Nutritional Ketosis

The difference between urine ketone testing and blood ketone testing is simple. The urinalysis strips will only measure dietary ketones – i.e., ketones which are produced as a result of the breakdown of fat in our digestive system. When the fat content of our food becomes adequate and the carbohydrate levels fall, the body produces ketones and they appear in our urine when they’re unused.

Blood ketones, however, are only shown in quantities above 1.5mmol when the body is releasing fat from its current stores of body fat. This indicates usage of stored fat for fuel as well as indicates the production of ketones from dietary sources. This is a measurement of nutritional ketosis, i.e., ketosis as a result of both intake of dietary fat and use of stored reserves of fat for fuel.

Yesterday, for the first time, I measured my blood ketones using my wife’s new glucometer/ketone meter. I’ve measured my blood sugar a few times and while I’m not thrilled with where it is, it’s not bad. When I measured my blood ketones yesterday, however, I found I was at 2.2mmol, which is a fantastic measure of how deeply my day’s meals kept me in ketosis. And above 2.0mmol is good indeed.

The drawback is, I can’t do this every day. In fact, ideally, I’d be doing this a few hours after every meal. But at about $5/strip plus shipping … yeah, I don’t think so. So, I have to suffice with trying to make a correlation between weight loss and blood sugar at best. Or just continue to keep an eye on my macronutrient intake and levels. Nevertheless, I can be happy to know our lifestyle, at least insofar as yesterday’s meals are concerned, has successfully moved us into ketosis (my spouse had levels of 2.0mmol) and we can be sure there will be weight loss, slow and steady, so long as we maintain those balances.

Down to 238.6 today, and looking forward to today’s meals.

Locked in Place

I can’t get my weight to budge, but after indulging so heavily in carbohydrate-based foods for two days, I don’t suppose it’s reasonable to expect my body to do anything cooperative now.

I found I was in trace levels of ketosis when I tested over the weekend, despite the overdose of bread, grapes and wine on Friday night which followed the hamburgers and fries on Thursday night. But I did enjoy my bread, cheese, grapes and wine. Mmm, heavenly!

Saturday and Sunday back on the wagon, as I said before. And of course I dropped a full pound of the nearly three I’d gained, but nothing since then. I suspect the drop was mostly water weight, and now I have to wait for the ketosis to kick in again before I lose any further.

The good news, however, is I’ve kept my numbers ideal for weight loss for two straight days now. No cravings for more bread or fruit. (Okay, that’s a lie. I think sourdough bread should be exempt from carbohydrates and eaten freely by all without any ramifications whatsoever. I always want sourdough, but that’s life.)

I did find I wanted to finish the Zinfandel though. I miss red wine with dinner. I used to do that quite regularly, and enjoyed it. *Sigh*

Well, nothing lost but nothing gained either, so on I go trying to make it happen.

Hope it’s not a two- to four-week cycle. That’d stink.

Success!

Well, I passed on the dinner out with colleagues last night, but I didn’t feel too bad about that. The brutally hot ride home in very high humidity was the worst part. While I would have enjoyed the meal, I think for now I need to be conscientious of what I eat and not throw myself farther back than I need to. This is a personal choice, not something I struggle with.

To be clear, I likely would have either ended up eating a chicken Caesar salad with only a few bites of meat on it, or getting something like a steak or seafood and leaving a lot of it on my plate — if I had the wherewithal to remember not to exceed my protein. One of the problems I have is, I enjoy food. And a really good steak would have been very difficult to stop eating.

So rather than deprive myself and throw myself out of ketosis — again — for two or four more weeks, I opted to control myself and my protein and eat at home.

Yesterday I managed to hit my numbers for the first time in weeks, probably. I got myself at 82% fat, 13% protein, and 5% carbohydrates. I probably need to try and get the fat higher and the carbs lower, but I ate our faux chocolate mousse last night which added just the right amount of fat and a bit of carbs from the sugar-free pudding. I don’t mind, though. I could try making this with cocoa powder and artificial sweetener instead, which would lower the carb count a bit (maybe), but right now, this works and it’s easy. I had this made and eaten in less than 20 minutes.

So for the first time, my numbers look right. Today, my stomach is already rumbling and it’s not even 9:30AM. Oh my goodness! What am I going to do to stall for another two or two and a half hours?!

Well, no weigh-in this morning. I didn’t want to take the time. And I don’t think I’ll see any weight loss for a little while. If I do, though, it will be nice to know I can go over on the protein and still lose. That will make eating a bit easier. All I’ll do is slow things down, not stop them. But I’m genuinely trying for nutritional ketosis now, not just seeing ketones in my urinalysis. I think if I can get there in the next couple of weeks (funny how Dr. Atkins’s induction phase was two weeks, huh?), I’ll be able to sustain it.

As an aside, I think it’s interesting I had to worry about hidden carbohydrates before. I could let the number drift up a bit but held myself as low as I could go. That was in 1997 and 1998, when I didn’t really do a very good job of following the plan (Atkins). I just ate as few carbs as I could, and continued on with as much protein as my heart desired. I spent a few months in a brain fog and still can’t remember huge blocks of time. *Sigh*

Now I have to watch my protein instead. It’s rather the same, being obsessive about the number, but now I do so with almost no regard for carbohydrates at all. I know how to keep them out, how to identify them. But my protein turning into sugar is the scary thing to me. When does that happen? How much does that cause brain fog? It prevents keto-adaptation so it’s going to be a source of brain fog, no doubt. But to what extent? Does the brain fog come and go as we drift into and out of nutritional ketosis?

I suspect I’ve been keto-adapted, because not long ago, I remember feeling very sharp, very focused and mentally agile. I don’t feel that way now, though I hesitate to say I’m in a fog. I still want better mental clarity, but wonder if this is the path or not. And the idea of intermittent fasting isn’t as appealing anymore, because when I get hungry, I’m really hungry. So things which are supposed to help weight loss, don’t seem to be.

Ah well, Just observations from the asylum’s inmate.

Still Losing

I’m down to 262.6 today, another half-pound since my last weight check on Friday (I think). That’s good. I don’t know how much I’ve lost over the course of the week though. I should be keeping better track of it if I’m going to monitor my progress.

The hunger isn’t as severe as it was, but I still wonder if a bit more protein would be okay. Last time I had too much my face erupted in a boiling mass of acne. Ugh. I’m still struggling with it, but it’s abating. As I type this, I’m pretty hungry though, and I have to check my lunch to see what I’ve got available. Watching one’s protein intake is pretty amazing. And hard to do!

But the weight continues to drop. I had about six ounces of chicken with two cups of salad greens last night for dinner. The meat was topped with 4oz of cream cheese and perhaps 4tbsp of butter. (I can’t recall now, darn it.) But the salad was topped with my wife’s wonderful homemade Ranch dressing, which is LOADED with good fats and not much protein at all. I don’t have an accurate measure on that, either. I need to put into our diet tracker on FatSecret so I can use it.

So other than being a bit hungry when I wake up, I’m feeling fine. I like the weight loss, don’t feel there’s any brain fog I can identify, and I’m not worried about being in ketosis. I think the weight loss speaks for itself pretty well.

I’m a bit flustered on my wife’s behalf though, and the hunger is vexing. Most people say ketotic states alleviate hunger. I’m not finding that, at least not to my satisfaction. I’d like to find the solution to that, and get some fat-only foods incorporated to our menus so we can relieve it when it’s there.

I’m open to suggestions, but I’m also going to get a ketogenic cookbook or two. Just in case. They must have something in them we can use.

Back on Track…?

Maybe I’m back on track. Maybe.

I can see my face clearing up. As a result of the increased washing (twice a day now), or because of the zit medication I’ve been applying, but it’s clearing up. Still, I’d like to know whether I’ve corrected my diet or not.

Around the same time as the outbreak, I had a couple of days where my protein went nuts (more than 110g per day). I don’t know why I lost sight of it so far, but I certainly did. I think — but do not now and probably never will know — gluconeogenesis kicked in hard and it was like I’d eaten pounds of sugar. My face responds in kind with acne.

Now, that being said, it begs the question: Why didn’t my body ever react this way to protein before?

The answer might be, maybe it did. Maybe I didn’t overload on protein quite so much before, either, and maybe the addition of fat as I tried to lower my protein has caused my body to become more sensitive to the protein. That is, my body used the protein in the past to generate glucose and burn it (no brain fog), but when I provide sufficient amounts of fat to forego the need for glucose to be burned, the excess protein is turned to glucose which now isn’t being burned and my body has an insulin response, where it didn’t before.

Or something.

Of course, I can’t know this stuff, but I’ll continue to monitor my proteins the best I can. I generally use 7g per ounce of meat as my guide, and with thick cut bacon it’s about 5g per cooked slice, so I can keep an eye on it that way.

The tricky part is dividing the 75g I’m allowed for the day over the course of the full day. And jumping to 100g doesn’t seem to be an option if I’m going to suffer physical ramifications like this. I can’t IMAGINE getting any LOWER with protein, so I might permit myself up to about 80g and see what happens.

Keeping in mind weight loss is the primary goal right now.

Speaking of weight loss (did you like my segue?), I’m down to about 263.4. It took me five measurements to get that reading three times, but I discounted the others because they came far from one another (one was the first reading, another was the fourth), and weren’t the same number each time. I don’t know why the scale has such a hard time getting the number right, but I didn’t move it at all on the floor this time, so how did it get three numbers? Time will show; my official weigh-in is Monday morning. Today’s just a marker.

Anyway, we had a nice Independence Day holiday; I got both Wednesday and Thursday off, but had to work yesterday. No big deal, but next week marks the beginning of the looooooooonnnng run to Labor Day.

Down We Go!

Well, I’m not sure what the success comes from, exactly. I mean, I have an idea, but I can’t be sure.

I started losing weight right before my wife decided to shoot for a more strict ketogenic approach. She’s made it, by the way — we’re hitting that 80% fat range pretty consistently now. We’re fairly comfortable with the notion of our urinalysis strips not showing us metabolic or nutritional ketosis, but dietary ketones instead. So without buying the very expensive strips to test for blood ketones, we can only guess really.

My wife introduced me to fatsecret.com, which allows us to enter a broad range of foods and drinks to track our macro-nutrients, which is all we’re really interested in right now. Every time I do it, I’m in that proper ketotic range, and the scale seems to reflect the change. I did have a minor bounce last week around mid-week, but can’t say why and my numbers have come down since then.

Today I’m under 265lbs. That means I’ve lost about 10lbs since February, and while that’s not a tremendous amount of weight in that amount of time, I stayed static for a long (frustrating) time. My numbers started to drop, finally, in early June. But they’re moving with some real progress now. I can’t wait to see how this pans out in the fatsecret diet calendar, which shows me a line chart of my weight.

The only issue I’m having is hunger. I’m starving. I want so much to devour meat and cheese and good treats like Salami and Pepperoni and my beloved bratwurst. But all I can do is stick to the plan, and try to figure out other ways to quell the hunger. I could, I suppose, drink coconut oil, but that’s less convenient at work. Besides, I’m concerned about carrying it with me in case it leaks all over my computer. We’re having horribly hot weather and CO melts at 76F.

My wife experienced ravenous hunger with grumpiness and pangs before we went ketogenic hard-core. I’m confused why it works the other way for me. I also wonder how high I can venture with protein before I hit gluconeogenesis. I don’t want to experiment — I’d rather see consistent weight loss and deal with hunger another way — but it’s interesting to note how we’re affected differently by the new protein restrictions.

On the other hand, I could be experiencing increased metabolic activity which is driving the hunger. I’m not exercising yet — my back won’t permit that yet and I’ve a long, long way to go before I’ve lost enough weight for working out — so it’s not a change in my activity level. I don’t really have any other explanation but I can’t cave in to my body’s desire for food. At least, not the way I used to. A couple of brats back in our unrestricted protein days would’ve done the trick, but now? I dunno.

And while adding fat sounds easy, it’s not. We also have to keep in mind the Omega-6 and Omega-3 ratio. We take fish oil supplements to help with the balance, but we can’t go over the top with things like mayo, and vegetable oil is a no-no. So. Lard, CO, olive oil, butter and cream cheese (watch the protein, though!) are about all we’ve got. Yay.

Oh well. It’s happening, and I’m excited. It’s a struggle now to keep from weighing myself every day! Huzzah!

Confusion

Okay, so this is why I don’t weigh myself everyday anymore.

I stepped on the scale yesterday and noticed a slight increase. Something more than a pound. Of course, that’s not a big deal, weight can fluctuate as much as 4lbs in a single day, some sources say. But today, I got on the scale again just as a comparator and found I’d gone up even more! Something like 3lbs since my last weigh-in on Monday!

WTH?!

I can’t figure it out. I’ve done nothing different than I did before. I eat loads of fat with dinner, limit my protein to about 75g per day, and never increase carbohydrate intake, so why the dickens would my weigh be going up?! It’s mind-boggling!

I can’t see this having anything to do with the weekend indulgence with guacamole and cheese chips. The protein would be high, but I wasn’t knocked out of ketosis. The level lowered, to be sure, but I wasn’t ever out. And today my ketosis level measured in the upper MODERATE/lower LARGE range (it was a nice, deep purple somewhere between those two markers).

Of course, that’s urinalysis ketosis, which we’ve discovered isn’t a very accurate measure of metabolic ketosis (or nutritional ketosis), since it’s most likely going to increase with dietary fat increases. So. What do I do about this?

I could understand a plateau for a bit. That would make sense. But an increase? That idea is incomprehensible. And not one increase, but two days running. I’m beside myself. I’ve changed nothing about how I eat, why would my weight go up?

I’m having stomach problems too, which is strange. I wondered if something I ate disagreed with me and has left me a little sick. I guess time will show.

Things Which Make Me Go “Hm”… Or “WTH?”

So, my wife and I made some guacamole on Saturday (or was it Sunday?), and I made the chips from microwaved cheese. My wife picked up some Mexican four-cheese blend, and we had some taco blend left over from a couple of weeks ago. Both were shredded in convenient bags. I made us each two 2oz patties, which we broke into chips for dipping.

DELICIOUS! I used too many Serrano peppers, though, so it was a bit too spicy for my love, but I loved it. And it needed a touch more cilantro, too. I also thought something was missing, and maybe it was, as my wife pointed out, the red pepper we didn’t add (we didn’t have one on hand).

Nevertheless, delicious. But, this put us in the hole on both carbs (avocados, while high in saturated fat, are also high in carbs), and with the tomatoes and the touch of sour cream, it was probably more than we needed. It left us very full, and with dinner, I think it put us beyond our daily allotment for protein (the cheese, mostly).

Still, it was an indulgence, and we loved it. That night, and into the next morning, however, I registered very low ketosis levels. Not that this is an accurate measure of our actual ketosis, as determined earlier, but it shows there was an impact on us. On the other hand, eating too much protein, so long as I also ate sufficient fat, showed higher levels of ketosis on the urinalysis strips anyway. So I really should abandon using them for a while. The scale would be a better measure at this point.

Speaking of which, when I weighed in on Monday morning, I couldn’t get three readings to line up. WTH? I finally had to give up when I tried for a fifth time and it still didn’t align with three different measures. Not sure what happened, but the numbers were all higher than I’d been for a week or so. Therefore, like any good dieter obsessed with weight, I chose to ignore the scale for that day. I didn’t record it.

Today, however, the scale shows me a number I thought was lower than I’d been before, but tells me that’s not a loss compared to my last recorded weight. WTH?! What’s the matter with this stupid thing?!

Ah, well. I’m going to ignore the scale for the moment, and weigh in again on Friday as planned. We dropped our protein even more yesterday by eating baby back ribs. My wife has an amazing braising technique and they literally fall off the bone. We each had our servings (8oz for her, 9oz for me), but afterward we weighed the bones and found we each had 3oz of bones left after picking them clean. So we cut our protein intake without trying. I ate all my cream cheese, but none of my salad, so my carb intake was down too. And I added mayonnaise and a touch of barbecue sauce in a mixture for dipping. Again, carbs in the sauce, but not too many. Very low day overall.

So, down nothing, but the number looked smaller to me. I guess Friday will tell the tale. If the weight loss has stagnated, I can’t see the advantage of the lower protein intake. Not for me, at least. My wife maintains she’s dropping weight though, so she’ll likely continue this way. We’re supposed to give this three weeks to a month, per our agreement, and then see where we are. I have to say, I don’t seem to be able to go as long in the morning without food, but as long as the weight keeps dropping, I’m happy.

Friday will tell the tale, I guess!

Update-y things

Well, interesting developments!

For one thing, I think I’ve lost weight. Upwards of a pound, if my scale is accurate.

Since YESTERDAY.

That would be a boon. I’d much rather have to face 130 days than 130 weeks to reach goal, that’s for certain. Today I’m right in that 265-267lb range, and I’m hoping for a more stable weight number tomorrow. But you never know. I don’t know if I can contain my excitement to only weighing in once a week, like I did before, but I don’t want to get back into the cycle of obsessing over the scale’s number daily either. So I’ll check it again tomorrow, and then back to only weighing in Mondays and Fridays.

I’ve put my information online at a diet website, and found my numbers look really good. I’m at about 74% fat, 24% protein and 2% carbs! Woo! If I can hold that carb level and add some fat while controlling the protein, this won’t be as hard as it seems!

I don’t know how often I’ll remember to update the website either. I mean, I”m already having a tough time with two blogs while I try to write my next book and publish the one I’ve finished, not to mention maintaining a full-time job. Oh, and did I mention things at work are starting to percolate? My boss is asking about my projects now. I have to finish this one. I have to.

Well, enough rambling. I’m feeling fine about the direction my weight loss is moving and the pace seems to be picking up, but time will show.

Have a great weekend to any and all readers!

Scary Endeavors!

Well, I was down to UNDER 267 this morning! That’s a total of about 10lbs lost since going ketogenic in February of this year (2012, if you’re somehow unaware).

But, my wife is going to go for nutritional ketosis. This is defined as blood ketone levels of 1.0 mmol/L or above. Despite the satisfactory results of our urinalysis testing, we’re convinced we aren’t getting the full story with ketosis urinalysis strips. Time to step up our game and drop into ketosis in a more serious way.

This requires dropping protein levels, to actually conform better to a ketogenic diet. We’re way over our protein allotment. My spouse believes this is why she continues to have issues with her facial infection (she’s sure it’s yeast), and why she’s hungry all the time, even within just a few hours of eating an otherwise ketogenic meal. She’s added fat to almost every meal, but realized something when she read the results from Jimmy Moore’s Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb blog. She found out his recent (year or more?) struggles with weight loss came CRASHING to a halt when he just lowered the intake of protein he was allowing himself.

In fact, he did it for 30 days as an experiment and lost twenty (20) pounds(!). Because my wife’s suspicions about gluconeogenesis (again, if you don’t know, the process by which the liver manufactures glucose for the brain from protein), she feels sure this is the reason we’re not losing weight.

The problem for me, of course, is I am losing weight. Just now. Just starting.

I’m willing to try her new approach because the results aren’t staggering. But I’ve wondered whether the process is going to accelerate and weight will come off more easily now that I’ve addressed things like yeast, insulin resistance, etc.

It’s a scary decision. What I’m doing now is just beginning to work. If I switch, there’s a definite chance of losing more weight more rapidly, but what if I’m not in the same situation as my wife and it actually sets me back?

We’re shooting for 80-85% of caloric intake from fat. Only 10-15% from protein, and less than 5% from carbs. The tricky part is getting enough fat without adding too much protein. We’ve determined what our upper limit on protein should be and we’re working to get down to that. Up to now, we haven’t restricted protein intake because we didn’t see how we could make up for it with fat. We still aren’t sure.

But we’ve discovered some new, yummy snacks and tried them, and we’re going to try ketogenic “chips” and guacamole soon. So there’s that. But I’m going to miss meat! Since very ounce of meat has 7g of protein, it piles up a lot sooner than you might expect. We’re going to shoot for our protein requirements for a point between where we are and our ideal weight, and slide down as we approach goal. (IF we approach goal!)

So wish us luck. This is nerve-wracking for me. If it doesn’t work, am I going to have to start all over with the brain-fog and the stagnant weight and all the rest? Or will this work? Jimmy says he has no hunger; in fact he has to be reminded to eat sometimes. He also says he feels better than he has in years. This is, by all indications, a true keto-adaptive state. And we want that for sure.

Here we go!