Adventures in Keto, Part 5 - Retox

A couple of weeks ago, I went on vacation to Jamaica, at an all inclusive resort. If you haven't been to such a resort, its sort of like being on a cruise ship. Just about anything you want to eat or drink is included in the price. There are multiple bars and restaurants on the property, with different themes and styles of food to choose from. Which all sounds really great. But for someone trying to live low carb, it presents quite a challenge. I knew going in that it would be difficult to maintain my preferred eating habits while on vacation, and I was prepared to make some exceptions. By the second day it had become clear that unless I was willing to severely limit my self, it would be impossible. Breakfast was the easiest meal, because there was an extensive buffet, with plenty of eggs and bacon and cheeses and cured meats and salmon, etc. But once lunch and dinner came around, the keto-friendly options declined. By the end of the second night, I decided to just stop worrying about it and indulge myself while on vacation. I was there to relax, so why stress about food? (Also, as a member of the service industry who has spent years in and around high end restaurants, it was obvious that the staff was less experienced and knowledgeable than I am used to, and I honestly didn't want to be "that guy" making their jobs more difficult. Americans already have a well deserved reputation abroad for being entitled and difficult, and not eating my preferred way was not going to kill me -- at least not in the short term.) And indulge I did. There was a "sweets deli" which was essentially a dessert shop with ice cream and cookies and cakes and candies. The selection changed at least twice during the day, and varied throughout the week. I was delighted to discover a number of delicious chocolate treats, which I enjoyed to my hearts content. I did notice some of my high-carb symptoms returning almost immediately. Mid-afternoon sleepiness was the main one, along with an overall reduction in my focus and energy. One afternoon I was ravenously hungry, and began to feel light headed and weak, and my hands started shaking. I happened to be in my hotel room at the time, so I did a quick blood sugar test (yes, I packed my meter). The reading was 55, which is very low. Even in full ketosis, my readings are usually between 70 and 80. I had to eat something to bring my body back into balance. I hated the feeling of being a slave to food again. Its odd to hear myself say that, because I've never been over weight. I've always been someone people view as being fit and healthy. But after months of not having to eat on a schedule, I realize that anyone who isn't fat adapted is constantly reminded by their body that they need to eat. When I'm fat adapted, I eat when I'm ready, not when my body demands it, I'm in control. It surprised me how quickly my body became dependent on carbohydrates again. I had not expected that. I figured once I got home, I'd get back to eating right and withing a couple days, all would be well again. I was wrong. After months of feeling great and seeing a steady decline in my cravings for sweets and carbs, and rarely feeling hungry, all those things returned. I've been home for over two weeks now, back to eating healthy, low carbs, high fat, moderate protein and feeling better. But I did have to go through a less intense transition period again, complete with lethargy and cravings. Since transitioning back, I still am battling hunger pangs and sugar cravings. When I started eating low carb back in October, I knew it would take awhile for the cravings and other carb addiction symptoms to abate, but I didn't think I'd have to go through that a second time after only a week off my diet. Back then I was prepared, so I could handle it. This time, I wasn't mentally prepared, so its been difficult, and I've screwed up a couple times, which only drags the whole process out longer. Now that I've realized this is how it is, I'm buckling down and getting serious. I know I want to live better, to feel better, to have all the benefits I enjoy from eating right. I screwed up by going off the diet and now I have to do the work to get back where I want to be. I'm not beating myself up, don't get that impression. Its more of a mental shift, of realizing that until my body adjusts back, I have to be vigilant about not indulging my cravings, of recognizing when I'm actually hungry and when I'm just bored, and when I'm making excuses (like yesterday at my friends birthday, when I drank wine and sugary Margaritas and totally put myself out of ketosis.) Over the previous months of living low carb, I've been able to have an occasional sugary treat and return to ketosis easily. What I can't do is spend a week eating carb loaded foods and expect to just pick up where I left off. I learned a lesson about how my body works and what I can and can't do. Eating a lot of carbs makes me feel less than great, and feeling great is my new normal. I wonder how I went through life for so long accepting that as normal. This experience has made me very aware of how what I eat impacts my body and my life. My sleep, my mood, my energy, my mental focus and clarity, all of which go on to impact my relationships, my work, my enjoyment of life in general. When I'm eating right, my whole life is better, its just that simple. I have another trip coming up in a couple months, my fourth trip to Burning Man. Fortunately, at Burn one has to bring all your own food, so I can maintain my healthy eating there with some planning.

Adventures in Ketosis, Part 4: Protein

Over the past couple weeks, a friend of mine has been focusing on her diet more, which prompted me to look again at mine and see if there were any changes I could or should be making.

I listen to several podcasts about ketosis and the keto lifestyle, and upon reflection, I had to admit that I wasn't feeling as amazing as I had the first month when I was tracking my macros. I still felt really good, but some of the top tier benefits seemed to have faded. So I started looking for patterns.

Since I haven't been tracking my macros, or even logging my food, its hard to be precise. I decided to look at my eating habits, specifically my unplanned snacks.

I'm a habitual eater. When I'm bored, I graze. This hasn't been a problem for my weight or body fat since starting ketosis, I'm steady at 8% body fat and have maintained the lean body mass I started with. I just didn't feel the general sense of amazing well-being I did at first.

I considered the idea that I'm just adjusted to the new-normal and don't experience it as a "high" anymore, but I wanted to test that.

When I reflected on things, I realized my grazing consisted mostly of proteins, a piece of bacon or two, a shrimp or two, whatever little bit was available. Its a habit I developed trying to put on weight for two decades. My life style doesn't work for eating every 2 hours, or six meals a day, or whatever protocol hard gainers are supposed to use. So I snack, mostly on proteins, whether I'm hungry or not, just pop a piece bacon in my mouth or cheese, or whatever is handy.

In the mornings, breakfast is usually coffee with MCT oil, coconut oil, butter, cream, a pinch of salt, peanut butter and a scoop of protein powder. I have trouble consuming enough calories to build muscle, so I got in the habit of high calorie liquid meals years ago. (This one is around 900-1000 calories -- not recommended for losing weight.) Some days, I'd follow this with a solid breakfast of eggs, cheese and bacon, with some veggies.

I recently learned that protein powders digest more quickly than protein in food, which makes sense. Basically, all the work of digesting the protein is done already. This causes the protein to enter the blood stream more quickly, which can lead to an insulin response. Exactly the sort of thing ketosis is intended to avoid.

Between my breakfast habit and grazing habit, I figured I'm eating too much protein. This is purely a guess, since I didn't have consistent data, but given that my weight an body fat have been stable for a couple months, I figured it was a sound guess.

The ketogenic lifestyle effects the body's need for protein, its protein sparing. The body derives energy from macro-nutrients (Carbs, Fats and Proteins... And alcohol, but that's a complex topic). Protein is the last fuel the body wants to burn, but it will use it if it has to. When fat-adapted (meaning your body preferentially burns fat as the primary energy source) it has a a huge source of fuel, and thus a lower need for burning protein.  Therefore, if you consume the same amount of protein as when you ate more carbs, your body doesn't burn it, it has more than enough to build or repair tissue, so it must either store it or excrete it.

For years, while on a standard carb heavy diet, I tried to consume at least 150g (up to 200g) of protein a day. That's what it took for me to put on muscle mass. The generally accepted belief in the lifting community is that 1g-2g of protein per pound of body weight is ideal (though there are as many theories as their are lifters.)

Although ketosis is not well studied among strength athletes yet, the growing body of anecdotal evidence is that 0.5g per pound of body weight is enough to maintain lean body mass, and perhaps even gain muscle mass. For me that's about 66g of protein per day -- about 1/3 what I was in the habit of consuming!

The science is not in on the exact amounts, but evidence is pretty clear that athletes in ketosis need far less protein than high-carb athletes. There is even evidence that ketogenic athletes can build muscle while in a calorie deficit, which flies in the face of the practices of high-carb muscle building theory that has dominated strength sports for decades.

As a simple test, I began lowering my protein. I cut the protein in my coffee-calorie-bomb in half, or out completely when paring it with eggs and bacon. I cut way back on the protein grazing (I wasn't really hungry anyway).

Low and behold, within a day, I was back to feeling that "really good"general feeling I got the first month. I've been focusing on continuing this change for a past couple weeks. When I slip up, I know it, I feel a drop in my overall sense of well-being. I'm a little more sluggish, a little less "on it." But when I'm doing it right, I feel great. I sleep great, I wake up rested, I have energy all day long, I don't get hangry, and I'm generally a more pleasant guy to be around.

By cutting out the grazing, I inadvertently created a 12 hour window most days where I'm not eating, basically a 12-12 intermittent fast. So I decided to take advantage of that and begin doing my workouts fasted, before breakfast. In turn this made it easier for me to add in a day or two of 16-8 intermittent fasting when convenient. (Fasting isn't a goal for me, just something I know is beneficial, so when its easy, I do it, but I don't go out of my way.)

What I've noticed is my strength and endurance increasing. After going keto, my strength was sapped. I expected that, and was told it would return after adaptation. But adaptation wasn't supposed to take this long. My theory is that my excess protein was keeping my from fully adapting. In the past two weeks, I've knocked 4-5 minutes off some fitness routines, which is partly because I've been getting in better shape, but those are huge numbers, so I think better ketosis plays a roll (but that's not scientific).

The thing that really drove this home for me was lifting kegs at work. Pre-Keto I was deadlifting 295 lbs for reps, so lifting a beer keg wasn't a problem for me (they're awkward, which still makes them challenging). After starting keto, it was almost impossible for me. Eventually, it became doable, but not nearly as easily as pre-keto.

Within two days of cutting my protein, lifting kegs became simple again! If I eat too much protein one day, I notice it in how much harder it is to lift the kegs. Kegs are my new gauge. If I can easily lift one to stack it on another, then I'm doing things right. If not, I need to look at what I'm eating.

After starting keto, and having my strength sapped, I switched to a more fitness focused, body weight program, which has been really good. But since cutting my protein I find myself jonesing to pick up heavy stuff again. For years, I knew when to take a break by how I emotionally felt about lifting. If I consistently dreaded it, it was time to give my body a rest (I back this up with HRV monitoring which confirmed my mental state was in tune with my body). Conversely, within a week or two of laying off the weights, I always felt the urge to lift again, and I knew my body was ready to start again.

I decided to stay with the body weight only workouts until after my vacation in three weeks. I've got my next lifting cycle planned (based around Brian Carrolls fantastic book 10/20/Life), and ready to go. I'm going to keep up some of my fitness work on the side, since I felt like my endurance really suffered over the past few years out of neglect, and yoga for flexibility and state of mind, but my focus is going back to lifting.

Protein is an important part of the keto-lifestyle. You need it, but too much keeps you from really seeing the benefits. That's one of the key difference between scientific keto-diet and the paleo nonsense, eating a ton of protein triggers insulin spikes similar to eating carbs. You need protein, just not as much as you did.

Adventures in Keto, Part 3 - Exercise

Its been about four months since I started eating keto. (I choose not to say "keto diet" because its not a diet in the colloquial sense, its a life style, a way of eating all the time, not just until I reach a target weight or some other goal.)

I'm pretty strict about avoiding sugars and grains. About once a week I go out to dinner at a nice restaurant. I love good food, but most menus include a lot of carbs with every dish. When possible, I ask to substitute vegetables, or I just don't eat the carbs -- Well, I'll eat a few bites. My day to day carb count is usually below 20g, so I don't worry too much about going over at one meal.

I also get dessert, because I love a good dessert. That totally blows my carb count. In fact, I've learned that sweet desserts, like cake and ice cream are an emotional weakness of mine. When I'm bored, I like chocolate. So I've learned to make some keto chocolate treats, like keto ice cream and, most recently, a keto friendly, flour-less chocolate torte (still tweaking the recipe, but I'll post it when I'm totally happy with it.) I always keep something like that around the house, so I don't end up going for something with a lot of sugar in it.

I usually check my blood ketones the next day to see if I'm back in ketosis, and don't have any problems after my dinner out. But... Dinner out is usually Thursdays, my night off. This past Saturday, at work, I ate a hamburger (after still doing dinner out two days before), bun and all. Usually, I skip the bun, but this time, for some reason, I didn't. I figured I'd be fine.

Nope.

First, it tore up my stomach. I had to get out of bed twice for unpleasant trips to the bathroom. In the morning I felt pretty normal, but my ketones were 0.1 mmol/L, so I was out of ketosis. I ate normally, Sunday and went about my business until about 4pm, when I crashed out on the couch until after 7pm. I haven't been needing naps since starting keto, a three hour nap is crazy! I woke up feeling total brain fog, but I was finally back in ketosis (1.0 mmol/L).

After being in ketosis for so long, my body definitely let me know the old way isn't as great as I thought. Which brings me to exercise.

I made the foolish mistake of beginning ketosis in the middle of a six month attempt to increase my bench press, because six months is a long time and once I decide to do something, I like to get started right away. Predictably, keto killed my gains and ruined my attempt... Well, not ruined, I did improve, but it got cut 8 weeks short of where I hoped to be.

It takes time to adapt to ketosis. When it comes to exercise, the science of ketosis for power is not well studied yet. Endurance and ketosis is well understood and heavily in favor of keto lifestyle, given enough time to adapt (read "start keto in your off season").

As I understand it (and I'm not a scientist or researcher, so do your own research and correct me if you find out differently), the process of adaptation goes through several stages. First, glycogen depletion, when you body uses up its carbohydrate stores in the muscles and other tissues during the first day or two.

After your body gives up trying to convince you to eat carbs by making you feel hungry and lethargic, it begins pumping out ketones, which your brain and muscles both use as fuel. You start to feel great, your head clears, and you're through the worst of it...Unless you try to exercise as hard as you used to.

You're power, and probably your stamina, will decline in the beginning. Mine certainly did. My lifts dropped by almost 50% initially, my stamina dropped through the floor. My heart would pound like a race horse and I would huff and puff like a coal fired locomotive after the briefest exertions. It sucked and I questioned the whole thing.

It also made me realize that I'd basically allowed myself to get strong, but ignored other aspects of fitness. I hate cardio, so I don't do much of it. When I do, its HIIT, so its short, but brutal. But my attempts to motivate myself to do that on a regular basis have been feeble for years. The last time I sustained a cardio routine was training for Warrior Dash  six years ago.

Also, I can't touch my toes. I'm not fat (I literally have a six-pack thanks to keto), I'm inflexible. I have been for a very long time, and its been nagging at me. Finally, I've decided I need to get serious about improving that, too. Maybe all this keto-clarity is helping me get focused on the neglected parts of my health?

So, with lagging power, shitty cardio and inflexible hips, I decided it was time to change things up. I started taking yoga classes and put the weights aside for awhile, in exchange for body weight workouts.

The yoga is pretty cut and dried. I pick a class that works for my schedule, show up and do as I'm told to the best of my meager abilities. Its funny, all the core work and Warrior poses that make people abs and thighs burn, are easy for me. Years of weights have made those muscles plenty strong. But all the Gumby, bendy stuff? Ha! I'm pathetic at that.

The body weight stuff is different. I had no idea where to start. Besides pushups, pull ups and crunches, I really had no idea what else to do. So I found an app to design the workouts for me. I don't get paid to endorse anything (probably because no one reads this blog), but I've really found this app useful, so here it is: Freeletics Bodyweight.

The app alone just gives you individual exercises and stacked cross-fit style workouts. I decided to spring for the virtual coach, which designs a whole program week by week. I wasn't expecting much, but I'm pretty impressed after five weeks.

First, I answered some questions about myself and my goals, then it had me do some simple exercises, and rate how easy/hard they were for me. Then it gave me my first week of workouts.

Each workout includes a warm up and stretching cool down, so that alone impressed me. Then each workout includes two individual exercises, like 10 pullups and 20 crunches, or whatever, they vary. After which you're asked to rate your performance on a sliding scale. I assume it uses this to gauge progress and design the next week.

Some days include an interval session, which will be two or more exercises, followed by a rest, then repeating the exercises again, etc. for several rounds. This is usually pretty easy for me. Intervals are meant to raise your heart rate, then let it drop, then raise it again. Its more interesting that doing sprints, my usual for of HIIT, so I learned something new!

Next every workout includes a "named" cycle of exercises, which is basically cross-fit. They can be anywhere from one to ten rounds, of two or more back to back exercises. These can be very exhausting. After you rate your performance again, both in terms of how exhausted you were and how your technique was.

All the main routines are timed. It was not until week five that I repeated the same workout. This time the goal was to beat my previous time, PB (personal best). To be clear, in the first couple weeks, this app kicked my ass. It gives a time range for each routine, which I assume is the average. One of them said 17-23 minutes, but took me 29 minutes, after which I thought I was going to die. I haven't felt do defeated by a workout in years, and most people who look at me assume I'm in great shape!

When you begin a routine, you click "Start" and it counts down from five, then begins. An animation on screen shows you the exercise and how many reps to do. When you finish, you touch the screen and move on to the next one, while the time keeps going.

Repeating a routine, every time you move to the next exercise, it tells you how far behind or ahead of your previous best you are. I found that motivating, instead of just wondering and waiting until the end to find out.

I did beat my previous time by over 90 seconds. Proof of improvement.

So, four months into keto and this is where I'm at: I've switched from low rep/high weight lifting, to high rep/body weight exercises, which is a huge change for my body. It is definitely taking time to adapt, because there's a third stage of ketosis which takes more than a couple weeks.

The long term goal of ketosis is to become "fat adapted." This is when your muscles preferentially burn available fat from your blood stream and then from your tissues, instead of ketones, leaving most of the ketones for your brain, and this can take time. According to some, it can take months (this also doesn't seem to be well studied scientifically).

My thinking, (again, I'm not a scientist or researcher, so I'm just guessing) is that muscles are used to having glycogen stores to go to when they need power. Now the don't, so they see ketones as the next option. Eventually, they learn that they can use fats directly for energy. But when they get stressed, like during a workout, they go back looking for glycogen and ketones,  because those are easier. But if you continue to put them in that stressed condition enough, they adapt to using fats more and more. Thus you become "fat-adapted."

How long this takes depends on a lot of factors: your diet (micro and macro nutrients), your initial health, your stress levels, your hormonal balance (or imbalance), how much sleep you get, how you workout, etc. Its not well studied, just hang in there.

As I continue on this journey, I continue to notice differences. After loosing weight for the first couple months, I'm now stable. All the weight I lost was water and fat. I have maintained roughly 9% body fat for two months without counting calories or macros. I just avoid sugars and grains, and eat lots of fats (bacon, egg yolks, butter, etc.) until I'm not hungry any more.

I still drink. Liquor is my go to, wine with my dinner out. Alcohol is not a carb, its a fourth macro-nutrient (7 Kcal/g), so its doesn't seem to affect my ketosis. I average one to two servings per day (which means 3 days a week I don't drink, and I drink more than two on the other four days. Bar life). Beers have too many carbs, I don't drink them (never really a fan of them anyway) Some people seem to react to wine on ketosis, I don't, but I don't over do it since they have residual sugars, I prefer dry, higher alcohol wines, which have fewer sugars.

To sum up: I've lost weight, but stabilized at a healthy point. I've lost a little in my over all measurements (I do care about how I look), but not so much as to make me look bad (still a decent shoulder to waist ratio). In fact, I'm pretty ripped, even without lifting weights for two months. I'm gaining stamina again, and feel like I'm improving my overall fitness, even if its has cost me some strength (I expect to get back to weight training eventually, but I feel this change is good for a lot of reasons.)

I love lifting, and I love getting stronger. I started working out 20 years ago with the purpose of putting on muscle. There are very few studies of muscle building and ketosis, and those have been poorly designed. But there are a growing number of strength/power athletes trying ketosis and having good results after adaptation, which can take months. Its hard to find volunteers for a study like that.

So, for now, how to build muscles and get stronger on keto is not well understood, and I'll be following the suggestions of those who seem to be successful and waiting for more science. I believe its possible, I just need to get through final adaptions.

If you think about it, it makes sense. ketosis reduces inflammation and catabalism, improves recovery and energy levels, while ending the competition between brain and muscles for the same fuel source. Some athletes are reporting that they can build muscle in ketosis with much lower levels of protein... In fact, at least one insists you must lower your protein to do so!

There's a lot of unknowns here. But the known benefits of living keto are too good to pass up.