The Ketogenic Diet Part 6

This installment of the keto series comes about a month after Part 5 on purpose. I wanted to give you real follow up data on what happened weeks after the original experiment ended.

Mostly good. A few real negatives. Here is the honest accounting.

The good

I dropped an additional two pounds after the original experiment ended, and the loss has held. Every morning I get up, weigh in, and the number stays where it should. That tells me this is real composition loss, not water shift.

The carbohydrate awareness I built by holding under 12 grams per day during the strict phase is still there. I now aim for around 50 grams per day on average, which lets me eat a lot more normal food. I had exactly one day where I lost it and ate a pile of carbs. Getting back on the line took no effort.

The honest negatives

Maintaining 50 grams of carbohydrate or less per day is still hard, and it limits food choices substantially. Not as hard as the ultra low calorie ultra low carb week I did before. But not easy. Bread, crackers, rice, pasta, and most of what people in Western diets actually eat is gone. That includes most of the “gluten free” products I used to allow myself. Most of those are just rearranged carbohydrate.

Fruit becomes scarce, replaced largely by leafy greens. When juicing, I have to be careful with fruit because of the fructose load.

I am back on all my supplements, including fish oil. Someone asked if I had stopped TA-65. The answer is no, never. I had reduced fish oil during the ultra restricted phase because the omega 6 intake had dropped so far that the omega 3 demand to balance it was lower. With a more normal food intake, the standard dose is back.

What I have seen so far

The six pack came back. The Polish love handles are gone. Power to weight ratio is up across my training. The plan from here is to hold the low end of carbohydrate intake on a daily basis for the next three months, with one or two short bursts of near fasting low carb work mixed in.

My target body weight of 185 looks easy to reach. I will recheck cholesterol and inflammatory biomarkers at that point. The goal here is not just leanness. The goal is to demonstrate that eating more fat and modestly more protein, while cutting carbs hard, is actually healthier than the alternative. I did this before, four years ago, on strict paleo, and the numbers were strong then.

The big interview coming

I had a two hour conversation with Dr. Tom Seyfried, author of Cancer as a Metabolic Disease, last week. I will share parts of it on video and parts of it in my upcoming book.

What to do tomorrow morning

• If you tried the ultra restricted version, ease back to 50 grams of net carbohydrate per day for the maintenance phase.
• Recheck lipids and inflammatory markers 8 to 12 weeks in.
• Keep fish oil and a real multivitamin in the rotation.
• Pay attention to how your hunger and energy actually respond, not what the internet says they should.

I want to hear your success story. Write in.

Dr. Dave