42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

Results and conclusions from 6 week fat experiment (42 days of Keto Chow)

This entry is part 44 of 44 in the series 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

I have my analysis done on the data from my 6-week experiment doing Keto Chow for all my meals and swapping out different types of fats to see how they impact my lipid panels. It’s all chronicled over on the page about the experiment, along with an extensive array of graphs and other fun stuff.

I also proved that at least in me: eating 2000 calories a day of mostly fat with some protein I’ll lose weight. Switch that to 2000 calories of mostly carbohydrates with a little fat and the same amount of protein (and again, the same 2000 calories), I will gain weight.

Fun stuff!

Fatty Acid Composition Effects on Biomarkers and CICO on Trial

By Chris|2018-02-23T14:18:58-07:00February 23rd, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: blood test, 42dayExperiment, results, Macadamia Nut Oil, Coconut Oil, Keto Chow, science, saturated fat, nutrition, cholesterol, experience, User Experiences, Weight loss, Oil|0 Comments

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 43 (done)

This entry is part 43 of 44 in the series 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

Took my final blood test and had my final DEXA scan. I did some updates to the experiment page too. Should have the blood test results by Wednesday of next week.

By Chris|2018-02-16T15:51:37-07:00February 16th, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: video, blood test, results, nutrition, 42dayExperiment|0 Comments

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 42, done done done.
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42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 42, done done done.

42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 42, done done done.

This entry is part 42 of 44 in the series 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

Final day. Honestly could have gone longer if it wasn’t for the stupid sugar this week, the rather bad tasting Macadamia nut oil, or the gastrointestinal duress of liquid coconut oil. I’m looking forward to going back to my preferred heavy cream and avocado oil mixture. These last 2 days I have had diarrhea, it might be from the sugar – or it could be that the stomach flu is making the rounds among my kids and if I’ve managed to NOT contract it, that would be a miracle (ever tried to convince a sick kid to clean up their own throwup? Isn’t happening, buddy).

I started adding the blood tests, graphs, and other assorted data to the page about this experiment. It’s looking pretty good so far!

I got the costs for Keto Chow 2.1 this morning and I’ve been having lots of fun with spreadsheets all morning. The short version is: prices on current flavors will be the same, the new flavors are slightly more expensive to make so those will be a bit more… except the “Natural Strawberry” that’s sweetened with monk fruit instead of sucralose. That one is significantly more expensive to make and will likely be priced at or above the price of the peanut butter.

By Chris|2018-02-15T11:22:47-07:00February 15th, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: blood test, science, 42dayExperiment|1 Comment

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 41, blood tests back

This entry is part 41 of 44 in the series 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

I was watching a video by Dave Feldman (where he had to keep pausing to eat skittles, it was great) and he talked about fructose malabsorption causing him digestive issues. I don’t think I have that problem which is why I haven’t had really bad problems during this phase. Again it seems that I dodged another bullet for which I’m grateful. I’m still anxious to get back into keto. Yesterday I bought the brisket and ribs for the meetup, they’re currently in the Sous-Vide cooking for a few days and I’ll finish them in the smoker on Saturday.

Got my Coconut Oil week blood tests back – REALLY interesting stuff. I’ve entered the data into the spreadsheet (check it out!) but here are some of the highlights:

I hit an all-time low LDL-P (particle count): 567. It’s down 43% from 996 the week before. ? (you’re looking for under 1000)
All time low LDL-C: 56, down from 78. ?
I brought back down my triglycerides from 148 to 103 ? (you want this below 100)
My HDL-C went WAY up (52% to be exact): from 40 to 61 ??? (you want this as high as possible)
A1c is still steady at 4.8 ?
Fasting insulin went WAY up, from 5.2 to 8.4 – the highest I’ve recorded so far. ?

This test was the first time I saw a departure from the previous inversion pattern of LDL-C and Triglycerides which would go up and down opposite of each other. I don’t know if it was the high amount of MCTs in the coconut oil or what. Regardless, I can handily say that consuming almost entirely saturated fat for a week made my blood tests look AMAZING.

Here are some of the graphs from the spreadsheet:

By Chris|2018-02-14T11:36:53-07:00February 14th, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: nutrition, cholesterol, User Experiences, experience, video, Oil, 42dayExperiment, blood test, Coconut Oil, science, saturated fat|6 Comments

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 40!

This entry is part 40 of 44 in the series 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

So close… only 9 meals left! It’s getting harder and harder to only eat the food in my experiment. I thought I had some kind of superhuman ability to stay on track, turns out it was likely just the result of solid keto eating. Making dinner for everyone else and not eating any of it hasn’t been a problem and now it’s REALLY hard to not take a bite.

For kicks, I made a crono-o-meter “recipe” of what I’m eating this week – mostly so it would generate a nutrition label so I’d have something to show people that question what I’m eating this week. Here’s a comparison of that and when I’m doing heavy cream:

Carb Week	Heavy Cream Week

Those that say “nay” will likely take issue with the amount of sugar and sodium in the carb week, but if you click on the image and pull up the full nutrition info and check out the vitamins and everything else you’ll see it’s nutritionally complete still.

By Chris|2018-02-13T09:50:31-07:00February 13th, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: 42dayExperiment, video, science, nutrition|2 Comments

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 39, new flavors
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42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 39, new flavors

42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 39, new flavors

This entry is part 39 of 44 in the series 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

I’m down to my final few days of sugar and REALLY looking forward to getting back into keto. I decided that I’m going to make brisket and ribs for the Salt Lake and Utah Counties Keto meetup this Saturday, should be epic. My mouth isn’t hurting nearly as bad as it was and my gut is feeling better. I wonder if I messed it up so bad doing coconut oil that the carbs were a relief =)

I have the finished artwork done for Keto Chow 2.1. The packaging for the sample packages is being proofed right now and I should have the proofs for the week bags sometime tomorrow. I actually had requests in with 3 different printing places and ended up going with the one that’s a bit more expensive because they’re wicked fast compared to the other places. I announced the new flavors of Keto Chow 2.1 in the live stream I did on Friday but in case you missed it…

By Chris|2018-02-12T14:50:23-07:00February 12th, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: flavors, 42dayExperiment, ketochow2.1|7 Comments

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 38, my mouth hurts

This entry is part 38 of 44 in the series 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

One thing I forgot to mention in the video: The previous 5 weeks were a little hard to not eat the amazing keto food around me. These last 2 days I’ve started getting a nearly overwhelming compulsion to snack and eat all the things! This is new and quite unwelcome. Previously I was quite satisfied drinking my chow and done. Now I’m starting to get legitimately hungry and it’s happening all the time. It could be a function of “I’m eating sugar I could eat that handful of goldfish crackers” but I think it’s more of the sugar and my insulin sabotaging me.

My mouth is really starting to hurt. Dunno if it’s the sugar, the citric acid in the skittles, or the chewing – but inside my cheeks are pretty raw. I might need to start swallowing the skittles whole. I’m happy that I haven’t had any crazy headaches or digestive issues yet – sure it would make for a more interesting result but since I’m talking about my own comfort, I’m good with boring and just not feeling as peppy as normal with some minor bloating and flatulence thus far (oh, and my mouth hurts =).

My weight did go up a little this morning. I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t gone up far more already. I know from personal experience that my body will pretty quickly replenish glycogen (the opposite of the “whoosh” people get when starting Keto) which adds water weight rather quickly. The awesome thing about keeping this experiment isocaloric and regimented is that I’m eating the exact same amount of calories as in the previous phase of the experiment so even if I wanted to “spike” my results by eating more I couldn’t, so the results will be undeniable.

By Chris|2018-02-11T08:56:21-07:00February 11th, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: video, nutrition, 42dayExperiment|2 Comments

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 37 – full day on carbs done
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42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 37 – full day on carbs done

42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 37 – full day on carbs done

This entry is part 37 of 44 in the series 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

I’m nearly done with my experiment – too bad the worst part has just begun =( You know that feeling you would get on Halloween when you would eat all your candy and you were all “sugared out”? That’s what I feel like right now. I had 3 cans of Sprite, 3 bags of Skittles and a bag of M&Ms yesterday during my meals of Keto Chow laced with Dextrose. For comparison, here’s what my Cron-O-Meter looked like Thursday compared to Yesterday:

I’m at 1707% of my net carbs, fantastic! =) It’ll be interesting to see what happens with my weight this week on carbs. The whole reason I’m doing this week of carbs is to put another nail in the coffin of CICO (the theory that all that matters for weight loss is the number of calories) since I’m getting 2000 calories a day (+/- 10) every day of the 6-week experiment. As of yesterday morning, I was officially down 20.7lbs over the course of the 5 week experiment. My guess is that I’m going to gain a significant amount of that 20lbs back over the next few days. I also got a chance to work on the presentation about the experiment:

By Chris|2018-02-10T10:11:16-07:00February 10th, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: video, Keto Chow, 42dayExperiment, Weight loss|5 Comments

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 36: Carb Week Begins (with a live stream)
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42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 36: Carb Week Begins (with a live stream)

42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 36: Carb Week Begins (with a live stream)

This entry is part 36 of 44 in the series 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

https://youtu.be/w_MnfN8KWp4

OK, here we go!

You can view my glucose tests as I take them on the “Sugar” tab of the spreadsheet here.

By Chris|2018-02-09T13:19:02-07:00February 9th, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: Coconut Oil, science, saturated fat, nutrition, User Experiences, experience, video, 42dayExperiment, Oil, blood test|0 Comments

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 35, last day of coconut oil, macadamia nut oil results back

This entry is part 35 of 44 in the series 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

OK, I can do this… it’s the last day. I thought I was doing better with the Liquid Coconut Oil – until this morning. I was woken up at 2 and didn’t get back to sleep until 3:30 or so. I’m really happy that I installed a bidet in that bathroom. Why is this happening? I have a couple theories:

Still might be a stomach flu, I’m not ruling that out.
The sheer amount of MCTs in the carrington farms liquid coconut oil (about 33-34ml per shake) is about as much as I used to have in an entire day back before I started the experiment, multiply that by 3 and it’s rather serious. At least it’s fewer than the 190+ ml I started with last Friday.
The aforementioned MCT builds up or something? dunno but it was pretty bad.

Anyhow, tomorrow starts carb week. I’m actually having a bit of trouble finding a store that sells the bags of skittles I want. Costco only has giant bags, Sams-Club has vending machine packages of 50 (I need 20) and Walmart only has larger “share size” ones. I’ll try a local grocery store later today. This is nearly as bad as when I had to go to 4 stores to find a Runts banana to use in the product pictures. I’m planning on testing my glucose a bunch of times before and after I eat the sugar tomorrow, and I’ll likely do a live feed on a few of the social platforms. Wish me luck!

Last thing: I got back the blood work from my week of Macadamia Nut oil (high in monounsaturated fats) – it was a good enough result I called Dave Feldman and got to take up 22 minutes of his valuable time talking about it. You can view the results here for yourself (column Q). The short version is: it looks like my triglycerides respond to monounsaturated fats. Be sure to check out the “Chris Charts” tab at the bottom for easier to understand charts. It has all my tests plotted out nicely. Of note is the “Lipids 1” graph:

Avocado oil is quite high in MUFAs, Macadamia is higher. It’s also interesting to see Triglycerides and LDL-C running on an inversion pattern: one goes up, the other goes down in lock-step. The interesting thing about all this is it’s only happening to me in my n=4 experiment:

I’m the yellow line.

By Chris|2018-02-08T13:21:58-07:00February 8th, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: blood test, Coconut Oil, 42dayExperiment|0 Comments