Awesome user success post from Reddit today
Just saw this posted over on /r/keto, thought you’d all enjoy seeing it (make sure you check out the photo gallery). 350 to 225lbs.
Found an awesome Keto blog – especially relevant for “the ladies”
OK, so I was kicking around /r/keto and found this post which linked over to this recipe over on ketokarma.com
Seriously good stuff and inspiring! She has a wealth of great information, recipes, and video updates. If you’re looking into starting Keto, wanting some more info, motivation to keep going, or whatever – check it out!
About the Business Cards that come in orders
Back in March we started including business cards in the packages we ship out. It was my Wife’s idea (I think, might have been Heather’s idea originally). There’s a discount code on the back but it only works once for each person, we continue sending them with each order so you’ll have a nice and easy way to explain to people that ask what is up with Keto Chow. Here’s a comment I got on an order this morning:
Please include a bunch of cards so I can hand em’ out to my friends and coworkers whom are interested in the “shake” that has allowed me to loose 45lbs.
THAT is why we put the cards in there =)
Look, there’s an easier (cheaper) way
So the newly FDA approved AspireAssist has been all over the news (even made the Colbert Show back in 2015). It’s a tube that is implanted into your stomach so you can suck out undigested food before it is absorbed. In other words: it’s a FDA approved form of surgically assisted bulimia, that’s the consensus over on /r/keto (note: on the comments “ED” means “Eating Disorder” not… something else).
There’s a much easier, enjoyable, SUSTAINABLE and cheaper way to change your life: eat bacon stop eating sugar; and by “sugar” I mean glucose, fructose, polymerized glucose (starch) and the like. Call it what you will – I will call it “Keto” and it’s really not that hard. Look, if you are like me and your body apparently can’t handle carbohydrates like it’s supposed to: don’t eat them, eat better food. People wouldn’t insist that celiacs eat bread, they don’t tell people with peanut allergies to have some, and Jim Gaffigan frankly needs to stay out of the sun. Switching over to the lifestyle of keto changed my life – and more and more of those around me are doing it too (or at least giving it a try).
Personally I use Keto Chow for most of my meals but most people doing Keto use “regular” food – either way is fine. Got a gut? Keto might be right for you too. Best part is: it’s not a MLM, it’s not being promoted by any special interest group and you can do it yourself! You won’t need surgery, you’ll have more energy and my wife claims doing keto has made me more attractive, so there’s that too. Here’s a handy guide:
Keto Chow 1.5 update – almost there; Finally missed reps on StrongLifts
So first the good news: The roll out of Keto Chow 1.5 is nearly complete. Rather than list what is updated to 1.5, I’ll just list what isn’t:
Weeks
- Chocolate Fudge
Samples
- Banana and Butter Cream Toffee (as they’re discontinued but I still have some)
- Chocolate Mint
- Snickerdoodle
- Vanilla
- Cookies & Cream
Days
- None. They’re all switched over.
Now for the bad news: Up until last night I hadn’t missed a single rep doing StrongLifts. It was inevitable that I would and it finally happened. Last week I was able to finish the full set of Overhead Press doing 95lbs but doing 100lbs was too much for me, even resting 5 minutes between sets:
Well, life moves on. The kids asked for Strawberry and Peanut Butter keto chow today.
The Biggest Loser Diet – Explained!
This week results of a study were posted showing that contestants from “The Biggest Loser” from several years ago had mostly regained all their lost weight. From the conclusions offered in the findings it would seem there is no way to lose weight. The subjects metabolisms slowed down so much that it was nearly impossible for them to maintain their weight loss. Doctor Jason Fung does an excellent job of distilling what’s really going on here. I suggest you head over and read his article. I’ll wait.
This is what is sometimes termed ‘starvation mode’. This is what people imagine happens as their body starts to shut down in order to conserve energy. Basal metabolism (Calories Out) falls and you feel like crap. As you eat less, your body burns less calories, so that eventually weight loss plateaus. Then you feel like crap, so decide to eat a bit more (your hunger hormones are also rising like a spire), but not as much as you used to. But, your ‘Calories Out’ is so low that you get weight regain. Sound familiar? Happens to every dieter out there. What’s unfair, is that their friends and family silently blame the victim of having ‘fallen off the wagon’, or not having enough will power. Actually, the dietary advice – Eat Less, Move More is guaranteed to fail. So don’t blame the victim when they actually do fail.
You did read the article right? If you didn’t the TL;DR is:
- Caloric Reduction as Primary strategy puts you into starvation mode (lower metabolism).
- The key to losing weight in the long term is maintaining basal metabolism, or keeping ‘Calories Out’ high.
- Failure rate of Eat Less, Move More is proven to be 99% or so. This remains the diet advice favored by most physicians and dieticians.
- Actual starvation (fasting or bariatric surgery) does not put you into starvation mode (metabolism remains high).
- Ketogenic diets do not put you into starvation mode either (metabolism remains high).
My own experience confirms this. When I had a DEXA scan done I also did the resting metabolic rate test. Despite being on a Ketogenic diet for over a year and a half, my metabolism isn’t crazy low, quite the opposite:
The RMR report also said I probably want between 1776 and 2218 calories a day for weight loss; and that my metabolism is 10% faster than people of similar sex, age, height and weight. There were some less than useful platitudes about “you must burn more calories than you consume to lose weight” which is the same as saying “you must save more money than you spend to save money” or “if more people leave a room than come in, there will be less people in the room” – um… thanks?
So. If you want to lose weight because your body doesn’t handle carbohydrates well (like me!) and keep it off, it seems these are the steps:
- Switch to a ketogenic LIFESTYLE – no cheating, no end. If you go back to eating the sugary junk that got you fat in the first place, what do you think will happen?
- Do intermittent fasting (just don’t eat for two meals but keep drinking water) or outright fasting (24 hours without calories)
- If you’re feeling ambitious, try lifting weights. I’m currently a few weeks into StrongLifts5x5 (along with my wife, she’s awesome by the way; our anniversary is tomorrow) and so far it’s been simple and easy to stick to. Takes around 30 minutes, three times a week.
Testing with acacia gum progressing well, thinking about starting lifting
So my test of Keto Chow with Acacia gum instead of Psyllium Husk powder seems to be going pretty well. Acacia gum doesn’t thicken like psyllium does so I’m having to use a thickening agent too, MOAR fiber I guess. It’s smoother that the psyllium, like really smooth with almost no texture at all except the peanut butter flour I added to this batch.
I’m still rocking 100% Keto Chow since Tuesday (well except the pickles I ate yesterday…. and then I drank all the pickle juice in the jar which was fun since they were hot chili pickles. My wife has planned for us to go out to dinner with friends tonight so I’l going to break my streak. I’m still down 4lbs from Tuesday.
I’ve been thinking about starting lifting at a gym, particularly since this post. It kinda snowballed yesterday when somebody posted a home gym on a yardsale site. I ended up talking to my brother (the one that is supposed to eventually post his experience with Keto and lifting) about it. His advice: “rent” the equipment with a gym membership, if you’re truly serious about it you can buy some later. OK, good plan. The price of the bowflex would be 3.5 years of membership at the gym nearest my house. Now the problem becomes: when will I have time to work out!? I think the solution will be to stash gym clothes in my car and stop on my way home. My awesome wife said she was going to suggest I start going to the gym but didn’t want to offend me =) So good timing I guess.
Day 100 – 100 days of Keto (Chow) retrospective plus a rant about skinny weight loss coaches
Weight change for the 100 days: 209.9 lbs to 205.4 lbs. That’s not really stellar progress but compared to gaining I suppose I’ll take it. I also didn’t “cheat” once; meaning I didn’t ever deliberately eat foods containing sugar, starch or other carbohydrates – but that wasn’t a surprise, aside from “robins eggs” that are still kicking around my house I’m not tempted at all by carby foods. For the most part I did have 3 meals of Keto Chow a day for the 100 days but it’s the “extra” stuff that was detrimental.
This 100 day experiment was a good experience though. I can see a direct correlation between my progress and the amount of malitol I consumed, for one thing. Malitol is a relatively common “sugar free” sweetener. And by “sugar free” I’m using the loose standard the food industry uses since it is a sugar alcohol and is arguably better than sucrose, though not by much. Because malitol is cheaper than most of the sugar alcohols like Erythritol it gets used pretty frequently in sugar free stuff. Like Russell Stover chocolates, sugar free lemon heads and others. My advice to myself and to others: if it has malitol then you can’t subtract the sugar alcohols from the total carbohydrates. In other words: just avoid it entirely. Go get some Swerve sweetener and make your own stuff instead. Seriously, it’s my downfall and I’m finally coming to terms with it. As much as people rail against aspartame and sucralose at least I know they don’t affect my metabolism.
So, I didn’t lose much weight during the experiment, what about blood ketones? First off: measuring your ketones is generally a really bad idea. It’s motivational to get some of the urine test strips when you are very first starting out doing keto since you can see a tangible and almost immediate result. As your body adapts to ketosis the urine test strips become useless though, you stop producing extra that gets excreted and the strips stop working. So you can test with blood tests or breath acetone tests. The blood tests are like $2 each and the breath tester is $150. You also fall into a non-constructive pattern if you are constantly testing and “chasing ketones”. You’re better off just limiting your carbohydrates, tracking food in general and keeping at it. Keep Calm and Keto On (KCKO) as they say. So I did measure my blood ketone levels every day. Near the end of the experiment I discovered that I was doing it wrong! Thanks to the “dawn phenomenon” my glucose was high and ketones were low every morning when I tested. That can partially account for why I only averaged 0.5 mmol/L during the experiment (you want to be in the 1.5-3.0 range). the rest of it is the aforementioned malitol.
So here’s where I get into my rant: I feel your pain because it’s my pain too.
Losing weight can be very, very difficult for people (at times it can also be really easy for others). The irony is that almost all of the people you see that advocate exercise, active lifestyles and other “traditional” forms of weight loss have never experienced Metabolic Syndrome, Insulin Resistance or Diabetes. You see the rail thin “never been overweight” paragons of fitness selling exercise plans to get people skinny, or body wraps, or ab crunchers. Even the models they use for weight reduction surgery look like they’ve NEVER been obese. They just don’t understand, and it drives me nuts. Unfortunately society as a whole also subscribes to the notion that all you have to do to be skinny is exercise, fat people are lazy, it’s a moral weakness.
Being fat is a lack of character so far as being allergic to peanuts is a lack of character. Some people can’t handle gluten, others get sunburn almost by looking at a photograph of the sun. Are those problems with their moral fiber, with their will power? Should society look down on them? Maybe they should just try not being diabetic, or celiac , or ginger. Your body’s ability or inability to process glucose/carbohydrates isn’t your fault. If people happen to have won the genetic lottery and their cells haven’t become resistant to insulin yet then that’s also not something they should be applauded for. That’s just how your body may be.
When I was a skinny little kid with asthma I couldn’t gain weight for anything. Then I overcame that and, by the outward indicators, slowly worked up resistance to insulin. I stopped processing glucose like I was supposed to. I don’t know if that was genetics, environment, or (more likely) a result of what I was eating combined with the two. Regardless, I got fat and stayed fat. To date, the only thing that has had a consistent effect on my weight was coming to terms with how I personally metabolize glucose (or rather don’t). Switching to a ketogenic diet has impacted my health and weight tremendously and I don’t see any reason I would ever stop. Why eat bread when you can eat bacon?
So I consider these 100 days a success for the additional experience I gained. Sure it would have been awesome to be down to 180, but when people report that they’re having issues losing weight I more than understand. I’ve had the same frustrations and maybe even done the same things that are hindering your/their progress.
Day 088 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)
- Weight: 202.9
- Blood ketones: 0.6 mmol/L
Alright, so I made it to 46.4 hours without eating – let’s analyze how it went!
Mood and how I felt. First off, my lack of sleep yesterday was the biggest detrimental factor in the experience. If that had not happened (thanks a lot brain!) I probably would have gone longer, maybe 48 hours, maybe 72 – dunno. I don’t think I’m going to make not eating for several days something I do often since it was rather extreme (obviously); I’ll likely continue doing intermittent fasting here and there. I think I might have also been low on electrolytes since I was feeling sluggish, then again that could have been the sleep (or lack thereof).
Let’s look at the blood results. Tuesday morning (~8 hours) I was at 0.2 mmol/L of ketones in my blood. That evening (~18 hours) when I tested myself again I was up to 1.1. The next morning (~32 hours), even though the only thing I had “eaten” was two fish oil pills the night before, I had gone down to 0.9. When I came home from work that evening and tested again (46.4 hours) my ketones were all the way up to 3.5 mmol/L. After which I had two Keto Chows (Chocolate Peanut Butter), 4 pickles and a couple spoon fulls of ham soup my awesome wife had made. When I tested my blood again this morning, my levels were all the way down to 0.6. Honestly it makes no sense why it’s down again, it just further re-enforces the notion of “don’t chase ketones, just keep calm and keto on” – or don’t do what I’m doing and test your blood every day, just keep doing keto (no cheating!) and it’ll work out. You also shouldn’t get too anxious about the scale, which brings me to…
Weight results. Well, I came into this from a rather large (keto friendly) Easter dinner which loaded me up on salt and lots of water weight – all the way up to 208.3 lbs on Monday morning. By Tuesday morning (8 hours fasting while sleeping) I was only down to 207.8. lbs. By Wednesday morning I had dropped to 203.6, a slight up-tick Wednesday evening when I weighed myself again and as of this morning I was down again to 202.9 lbs. Monday – Thursday difference is 5.4lbs. Now it will be interesting to see if I can stick with it and continue going down. On a happy note, yesterday was also the weigh-in day for my city’s weight loss challenge. According to the scale there, I was down 6 lbs from the previous week. Nice.
Day 061 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)
- Weight: 204.6
- Blood ketones: 0.4 mmol/L
Again with the running! I went to my dentist yesterday to see if the pain in my jaw was tooth related, got a panoramic x-ray and everything looks good. Based on my description and the way my jaw was closing, the dentist posits that I hurt the “disc” in my jaw somehow and it needs some time to get better. He prescribed 800mg of ibuprofen and told me that although it would be hard, I needed to try to limit biting down for a week or more “try to stick to soft foods”. I literally laughed out loud and then had to do a really rough explanation about my mostly liquid diet =). So for future reference, Keto Chow works quite well when you have dental/jaw problems.
I did awesome yesterday and the only non-keto chow calories I consumed was a little bit of cheese, I’ll see if I can act on the advice of my dentist.
Last night I was reading a post on the /r/ketochow sub-reddit where someone had gotten a DEXA scan. Down the rabbit hole I went! A while later I had found a company here locally that does them, they charge $99 for 1 scan and have in the past given discounts if you sign up for multiple ones at a time, so I have an appointment for Monday, March 14 (Pi day). EDIT: I was looking at their “Sample Report” and laughed out loud at “Android fat is associated with visceral (unhealthy) fat” – that darn android fat!
On a final note, today there was a new “study” published that claims a high fat diet (in mice) causes cancer. There is an excellent discussion over on /r/ketoscience about it but the TL; DR is
Low quality fat sources: 55% lard and 5.5% soybean oil. 32% of the fat is PUFA, omega6:3 ratio is 14:1.
Low quality protein sources: 20% casein that is poor in glycine and taurine, which are needed for metabolic health.
Low quality carbohydrate sources: 12% maltodextrin and 7% sugar that are completely unnecessary and just there to hinder fat metabolism.
Turns out that if you put mice on a diet of sugar and lard, the mice get fat and sick.
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