Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Low Carb is it. Now on Keto after 50!

I'd forgotten about this blog, you can see I hadn't posted in 8 years. It was interesting to review my thoughts back then and the diets that I have tried. I was young then :) in my late 40's when dieting and losing weight was easier. Those were the days.

Now I'm working on establishing a Keto lifestyle. I have been on and off of this diet for a few years now. I lose weight, then go off and gain it back. 

I'm motivated to see it through this time. I really feel terrible when I add carbs to my diet, so I'm not sure why I falter. It's that carb addiction, I know. So, I'm working to get into deep ketosis as quickly as possible, which curbs your hunger, and hopefully takes away those bad carb thoughts. 

In order to get into a deeper ketosis, where I'm definitely running off of ketones, I am doing a fat fast this week. There are a number of variations of the fat fast, but basically keep your carb and protein counts pretty low and your fat counts high. I'm aiming for very high, close to 90% of my calories from fat, very few carbs, and the rest protein. 

Keeping my calories around 1100 (many say you should keep it around 900 - 1000, but I needed it a little higher to stave off hunger). To get that much fat, I'm consuming one or two bullet proof coffees, adding a fat bomb or two to my diet, and using vinaigrette in my salad. 

I'm on day 2 and doing fine. I was a bit hungry on day 1, although I tried to eat (which includes drinking a bulletproof coffee) every few hours. Today was much easier. I had a bulletproof coffee in the morning, a fat bomb around noon, and made it easily to dinner. 

I'm only doing this for 4 days. Recommended not to stay on it too long since you're getting minimal protein, but 4 to 7 days should be fine. I'll weigh myself after the 4 days and report on any weight loss, even though that's not the primary goal here. It is to get into ketosis, so that hunger dissipates, and that I can continue on a healthier Keto for the long run. I'll likely continue with fat fasts every so often to help boost weight loss as well. 

I have also gone on an egg fast, which is a different animal. The calories are higher, around 1600 per day, but it works. It's also likely the very low carb and higher fat content that does the trick. On an egg fast, the fat percentage is in the low 80s, but still high compared to most Keto plans.

I generally lose about 4 to 5 pounds on an egg fast of 3 to 5 days. I'll elaborate on an egg fast some more in future posts.