the ketogenic semi-elemental diet day 11: ketoadapted enough to work but not to exercise

Thursday August 16, 2012

Holy shit imagine my surprise when the blood ketone meter read 1.5 millimolar today.  Break out the champagne....next week when I can actually have some carbs.

So according to Phinney I should be pretty keto-adapted with that reading, and although I felt better today at work than in the prior days I was not energetic, and I need that zest in order to not have to force myself to get through a workout.  I had about 20g of carbs today in the form of two teaspoons of honey and still tested at 1.5mm.  I ate the carbs in anticipation of my usual Thursday hour trail run with Madison and Chloe, but after working my leg routine yesterday without glycogen to help recovery I just could not push myself to do it.  Which sucks.

So I decided I am going to stick this stupid semi-elemental ketogenic foodless fortnight out until Sunday even though clearly the casein is not agreeing with me as I am getting a little bloating and I'm incredibly itchy and even have a runny nose.  Some might say that is a detox reaction but if you read the The China Study you discover that in fact; casein, or milk protein is a potent cancer initiator so it's hard to imagine I can be detoxing while consuming 3 scoops a day of the stuff.

I saw Dr. Mathews today, my incredible chiropractor who does ART and Graston technique and basically allows my body to withstand all the hard work I put it through.  He worked on my muscles and bones for an hour and said I was super tight.  As he was scraping that metal rod along my very sore hamstring and I was trying not to scream he remarked how skinny my legs looked. Sadistic bastard. He said they were even thinner than after the water fast, which tells me I probably lost more muscle mass that I would have liked, but welcome to hypocaloric diets.  I can gain it back as I'm in the gym 3 days a week.

Tonight I had a Match.com date with a guy from Long Island who was down in Philly on business.  He is a nice guy and we met at the outside bar at In Riva in East Falls, but after half an hour I was tired and a little bored.  I had told him about the diet, and urged him to eat even though I was not going to, but he was polite and declined.  He gave me some samples of some vitamins from a company he was representing which I thought was sweet since he had no idea if he was ever going to see me again.  The samples had fructose in them though, so I could not use them.

So I remain optimistic that I can get through this until Sunday now.  I'm in the home stretch.  I have to say it's nice to be 119 lbs again.

day 10: the switch to keto-adaptation?

what lunch used to look like

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

So I woke up almost another pound lighter, and losing a pound a day means I am losing too much muscle mass, so I bumped up my calories a bit from 1620 to 1750.   I've eaten nothing but liquid calories for 10 days now, but I'm still somehow getting a little fullness in my abdomen in the second half of the day.  I don't know if that is from the bacteria ingesting the casein, which I suppose would not have happened if I stayed on the elemental diet; that is, straight up amino acids rather than casein protein, since that way there would be nothing for them to digest.  I'm not eating fiber or anything one would think would produce any gas or create bulk.

This is the third day of zero carbs, and I am still feeling joyless.  I am really considering quitting before the 14 days are through, as it is starting to seem pointless, all except the weight loss that is.  My goal weight is around 118 and I'm just about there, but I need to be there when I have energy to fuel good workouts and everything else I accomplish in a day; plus I need to do be eating actual food.  I did do a full workout this am: 30 minutes on the  bike, an hour lifting and 20 minutes swimming laps, but it did not feel great.

My blood ketones were down to 0.8, I have no idea why.  Especially with all of the medium chain triglycerides from the coconut oil; but I guess this keto-adaption can take a month or more, as I was warned.

Anyway, I was debating all of this, then suddenly around 5 pm something shifted, and I felt almost, well, normal.  I wonder if I'm finally adapting.  So I can't quit now.  Let's see what happens tomorrow.