Keto Success Stories & Experiments

Beverly’s Week 11 (Week 5 of Science)

This entry is part 12 of 16 in the series 100 Days of Keto Chow - Beverly's Experience

My 100-day experiment of eating “only Keto Chow” continues with today being Day 78!!  We are well into the final quarter of the challenge.  When hearing Chris say in today’s video that there are 22 days remaining, I felt like “only 22 days”?  Wow, this is really almost finished.  Three weeks is nothing compared to 14!  At this point, I feel I could continue indefinitely.  This has once again become a comfortable habit and routine for me (I have done this before and for longer than this!).  However, I am certainly looking forward to incorporating a few of my favorite keto meals into each week.  My neglected husband probably can’t remember the last time we ate out together, and I know we will both be looking forward to that.  I honestly can’t remember the last time we ate out either.  We went out to eat a few times during the first month (well, he ate and I drank a beverage) but we have not been out recently.  I find myself contemplating which meal (or meals) I will enjoy that first weekend… sausage and cheese omelet, pizza toppings, buffalo wings, chef salad, cheeseburger, taco toppings, grilled chicken caesar salad?

This week was the first week of the science phase using MCT oil.  This ingredient has posed no problems or challengers for me.  I notice absolutely no difference between using avocado oil and now using avocado oil and MCT oil.  For each 3 shakes, I use 6 tablespoons of oil to get the right amount of calories for me.  So for this phase of the experiment, I am replacing 1 tablespoon of those 6 with MCT oil.  I have not noticed any change in energy level nor any digestion concerns (I am still taking a probiotic).  There is no flavor difference.  The only thing I have noticed is my daily ketone level has increased significantly.  This number is not necessarily important to me but I do find it interesting.  I have never seen readings in the 3s before.

AVERAGE DAILY KETONE LEVEL
Week 1 of science with cream: 2.5
Week 2 of science with cream: 2.7
Week 1 of science with avocado oil: 2.5
Week 2 of science with avocado oil: 2.8
Week 1 of science with avocado oil & MCT oil: 3.2



So what will the average be next week?
What will the average be while on butter?
I am curious.

My personal dietary journey this week has not varied.  I am a creature of habit (aren’t we all?).   I eat the majority of my 1200 calories between 4:00-8:00 p.m.  I do allow myself one 16 oz. coffee with 1 tablespoon heavy cream (50 calories) in the morning, and I drink bouillon pretty much any time I want to (5 calories per cube).  I drink lots of diet soda and sparkling water.  I go to yoga 3 or 4 times each week.

My weight loss remains at exactly -15 pounds as of Tuesday morning (same as last week) but I did see -16.8 pounds a day or two ago so I continue to be hopeful to keep going in that direction but I am not holding my breath.  It is very likely that my body is finding the final weight where it wants to stop losing.  I have heard that can happen.  Or maybe it is just “pausing” again before the next stretch.  Time will tell.

My dear husband is traveling on business this week so I have enjoyed a few quiet evenings alone at home watching movies he might not want to watch.  As always, I enjoy my mug of warmed Keto Chow as my last meal of every day.  I call it my daily “dessert”.  It is thick and rich – I slowly eat it with a spoon, savoring every bit.  This week, I have been loving on the Snickerdoodle flavor.  I have found that cinnamon does not mix in well if I add it right before drinking my shake so, instead, I add an extra amount of cinnamon while the shake mixture is in the blender and it’s perfect!

My husband and I have a weekend away planned for March 29.  I had been thinking in my mind all along that I would still be on oil as my fat source so I would just have my pre-mixed shakes ready to go the night before to put in my lunch box like last time we traveled.  But… uh, oh… March 29 will be Day 1 of using BUTTER as my fat source.  This will not be as easy as I thought – I can’t pre-mix shakes with butter!  So I called the hotel to inquire if a refrigerator and microwave were provided in each room.  Good thing I called because those items were NOT already included.  (Really?!)  For a fee of $20 each, they can be reserved and added to the room.  So, whatever.  I will pay another $40 per night since both items will be necessary as I will be making my shakes on-site at meal times.  I am looking forward to the two-week butter phase though.  Not only will it signal the closing of this experiment, but I think it will be delicious!

100 Days of Keto (Chow) Day 78

This entry is part 84 of 107 in the series 100 Days of Keto Chow

We had an absolutely fantastic time on our Facebook live last night with our special guest Caitlyn of Cayt’s Meats and Meals, I’ll have the UHD4K recording uploaded to YouTube later today. A bunch of her followers joined the broadcast so I had to explain why I was crazy and not eating smoked meat for the first 100 days of 2019 =) We did announce at the end of the live that we’re going to double-down on this week’s “Flavor of the week” and we changed the Pumpkin Spice Caramel to 20% off. If you, or someone you know, are a “basic white girl” and loves that pumpkin spice – now is the time to stock up. Get 4 of any flavor of the 21 meal bags and there’s an additional 5% discount. I believe the expiration date on the back of the bags is August 2020.

The 100-day experiment/challenge/lunacy of eating only Keto Chow for all my meals is still going exceptionally well. My newly crowned tooth from last week is still hurting if I chew gum or drink something cold so I’m going to just lay-off the sugar-free gum for a while, again: this was good timing. Oddly enough, even though I’m eating the same amount of calories and the same food every day; the scale showed me going UP about a pound today. I’m sure it’ll come back off tomorrow (water is as water does!) but it’s interesting never the less.

On a side note: January is typically our biggest month… until March comes around which is our biggest month… until July comes around (and so forth). Anyhow, January: it’s important that we have inventory on-hand in January for the surge that comes with the new year resolutions because otherwise, it sucks. BUT, there’s a reason that companies do “inventory reduction” sales in December. As a “pass-through” tax entity (LLC filing as an S-Corp), any on-hand inventory that Keto Chow has on December 31 is passed through TO ME as straight income, just like it was cash sitting in my bank account. It’s like an awesome “bonus”… of taxes. It all works out in the end eventually since that’s money I will not be taxed on for 2019, but it’s still no fun to cover right now. Added bonus: I get to pay estimated tax on that “income” every quarter of 2019 too!

By |2019-03-20T09:03:45-06:00March 20th, 2019|Categories: 100 Days of Keto Chow, Weight Loss|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments

100 Days of Keto (Chow) Day 77

This entry is part 83 of 107 in the series 100 Days of Keto Chow

Well, I am feeling MUCH better today. I still am not feeling well enough to do the workout, which is a shame since we got pretty close to never missing a day of our P90 workout routine, even when we went to Denver we still did it.

https://youtu.be/XefCTSQgdsw

I keep forgetting that I’m having new people find these posts and videos so let me sum up what I’m doing: I’m eating only Keto Chow for all of my meals every day. That means 3 meals a day. I’m not taking any other vitamin supplements. I am taking the Omega 3 pills that are recommended if you are eating only Keto Chow (since that’s not included). I’m also taking some magnesium and melatonin at night. I do chew sugar-free gum and occasionally eat a few pickles, mostly for the salt. All of my calories are coming in the form of Keto Chow.

By |2019-03-19T10:48:15-06:00March 19th, 2019|Categories: 100 Days of Keto Chow, Weight Loss|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments

100 Days of Keto (Chow) Day 76

This entry is part 82 of 107 in the series 100 Days of Keto Chow

Yesterday was the 3/4 mark for my 100 days of eating only Keto Chow for all my food every day. As of this morning, I’m down 38.2lbs, I cut 2 inches off my belt, I’ve lost 4 inches from my lower waist, 1.25 inches from my neck (and 1.25 from my “Upper Arm Right” among other places =). The experiment is still going really well, though I did come down with a cold over the weekend (apparently I’m one of the cool kids since a bunch of other people got sick following Low Carb Denver). Being sick the last few days hasn’t been fun at all, doesn’t have anything to do with the experiment though. Remember, if you need to sneeze: you should sneeze into the back of your knee =)

On Saturday we had our monthly Utah Keto Meat-Up. If you’re not close enough to come to ours, see if there’s one in your local area. If there isn’t one, make one! That’s what I did a year and a half ago, mostly because all of the ones that were nearby had only met twice and were sponsored by MLM exogenous ketone sellers. I took a few photos and counted how many people came, I think there were 38-41 people in attendance. We might need to move to a larger space if this keeps up! Next meet-up I won’t be only having Keto Chow, guess it’ll be time for me to smoke another brisket =)

By |2019-03-18T10:10:40-06:00March 18th, 2019|Categories: 100 Days of Keto Chow, Weight Loss|Tags: , , , , , |1 Comment

100 Days of Keto (Chow) Day 75

This entry is part 81 of 107 in the series 100 Days of Keto Chow

Wow, I didn’t realize I was officially at the 3/4 mark until I was talking about it at dinner tonight. Only 25 days left. As customary on a Sunday, this is a really short post, I’ll probably wax philosophical about it all more tomorrow. Enjoy your night!

By |2019-03-17T20:29:15-06:00March 17th, 2019|Categories: 100 Days of Keto Chow, Weight Loss|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments

100 Days of Keto (Chow) Day 74

This entry is part 80 of 107 in the series 100 Days of Keto Chow

Looking at the scale I’m now down 37.1 lbs from when I started on January 2. More importantly, I also took off the buckle on my rachet belt and cut off 2 inches, then reattached the buckle. Turns out that many good quality belts can be trimmed this way.

We have our Utah Keto Meat-up today, I’m making Keto Chow biscuits and also making sausage and heavy cream gravy so everyone can have biscuits and gravy. Should be stellar. The meat-ups are always fun and we’ve had a steadily increasing number of people coming each time. Do yourself a favor and head over to meetup.com and see if there’s one in your local area, and if there isn’t: make one! That’s what I did about a year and a half ago.

By |2019-03-16T12:07:20-06:00March 16th, 2019|Categories: 100 Days of Keto Chow, Weight Loss|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments

100 Days of Keto (Chow) Day 73

This entry is part 79 of 107 in the series 100 Days of Keto Chow

So I’m really quite glad that I am doing an all-liquid diet right now. I got a crown on one of my molars yesterday (failing filling FTW!) and haven’t needed to chew anything. This morning I grabbed some sugar-free gum and it’s still quite sore, not a problem at all! I believe I’m also coming down with a cold or something, probably picked it up last week in Denver. The interesting thing is that illness is very likely to massively change my blood test results so the blood test I did this morning before I came into work is likely to reflect the illness.

Today I have a bunch of stuff to finish up, I also picked up the ingredients to make Keto Chow Drop Biscuits for the biscuits and gravy I’m making for tomorrow’s Keto Meat-Up. I’m editing down an interiew we did with Megan Ramos about our electrolyte supplements, it’s really fantastic stuff. Finally, at Low Carb Denver we met a really nice lady from Australia that seemed to quite like Keto Chow. On the final day I made sure to let her know that we were going to need to either pour out the samples we had for people to drink or it would be wasted so she got quite a lot. Turns out she’s Jessica Turton, I’ve even listened to her on several podcasts and simply didn’t recognize who she was. I’m claiming the dental braces made her look really young so I have an excuse. She posted on her personal blog today and gave us a shout-out, which was very nice:

Between talks there was plenty of time to chat and network with the presenters, vendors and attendees. And if you are a lover of food samples (like me) then you would have been loving the vendors at this event. There is nothing better than a vendor that has almost an unlimited supply of food samples… Never trust anyone selling food that is stingy with their samples! I have to give a massive shout out to the team at Keto Chow for keeping me so damn satiated across the three days. These guys do keto meal replacement shakes that actually taste good! If you have had a consult with me you’ll know that I don’t like recommending protein shakes or meal replacement products, but since working long hours in clinical practice myself (and having braces…) I have come to realise the important role that high-quality meal replacement shakes can play in many of our busy lives. The team at Keto Chow continued to fill my little sample cup up with delicious flavours like choc mint, eggnog and pumpkin pie (oh my gosh yum!).

By |2019-03-15T09:52:53-06:00March 15th, 2019|Categories: 100 Days of Keto Chow, Weight Loss|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments

100 Days of Keto (Chow) Day 72

This entry is part 78 of 107 in the series 100 Days of Keto Chow

This morning I need to go to my dentist and get a crown put onto a tooth, that’s fun stuff. I was just there 10 days ago! I did look at my logs and I’ve lost 4.5lbs since the last time I was there at the dentist, that’ll be fun when they ask =) I’m actually down 39.4 lbs from January 2 at this point. I also donned my Zozo Suit this morning and took measurements. I have those in the “Zozo Suit” tab of my experiment spreadsheet, key takeaway: I’ve lost about 4 inches from my mid-section. I also got my lab results back from the blood test I did in Colorado last week, turns out I’m still alive. My LDL (C and P) have come down quite a lot, unfortunately so has my HDL. I don’t really care about LDL but I do care about triglycerides (which are coming down, that’s good) and HDL (which should be much higher). I suspect it’ll continue down during the remainder of the avocado oil portion and come up drastically when I switch to butter as a fat source.

https://youtu.be/6fHt7aVMOvo

Yesterday I mixed up the next week’s worth of Keto Chow for the Avocado Oil plus MCT oil phase. I’m replacing 15ml of the avocado oil with MCT, so 45 + 15 = 60ml of oil still. I did notice something during our trip to Colorado. When we mixed up the Keto Chow for people to sample, we used a 2-quart pitcher and an immersion blender to mix 3 meals at a time. When I mix up Keto Chow with avocado oil in a blender bottle by hand, just shaking it, the color comes through really strong compared to how it looks with heavy cream. When I mix up Keto Chow with avocado oil with an immersion blender, the oil is emulsified a lot more and it looks really close to the same as the heavy cream. It also has a better texture and doesn’t separate out as much. Anyway, that’s how I did my mixing yesterday. I would put a little water in the bottom of the pitcher, measure 3 meals worth of the oils and add them, add 3 scoops of powder, add water and blend it up, then add the rest of the water to the 2-quart mark and finish blending it. It was quick and effective.

By |2019-03-14T08:18:36-06:00March 14th, 2019|Categories: 100 Days of Keto Chow, Weight Loss|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments

Beverly’s Week 10 (Week 4 of Science)

This entry is part 11 of 16 in the series 100 Days of Keto Chow - Beverly's Experience

Another great week on this 100 day challenge is complete.  In a sense, it is not even challenging.  I am back to a mental place where this is easy, and I know longer feel extra hungry like I did last week.  I had thought that the avocado oil was less filling for me but now I do not think that at all since I am having an easy week.  I am sure that my body fluctuates and has differing levels of hunger sensations despite the fact that I am eating exactly the same amount and type of calories every single day and living at the exact same level of activity every week.  That only makes sense but is frustrating when I feel more hungry.

Every weekday morning of this challenge (aside from the days I was out of town), I have packed my lunch box with one Keto Chow shake, two diet sodas, and three sparkling waters (because that is what fits in it perfectly!).  I add some Blue Ice mini freezer blocks on top of the canned drinks.  The front of my lunch box has a zipper pouch which perfectly contains my Keto Mojo supplies.  With this, I am all set for the day though I usually buy more diet soda during my lunch break and/or from the vending machine in my office building.  This is the same lunch box I used last week for my two-day trip with my husband.  I placed six Keto Chow shakes in this box (three for each day) and used a different container to carry all my other beverages.

By yesterday morning’s scale reading, I have lost 15 pounds.  But Tuesday morning, the scale indicated I had lost 16.2 so I am excitedly headed back there and beyond.

Over the weekend, I told my great husband with a chuckle, “It really will not matter when the 100 day challenge is over – I am still going to be drinking Keto Chow every day!”  The difference will be that I will usually drink it for two meals a day instead of three.  Plus, I will not be tracking every calorie and data point with such precision and compulsion.  I will no longer check my ketones and glucose every afternoon.  I will no longer weigh myself every morning.  And I will no longer go to LabCorp every Friday morning!

But there are still four weeks remaining…  I am almost half way through the science portion of this project!  I completed two weeks with heavy whipping cream and am now almost finished with avocado oil.  Starting on Friday, I will be replacing a portion of the avocado oil with MCT oil.  I will do that for two weeks followed by two weeks with butter.

MCT oil will be new for me.  Other than measuring a tablespoon into my coffee every morning during a short phase a few years ago after a friend told me it gave her great energy, I have never used it.  The bottle I had purchased back then was eventually discarded and now a new one has been purchased for use Thursday night when I do my meal prepping for the coming week.  I am interested to see if MCT oil affects my energy level, if it upsets my digestion, if it changes any of my cholesterol numbers, or if anything else noticeable occurs.

My husband’s most recent favorite mix is Chocolate / Strawberry.  His previous favorite had been Chocolate / Caramel.  (The side photo shows an extra scoop of unflavored protein powder on top that I add to his shakes since his macros require more protein than mine do.)  Last night, he mentioned a concern that we are using up our canister of Chocolate too quickly since he likes Chocolate mixed with ALL of his flavors.  No worries – I plan ahead for such things and have three bags of Chocolate in the pantry.  Chocolate is the only flavor I keep “stocked up” on.  The other flavors are only ordered after they run out (or slightly before if I notice it and want to replace it right away), but Chocolate is a must-have.  If we only ever had Chocolate, my husband would be fine with that.  I like it but I enjoy several of the non-Chocolate flavors more and think they offer better variability for my tastes.

If you want to contact me, please post a comment on this page or remember you can easily find me through Facebook or Reddit.

p.s.  If you are a numbers geek or want to see how the cholesterol lab tests are comparing, go look at Chris’ spreadsheet.  I am “Female 3” and have my own tab.  There are charts on a different tab named “100 Days of Keto Charts”.

100 Days of Keto (Chow) Day 71

This entry is part 77 of 107 in the series 100 Days of Keto Chow

Day 71 has been interesting so far. It’s snowing. A Lot. I went to leave for work and there were about 3 inches and it’s still falling hard. From yesterday (Day 70), to today, I apparently lost 2.8 lbs. That brings my total loss to 33.7 lbs. I’m using the same scale as always but it’s like I had a temporary increase that is now gone. Anyhow. I totally forgot to eat breakfast Yesterday, ate around 2, then at 5, and then at 9:30 I realized I had only eaten twice. Under normal circumstances, I would have called it a night but I’m maintaining caloric intake during this experiment so I ate at 9:30 pm. I don’t like eating that late.

We did our weekly Facebook live last night. Answered some good questions, talked about the Carnivore Conference and Low Carb Denver. Today we get to go sign our taxes and get those sent off. Love it! We also have a new employee starting here today.

By |2019-03-13T08:49:14-06:00March 13th, 2019|Categories: Weight Loss, 100 Days of Keto Chow|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments