The Ketogenic Diet Part 3 How I did it

Ok first if you have not read the first 2 blogs please do so because a lot of info is covered that you need to know: Part 1 and Part 2.

Now here is what I did.

I actually went on the “diet” for a total of 10 days with 8 of them being severely calorie/carb restricted.

Day one was what most people would refer to as a “Juice Fast” that is I consumed mostly juice and water but I was not specifically looking at the total calories I consumed.  I was however looking to restrict Carbs somewhat so I used primarily low glycemic vegetable juice and cut it with about 25% fruit juice.  The total carb count of each 12 ounce serving was probably about 12 grams and I consumed 5 of those the first day.  Calorie wise this size of serving was probably about 180 calories so that alone puts me at 900 calories and 60 grams of carbs. I probably consumed another miscellaneous 100 calories and 10 grams of carbs that day for a grand total of 1000 calories and 70 grams of carbs.

So you have a reference point my height is 6’1 inch my walk around starting dry weight for this experiment was 201 pounds 57+% body water and a body fat of about 12% *

My resting metabolic rate via a Tanita** scale is 2250 ish calories a day which means that is the number of calories I theoretically need to maintain my body weight.  The one big thing that weight alone never really takes into account is water shifts and as we’ll see that becomes a huge factor when you diet and step on the scale.

To summarize Day 1. I was at least 50% below my RMR calorie requirement and I was in what would be considered moderate carb restriction (50 to 100 grams).

Day 2  This was also an “induction day” designed to ease me into the more severe carb and calorie restriction.  For this day I did exactly what I did on Day 1 but I replaced half of the juice with plain water to dilute it. Thus I wound up around 500 calories and 40 grams of carbs.  I was not really checking any numbers yet since the “diet” had not officially begun.

For the next 8 days I pretty much followed this script:

Calorie intake between 200 and 400 per day.  Almost all of this was supplied in the form of “Ideal Protein” soups of various flavors.  All of the soups I chose had 90 calories per serving and 3 grams of carbs.  Depending on the day I ate between 2 and 4 soups at typical intervals of 4 to 6 hours.

Additional calories were supplied by adding a tablespoon of almond milk to 4 ounces of regular coffee which I consumed once to twice daily.  I should note that Dr Seyfried recommends avoiding all caffeinated beverages because they can increase blood sugar. More on that in the next blog – The Ketogenic Diet Part 4.

Doc

 

** Tanita is a registered brand name of a scale. I use the IronMan model but there are other makes and models.  The particular method of measuring values is known as electrical impedence and has some inherent inaccuracies. I will mention the Body Gem device which uses end expired CO2 to more directly measure metabolic rate at that particular moment.  Usually they correlate more closely than you might think so I rely on the Tanita on a daily basis with occasional correlation from the more expensive Body Gem.  Also if you look at those body fats and know anything about the subject you would be thinking, “What a stud Dr Dave must be!” Well sadly I have to be honest.  There are 2 settings on that scale and I have traditionally set it on “athlete” which means 10 hours of hard core exercise a week.  I probably roll in closer to 7 so you need to add about 5% to the body fat numbers. Be nice now and take into account my mid 50’s age and you will see that while I am not true stud material, my body composition is far better than average for my age J

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