/keto: “Keep Calm and Keto On” (KCKO).

By |2016-10-13T07:28:22-06:00January 6th, 2015|Keto Chow, Ketogenic, Soylent, Weight Loss|Comments Off on A year in review
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First batches of Keto Chow using Dynamize protein

This entry is part 26 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

Last night I mixed up the first batches of Keto Chow using the Dynamize whey protein I’m going to start using. An adventurous soul ordered week of mint chocolate and I did two smaller 1-day batches of strawberry and mint chocolate for testing.

Keto Chow Strawberry Sample

Keto Chow Strawberry Sample

Upon mixing, the Strawberry is a little pink but not much, and the chocolate mint is a bit… tan. You can tell the difference between the chocolate and strawberry but I think the cream is overruling a lot of the coloring it would have had if it was just protein and water. I took better measurements of the finished result (2 lb 8 oz and 9x7x2.5 inches) which will make shipping estimates better. I’m also going to see if I can squeeze it into a 1096L USPS shipping box instead of a Regional Rate A box that I could fit two weeks in.

Keto Chow Chocolate Mint packaged (bottle not included =)

Keto Chow Chocolate Mint packaged (bottle not included =)

I tasted the results about an hour after mixing and it was pretty good. It tasted like it could still use some time for stuff to dissolve but in a time crunch it would be just fine. I would have tried it for realsies this morning but I’m going to get a “Comprehensive Metabolic Panel” blood test and I’m supposed to be fasting. As soon as that’s done (and I’m done with my dentist appointment that’s right after, might as well double up) I’ll give it a better taste test.

It’ll be interesting to see what my blood work shows when I get it sometime later this week or next week. I had it done back in March 2014 (9 months ago?) after doing People Chow for 2 months and those results weren’t bad at all. I’m looking forward to seeing what cutting out carbohydrates and living on mostly fat and some protein has done =).

By |2016-10-13T07:28:24-06:00January 6th, 2015|Keto Chow, Ketogenic, Soylent|Comments Off on First batches of Keto Chow using Dynamize protein
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