Ketosis Diet – 6 Week Review

March 21, 2011

It has been an interesting, and productive six weeks. After my initial weight loss began to slow down, I decided to try something new. Atkins and South Beach diets have gotten tons of hype over the last few years, but have seemed like complete fads to me, so I never gave them a shot. But after reading up on the subject, and finding some useful communities with people who actually do live their day-to-day lives on low-carb diets, I figured I would give it a shot.

What I have learned:

Keto? The first thing I did was learned what Ketosis was. I wanted to know what was happening to my body, and why it was happening. I wanted to know what to expect, so being the nerd that I am, Wikipedia was my first stop. tl;dr of it is, your body basically stops using carbs for energy, and instead uses fat. Sounds awesome, right? It is, but has its downsides and I will get to that.

Planning: Carbs are everywhere, and because of that, planning is key. At first I thought it was going to be no problem, I like bread and pasta, but can live without them, then I actually started looking at what was in food. Carbs are everywhere. Basically anything that says “low-fat” or “lite” is going to be a carb pit. They add sugar to things after removing fat to make it taste better, so I now just avoid those entirely. Fruits? Tons of carbs, so fruit was out. Veggies, I thought these were going to be my saving grace, I LOVE veggies. Nope, tons have carbs. Broccoli and cauliflower have become a daily part of my diet, but things like tomatoes, which I love, are out.

Meat: Yes, delicious meat. You can eat it by the ton….just not from most restaurants. Apparently, lots of places love to add crap to perfectly good pieces of meat, and take it from no carb to may as well be a slice of bread. This means, that just because the menu says “steak” you need to be careful. I’ve made it a habit to check out online menus before heading out to dinner, if they don’t have the nutritional info, I find recipes for the items and look what is in them. This, along with the phrase “sauce on the side” have kept me safe.

Sauces: Almost all sauces have a lot of carbs. I LOVE BBQ sauce, and it is hands down the thing I miss most about eating a lot of carbs. But for now, we don’t speak, let alone have dinner together. I have realized that creamy and savory dressings (like Miso Ceasar) are delicious and low carb.

Fat: I am not a big fan of eating fatty meats, it seems counter productive. On Keto, you have to. Fat makes the hungry feeling go away. I eat a lot of grilled chicken, I think its delicious. I could eat grilled chicken and broccoli almost every day and be happy…but I would not feel satiated. So I force my self to eat fats. Fatty steak has become one of my favorite things.

Ketoflu: The first few days SUCKED. I mean really sucked. I felt tired, run down, and at times stupid. I would sit at my desk, look at something and just not be able to figure it out. I pushed through it. YMMV But my advice? Start on a Friday. The worst of it will be on the weekend, and you can function when the week starts.

Eat: I’m not hungry as often anymore. Many times I go from not hungry, to light-headed because I can just skip meals easily as I don’t feel like I need to eat. Now I eat when I think I should be eating (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snack)

Working Out: A lot of people say you don’t need to work out to lose weight while on Keto, that just seems silly to me. Like I said previously, the first few days sucked, so I gave myself a week to get used to the new feeling and for my body to adjust, then hit the gym. I have been following Starting Strength…sort of. My work gives me a hectic schedule, so I use the concepts from the book, and adapt them to my current needs and time, once things at work settle down, I will give the program a good go. My gains are not as fast as most would like, but I am ok with them because my goal was weight loss while maintaining the muscle I do have. I eat at a 500-1k/day calorie deficit, so all gains are good gains at this point. I also do cardio here and there, usually on the elliptical. 30-45 minutes of medium-high intensity cardio.

The Bad:

Dry Skin: I don’t know if it is the lack of carbs, or just the diet change in general, but my skin is now dry, itchy and flaky, when it never has been before. especially around the elbows, hands, and head (dandruff). Some lotion took care of the hands and arms, conditioner for the head.

Planning: You NEED to plan. Eating out without planning is a pain, so just plan and avoid the whole ordeal.

Cheat Days: I took 1 cheat day, it was Superbowl sunday. I ate A LOT of carbs (something in the range of 150-160g) and I paid for it. I felt like absolute crap. I wanted to die. I have not done it since. I eat <50g carbs a day, and frequently around 20-30g, on my “cheat” days, I eat around 70-80g, any more and I get a headache and feel sick. I dont take cheat days frequently, they are almost never planned (I made an exception for my anniversary dinner with my girlfriend, and even that, I ate as few carbs as possible)

The Good:

The Results:

Starting Weight: ~370

Current Weight: ~349

So about 21lbs lost in 6ish weeks. Not bad at all.

Ive also lost about 3-4 inches from around my waist, my clothes are getting too big, and I have been able to slowly start pulling clothes from the “storage” side of my closet as they are starting to fit again.

Energy: I have more of it. This is both good and bad, because now I need to find things to keep me busy. So far I have decided to learn to play the guitar and goof around with some other stuff. I have also bought some new hiking shoes and a pack and plan to go hiking next weekend (last week I had a gout flare up and couldn’t walk well, this week has been raining).