Ketogenic Diet Real Life Trial - Update #1

So as many of you already know, I've decided to embark on a trial run of the ketogenic diet to test out the results on my own body when following this strict LCHF program at: http://dietdoctor.com. As a general thumb I always take information and success stories as a grain of salt so I had to try this myself to see if all the hype is true.

Now when I say strict, I mean 0% tolerance for deviation off the guidelines. See, with Ketogenics, there isn't much room for error because you are putting your body into a different state which takes a full week to enter. Its known in the medical field as ketosis. One slip up eating a huge carb food item is going to throw you back into the regular cycle where it takes another week to re enter ketosis. So I am going hardcore here.

First and foremost, the biggest challenge I have faced thus far (being since Friday afternoon of last week) is finding smaller snack items to eat. Its funny how we are so accustomed to eating the regular things we always do, how different and prohibitive it is to find things that fit the high fat, low carb model. Learning is everything, so I'm sure there's many easy ideas, but so far my go to is pepperettes!

A funny thing happened yesterday, I was helping my best friend brew beer at my house and they decided to order pizza for dinner for the wives and kids.

When it arrived, by habit I picked up a slice and just about out it into my mouth. It was a natural reflex. Well, ketogenic diets definitely do not allow a single slice of pizza crust and it took me until about 1/2" to my lips for me to remember! Sadly, I put the slice back down in the box and said nope I can't do it! Everyone's jaw dropped watching this absurd incident. Then it was off to the kitchen to find something actually legal to eat on the diet.

As of today (day 3 technically) I have not experienced any of the dreaded "Keto Flu" symptoms that are known to happen when transitioning into ketosis, so either I am a freak of nature, or I was doing alright with carb consumption on the usual Western diet approach before I started. I will definitely update about this again.

You know, that first day when I cooked the first recipe of feta cheese infused hamburger patties with 35% cream/ tomato paste sauce and sauteed cabbage, it felt like I was doing something horrible. Which I mean, you're used to trying to eat "healthy" by not using the highest fat things around in sauces and stuff, but I got thinking, maybe we are just programmed wrong by the for profit industries that control our food pyramids and ideals on what healthy actually means. Plus, if you tell any man, "hey, try this diet... You get to have cheese stuffed hamburgers with whipped cream on top!" Who's going to turn that down??!

In the midst of government bodies saying you need to eat low fat bla bla bla, you have an entire alternative doctors group along with many, many professional athletes saying the exact opposite. Someone is right, and someone is wrong. One aims to profit from food, the other aims to try to eat healthy and save money. I'm going to bank on the latter crowd as more trustworthy when they say "this is the right way".

Since I started the diet, I have also done a ton of research through peer reviewed medical journals, documentaries, informational sites, you name it and everything so far is pointing to this diet as the golden ticket to health. Think way back before humans knew how to make bread products or even grow potatoes. There were animals, and there were green plants above ground. We pretty much are a Keto diet before western civilization came into the picture. That and you have these amazing supermodel physique CrossFit world champions telling you during an interview about their nutritional intake, saying "ya I pretty much only eat carbs right before or right after a workout where I'm going to consume almost all of it right away for muscle growth. Otherwise it's fat and proteins for macros"

I've realized through this already that there's a huge disconnect and deception taking place to get people to buy the things food giants want to sell. We still have huge billboards saying "low fat" but what many people do not know is, when they take fat out of food, they replace it with sugar. The real culprit of high triglyceride levels, diabetes etc.

I've had a couple people already say to me, "isn't that diet just a rebranded Atkins diet which was debunked as healthy?"

First off, it hasn't been debunked. I believe anyone who lowers their carbohydrate intake is helping their health because of the insulin response system, acidifying nature of sugars made in the body from the carbs etc.

The Ketogenic diet is different from a typical low carb diet because you are completely (or nearly completely) cutting off the carb supply which throws the body into a different state. With an Atkins style diet there is still some carbs which is detrimental to fat burning. It takes extreme measures to change the bodily function.

This is the first update of many to come as I progress through this journey on the Keto diet.

Stay tuned for more updates by following me!

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