Greetings, welcome to this blog.
This blog, as the name suggests, is where I'll put my diet-related thoughts.
Lets start with some stats:
My name's Lee Marshall, I live in Aberdeen and work 9-5 as a Software Engineer.
I'm 6'4" high (193cm to you sensible people, 1.93m to those even more sensible), weigh somewhere around 84kg, and have a slightly skinny appearance.
My main pastime is currently running and I do it around the city roughly 4 times per week.
I can manage a 10km race fairly easily, but am unlikely to be first (8 min/mile).
I am also vegetarian, which makes certain things interesting.
Recently whilst speaking to a colleague, I was made aware of the ketogenic, or LCHF, diet;
they were using it to lose weight and having tremendous success. He explained the basics to me and so I went off and clicked through Wikipedia until I felt like I had learned something.
I certainly didn't need to lose any weight, but the more I read, the more I got the impression it would do something for my energy/alertness.
I've always struggled with energy, regardless of diet. Sometimes I'm okay, other times I just crash for seemingly no reason, which is a pain when I have to do something. Maybe it's not just me and it simply annoys me more than others. Anywho, after a week of talking about it, I decided to give it a go.
The Rules
No bread. No pasta. No pizza. No sweets.
Not too much onion. No fruit, dried or otherwise.
No oatcakes. No milk. No muesli. No yoghurt.
No "Low fat" or worse. "Fat free".
Absolutely nothing which will put carbohydrate above 50g/day.
Lots of fat. Butter everything to avoid losing too much weight.
Not too much protein (60-100g per day seems to work).
Failing to adhere to the rules stops the switchover to fat for energy and would probably make me put on fat and feel ill. Sounds good! I was ready.
First Week
I got to try some nice foods I'd never really had reason to investigate before like Avocado, Broccoli and Cauliflower. I also used MyFitnessPal to make sure I was hitting the right numbers.
The first day was pretty easy, everything seemed quite normal apart from the 6 fried eggs I had.
The second and third day however, were quite different to normal.
I woke up on the second morning and had a lot of adrenaline, a LOT. I couldn't stand still; I had to move around and do things about an hour before I would normally even get out of bed. I spent the whole day sweating a bit and feeling slightly warm.
The third day was basically a repeat of the second, except I also got very shaky and weak in the afternoon.
Along with all of this, I hit the gym quite a lot and ran a few 5km routes. I'm not sure what effect it had, but I was running slower.
Second Week
By the second week, the situation had improved. I was feeling good! I was waking up and falling asleep relatively effortlessly(relative to my whole life previously).
Pretty much as soon as my eyes opened in the morning, I had all the energy I wanted.
Certain tasks at work and home which required focusing were easier than normal, too. The experiment seemed to be going well.
Experiment Finished
I decided half way through week 3 that I would go back on the carbs, as my woman's birthday was coming up (cake, etc..). I remember feeling still quite good for that and the next day. I was missing the high-fat food a bit, but it wasn't too bad. Carried on for a few more days, then the crash came; about an hour after eating some birthday cake, I felt terrible. I'd forgotten what a crash felt like and I wanted no more of it.
What I Learned
Water water water! You need a lot on keto.
Supplements! Take a multivitamin pill.
Potassium! This stuff is important for avoidance of bad things. If your multivitamin doesn't provide it, get it some other way, like cream of tartar or a potassium-based salt substitute. Bananas are *not* keto-friendly.
Keto does indeed give you a very consistent energy supply. When you eat during the day becomes pretty unrelated to when energy is available because it's simply always available.
Keto Again
After eating carbohydrates for a week, I'm back on the keto. I'm not sure about the future, but right now, today, this week, I feel like it's what I want to be doing. This is day 4 since I started again, and I'm having a much easier time than before. I even ran a 10km route this morning with no breakfast in me, which is a first.
