42dayExperiment

2018 year in review, National Keto Day discount

In case you were unaware, January 5 is “National Keto Day.” Sure it’s a bit contrived and all but whatever! In celebration of National Keto Day, here’s a coupon for 5% off any single order: KetoDay2019 (only works once per person and expires tomorrow night, January 6 – midnight central time I think). Go eat some bacon and avocados today… unless you’re doing like I am and only eating Keto Chow for the next 96 days =)

2018 was an interesting year for all of us at Keto Chow.

More stuff happened, this is what I easily found by looking through my blog posts! I’m suspecting that 2019 will be just as exciting.

Chris on the FanPress podcast – the history of Keto Chow, nutrition, and more

This entry is part 115 of 131 in the series Ketogenic Diet

This podcast was recorded a while ago (January 28, 2018 to be specific), took Steve a while to get it posted – probably because it went kinda REALLY long. I have to say: this is by far one of my favorite podcast interviews so far. Steve let me (over) indulge myself and give a rather complete history of Keto Chow and my journey thus far. It was also nice to be talking to someone who really likes what I’m doing. I just checked my email and I have one from him way back from May 2015! This one will be tough to beat. It goes on rather long at nearly an hour and a half but if you’re up for it, I recommend checking it out!

http://fanpress.co/show3/

Keto Chow at the Low Carb Breckenridge 2018 Conference

This entry is part 111 of 131 in the series Ketogenic Diet

We returned yesterday from the Low Carb Breckenridge. It was really an awesome time. We met a lot of great people, hung out at the “cool kids” party house, ate some yummy fat (along with a little protein =) – I consider it a rousing success and I still haven’t even gone through the stack of annotated business cards to follow up with people yet! Photo Gallery:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tvZBAtxJoqfjR8qH3

I had a chance to do a “5 Minutes of Fame” quick presentation about my most recent experiment – ended up at 2:47 which left extra time for Siobhan Huggins to go 6:57 =)

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!

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 |2018-02-15T11:22:47-07:00February 15th, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: , , |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:

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

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 |2018-02-12T14:50:23-07:00February 12th, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: , , |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 |2018-02-11T08:56:21-07:00February 11th, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: , , |2 Comments