Ketogenics

Background:
I left the entertainment industry as a marketing director, joined one of the world's leading healthcare organizations. For purposes known to me won't say which one as I don't want my flamboyant expressions here linked to my career.

Towards the end of my time in my previous job I was experiencing some very alarming symptoms:

-rapid heart rate and palpitations
-Lots of floaters in my eyesight
-increased urination, sometimes 30x a day
-fatigue
-mental fog
-stuttering
-lethargy
-apathy
-loss of drive

I went to my current employer for a diagnosis. Turns out I had what is known as adrenal fatigue and very high levels of cortisol. My resting heart rate was 123!!!
My blood pressure 149/97
My glucose blood levels 120+
Major deficiency in essential trace minerals and vitamin D.

They referred me to their general health institute. 3 days later I was talking to a very nice Dr who told me whatever it was that I felt was killing me, most likely was. So I quit my job.

I got a phone call from the same Dr and she asked me if she could give my number to a specialist who visiting town. I said sure.

He called me on the same day and asked me if I wanted to try something he had been championing for a long time; Ketogenic recovery.

He said adrenal fatigue was something very common in the population today but it was still going undiagnosed.

I met with him in the same clinic. there were 4 other people within my age range (mid 30's to early 40's).

He gave a presentation. At the end of it 2 people joined him and talked about their stories, their history and their roads to recovery.

This was in Aug. On Augest 11th I started the ketogenic diet. I went through the movements (extreme withdrawl from carbs and sugar, keto-flu). I noted how I was feeling and at night after work, once a day we would skype together and talk about how we were feeling physically.

Looking at the notes, up until Aug 16th I was feeling terrible. By then on aug 17th something changed. I remember waking up that day, and looking at my night time notes it says "I have spare energy after a tough day at work. I'm going for a walk"

By Aug 22nd my notes said "life feels great. I feel I'm able to control my stress levels consciously"

Aug 29th "I weighed myself today and I am down 9 pounds"

Sep 4th "Juggled several hard moments at work and didn't feel overwhelmed"

Sept 11th, my vitals
-90/120 blood pressure
-92 resting heart rate
-Blood glucose levels 80

Sept 14th - bought myself a glucometer that also reads blood ketone levels. First reading 0.5 ketones mm/ol (nutritional ketosis range) blood glucose levels 80

Sept 17th - weighed myself, down 25 pounds! waist size down 2 inches from 44 to 42

Sept 19th - diary note "I am able to summon energy at will"

Sept 22nd - "bought a bike. did 20 minutes outside. kinda hot. didn't wanna get heatstroke"

sept 30th - weighed myself, down 30 pounds and 2.5 inches

October 3rd - Colleagues are asking me what I'm doing. Eyes are pearl white, teeth glowing and sparkling, fingernails no longer have wierd texture.

October 4th - i noticed my knees and ankles don't hurt anymore

October 9th - Started going to the beech, life is good

October 12th - Need a new belt and jeans. Benching 180 pounds. starting weight was 80 pounds. 100 pound increase in less than 3 months!

October 20th - "forgot to wiegh myself. its been a while. I'm down 50 pounds.. i don't know how. I'm wearing Jeans from the first years of my marriage"

October 21st today - decided I wanted to share with as many people as possible.

Ketogenics works. Get past the initial phase of blah.

Look for the following people on youtube:

Dr Erik Berg
StephanieKeto

Oh, and the results were so drastic there are other people in my life who have started it:

- my mother
- 2 of my brothers (one who has epilepsy)
- 4 colleagues
- 2 of my sister's friend
- my driver

Congrats to you! Thats an incredible change! Keep up the good work. The keto diet has been my goto over the years. I find it hard to keep on it for a long time, like more than 6 months but have had great success using the principles in it. And just like you said, once you get past that first week of lethargy from carb withdrawal, I feel great.

This is one of those diets where you can do it without much excercise to make a difference but any extra calorie burning and movement is always healthy.

Thanks for the motivation

This is the problem with every "diet" out there.

Long term weight loss requires lifestyle change, not crash dieting.

If you can stick with it long term and it works for you to reduce your caloric intake to work with your TDEE without borking yourself nutritionally, go for it.

I can say by the amounts of weight you're losing at your reported weight, that appears it may be unsustainable but I'm not a credible dietary reference.

As I dislike watching videos is there a text link somewhere?

I think I might be experiencing something similar minus the floaters, the stuttering and no palpitations, my doctor think is sleep apnea related, ill run this info by him and see what he thinks.

Also changed my diet by eliminating carbs and sugars mostly, so far I'm down 16 lbs , it feels good.

Sleep apnea's no joke. If you've been rx'ed a CPAP machine, use it. It can have very negative long-term repercussions if left untreated.

that is great congrats.
I started on Keto Diet July 19th. as of last week I've lost 35LBS so far.
my Keto flue wasn't that bad i experienced some headaches as if i was coming down with a cold but nothing like getting the flu.

I work long hours and don't like to cook much so i usually go to wendy's and order a baconator no bun for lunch. or a chicken salad.
for dinner i go to scramble eggs with bacon.
weekends i do scramble eggs and bacon all day.(can you tell i love bacon and eggs?!!!)

at around 2 month i took a cheat day because it was my wedding anniversary and i said I deserve to have a little cheat meal. which it really wasn't that bad. i did go over the carb limit for the day but was back into ketosis in a couple of days. I'm stopping probably by the middle of November, and will start weight training and eating helthy, just using keto on cutting cycles.

long story short Ketogenesys really works if you stick with it.

my trace minerals are up and lean body mass is also up. my bone density up, my water and fat levels down.

No crashes during the day, just smooth sailing.

Sleep apnea is HUGE. My brother who has Epilepsy was diagnosed and he got one of those breather masks. His episodes are down to 1-2 a year and he can now tell when he's going to have one.

Ketogenie diet has been around for decades, specifically used to treat epilepsy.

Unlike normal low-carb diets it needs to be composed of mostly fat.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketogenic_diet

There are many different takes on it

I'm not familiar enough with it to naysay it in regard to specific medical treatment, and I clearly am not going to suggest anyone not do something their doctor has ordered.

That said, it is not a diet I would pick up off the street just looking to lose significant amounts of weight. It's too restrictive to be sustainable long-term for most people. Carbs are very tasty.

The other aspect of this that is going unremarked:
Stress is no joke.

Such a bad American.

Suck it up.™ Be a man.™

Fixed that for you.

2 key learnings I came away from my initial visit to the Dr.\

1. Stress is cumulative. If one experiences new levels of stress, the brain has a way of setting that as the new tolerance level. It is very important to destress. I can't tell you what a relief it was to hear a Dr tell my wife "when he gets back from home let him zone out". In severe cases, you can get PTSD type symptoms due to this cumulative effect.
Hormones can get out of control very fast.
(Insulin, TH3 & TH4,cortisol and adrenalin) (pancreas, thyroid, pituitary gland, adrenal glands)

2.Cancer cells, any cancer cells, can only survive with glucose as a fuel. Expel carbs and sugars from your diet, get into a ketogenic metabolic state and you're creating a zone where cancer cells die.

Ketogenic diets are also good for alzheimers and dementia.
97% of the brain prefers to run on ketones. and the remaining 3% of the brain that does need glucose will get it from protein nucleogenesis which is an energy intensive process.

I was never a heavy eater. my 60-80 pounds of excess weight had come from a sedentary lifestyle. work-drive-ffxi-sleep.
But now I barely ever feel hungry. I feel thirst which is refreshing because I never did before.

People say ketogenics isn't sustainable. I believe they haven't really gone through the motions or were doing it wrong. We all run on autopilot and are very passive when it comes to our food selection.

For the first 6 weeks I made sure to make my own meals in advance until I could really figure out what and where I could eat outside.

Also, the ketogenic diet is more of a cognitive and cerebral enhancer. People do it for the weight loss, but its actually just moving your body towards its natural state and rebuilding all the areas that were damaged.

Many diets have 1 thing in common and this should be an eye opener to anyone who cares - they all try to undo the damage of years and years of carb binging has done to our bodies.

One thing I didn't mention before in the benefits of this diet; my sex drive is back to the way it was when I was in my early 20's. There are other benefits I can assure all hetrosexual males they won't want to miss out on :)

Permanently removing carbs from your diet is not a good idea. Not to mention it's been researched to death that populations with highest life expectancy are those who base their diet on veggies, pasta and rice.

First, about life expectancy (working in the healthcare industry has given me some insights)

There are 3rd world nations that do not have access to the medicine, drugs and modern state-of-the-art healthcare industries that have life expectancies that rival that of nation's with leading healthcare industries such as the US and Germany.

This is nuanced conversation and you can't take just life expectancy into account because it is not solely based on eating habits and diets.

You can however take into account the prevalence of disease, illnesses and other medical conditions.

Life expectancy is an indicator of socio economics and not health and well being, just like GDP isn't an indicator of wealth disparity.

For example, look at the nations with the highest rates of heart and vascular, pulmonary and respiratory health issues and there is a correlation with rates of carbohydrate, processed foods, sugar, nicotine, pollution rates.

Srilanka for example has the lowest rate of heart disease in the world, the USA being #1. Srilanka consumes the most amount of coconut per person, while the US consumes the least.

Let be a bit more specific, not all carbs are created equal.
Carbs such as broccoli and cauliflower are fine. Carbs that do not spike your blood glucose that are rich in fiber won't have the same effect as downing a box of oreos.

There's also been a lot of research recently on seasonal consumption - that is to say that we've evolved in parallel to our environments, meaning that fruits were only consumed during the season they were harvested. The study showed that humans consumed 1/10th of the amount of fruits as they do today on average. With access to different regions and more species of fruits, humans are consuming far too many carbohydrates and sugars than ever before.

You mentioned Pasta. The mediterranean countries also consumer far less Corn than their european neighbours. They also consume a lot of olives and olive oils.

My point being that you need to do a lot of reading and not just settle on one report that could have been funded or steered by entities with a dog in the fight.

Maybe this is news to you, but it was just revealed in June that the sugar industry in the US funded and financed most of the research that was used to inform the FDA on its recommended macro nutrients - "the American diet".

We're suppossed to take ques from the nation with the highest rates of heart failure and obesity?

They also have the largest healthcare industry in the world, which means they have the most sick people.

And yet 3rd world countries have citizens who have much better health, but are living in total poverty?

I ate a high protein, low carb, lots of veggies diet until my late 40s. Then my digestion changed and I couldn't properly digest so much animal protein.

Today there are more carbs in my diet, and I am still the same size that I was in my 30s and 40s. I probably still eat too much meat by nutritionist's standards.

Never did try a high fat diet.

depends on how much info the audience has.
Its a Cruciferous vegetable or green.
It has more carbs than protein and no fat.

Keto mainstream is:
70% calories from fats
20-25% from proteins
5-10% from fibrous carbs

I wasn't talking about nations, but actual regions. People in the same country can have different diets based on region, and certain ones are proved to be healthier(high on vegetables according to season, low on meat).

very broad statement again.
I'm not sure what your arguing anymore. High carb diets = good?

Dont eat fabricated food, eat vegetarian as much as possible (lots of lentils and homegrown veggies), do not eat meat replacers (thinking vegan burgers and ***), work out 3 hours a week, bake your own bread from good flower, reduce your dairy consumption, dont overdo the alcohol, do not drink softdrinks. Thats my way of life, its not a diet.

I do an hour of callenitics on wednesdays followed by an hour of zumba (gotta shake that *** right), normally tuesdays i have an hour of aerobics but it got cancelled this quarter cause they didnt find enough fat ladies to fill the class... for the rest of the week i do a 15 minute routine of ab and thigh strengthening excercises before i go to bed.
Also I should note, I work standing and maybe sit an hour a day.

Nah thats nothing for me, I need some group pressure. And personally zumba is pretty weak if you ask me, I just do it cause its a nice hour of stretching after my other class. No one is going to get any slimmer from doing zumba lol

She's saying they can be, depending on the source of those carbs and other factors. Here's an interesting example. Not really any certainties in the world of diet and metabolism, our bodies are full of surprises.