Adventures in Ketogenic Dieting
Let me preface this story by saying that I am not a doctor, dietitian, nutritionist or health professional. I am a food enthusiast (aren’t we all?). I abide by the “everything in moderation” approach to life and it’s gotten me this far. Please follow any diet program with extreme caution and consult a professional. With that out of the way, lets talk about weight loss.
The Bet
A few months back a few friends came up with an idea to have a weight loss competition, the prize for winning was yet to be determined. Being someone who is always up for friendly competition I agreed with the stipulation that the final award go to the individual who lost the largest percentage of Body Fat. This would level the playing field between the different sizes of competitors.
Being the glutton that I am, there was no calorie restriction or dieting of any kind for the first 2 months of the 3 month competition. Physical activity levels went up due to the weather changing from a cold winter into a beautiful spring but weight and body fat numbers, as you would expect, stayed fairly stagnant. As the realization set in that only 2 weeks of weight loss remained, I decided something must be done to keep things competitive. I chose a diet (GASP!) that a few other friends had relayed their experience about. The diet was ketogenic, which is similar to the Atkins diet.
The basics of a ketogenic diet are a restriction in someones carbohydrate intake, increase in fat intake and a protein intake adequate enough to sustain someones daily activities. The diet was originally developed to help children avoid epileptic seizures by creating a state called ketosis. Ketosis causes the body to transition from burning carbohydrates to burning fats. An apparent side effect of this type of diet is quick and painless weight loss. “10 lbs in 10 days!”, my veteran diet friends were telling me. How could I resist such an easy fix?
The Diet
So the daily dietary modifications went something like this:
Breakfast included eggs, bacon, and a kale shake. Sometimes I ate bacon and eggs, sometimes the kale shake (which I recently discovered are actually carb heavy). Starch laden foods were completely avoided. Gone were oatmeal, cereal, danish, muffins, bagels and breakfast bars. So pretty much every delicious breakfast food is carb heavy and off the menu. I also had a cup of coffee with every breakfast. Fruit juices and milk were off limits.
Lunch consisted of mostly salads. Its amazing how many popular lunches involve a bun, bread, rice or pasta. The alternative was salad and I had that about 4 times a week. No matter what ingredients you throw in a salad, eating them the majority of the week gets old pretty quick.
Dinner was a bit more varied. Pasta made from zucchini and squash, chicken, beef and grilled vegetables were common. Salads filled in days where I didn’t have it for lunch. Tacos turned into lettuce wraps and burgers became into kebabs. It worked well but the options were still limited.
Libations were also restricted. The general quantity remained the same but beer switched to wine or hard alcohol. Cocktails were made with seltzer and lemon or lime juice. It was kind of nice to have something other than beer for a few weeks.
I avoided fruit, candy, ice cream, juice, rice, pasta, potatoes, corn, bread, and cookies. To be completely honest, it wasn’t fun. I thoroughly enjoy all of these foods and plan on indulging in them responsibly now that the competition is over. Incredibly, the actual volume of food I ate was noticeably greater than prior to the diet. My protein intake skyrocketed, just to sustain me throughout the day. But the diets results were impressive.
The Results
After following this diet for 2 weeks I lost 8 lbs and body fat went from 16.4% to 13.6%. The first 6 lbs came off at a rate of about 1 lb per day. After that, the additional 2 lbs were lost over a 4 day period and then my body weight leveled off. The reduction in body fat followed a similar trend. I began this competition as a moderately fit man and figured it would take awhile for any noticeable results but I started losing weight immediately. I suspected the weight loss was due to a reduction in water content but that number remained steady around 65% according to my scale, throughout the two weeks.
Side effects of the diet included a bit of spaciness during the day. I caught myself daydreaming more often and losing my train of thought a more frequently. My memory wasn’t quite as sharp as well. There were noticeable effects on how quickly I was recalling information in conversations. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to try and measure these effects in any way so its just a qualitative analysis but the side effects did have an impact on my day to day.
I hypothesize this side effect is due to my body not quite reaching the transition to ketosis in two weeks. Essentially the energy wasn’t being supplied to my brain as quickly as when I was ingesting more carbohydrates. My body hadn’t yet transitioned to using fats acids and ketone’s produced from my new low carb diet to supply my brain with the necessary amount of energy to perform at my pre-diet level. I assume if I kept the diet going I would begin to feel better as my body transitioned to burning fats for energy.
In addition to the weight loss I also noticed a complete lack of sluggishness after eating large meals. Prior to the diet a large meal would have me comatose for a few hours. But on the diet, not eating carbohydrate dense meals left me feeling light and energetic even after large meals. During one dinner in particular I ate roughly 2 lbs of ground beef kebabs with grilled vegetables and a Corona. It was an enormous amount of food. Afterwards I felt fine. I felt like I could have gone jogging immediately after finishing dinner. It was an impressive.
Unfortunately I didn’t end up winning the competition. I didn’t even come close actually. But now, I get to finish this Spaghetti Carbonara.
