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| Mid-April, following yard work |
When I made my twice-yearly visit to the doctor in March, because he likes to keep a close eye on my cholesterol and the meds for it, he finally pronounced me problematically overweight...20 pounds over, he said. That felt sort of like a tipping point, and I know with all the good food I like to make, and all the good desserts, and my daily beer or two, and way too little activity, I was letting the pounds add on gradually enough that I didn't have anything shocking or disturbing me along the way.
With a fair amount of time off this summer, and enough of a spark within me to attempt to do something about it finally, I looked at the US News & World Report ranking of diets for last year and selected the one at the very bottom of the list: going keto.
But you see, over the last year, three good friends (one from high school [who is a highly-sought-after consultant RN]; one from my graduate hall director days at Wake Forest University; one who was in my final group of masters students when I was on faculty at WFU) have taken up the keto diet and enthusiastically recommended it. Tim, the grad student, had already given me a keto cookbook. In a nutshell, the goal was to eat a high fat, moderate protein, and very low carb regimen for 30 days. I've never really dieted before but entered into this willing and focused.
So on Tuesday May 29th, after the Thanksgiving on the Half-Year feast and then an incredible Pioneer Woman meatloaf night, I began with an 84-hour fast and only drank lots and lots of water. By Friday morning, I used a possibly-unreliable urine test strip to determine I was "in ketosis," a necessary first step for the rest of the diet to work. My first meal was bacon, cheesy scrambled eggs, and sautéed mushrooms and broccoli. It made my stomach hurt a bit but it was a delight to eat again.
For all of June, I avoided all sweets, sugar, beer, soda, juice, bread, starches, fruits, and legumes. I searched out all kinds of keto recipes and invested heavily in heavy cream, butter, sour cream, cream cheese, and blocks of cheese. I almost completely cut out packaged shredded cheese because of the anti-clumping starch that's added to it, and I did a ridiculous amount of hand-shredding on a box grater. Snacks were limited to cheddar cheese and pork rinds. I cut back on coffee, which I had always habitually adulterated with Italian Sweet Cream creamer and artificial sweeteners (I have quite a sweet tooth), and instead only used heavy cream and, near the end, some drops of sucralose. Every meal from No. 2129 to No. 2150 was as in line with the restrictions as I could make it. I never cheated, I never wavered.
I've never been much of a water drinker but I drank glass after glass all day long. I committed to walking every single morning with Sumner for anywhere from 45 to 75 minutes.
I ordered MCT oil, as suggested, and gradually worked up to the recommended doses each day. I bought a tub of coconut oil from Costco and began using it liberally in place of vegetable or canola oil. I ate enough cauliflower to now very nearly hate it.
I ramped up my labors in the yard, in spite of a lot of high-heat and high-humidity days, so that I was getting a good bit of physical activity and really trying to push myself.
After getting past the initial shock to my body from the fast and the couple of additional days it took to mostly escape "carb flu" and whatever other withdrawal symptoms my body was experiencing, I enjoyed watching at least small drops in my daily weight for several days. (I'm guessing the initial fasting took off about 6 or 7 pounds.) For me, the measure of keto's benefit was going to be determined based on starting with where my weight was on the first morning of eating keto meals. But two weeks in, I had only lost about three pounds and it was wavering a good bit. I got very frustrated but stuck with it.
Among the promised benefits of keto are more energy, a full or satisfied feeling, clearer head, better sleep. I didn't get any of those, with the exception of sometimes feeling full. But I also found that the long days of yard labors sapped my appetite anyway, and I could only stand, say, a spinach salad with homemade high-fat dressing. A number of days I just felt a little weak or low energy, and I did not have very many nights of good sleep.
Because I was diligently following keto food intake rules, I do not know if my weight loss was from experiencing ketosis, or if it was from all that I cut out PLUS aggressively walking every morning PLUS lots and lots of yardwork time PLUS eating light or little at all on some of the days later in the month.
In the end, as best I could determine, I lost right at 20 pounds from the beginning of fasting until July 2, and I'm very happy with that. I find myself highly doubtful that keto earns the lion's share of credit, though, because of how very traditionally I was dieting especially in the final week or 10 days (pretty much one salad a day and no other snacks).
Now that this 30-day experiment is behind me, I'm hopeful that daily weigh-ins and a little more research into healthy eating choices (while remaining mindful of extra sugar and bread and sweets and beer and...), plus continued daily physical activity will be key to maintaining a healthier weight. For me, keto seemed pretty disappointing even though trying to do it ended with me pretty close to my goal.
I thought you all should know.
UPDATE - 12 July 2018: Since the weight loss seems somewhat dramatic, and because of family history with heart attacks and my own high cholesterol, I definitely wanted my doc to check me out and see what was good and bad about effects of keto dieting. That appointment was a week ago and included bloodwork to see where things stand. In his official records, I have actually lost 30 pounds since March, although I think that overstates it by a few pounds. However, cholesterol, LDL, and triglycerides were all worse. The cholesterol, in particular, took a real hit. Not back up into dangerous territory, but I lost almost half the gains I'd made on lowering it over these last few years. So: it's still my intent to keep up with the walking and to see if there are other doable exercise routines that this old man can take on. I'm going to be careful about fat and cholesterol intake and begin introducing more fiber back into my diet. We'll see how things go.
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