Keto Update Nine: Small Successes

I'm thrilled to report that I feel like I am back on track after my tough week last week. Yay!

I do think, in hindsight, that I pushed too hard with the fasting. It may work for some folks but it didn't work for me.

So this week I set a goal to fast sixteen hours a day and limit my eating to eight hours a day. I'm thrilled to report that I met and sometimes exceeded that goal! And after a few days, it got much, much easier. As long as I have my coffee with cream (which some says breaks the fast but others do not) in the morning and some slighly salty water to sip on, I'm good until at least noon every day again. Phew!

On Friday, two days ago, I was feeling so good that I decided to extend my fast to nearly twenty-four hours. No problem! I felt great and my ketones were up to 1.6 by lunchtime. The only drawback was I definitely ate a large dinner afterward... but since it was making up for a whole day's worth of calories, I felt okay if not ideal about it. I definitely ate more than my body needed, though -- there was some mouth hunger at play. Something to work on next time. And my ketones were up to 1.3 the following day and remain there today, yay!

Yesterday I was more hungry and cranky so I stopped my fast after sixteen hours and had a nice big brunch (at home) of eggs, keto mug bread, mushrooms and spinach tossed with cream cheese. Delicious! Dinner was steak with green beans and creamed spinach with decaf with cream for "dessert."

My struggle now is at night and after meals, generally. I feel snacky. Today I had two small squares of 100% cacao chocolate and two small squares of 90% cacao chocolate. And then I set my fasting timer to start timing again so that hopefully I won't be tempted to eat again until dinner.

The sources I have been reading and listening to stress the importance of not snacking between meals so as to allow the liver to quickly process any carbohydrates and begin burning fat again. This also allows insulin levels to drop down.

I listened to the most amazing podcast by a bariatric surgeon who is also an expert on the ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting. He says that "every snack is an emotional event." He says human beings are only designed to eat once or twice a day and that breakfast is an event marketed by Kellogg's to sell cornflakes in the 1890s. He aruges that carbohydrates are actually not a food because they are not required for survival -- human beings are able to survive without them. In fact, we are the only species (of course) who eats them. When we feed grain to cows, we fatten them up and make them sick. When we feed grains to ducks, we give them fatty liver disease.

Anonymous, thanks for posting and sharing your thoughts. I appreciate the caring that went into them. (I wish I knew your name, though!) I know that this all probably sounds crazy and plenty like disordered eating. Perhaps my pushing too fast and my struggling were disordered. Probably. But I do fully believe in the science of ketosis and intermittent fasting. It's a hard transition to make but often times, my body feels so amazing. And I'm the lowest weight I've been in... golly. Twelve years? I'm about seven pounds from my goal. My energy levels are really good, especially now that I am being more consistent with exercise. My mood is mostly really good. No more post-meal lethargy. Best of all, I feel in control of my destiny.

November 2018 and January 2018

I am planning to join a moderated level one fasting group this week. (Level one is for beginners so much easier than the last time I tried the moderated fasts.) Today was day one with fasting eight hours followed by six hours of eating. I had lunch at 1 pm so I'll have dinner at about 5 to finish by six. Tomorrow I will fast twenty-four hours, which sounds tough but really is just skipping breakfast and lunch; I'll eat dinner tomorrow, as usual, and then do another 18:6 on Tuesday, 24 on Wednesday, 18:6 on Thursday and then, the big challenge, a 36 on Friday. I'll be nervous for that because of how it messed with me so much last time to do a longer fast... but I'll be cautious. If I start to feel crazy again, I'll stop. But I think this week of 18s and 24s will build my "fasting muscle" and my confidence and so I am cautiously optimistic. If it goes well, I'll do another week of beginner level fasting and then reassess how I am feeling.

I decided to track yesterday, just out of curiosity. It ended up being a really big eating day, as you can see, because I was really hungry, so I exceeded my macros. (I'm hoping my period is coming -- keto has thrown it off -- and that may be making me more hungry.) But you can see I eat a wide variety of foods with lots of fresh vegetables (and fat and protein). I try to honor my hunger at every meal and never stop eating if I am still hungry. My favorite keto experts say not to worry about calories and to eat to fullness at every meal (and then stop eating). So I'm doing that, I think, and feeling good. Plus I am working out and so I assume that impacts my appetite plus it helps my mood so much.

I am doing the first group, Fasting Challenge #1.