Since my goal wasn’t weight loss, I modified the ketogenic diet to fit my needs. I increased the protein intake recommendation to my bodyweight in grams, I did consume a few more carbs per day than recommended, but I do know I entered keto flu.
I enjoy helping others lose weight and I think it’s practical to actually go on all diet types to understand what a person will experience by going on certain diets, what they will feel, what their expected outcome is, and better determine if it’s for them.
I’ve done this the past few years — go on a specific diet for a little while for experience. The keto diet is one of the last popular diets I have yet to try out.
I also have struggled with acne throughout my life and wanted to see the impact that carb (mostly sugar) restriction would have on this. I could essentially a/b test the outcome since I’ve never done keto diet or anything like it before.
Here’s the breakdown of the experiment:
Purpose: gain understanding of experience of being on ketogenic diet, helps me give advice to those looking for new diets, improve skin complexion, curiosity
Objective measurement: decrease body fat percentage, retain strength in the gym, visual indicator of no lost muscle mass (to best of my ability)
Resource and Motivation: ruled.me and books revolving around the negative impact sugar has on our health
Process: Four meals per day, centered around working out. These four meals would consist of three big protein packed meals and a snack of peanuts. I would continue working out after work. My workouts would be full body taking place on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
What I ate: Bodyweight in protein (I’m around 160 pounds), High fat (~ 70% of daily calories), and low carbs (preferably less than 50g / day and ~ 10% of daily calories).
Outcome: I fully believe Ketogenic Diet to be the most effective plan to lose weight. Cutting out sugar and carbs, while also working out, led to instant weight loss. I think very highly of the ketogenic diet.
Keto Flu
I don’t think I experienced the worst of the keto flu, but I did recognize a major difference in my body once I began the process of keto dieting. Keto flu seems to hit almost all new participants entering the ketogenic state.
For more information on ketogenic dieting, visit ruled.me. It was the most helpful resource I found on ketogenic dieting.
I had a really bad headache, was lethargic, bad mood swings, and had no motivation to do anything while experiencing keto flu. This only lasted for about a day and a half.
Gym Performance
One of my worries was the diet negatively affecting my performance in the gym. I saw no reason to believe it affected me negatively initially. It was during this diet where I switched to a full body workout and have enjoyed it since. My lifts were improving, along with my flexibility and mobility, and I only started to feel depleted near the end of the month.
By the end of the 30 day experiment, I did notice my energy levels begin to drop in the gym. I started feeling fatigued. My lifts started to decline. It was at this point where cravings for carbs began to emerge.
Carb cravings
I’m a really disciplined person so sticking to a diet for 30 diets and restricting a certain food group isn’t too difficult for me. I did notice carbs cravings near the end of the month, but it wasn’t unbearable. It was a “I’d like some carbs for my post workout meal tonight” type of thought, but vanished rather quickly.
My goal wasn’t weight loss so I didn’t have much motivation to continue losing weight while on keto diet. I think this was partially why I began noticing carb cravings and an interest to not continue keto dieting.
It is easy to binge post-keto diet. I binged slowly by upping my carb intake for a week, mostly worrying that a major increase in sugar would throw my body out of wack. After a week or two, I had a huge pizza to celebrate.
Who Benefits
Anyone looking to lose weight needs to try ketogenic dieting. If you care enough, look up the studies showing the benefits of the ketogenic diet.
Some studies show a major reduction in cancer, a complete removal of epilepsy, and some instances of reversing diabetes just by going on ketogenic diet.
What you’ll learn about researching the ketogenic diet is how poorly Americans eat. In addition, you’ll take a deep dive into the truth about sugar and its harmful effects on all Americans over-consuming it.
One thing that really stood out to me was how addicted we all are to sugar. I’m not immune either. It’s so difficult not eating carbs because they are so readily available all around us, all day, every day. The first few days hit you like a sack of bricks when you remove sugar and start to realize how addicted you are to it.
My daily diet
12pm — Spinach Chicken salad with caesar dressing, sweet peppers, carrots, and shredded cheese
1:30pm — begin snack on peanuts. I have 4 servings of peanuts per day. Continually munching on something really reduced my cravings for sugar.
3:30pm — Chicken and bacon. Lots of it
6:30–7pm — Post workout meal (one of the two):
- Philly cheesesteak without the bread: steak cut into slices, sweet peppers and onions, cooked in olive oil with melted cheese
- Protein shake: 2–4 eggs, protein powder, almond milk, a small handful of frozen berries, unsweetened cocoa powder, peanut butter
I ate basically the same thing every day. One of the difficulties of the ketogenic diet is the limited nature of the foods you can eat. I’m not much of a cook outside of a few comfort meals so my choices on meals were limiting.
There are plenty of resources online for great keto recipes, but I have little interest in cooking (more than a simple meal that’s easy to prepare) during weekdays so this is definitely something to consider if deciding whether to go keto or not.
Outcome
My skin cleared up and I reduced my body fat pretty drastically.
First, my skin became much clearer. I struggle with breakouts on chest and back, mostly following my workouts. I noticed I no longer had issues while on keto. I was so confident in the clearing up of acne that I was confident enough to walk outside with my shirt off. For anyone who’s experienced the suppressing and shameful nature of acne, you know how powerful this liberating feeling could be.
In addition, I lost a significant amount of body fat, considering my goal was only a minor amount in a very short time frame. My guesstimate would have been a starting body fat % of around 12 and a reduction down to around 8%. That doesn’t seem like much but it’s a 25% decrease. If someone is 25% bodyfat and could drop to 17–19% in just 30 days, that’s huge!!
Another thing I noticed immediately was the lack of carb coma. If you’ve ever eaten a big carb filled lunch (think a burrito or pizza), then had to go sit at a desk for a few hours immediately following, then you know what I’m referring to.
This doesn’t happen on keto. Since you aren’t consuming carbs, you’ll never experience the drowsiness that a high carb diet will induce when seated for a long time. This really helps productivity and focus for office workers.
I’m convinced ketogenic diet is the most important diet for anyone (of course there are a few exceptions). First, it will drastically help the 66% of Americans who NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT. Second, it will help everyone understand the negative effects sugar has on us.
Third, a complete overhaul of the American diet, to one in which everyone cuts out sugar, would force all major food corporations to change the nutritional content of their food. Their products would have to contain way less sugar, increase nutritional content, and be affordable.
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