I have a new YouTube vlog up about cheat days on the ketogenic diet. I’d love it if you could listen to the whole video and tell me what you think. Do you agree with me? Do you disagree? If so, I’d love to hear what you think. Like and subscribe on YouTube if you’re so inclined. Coming up this week I’m going to start doing product reviews. I know in the past I’ve mentioned I was an Amazon Affiliate. That isn’t the case at the moment. These will be reviews of products I use regularly and like. If you purchase them I make no financial gain or compensation of any kind. I’m just telling you what I like about the product. So without further ado, here is the video:
For today’s blog post I’d like to cover some misunderstandings about the keto diet I frequently run in to with people who are considering going keto, and a few who are actually practicing it. Keep in mind that these are my own personal opinion and shouldn’t be taken as the word from the Keto gods. Also, as certain as I feel about these points, do remember that everybody is different and every body is different. What that means is that this is from my experience living a ketogenic lifestyle but that may not be directly applicable to you. As always, you’re running the great experiment of your life and you should try these things out for yourself, keeping what works for you, discarding what doesn’t. So now, in no particular order, the misconceptions.
!. I’ll do keto for a week to lose fat quickly and then I’ll go back to my old diet. Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. While you’ll experience some rapid weight loss in the beginning, it’ll be mostly water weight. So after your week is up, and you go back on a carb rich diet, you’ll just start retaining water again and you’ll gain almost all of it back. And even if you do keep it off, it’s only water weight, which doesn’t do you any good if you’re trying to lose fat. Plus, it’ll take you more then a week to become keto adapted.
2. I’m not sure if I can get rid of carbs altogether like that/I don’t know if I can go vegetable free. While the Keto diet is a very low carb diet, it isn’t necessarily a no carb diet. I say necessarily because there is a version of the keto diet known as the carnivore diet that is carb/vegetable free. However, it isn’t necessary to go the carb free route to live a ketogenic lifestyle. You just need to keep it under 50g total carbs, and aim to keep it below 20g of net carbs (Total carbs-fiber). What carbs you choose is up to you, just keep in mind that some carb sources will blow right through your 50g, and even if they don’t they’ll put you well over 20g net carbs.
3. I can eat unlimited amounts of fat without consequence. While the ketogenic diet is high fat, it isn’t unlimited fat. You do have to keep in mind that if you frequently take in more fat calories then your body needs, it can still be deposited as fat in your body. You want to keep a caloric deficit going (how much is up to you) so that your body will be forced to burn through your stored fat to make up the difference.
4. As long as the food is ketogenic I can safely eat it during a fast. Negative. Taking in calories over a very small threshold (for me it’s 35) will break a fast. Now if you are eating within the guidelines of a ketogenic diet you’ll mimic some of the benefits of fasting, but the only way to get all the benefits of fasting is to fast. Also, on a side note, there really aren’t “ketogenic foods”. There are foods that meet the guidelines of a ketogenic diet, but the ratios of macronutrients are what keep you in ketosis. There isn’t a food that will put you in ketosis automatically.
5. I’m interested in trying keto but I don’t think the rest of my family will want to. Oddly enough, you can still do keto even if nobody else in your house/apartment wants to do it with you. Now I do get that it will be easier if everyone in the house is doing it. You won’t have access to the tempting foods the others will be allowed to eat. But you’re an adult, If you really want to try the ketogenic diet but nobody else at home wants to, then decide you will and stick with it. I live in a house with two other people, one of whom loves cooking and baking. Is it annoying sometimes to come home to a house that wreaks of fresh-baked bread? You bet. But then I do my weekly weigh in and I see my progress and the bread just isn’t as distracting anymore.
6. I don’t know if I can do a ketogenic diet since you can’t cheat on it. If you go into any diet with the intention of cheating on it you’ve probably picked the wrong diet. Having said that, you don’t have to be keto every day for the rest of your life. You’re an adult, make adult decisions. I enjoy my monthly day off from keto. It’s one day out of a month so while it slows my progress a bit, it doesn’t outweigh the other 29 or 30 days of being keto. We’re heading into the holiday season so I’m already planning on using my day off for Thanksgiving and Christmas. And I intend to enjoy them guilt free. Afterwards I’ll get right back to it with a good fast for a day or two and then back to meeting the keto guidelines.
There are more misconceptions out there. Perhaps I’ll cover more soon. But these are the ones I hear the most. Again, this is all my opinion as someone who has lived a ketogenic lifestyle for three quarters of a year now. It isn’t scientific fact. If you have a different perspective I’d love to hear from you in the comments. If you have any questions, leave those in the comments, too. This wraps up today’s post. Hope you have a great day.
So the internet at my house is down, yet again. Still haven’t heard what’s wrong but the last two times this happened it was because someone was digging and cut the cable and it took a few days to fix. I’ll find out for sure tomorrow.
Because of this my scale can’t upload my weigh in this morning. If there’s one thing I’m not fond of with my scale it’s that you have to use the app to see your results after the weigh in disappears. I wasn’t being mindful of that this morning and only caught a glimpse before it went away.
Based on that glimpse it was either 282.8 or 282.5 pounds. So I’m either .2 or .5 pounds lighter. I don’t have the other measurements to tell me better how much was fat loss/gain or muscle or water. So once the internet is back up I’ll post that.
I’m ok with this as I spent three days bed ridden this week due to a flu or something. Could be another keto flu I suppose as payback for going off keto for my vacation. So I was actually happy to see that I lost weight. I had actually thought the number would go up.
I’m doing this from my phone at work. I live in a rural area and my cell connection isn’t great but I’ll try to get back to posting daily soon. Take care.
Sorry for the no posts over the last week. As noted in my last post I was on vacation. I had intended to spend a little time each day blogging but it didn’t happen. I had a week to spend with friends and get things done and I used it for that. While I do apologize for my absence I’m sure you all can understand why I won’t apologize for making time for friends. I hope you wouldn’t apologize for that either.
Having said that we are well behind on my weigh in progress and for my first post back I am going to fix that problem. Going into the vacation I was a bit worried about one thing, how much weight I’d gain back. The reason being, I decided to go off keto for my time in Bellingham. I felt this would make it easier on my friends who I was visiting. I’ve worked hard since January 1st to take the weight off and I wasn’t happy that this would cause some of it to come back. As with most fears, the actual events were certainly less scary than the fears themselves.
The first weigh in of the month I weighed in at 285.4 pounds. I mention this because I decided to go off keto a couple days prior to flying out. I’ve had keto days off since the beginning of the year and never reacted poorly to them. The past few months I’ve been really low carb and was worried that introducing a lot of carbs all of the sudden might make me sick. I didn’t want to waste any time on vacation on that. So I started a little early, and did feel a little off. Mainly felt a heavy feeling in my stomach and a bit tired. Nothing too bad. This was before my Monday weigh. As such I had already gone up in weight. On 08/13 I weighed 288.8 pounds. I hadn’t even flown out yet and I was up over 3 pounds. More fear creeped in.
Now while I was in Bellingham I did eat whatever I wanted, but I kept it in reasonable amounts. As an example, the first night I was there I went to McKay’s for trivia night. This was an old weekly ritual we had when I lived there over a year ago. Clearly we spent a lot of time there as one of the bartenders said he missed me and was happy I was back. This made my day. Food options at McKay’s are limited and definitely not keto. I had a couple slices of pizza, some cheesy bread, and cinnamon sticks. But I didn’t go crazy and eat a whole pizza or drink a ton of alcohol. I enjoyed myself but kept it in boundaries. The other bit of balance I brought with me was the commitment to get in a lot of walking each day. I easily doubled my usual walking time every day I was there. And unlike here in Alabama where it’s mainly flat land, Bellingham, Washington State is hilly as all get out. So twice the time and twice the difficulty. I did this every day I was there, without exception.
The week went by pretty quick and I arrived home mid evening on this past Tuesday. I had been fasting from a few hours before bed on Monday. I had coffee, and a packet of Nomatic Keto creamer (35 calories of MCT Oil and fiber) but nothing else. After relaxing for an hour at home I knew the time of accountability had arrived. I walked into the bathroom with a small amount of trepidation, ready to survey the damage.
And then the scale made me realize I had been more worried than I should be. I weighed 295 pounds. After a week of carbing up and not worrying about food choices I hadn’t even gained a full 10 pounds. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t happy I’d put on nearly 10 pounds, just happy it wasn’t the 15-20 I feared it might be. The story gets better. I had told myself I would do a 48 hour fast. I still had another day of fasting to go. After I was done fasting I’d weigh myself again to see what the results were.
I fasted all day Wednesday, went to sleep, and Thursday morning I carried out my usual routine for weighing in on Mondays. I stepped on the scale and to my surprise I only heard one beep. Now the scale I use from Greater Goods (affiliate link below, just click the image) syncs via wireless to their server and then an app on my phone. The first beep means the weigh in is done, the second means the results have been synced to the server. By the time I looked down to see what was going on the screen was already blank. So I stepped off and stepped on again and this time when I heard the first beep I looked down and the screen said 284.4 pounds. That was the problem. The scale has automatic user detection. It does this by figuring out which user is within 10 pounds of the weight. As I had weighed in at 295 pounds on Tuesday my scale didn’t know it was me. I got a glass of water, took my shower, got dressed, and then looked up how to tell the scale I’m me. After figuring that out I went back in and told it I’m User 1 before weighing in. This time it would have detected me anyway as I weighed in at 285.2 pounds due to the water I had drank, and most likely absorbed while showering.
The second number is the one I’ll use as it’s the one that was recorded into my log. So I started out at 285.4 with 39% body fat, or 111.3 pounds. After everything was said and done I was at 285.2 with 39.1% body fat, or 111.5 pounds. Basically after all that I found myself back where I started. Not bad for a week plus break from keto.
I’ve had a few days since then. I’m back on keto now. I’ll weigh myself in as usual on Monday morning and we’ll see how the numbers hold. As for right now I’m pretty happy with it. I realize now, as is often the case, I worried too much as it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Most of the gain was water weight that I quickly purged via a fast. It also reminds me that even if your diet isn’t great if you can just get out there and exercise you can tip the balance back in your favor.
That’s it for today’s check in. Now that I’m off vacation I want to go back to trying daily posts. We’ll see how that goes. But as I’ve learned from the last week or so I’m going to just roll with things and not worry so much about consequences as worry is a no win game. Hope you’re having a great day, and see you soon.
Yesterday was the monthly weigh in. The results were good, but below what I needed to ensure I would be at or below 280 by the time of my trip to Bellingham. I weighed in at 285.4 pounds. That’s 7.6 pounds down from last month’s update. A solid amount, but unfortunately it drops me just below averaging 10 pounds a month. Not a complaint, just an observation. My body fat percentage was 39.0% so I’m carrying 111.3 pounds of body fat. Last month I was at 40.3%, amounting to 118.1 pounds, a difference of 6.8 pounds. Muscle mass came in at 26.7% for a total of 76.2 pounds of muscle. Last month it was 25.9%, totally 75.9 pounds, for a gain of .3 pounds of muscle. That doesn’t sound like a lot but considering my usual method of exercising is walking with just a small amount of body weight exercise I think that’s pretty good. The remaining pound of difference, give or take, comes from lost water weight.
As for exercise I think I could be doing a little better but I wouldn’t call my performance bad. I get in at least one exercise session a day, and manage to close my 30 minute exercise ring half the time and get over half the ring 90% of the time. There were also a number of those full ring days where I actually went well into a second ring. Another fact to keep is for whatever reason my Apple Watch is widely inconsistent on counting exercise time. To reliably count it I need to have the exercise app tracking an activity. So there were plenty of times I was getting a walk in that didn’t get reflected in the numbers because the watch didn’t view it as exercise. Next month’s goal is to have at least 75% of the days be closed rings.
Food tracking wise I again have to report poor progress. The food tracker requires inputting specific food amounts which requires weighing. I just haven’t devoted the time in preparing meals to do the weighing. I know I should but I get busy and don’t get it done. Not making excuses but I think it’s also because as long as I’m following the basic keto guidelines in what I eat and I’m making progress, good progress even, I just haven’t prioritized this because it isn’t “essential”. But I also remind myself that I have no way of knowing how much better I could be doing if I were to optimize my performance by including more accurate tracking.
And finally it’s picture time. The top picture is this month’s progress pic, and each picture below it is going back in time. The split image ones are my progress pics each month going backwards. The one of me in the shorts and grey USA t-shirt was just a happy pic for me to take. The shorts are waist size 48 and they fit comfortably enough to wear. At one time I wore a size 60 waist, so progress. The one in the Flash t-shirt would be my “starting pic” which was actually a week or so after I started because I hadn’t thought to take one on day 1. And the last pic of me in the black jacket goes back to 2013 when I was heavier still. Don’t know if that was at my heaviest, which was 380 pounds, but it was close if not that. When I see today’s progress pic and look all the way down at that it amazes me just how much progress I’ve made. But there’s still a ways to go, and I’m confident I’ll get there. Thanks for support and I’ll see you next month.
So little bit of bad luck this week. I live in a relatively new neighborhood. There’s still construction going on all around me, including digging in the ground to run lines. And the other day one of the companies that was doing that hit the fiber optic line. So for the past few days I haven’t had internet (or television, although I didn’t mind that as much). Everything is now back up and running so I can do my weekly update. And starting tomorrow I’m going to go back to trying to post daily for a week, give or take another internet knockout.
This Monday I weighed in at 291.2 pounds. This is down 2.4 pounds from last week. I was really shocked by this because I had moved my day off from keto up to last Tuesday. I was meeting a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time for lunch and felt it would be easier to find a mutually agreeable place to eat if we weren’t working around my keto requirements. Usually after a day off from keto my weight goes up. The fact that it not only didn’t go up but it went down by quite a bit was amazing. And it was mostly fat. My body fat percentage went from 40.5% down to 40.1% which means I lost 2.2 pounds in fat and based on the other numbers that stayed the same the other .2 pounds lost had to be water.
At 40.1% I’m just one or two weigh ins from being under 40% body fat. Being happy about being 40% body fat, or just under, might seem a little odd until you take into account that when I started this journey on the first day of this year I was 52% body fat. So I’m nearly 12 percentage points lighter then when I started. And if I make the same drop in the second half of the year I’ll be at around 28% body fat, almost half of what I started.
Looking back over the last week it’s easy to see what the culprit is for this surprise drop. I’ve been really good about my exercise this week. I’ve added two things that are really speeding the weight loss up. The first is I started making better use of the dip station I bought. I still can’t push my body weight up yet so what I started doing was locking my arms, picking my feet up off the ground, and then slowly lowering myself until I dropped. I could do this for a couple times before I’d go straight to dropping. This is good, but last week I decided to add another twist. When I get to the point where I just drop I switched to locking my arms out and then bring my knees up high as I can and then lower them. This is giving me a great ab workout, plus tuckers out the arms, strengthening my upper body better.
The other things I started doing last week is going from walking to walking with jogging sprints interspersed along the way. It’s not a wholesale HIIT workout but it certainly moves in that direction. And I think the results speak for themselves. Clearly I’m burning more fat during the week then what I was during the previous weeks. So I’ll be keeping up this practice. I’m getting better each time, being able to jog a little faster for a little longer on each run.
This wraps up this weeks weigh in. The next one will be just a few days away as this one got posted late due to the internet outage. See you again for the next weigh in, and tomorrow for my next daily post.
So I’ve been a little busy the last two days and didn’t realize I had skipped the update on my progress. For that I apologize. Keeping accountable on here is important to me and I shouldn’t be allowing it to get lost in the rush.
As expected this week was actually a gain in weight. The Wednesday before was my monthly day off from keto so I knew I would be heavier this weigh in. I had seriously considered cancelling or putting off this month’s day off because I had just gotten back under 300 for the first time in who knows how long last weigh in and didn’t feel like immediately going back over. In the end I decided that not doing the day off for that reason would go against what I’ve said all along, which is don’t focus on one number, focus on the whole journey. So what if I went over again because past experience with my days off show me that I’ll lose it right back. So why deny myself the plan I set because of one silly number, 300. Which is a great movie by the way if you haven’t seen it.
When I did my weigh in Monday morning my faith in my game plan was rewarded. On previous days off I put on an average of 3 pounds each time. On this one I only gained a pound. So I weighed in at 300.2 lbs and 41.8% body fat. So I only went up .3% body fat. I gain a little more then a pound of body fat if you run the numbers, so I had to lose a little water or muscle to account for the difference. As it was less then half a pound I’m ok with that because that difference could be accounted for by the slight inaccuracies of weighing in. Which is another good reason not to get caught up with the numbers of a single weigh in.
I think that the reason I only put on one more pound this time around is because I’ve been doing a lot better with my exercise. I invested in one of those plastic aerobic steps with the adjustable height. The one I got has a 300 lb limit so I realize I am technically over it. Since I know I’ll be below 300 lbs soon I think it can take the extra .2 lbs for a week. It was a $45 investment, mainly because it’s designed to be extra sturdy. The best part is there is now no excuse for not working out. Can’t say I didn’t get to the gym, because the step is right here in my bedroom. Can’t say I couldn’t because it’s raining outside because I have a good roof over my head. Can’t say I don’t want to disturb my family because I can do this in the privacy of my room. So no more excuses. I’m only on the 3rd day of my tracking week and I’ve already gotten 5 workouts in totaling 1 hour 7 minutes. So I’m thinking the weigh in this upcoming Monday is going to be great. Until then take care and be happy.
As part of my Keto journey I decided to give myself one day off from Keto a month. The reason being it makes for a bit of a pressure release for any cravings I might feel the rest of the month. By giving myself a free day where I can enjoy things guilt free I’m easily able to put off my cravings the rest of the month. But I wanted to share a few thoughts about cheat days.
FIrst, I think the frequency of them is important. If you try to have a cheat day every week I think you’re dooming yourself to failure. In a seven day week if one of the days is definitely not keto you’re down to six days of keto tops, obviously. But tops is the key here. Once you get yourself out of ketosis you have to get yourself back into ketosis. That’s going to run you at least a day, maybe more. So now it’s a 5 days of ketosis max deal. And it’s possible you’ll take a couple days to get back in so you may be down to 4 days of ketosis. Half a week in and half a week out isn’t the way to go if you want to make progress. And, although I’m not a doctor or researcher, I’m pretty sure that going back and forth like that between ketones and glucose isn’t good for the body.
So I chose one day a month because even if I do take a couple days to get back in I’m getting over 26 days of ketosis for the month on a short month. And that’s if it takes me two days, which brings me to my second point.
I don’t take long to get back into ketosis because on the day after my cheat day I do a fast. Doing a fast puts me right back into ketosis by the end of the next day. On the outside I can use a day of fasting and exogenous ketones and I’m right back into ketosis. So it’s a trade off based on making adult choices. Which is why after referring to it as a cheat day most of this post I’ll let you in on this secret, I hate the name cheat day. Cheating to me means you’re doing something you know you shouldn’t be doing. That’s cheating in my mind. I’m not cheating, I’m taking a day off because I’m an adult and I choose to do so. I’ve weighed the consequences and don’t feel one day a month is going to hurt my progress enough to make it not worth it.
Sorry if this was a little meandering. I usually just type these out as I think them up. In the future I’ll try to edit them a bit better. Last order of business. As I mentioned before I do use exogenous ketones to help get back into ketosis. The one I use the most because I like the flavor and the feeling I have after I take it is Julian Bakery InstaKetones in the Orange flavor (with and without caffeine depending on how wiped the fast makes me feel). I am including a link to them on Amazon. To be above board and transparent this is an affiliate link. If you click it and buy it I do benefit from that financially. I want you to understand that before I place the link. I won’t recommend or link to something I don’t use or trust. Although I am ok with making money on these recommendations I don’t wish to do so at the cost of my integrity. Also, different people will react differently the same product so just because it worked well for me, or tastes good to me, doesn’t mean I can guarantee it’ll be the same for you. I’m only saying that I’ve enjoyed the product and it’s worked well for me. So here is the link if you’re interested and I thank you in advance if you make a purchase.
In the future when I post links to items I am recommending I’ll make a brief mention that it’s an affiliate link each time because I think it’s the right thing to do and you should have all the facts when deciding. But again I will only post links to things I have personally tried, have worked for me, and I would be willing to put my name on.
So there you have it. Not as quick as I’d assumed but it’s my feelings on days off from keto. If you have any questions please do comment them below and I’ll respond as quickly as I can. Take care.
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