Ketogenic Diet Self Expermient, Part 1

Anecdotal Evidence Alert

I’d like to share my own n=1 personal experiment with the ketogenic diet.  Please note that this will be highly subjective and anecdotal in nature.  I simply wanted to share some of what I’ve experienced in case it can be helpful or insightful to somebody else.

It goes without saying that I’m not offering medical advice here.  And everyone should consult their doctors and/or nutritionists if they’re interested in trying different diets.

I’ve also titled this post as Part 1 because I’m only two months into this experiment.  And know it could take some turns as I go.  This would most likely result in Parts 2 and beyond at some point.

The Beginnings of My Ketogenic Journey

First, I’ll save you all from a lengthy explanation of ketosis.  There are so many good articles already available.  They’re written by doctors ans scientists and explain it better than I could.  Just do an internet search if you aren’t familiar with the topic and you’ll find more information than you can possibly read.

So why did I decide to try eating a ketogenic diet?  Primarily because of the purported mental benefits.  Many people claim improved memory recall and cognition, not to mention improved mood.  I was also interested in the claim that ketosis can increase mitochondrial density.  Also, I realized I’d been showing some signs of metabolic syndrome on and off for a couple of years – high blood pressure, low HDL cholestrol, and fasting glucose levels on the high side.

I was actually hesitant to try the ketogenic diet because the low carbohydrate intake and lower protein intake than I’m used is supposed to be detrimental to heavy strength training.  I’d just run the Texas Method strength program and gained ten pounds of lean body mass and got my deadlift up to 500 lbs. in the process.  The prevailing narrative is that glucose is essential for driving the anaerobic energy system in strength/explosive athletes.  And that without carbs, max strength and power would suffer. Furthermore, I’d been eating around 200 grams of protein daily to promote muscle growth.  In ketosis I’d be eating quite a bit less.

I also knew that ketosis could make me leaner.  I’m all for it, but also didn’t want to lose too much bodyweight.  I want to stay at about 200-205 lbs., so my hope going into this was that I’d be able to continue building muscle while losing body fat.  That way I’d stay around the same weight as my body composition slowly changed towards a leaner physique.  To do this I knew I’d have to keep my calorie levels at 3000+ per day.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from a hormonal and libido standpoint, but I do know that hormones like testosterone require cholesterol for production.  And the ketogenic diet doesn’t shy away from dietary cholesterol and fatty acids.

What I’ve Experienced In The First Two Months

I’ll run through a bullet point list of my experiences since starting the ketogenic journey.  Again, I’m not trying to sell this diet, and everyone is different.  But for me it has most definitely had a huge positive impact.

-First a quick warning that it can be a bumpy ride for a week or two.  Cutting out all grains and potatoes and reducing carbohydrates to less then 50 grams per day truly caused withdrawal symptoms for me.  I had several days where I felt downright depressed, and almost detached from reality.  That said, I knew to expect it as I adjusted, and so I was able to ride it out and it passed.

-On the flip side, as the carb withdrawal symptoms reduced I started to have some days where I was downright happy for no apparent reason.  This was a huge juxtaposition to the low grade melancholy feeling I now realize I’d had much of my life.  The positive mood makes me feel more outgoing, and more assertive at work, etc.  I can’t overstate how welcomed this is, and it’s been more and more frequent as I go.

-During those days of positive mood, I definitely felt my brain light up as well.  Memory recall and cognition did indeed hit a different level of function.  It’s not like I gained 50 IQ points or something.  But the combination of feeling quicker on my toes so to speak, along with a happy disposition, made me much more effective at work.  As I’ve become more efficient at burning fat for fuel in the absence of excessive carbs, I’ve also noticed at times that if I eat a nice piece of fatty grass-fed beef, etc., my mind will start to buzz with energy for an hour or two afterwards.  It’s wonderful.

-I feel much calmer eating fats over carbohydrates.  For example, I was hiking the other day and as I walked past a bush I scared a large bird out of it.  It caused a huge ruckus.  Typically that much sudden, unexpected commotion coming from right beside me would give me a slight adrenaline rush.  But the other day I had no fight or flight reaction whatsoever.  I’ve felt that general sense of calm in other areas of my day to day life as well.  It’s stand to reason given the ketogenic diet was originally used to treat epilepsy.  It calms the electrical activity in the brain.

-I bought a Precision Xtra ketone/glucose meter to help assess my progress in reaching ketosis and stabilizing my blood sugar.  When I first started this diet my fasted morning blood glucose was typically 100-120 which is high.  After two months my blood glucose readings are pretty much 80-85 every time which is a whole lot better.  This points to a potential improvement in insulin sensitivity.  Regardless, my morning blood sugar is in a much better range after a short time.

-Despite the warnings out there that max strength efforts require glucose, and despite eating less glucose, I’ve felt just as strong as I did before.  I continue to lift heavy in the 1-5 rep range and my heavy squats and deadlifts feel very explosive.  The bars moves fast, and I also seem recover quite well.  Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised since the liver can continue to make some glucose out of protein and fats via a process called gluconeogenesis.  I don’t seem to be having any impaired performance from lower carbohydrate intake.

-Along those lines, I was hitting my heavy bag the other day, and my punches were incredibly snappy.  I was hitting the bag really well with a lot of power.

-In the aerobic realm, I’ve been doing a weekend hike most weeks.  One thing I’ve noticed is that my heart rate and breathing stay nice and steady when going uphill at a rapid clip.  Like there’s less stress on my system or something.  And far less pounding in my head.  It’s hard to explain with words, but I feel more efficient.  And I’m hiking in the Rocky Mountains at altitude.  I haven’t done any jogging or long bike rides lately but I’m curious to see how those feel.  I suspect they might feel great.

-Another symptom of keto adaptation I experienced at first was high blood pressure.  I was in for an annual physical about two weeks after I started, and my systolic blood pressure was 151 which is quite high.  It has since normalized to the 120 range on a regular basis.  I could probably stand to get it down a little bit more, but it hasn’t been close to 151 in many weeks.  One explanation for this is that ketones and uric acid both get excreted through the same pathways.  So when the body first starts producing more ketones than it knows how to use, uric acid levels can rise because the body is also eliminating excess ketones.  Uric acid tends to lower nitric oxide levels which can cause vasoconstriction.  Hence higher temporary blood pressure.

-As previously mentioned, I’ve continued to eat quite a lot of calories on a daily basis.  My primary goal was never to lose body fat as I was already pretty lean.  But I’m still noticeably leaner.  The shape of my body has changed a bit, and I can see more blood vessels in my arms and legs.  I still weight 205+ lbs. most times I step on the scale.

-My skin looks better, and is much more moist.  It seems to me that I look a bit younger than I did two months ago.  Maybe, maybe not, but I do look healthy.

-It’s not every day, but many days my afternoon energy levels are more consistent.  This makes sense because even a very lean person stores a huge amount of energy in the form of fat.  A person who burns fat efficiently can stay well fueled for days without eating.

-My body temperature seems to be higher.  Normally I kind of enjoy summer heat, but this summer I can hardly stand it at times.  And I don’t even notice the frigid AC in the office during the work day where it used to bother me in the summers.

-I’ve noticed significantly less bloating after eating.  And my usual room-clearing gas is all but gone.  I’m also noticing that the times I do let one rip it has virtually no smell.  Seems like a pretty good sign to me.  And perhaps my gut microbiome is becoming healthier.

-A girlfriend was visiting last weekend, and I must say that the libido effects of eating plenty of high quality fat was noticeable to me.  Or maybe it was the reduction of carbohydrates.  Or both.  Who knows.  But my soldier was at attention, and that’s all that really matters.

Some Final Thoughts For Now

So far, it seems that a very low carb, high fat diet works really well for me.  I will see if this continues, but it seems to make sense.  I got the results of a 23 And Me genetic test recently, and I’m half Swedish from my Mom’s side.  Furthermore, my maternal haplogroup is common among the people who have historically lived above the Arctic Circle in Sweden, Norway, Finland, and parts of western Russia.  A little research revealed that those people have historically subsisted on animal meat and fat, cold water fish high in fat, and reindeer milk much of the year.  I also have more Neanderthal gene variants than 90% of other people.  Neanderthals were primarily carnivorous.  I still eat a good amount of vegetables, but it stands to reason that eating a ton of grains up until now hadn’t been ideal for me.

Someone who’s ancestry goes back to regions of long term agriculture and consumption of grain might handle sugars and carbs just fine.  But despite having not eaten sugary junk foods for many years, my body still seemed to be suffering from a diet high in whole grains and potatoes.  This really makes me question the notion that whole grains are a health food for all people.  And they probably shouldn’t be the base of some people’s food pyramids.  I’m not saying I’ll never eat any ever again, but unless this diet stops treating me well I can see myself primarily eating low carbohydrate into the future.  The sense of strength, health and well being I’ve experienced thus far is hard to deny.

If you have any interesting experiences with a ketogenic diet, good or bad, please feel free to share in the comments.