Digital art created using an image by Jeon Sang-O from Pixabay
All it took was turning into a ketogenic zombie for a month 😉
Ha ha, but to be serious, I followed the Ketogenic diet with a 300 calorific deficit per day. Meaning, I have strictly eaten a very low carb (20-30 grams of carbs/day) diet, while maintaining a count of 1800 carories/day.
To recap on what the ketogenic diet is:
A keto, or ketogenic, diet is a low-carb, moderate protein, high-fat diet that puts your body into a state of ketosis. During ketosis, your bodies metabolism changes to burn fat as it's primary source of energy, rather than glucose from carbohydrates. Many studies show that the keto diet provides benefits for weight loss, health, and performance.
Source: The Keto Chronicals - Salad, Eggs, Avocado and Fish...
But I have to be honest, the keto diet should come with a warning. Following this dietary regime takes discipline, a serious pile of supplements and the ability to shrug off feeling like death for between 2 days and 8 weeks.
Keto flu is a condition where your body essentially reacts to the process of adapting to burning fat as its main fuel source. During this time you can experience fatigue, nausea, insomnia, muscle aches and sugar/carb cravings. The effects can be mitigated by supplementing with electrolytes (sodium, potassium and magnesium) as these elements are flushed from your system during the initial phases of ketosis. According to most sources this adaption phase should take between 2 days to a week, 2 weeks at most.
I'm here to tell you that while this may be the case for people with no underlying health conditions, it is certainly not the case for people with digestive chronic conditions like IBS and small intestinal bacterial overgrowth.
The keto flu has lasted for considerably longer for me, and left me feeling like the walking dead.
Digital art created using an image by Jim Gade from Pixabay
I've been sick as a dog for the best part of the last month, with the odd burst of energy, seemingly out of nowhere. The last week has been particularly hard as insomnia has hit big time. Bringing with it insane dreams, and an average of around 5 hours sleep a night. Along with strange feelings of disassociation, severe depression and thumping headaches; this keto flu has been like a knockout punch.
But it's not all doom and gloom! This morning I managed to get back to sleep at my usual 'insomniac' waking time of 5am for a further 3 hours and felt mush better for it. I decided to take a short 5 mile bike ride and visit my parents where there is a set of digital scales...
Yeah I know, how lame is it that I don't own a set of scales myself, especially when undertaking a health challenge like the ketogenic diet 😆
Inspired by the energy I'm feeling today, I've decided to share the lowdown on my weight loss!
- Before taking up this challenge I was two stone (28 pounds or 448 ounces) over weight. I weighed myself on Christmas day - before eating dinner - and I was 17.1 stone (239.4 pounds or 3830.4 ounces).
- After getting through the initial ten days of keto flu, I weighed myself at my parents and clocked in at 16.6 stone (232.4 pounds or 3718.4 ounces). I remember that initial weight loss of half a stone made me smile at the time. But bigger grins were to be had today!
- I weighed myself about 3 hours ago, and clocked in at 15.11 stone (211.54 pounds or 3384.64 ounces)! 😃
All of this weight loss was achieved in a exactly a month as I started adhering to the keto diet strictly on the 4th of January after the effects of the new year's partying had worn off.
Although I did not start this diet primarily for weight loss - but to try and help heal my chronic conditions - the plummeting scales is a fantastic bonus.
Along with SIBO, I suffer from something called fatty liver disease. The primary treatment to halt of reverse this disease is to lose weight and increase exercise. Given that the chronic fatigue I have suffered from limited my exercise, dropping this weight is the first step on the road to recovery.
Less weight means less drain on my energy when cycling or swimming. I also believe that if I can heal the problem with my liver it will have a knock on effect to the digestive condition, bringing everything into balance.
I hope this post may have inspired some people to give the keto diet a try. For rapid weight loss I can honestly recommend it... as long as you can handle brief bouts of fatigue and insomnia 😉
Thanks for reading 🌿
To read more about my reasons for starting the keto diet, and the tools I use to stick to this diet, please check out the posts linked in the images below.
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