During my last depression wave, I drank alcohol constantly, ate like shit, and barely made it into the gym. Because of this, my weight went all the way up to 310 pounds and I started feeling the symptoms of diabetes once again. So instead of going on a calorie reduction diet or a carb cycling routine, I just decided it was time to cut out carbs completely.
I didn't really intend to end up on the keto diet. In fact, for the first few days I wasn't doing it. I was just not eating carbs. I didn't know there was a difference between the keto diet, a low carb diet, or the Atkins diet until I started looking up low-carb recipes online for meal prep. Going down that rabbit hole I learned the differences between the diets and that the keto diet isn't just a very, very low-carb diet, but it's also a diet with only a moderate amount of protein and a very, very high amount of fat. It was said that the body will learn to burn all the fat you're eating for energy in the place of carbohydrates. This is in contrast to the Atkins diet, which doesn't regulate fat or protein, but also can leave you feeling very tired throughout the day. Not a feeling you want to have when you're doing squats in the gym. So halfway through my first week, I decided to give this diet a go. The liver takes the fat and converts it into well, whatever's going to be used in place of the carbs. Glucose, maybe? I'm not sure. I don't feel like looking all that shit up again. Just trust me that the fats do the job.
Those that describe the keto diet weren't kidding when they said you have to eat a lot of fat. It's determined that for every calorie you eat of protein, you need to eat three times as many calories as fat. I figured that on the low end of my protein requirements, I probably need at least 200 grams per day Because one gram of protein is four calories, that comes out to eight hundred pounds. So, 800x3=2,400, so I need 2,400 calories of fat on this diet per day. Since one gram of fat equals nine calories, that puts me at about 266 grams a day, or 66 grams of fat per meal, spaced out under four meals. Regardless of what I eat, my carbs should be under 30 grams a day, and definitely never exceed 50 grams.
This has been easy enough to maintain, but it has caused me to spend an insane amount of time in the kitchen. It almost feels like I'm meal prepping, or adding food to my meal prep, on a daily basis.
I heard on the news a few weeks ago that the keto diet is considered one of the least effective diets because it's so hard to maintain. Two weeks in and I'm wondering why people have a hard time staying on it. The large amount of cooking this diet has required aside, it's not like you're missing out on a lot of your favorite meals. There is a keto version of every recipe you could possibly think of.
There's dozens of different ways to make low-carb bread. Fathead dough, almond bread, keto hamburger buns, keto hot dog buns, keto pasta noodles, etc. That's just the bread part. There's a keto recipe for every type of comfort food out there that you would miss eating on a calorie-restrictive diet. Keto fried chicken, keto mac and cheese, keto breakfast sandwiches, keto pancakes, keto crepes...
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| keto biscuits, keto pizza, keto ice cream, keto birthday cake... |
I did a search for "keto chocolate cake" yesterday just to see if my theory of "keto version of everything" held up. Sure enough...
The keto diet is like the internet's rule 34. If a recipe exists on the internet, there is a keto version of it.
But I don't think it's the lack of food options that makes one quit the diet. I think it's got more to do with the infamous "keto flu".
The keto flu is a brief stretch of time that usually takes place sometime between the beginning of the diet and the end of the second week. During that time, your body hasn't quite figured out that it needs to burn fat in place of carbs, so you start feeling weak and lethargic. I had this happen at the beginning of the second week, but it passed after a few days. If you can get past those few days and wait for your body to adjust, it'll be much easier.
I also haven't had any alcohol since starting this diet fifteen days ago. That's the longest I've gone without drinking since 2016.
After the first few days of the diet, I felt really good because my blood glucose levels had stabilized, after what was likely a pretty continuous hyperglycemic state. I lost six pounds after the first three days. Then, no weight loss as the keto flu kicked in. Then, five days ago, I started to lose about a pound every day. I'm now down to 299 pounds. I have 29 more to go before I reach my goal, and since I'm planning on being on this diet for a total of 8 weeks, it'll be easy enough to do if current trends hold.
I'm also working out five days a week. Since I went too long without going to the gm, I'm doing Starting Strength again until I can get my strength levels back up. I'm doing karate twice a week as well.
I plan on at least writing biweekly to track my progress.
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