Progress Report: My take on the Ketogenic Diet

All of this has been inspired by The Ketogenic Diet.



 Like anything in life, eating without carbohydrates takes patience, diligence, and perseverance. I started living without carbohydrates on November 8th, 2014. My first couple weeks have been hard because I didn't know how to survive without dietary glucose intake--stuff like bread, pasta, juices and the like.

The one thing you have to realize about your body is that it's a closed loop system. That means you receive inputs from your hormones that signal to your brain to coordinate an action. Think of your home heating system. There's a sensor in the thermostat that when it detects the temperature falling below a preset level, it'll kick on the furnace system to heat the house. That's what's called closed loop because the inputs are closed within the system and the resultant action is closed within the system as well.

My main problem with adapting to the Ketogenic Diet is not knowing the feedback signals of my body.  I didn't realize that when your heart starts beating convulsively, that that's the signal to eat potassium.  I get my potassium from those little tubs of guacamole that you get from the supermarket. I eat one of those at least once every two days. I didn't realize the first thing you should do in the morning is try to get most of your protein in at breakfast.  Also try to eat a lot of fat with the protein as well.  That combination of the high fat and high protein helps me to carry out my day's activities feeling relatively energetic. I was unknowing of the fact that if you feel headaches that it could be a) not enough salt intake or b) not enough protein intake which supplies glucose via the process of gluconeogenesis.  Most of the time the headaches are going to be from low protein intake because your brain still needs that steady supply of glucose to survive because it hasn't learned how to turn on the action of lipolysis or the act of breaking down fat into ketones which the brain can then use as energy source -- otherwise known as ketosis.  The salt intake for me is not an issue because the foods I eat have plenty of salt in them already. 5-6 grams of sodium is the acceptable intake range to ward off the headaches.

In fact the adaptation to a high fat moderate protein diet (probably about 150-160 grams of protein and the rest just fat) has caused me to rethink my approach to dieting.  I don't count calories anymore. I eat when I'm hungry.  I eat protein along with fat every meal because that's what my body feels best on.  I can go longer between meals because my energy levels aren't fluctuating all over the place.  This in turn has caused me to eat less food which results in less calorie intake which resulted into a weight loss of seven pounds in almost two weeks.

Now mind you most of that was water weight ( I was constantly urinating the first couple days).  But as the weight loss continued I could feel my clothes getting bigger.  Honestly that might be muscle mass loss as well, but hopefully some of that is stored fat although I'm not totally sure.