One Month Into the Ketogenic Diet
Bacon. Avocados. Coconut oil. Eggs. Repeat. Thats pretty much been my diet for the last month. I’ve been following a Ketogenic diet which is a diet high in fats and low in carbs. The idea behind the Ketogenic diet is to induce a state of nutritional ketosis in your body, where the body produces ketones in the liver to be used as energy. In order for your body to produce ketones (instead of the more common glucose), you need to eat a lot of fats and restrict your carbohydrate intake.
Transitioning From Carbs to Fats
The transition to this ketogenic metabolic state is brutal and it lasted around 5 days for me. Once I reduced my carb intake to roughly 20–30 grams of carbs a day, my body wasn’t producing its usual level of glucose that it depended upon for energy and thus I was constantly tired and had very little energy. Every day that I woke up during this transition period, it felt like I had slept only 3 hours, when in reality I was sleeping 9–10 hours. I tried going for a run during this period and that was one of the toughest (and slowest) runs I’ve done. Had I brought my cellphone with me, I would have called an Uber to get back home halfway through the run.
Measuring Ketones
After the initial transition period, my energy levels started the bounce back and I wasn’t nearly as exhausted anymore. I also started to periodically measure the level of ketones in my blood using a digital blood-glucose monitoring device. Apparently, optimal nutritional ketosis is achieve in the range of 1.5–3.0 mmol/L. I measured myself 10 times in the last month and I found myself in nutritional ketosis most of the time. I would have measured myself more frequently, but I only had 10 test strips to use.
Health Benefits
I had a few reasons why I wanted to try out the ketogenic diet. Apparently there are a ton of health benefits associated with following a ketogenic diet, but the ones that interested me the most were related to increased mental focus, increased energy, normalized hunger, and reduced acne.
Have I experienced any of the above health benefits? Yes.
I find I’m able to concentrate more on certain tasks and have less of a clouded view on things. I know that sounds a bit abstract, but it seems like I’m more aware of my environment. Also, I’ve recently felt a greater appreciation for simple things like spending time outside and just looking at nature. OK, just writing that feels weird and makes me feel like some sort of preachy spiritualist, so I’ll just end it at that.
I’ve noticed an increase in energy levels as well. Getting out of bed in the morning is a bit easier now and I’m no longer a zombie for the first 30 minutes of the morning. I can’t say my running performance has improved at all, if anything I’m in worse shape running-wise. My heart rate has been spiking earlier than I would like during my runs. I’m not too worried about this since I did take a break from running for 2–3 months soon before starting this diet, so that could play into it. However, I have found that I have more energy when I go for my weightlifting workouts and I don’t feel as depleted after my workouts.
In terms of “normalized hunger”, I’ve noticed I don’t have huge food cravings during the day. I’m used to fasting for a good portion of the day and eating most of my food in the evening and going on the ketogenic diet has definitely helped with that morning/midday fast by reducing food cravings.
Reduced acne? Ya, I would say that my acne has calmed down a bit. The only time it flared up during this diet is when I ate around 3 pounds of goat cheese within 3 days (you think I’m joking, but I’m not). That was the only dairy product I was clinging onto, but since that recent goat cheese binge, I’m not eating any more dairy.
Is It All Rainbows and Butterflies?
What sucks about the Ketogenic diet? Well the variety of food I eat is quite low and gets to be quite boring after a while. Fortunately, I don’t have a desire for a diverse palete since I eat mostly for health, and not for taste. Also, I’m not a big fan of eating so much bacon, but it is the cheapest meat product out there that has a high amount of fat relative to protein. Also, it appears that everything at restaurants don’t meet the Ketogenic diet requirements, so eating out with other people is hopeless and awkward when all you do is order a water.
I should say that I don’t really know any of science behind the Ketogenic diet, nor have I read any studies related to it. I’ve just heard a bunch of anecdotal evidences and I’ve listened to a bunch of people that are big advocates of the diet (notably Dom D’Agostino). I’m just sharing my experience for those that are interested.
I’m also a big advocate of trying to maintain a healthy gut. Prior to getting into the Ketogenic diet, I drank a good amount of Kombucha due to its probiotics, but it kicks me out of Ketosis due to its high carb content. Now, I try to take a probiotic pill every day with my evening meal and occasionally get some fermented sauerkraut as a treat.
I think I’ll be continuing with this diet for the near future because I’ve been happy with the improvements I’ve seen to my health. I’ve tried gluten-free and paleo diets in the past, but none of those have yielded as many positive results as the Ketogenic diet.
I’m happy to answer some more questions you may have with my experience with the diet, but if you want to learn more about the Ketogenic diet, I suggest you do your own research.
