Recommended reading for those starting Keto; Keto Chow at the construction site
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Recommended reading for those starting Keto; Keto Chow at the construction site

Ketogenic Diet, Keto Chow

3 years of powdered food – from People Chow to Keto Chow

This entry is part 34 of 35 in the series DIY Future Foods

On January 13, 2014 I did the first post on my blog about trying nutritionally complete “future foods”. It corresponds to my first submission on Reddit (my reddit “cake day” is January 9, 2014 BTW). The Image up top is of my very first batch of powdered food, People Chow 2.3.0 at the time (I still have all 3 of those blender bottles, used the yellow one yesterday). It’s been an interesting journey. You can read some of my earlier “in review” posts if you want the full story:

January 22nd, 2014: DIY soylent – Week 1
February 18th, 2014: 1 month on DIY nutritionally complete “future foods”
June 18th, 2014: My thoughts on (s)oylent – this one is interesting because it’s the first mention of a ketogenic diet
June 19th, 2014: First order in the shopping cart: Rob P. ordered a week of People Chow.
November 4th, 2014: The Nuclear Option: Ketogenic nutritionally complete “future foods”
November 18th, 2014: 1 month in doing Ketosis – Time for an update
December 23rd, 2014: 3 months of Keto – update
January 1st, 2015: New ketogenic recipe in development, it’s moar betterer – first mention of Keto Chow recipe
January 6th, 2015: A year in review – 365 days doing (mostly) nutritionally complete “future foods”
January 29th, 2015: Changing stuff around here – added credit card payments and announced I was stopping selling People Chow
April 21st, 2015: 6 months of Keto, I’m 81% the man I used to be
October 20th, 2015: 1 Year of Keto, 77% the man I used to be
September 21st, 2016: NMR Cholesterol Blood Test Results: I’m still alive (what a relief!) – 2.5 years of blood tests compared

3 years ago I weighed 260lbs (I’m 5′ 13″), my low point was at 200 in October 2015. I slacked off and did “lazy keto” without tracking my intake, just sticking to low-carb foods, and you can see that on my graph:

Recently I re-committed to getting back on track for realsies. It’s a bit pathetic: I know exactly what I need to do to lose weight – it’s rather simple so I should just do it, which I am. Since January 1, 2017, I haven’t eaten anything until after I logged it in Cron-O-Meter. Unsurprisingly, it’s working quite well. Guess I should have read my own stuff =) I was at a post-new year’s high of 223.7 and now I’m at 215 after a week and a half.

You can expect to see my weight graph more frequently now as it goes down further (and I’m less ashamed of the trend =). So there you have it: 3 years of blogging about “Engineered Staple Food” aka “soylent” – this post is number 371.

By Chris|2018-06-26T08:47:11-06:00January 13th, 2017|Categories: Ketogenic Diet, Keto Chow, Future Foods, Weight Lifting|Tags: preparation, experience, Weight loss, results, ketogenic, Keto Chow, User Experiences|0 Comments

Tracking Net Carbs and more using Cron-O-Meter
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Tracking Net Carbs and more using Cron-O-Meter

Ketogenic Diet, Keto Chow

Tracking Net Carbs and more using Cron-O-Meter

This entry is part 69 of 131 in the series Ketogenic Diet

One of my main New Year resolutions is not to eat anything until AFTER I have it entered into a tracking app. In the past I’ve used MyFitnessPal (hereafter referred to as MFP) – it works fine, has pretty good social sharing so friends can see what you want them to see; and they have a massive user-contributed database of foods. The website and app are free (though they hit you up pretty hard to buy the premium membership). It’s kinda like the wild west so far as their food database is concerned, though: anybody can add any food with any information. If you look in MFP for “Keto Chow” you’ll find several dozen entries, some that I made =) MFP does have some serious shortcomings though. First and largest is that user-contributed database, it has a lot of good stuff in there but it also has a lot of junk: entries with incorrect or incomplete information, duplicates, and more, including linking barcodes to incorrect products. Sure there’s an entry for food X, but you have to verify the information – it’s about the same as entering it yourself anyway, advantage lost. MFP also doesn’t know how to track net carbs, only total carbohydrates (including fiber). There is a Chrome browser script that you can use to add net carbs to MFP but it doesn’t work with mobile and is a bit of a hack.

By comparison, there’s Cron-O-Meter (hereafter referred to as CM) – free via browser, paid as an app with barcode scanning. The biggest difference with CM is the food database is curated – it only has validated, correct entries. It also has a lot more detailed information. You can add your own foods and recipes that combine foods together – if you buy the “gold” membership you can share foods and recipes with friends. CM also added a Ketogenic Diet mode back in March 2016 (I even posted to /r/keto about it =) – it’ll help you track net carbs and other nutrients. Set your macronutrient targets and go! I recommend CM over MFP for these two features alone. The problem becomes: How do you get custom foods into CM? ~~I have the process for getting Keto Chow officially added to the database going but that could take years! The solution is to add it yourself with some handy information I’ll give you.~~

To start off, you’re going to want to add an entry for just the 50g of Keto Chow powder. You can refer to the entry I created for Keto Chow 1.9 Rich Chocolate. If you add new food, there’s a gear icon on the far right that you can import a JSON file with the nutritional information so you don’t have to type it all.

UPDATE: The developer of Cron-O-Meter contacted me and said I should just submit all the flavors for publication in the general database. I had previously tried that but nothing ever happened. About 15 minutes after I submitted them they were approved and ready to use. So you can now simply search for “Keto Chow” in Cron-o-Meter! END UPDATE.

I was excited to find an entry already in CM for “Darigold, Whipping Cream, Heavy Classic 40%” which is the stuff I get from Costco in 2-quart packages. BUT the entry was missing a key element: the 0.48g of carbs per serving I know are in there. The solution was to find the USDA entry for “Cream, fluid, heavy whipping” and edit a copy with the specific values on the Darigold label (since the Darigold has more calories and fat at 40% fat instead of the standard 36%) see here for the complete entry I created.

OK, so you have an entry for the powder and the heavy cream. You can enter the powder and cream separately every day (tedious) or you can bundle the heavy cream into a “recipe” with the powder. I created a recipe that includes the powder, heavy cream and MCT oil (since I use MCT oil, I’ve been at this 2 years =) – you can check it out here. Now every time I want to add Rich Chocolate Keto Chow the way I like to mix it up, I just add 1 full recipe of “Keto Chow 1.9 Rich Chocolate plus 50ml heavy cream and MCT”. What about Chocolate Peanut Butter? Since it’s my #1 favorite flavor of all time you gotta know I have a recipe for that too! I made a custom food entry for “Peanut Flour Light Roast 28%“. I cloned the Rich Chocolate recipe and added 10g of the peanut flour to give me “Keto Chow 1.9 Peanut Butter plus 50ml heavy cream and MCT“. In case you’re curious, here are the entries for KC2.0 Chocolate+heavy cream and MCT and the corresponding KC2.0 Chocolate Peanut Butter. Finally, make sure you are getting your Ω-3 fatty acids – here’s an entry for the new Keto Chow Fish Oil pills .

One thing to note about CM: If you edit a food entry you created, the change will propagate back to previous days. This is handy for fixing an error you discovered but sucks for revisions. The solution is to edit a copy of the food, then “retire” the outdated one. The existing entries will remain unchanged and the old food will not show up as a suggested entry when you add food to your diary.

Here are my entries for yesterday (January 2, 2017):

The target values were derived from the Keto Macro Calculator coupled with some details I got from my DEXA scan last year.

By Chris|2020-05-21T13:50:10-06:00January 3rd, 2017|Categories: Ketogenic Diet, Keto Chow|Tags: myfitnesspal, Keto Chow, flavors, nutrition, ketochow2.0, cron-o-meter, experience, ketogenic|6 Comments

Heavy Cream Powder, still not really suitable for Ketosis
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Heavy Cream Powder, still not really suitable for Ketosis

Ketogenic Diet, Keto Chow

Heavy Cream Powder, still not really suitable for Ketosis

This entry is part 67 of 131 in the series Ketogenic Diet

UPDATE: I have more complete information available now, check it out!

So this is something that has been asked a lot: is there a powdered cream that can be used with Keto Chow? People would like it for the convenience factor of being able to just add water. I explored this earlier with a different product – and I’m drawing the same conclusion on this one: not suitable (in my opinion).

The product in question is “Anthony’s Heavy Cream Powder” – it’s available on Amazon for $12.99 a lb. The Nutrition label shows 0g of carbs per 4g serving because anything under 0.5 gets rounded down to 0. I contacted the manufacturer and was able to get a more accurate number: 0.48g per 4g serving. I put that into my recipe calculator and came up with this handy comparison showing the powdered form vs what it would cost to get heavy cream by the quart from Wal-Mart:

calories/day	form	amount	cost	carbs from cream	final net carbs
1300 calories	powder	109g	$3.12	13.1	19.4
1800 calories	powder	176g	$5.04	21.1	27.4
2000 calories	powder	203g	$5.81	24.4	30.7
1300 calories	liquid	238ml	$1.42	6.6	12.9
1800 calories	liquid	383ml	$2.28	10.7	17
2000 calories	liquid	441ml	$2.63	12.3	18.6

So, if you use the powder, you are going to have a really hard time staying in ketosis unless that’s all you’re eating all day since it has 2x the net carbs as the liquid version. You’re also going to be paying a lot for the convenience, about twice as much. Don’t get me wrong: it is possible to use this for the primary calorie and fat source of Keto Chow and thereby have a powder that just needs water (and refrigeration); it’s just not very practical.

By Chris|2020-04-15T16:49:37-06:00November 1st, 2016|Categories: Ketogenic Diet, Keto Chow|Tags: recipe, ketogenic, Keto Chow, nutrition|3 Comments

Excellent, short, BBC documentary on low carb diets
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Excellent, short, BBC documentary on low carb diets

Weight Loss, Ketogenic Diet

Excellent, short, BBC documentary on low carb diets

This entry is part 65 of 131 in the series Ketogenic Diet

Over the weekend, a link to an excellent documentary showed up on /r/keto. It’s really a good overview of a high fat, low carb diet with a decent amount of time spent showing how to do it effectively. They do an excellent job exploring the controversies too. I would absolutely recommend it for anyone wanting to know some of the quick details of keto (and it’ll be a good intro to the junk you’re going to hear from doctors and family when you start!). For those in the US: a “stone” is 14 lbs; for those elsewhere, it’s 6.35kg – they really like their archaic weight measurements!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F8qXxjdh-4

I read through some of the comments, one thing that jumped out was his GP (primary care physician) told him she can’t say how this affected his liver and kidneys. Yeah, they have blood tests for that. I’ve gotten them. She’s hard to take serious saying things like that. She also recommended he do it for only 3 weeks. Today is my 3rd Halloween where I will not be eating any candy since I started keto 3 years ago just before Halloween. Doing it indefinitely is awesome!

Others noted that it’s ironic that all of the doctors they interviewed who advocate the government dietary guidelines are overweight and some are obese. Especially the guy in charge of the obesity clinic, if he can’t lose weight on the accepted low fat diet, how can they expect people to take their stance seriously?

I also loved this comment:

“What we are concerned about is the lack of substantial long-term evidence for it’s ease of use…”

The “ease of use” argument always gets me. The only reason you could consider a LCHF diet harder to follow is because of how everyone else eats. If we never had to go to work events, family events, or parties where there’s nothing but carbs and everyone questions our diet, it wouldn’t be hard at all! But some of these doctors/dietitians in here are saying that’s a reason to question the inherent effectiveness of the diet. Makes no sense.

If the youtube link stops working, you can also get it from here.

By Chris|2016-10-31T11:25:36-06:00October 31st, 2016|Categories: Weight Loss, Ketogenic Diet|Tags: nutrition, Weight loss, results, ketogenic, science, saturated fat|0 Comments

A Keto Chow user’s experience with controlling seizures
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A Keto Chow user’s experience with controlling seizures

Ketogenic Diet, Keto Chow

A Keto Chow user’s experience with controlling seizures

This entry is part 63 of 131 in the series Ketogenic Diet

Oct 12, 2016 a super awesome post appeared on the Keto Chow subreddit: “Keto Chow for seizure control“. This is an emotional subject for my family and it was awesome to see this post.

I asked Dan if he could email me some of his experience. He was kind enough to do so. The only editing I have done is to fix some formatting issues my blog introduced. Dan wasn’t enticed in any way for his experience though I’m deeply grateful he shared.

My name is Dan.

I was in an accident almost three years ago and received a TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury). For me this includes severe memory problems and seizures. I have occasional Tonic-Clonic Seizures (AKA convulsive, grand maul) but I mostly experience Complex Partial Seizures (AKA petit mal, focal seizure, staring-spell).

With only couple of minor seizures per day, medication was seen as a good idea, but no emergency. I was put on and taken off of a slew of medications. None were very effective (reduced seizures by only 60%) and all had terrible side effects. One rendered me unable to walk, some caused worse types of seizures, all caused serious and unacceptable emotional side effects. If people knew what these did to your thinking, they would probably not give them to children. In my opinion, these are very dangerous drugs. I found that I was at a high risk of having permanent side effects from the ASD (Anti Seizure Drugs) that were worse than the seizures, as well as increased seizure activity caused by going off the ASD. My memory impairment makes it very difficult to take medication accurately, and ASD needs to be taken on a precise schedule.

This finally ended up with my seizures increasing until in August I was having a minor seizure every 8-10 minutes and near daily convulsive ones. This makes normal function impossible and is very dangerous. My wife understood how Ketogenic diet is used in Seizure control. It is a well accepted practice in children for Refractory Seizures (Seizures unresponsive to medicine). It is unpopular in adults because they tend not to stick to the diet, though it is sometimes used with success on inpatients.

I also happened to be about 80 pounds overweight, and exercise is extremely difficult, even dangerous. (I have very little balance). So I went on a ketogenic diet, and the results were immediate. I went from more than fifty seizures a day to three days without any. My occasional seizures were very brief, and very mild. I found that the anti-seizure effect is not 100% tied to ketosis itself, so I could exceed my macros a little and it still works, but if I accidentally went way over (“sugar free” restaurant food that wasn’t) I would get a long seizure 10-12 hours later. So long as I stuck to my macros I was only getting a minor seizure every few days, better than with any medication. The only side effect? In ten weeks I have lost 60 pounds.

Let’s talk about that…

My doctor says she is happy if somebody loses ten pounds when she tells them to lose weight. Nobody, not one person, has lost anywhere near what I have without surgery. For me it has been effortless. But there were real problems too. The adaption was very difficult due to my underlying symptoms (especially electrolyte imbalances), but over quick enough. Where I was running into problems was my memory. I have a very difficult time tracking my intake, remembering which food is ok, and remembering to eat. Nausea is a daily problem that sometimes makes normal meals impossible.

I was telling my wife how I wished there was Soylent for people on Keto, and she looked around and found there is. We researched several and landed on Keto Chow. We went with Keto Chow because they seemed very honest and transparent, this was not some kickstarter-vaporware, this was a product that has been developed in cooperation with the users. You can tell there is real heart behind this product.

I ordered some vanilla and read cautionary tales about mixing techniques, texture, and mouth feel. Due to nausea I am pretty sensitive about texture. I need not have worried. I measured all the ingredients into my Blendtec and set it going on low for a minute. It was an ordinary vanilla milkshake in every sense of the word. No graininess, no aftertastes. Just milkshake. I eventually ordered other flavors, I like all I’ve tried. Chocolate peanut butter and vanilla are my faves.

Where Keto Chow really shines is how it makes Keto easy. I replace 1-3 meals a day with Keto Chow, assuring that those meals are perfect on their macros, and my electrolytes are good. When I am at my worst, when I can’t remember anything for more than a minute and can’t walk without assistance, my diet is spot on. Before Keto Chow I would play salad bar russian roulette… Hmm, will this food give me a terrible seizure? Or do I not eat and let my blood sugar go all wonky? Each Keto Chow is 33% of my day’s food I don’t have to measure, but I know it’s where it needs to be.

Yesterday was my worst day in months. I had a bad fall in a doctor’s office, had to be assisted everywhere, couldn’t keep anything straight. Because of this I did three meals of Keto Chow, at the end of the day my macros were perfect, I had not once felt hungry, and I spent no valuable cognitive resources on meal planning. My worst moments are when I absolutely need my diet dialed in, and Keto Chow makes this easy. It has turned a serious liability into a stable benefit. When my diet is well controlled I not only rapidly move towards a healthy weight, and reduce seizures, but I also get more out of physical therapy, I recover from things faster, I am less of a burden on my family.

This is about quality of life.

For those that haven’t read “Why I Make Keto Chow“, my first introduction to the ketogenic diet was when our oldest son started having seizures back in 2008. After trying most of the common anticonvulsants (with no success) the neurologist sent my wife home with some information on a dietary treatment to control the seizures. He told her that if they didn’t have success with a medication soon then we would need to try a ketogenic diet. Glancing through the information he provided, my initial reaction was “holy crap, that sounds impossible!” all of the dietary restrictions and rules were more than we could handle. We would be like this family. My wife will correct me but I think medication 16 or so (she corrected me: it was 12) was the one that finally worked to control his seizures without rendering him an effective fixture. He eventually grew and we reduced and then stopped his medication (under the guidance of a neurologist) and he hasn’t had a seizure since 2009.

2009 was a long time ago, but to this day if he makes a weird noise (as boys are want to do) that sounds at all like one of the “grand mal” seizures he had; it all comes rushing back and he gets a scolding for something innocuous like popping his jaw (and freaking out his parents). It was a difficult experience. If there is anything that I could do to aid a family going through that I wouldn’t hesitate. When I read the “Keto Chow for seizure control” post to my wife, she teared up because it’s painful remembering that and thinking about others going through it. To hear that something we have made is benefitting someone so profoundly is more validation than I can handle and I get emotional too.

Yes, that’s Deron Williams in the photo. Several Jazz players (and cheerleaders) came to visit kids at Primary Children’s Hospital where my son was after his first really bad case of seizures.

By Chris|2016-10-14T07:17:50-06:00October 13th, 2016|Categories: Ketogenic Diet, Keto Chow|Tags: User Experiences, Epilepsy, Seizures, ketogenic, Keto Chow, nutrition|3 Comments

Revised Keto Chow Brownie/Muffin recipe
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Revised Keto Chow Brownie/Muffin recipe

Ketogenic Diet, Keto Chow, Preparation

Revised Keto Chow Brownie/Muffin recipe

This entry is part 60 of 131 in the series Ketogenic Diet

My original Keto Chow brownie/bar recipe was a bit of a hack, luckily one of my readers refined the recipe and shared his changes. The result is a much better “brownie” recipe that also makes extremely good muffins. Here is the updated recipe, and here are some photos from last night:

I’ve made it “Brownie” style in a pan and then cut up but I ended up with an uncooked center section. Splitting it up into “muffins” removes that problem entirely and makes it less crumbly so it’s easier to transport. I made 6 “meals” with 3 muffins being a meal.

Personally, I like this better than the muffins made with the pancake/muffin recipe since they don’t collapse after cooling. I’m planning on making a batch next time I’m traveling since it doesn’t absolutely require refrigeration for a few days and transports easily.

By Chris|2019-05-23T08:17:16-06:00September 22nd, 2016|Categories: Ketogenic Diet, Keto Chow, Preparation|Tags: Keto Chow, on location, User Experiences, easy meals, portability, preparation, recipe, ketogenic|0 Comments

NMR Cholesterol Blood Test Results: I’m still alive (what a relief!)
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NMR Cholesterol Blood Test Results: I’m still alive (what a relief!)

Ketogenic Diet

NMR Cholesterol Blood Test Results: I’m still alive (what a relief!)

This entry is part 59 of 131 in the series Ketogenic Diet

Several months ago I got a letter from my health insurance company telling me that they thought I should start taking statins.

Number A) That’s crazy!

Number B) No freaking way am I taking statins, given what I know about their side effects.

Number C) Are we looking at the same results? Because the ones I’m looking at are awesome.

It was time for me to go to my doctor and I had decided it was time to get either a VAP or an NMR Lipid Profile done. Why? LipoProtein particle count is important. Far more important than the density of the lipids within the protein so far as being an indicator of likely cardiovascular disease (CVD).

So I went to my doctor a few weeks ago, told him about the letter and told him I wanted to do an NMR or VAP. His initial response was “how on earth do you know what those are?” Next he pulled up my previous results and was rather confused since according to him my numbers were fine “are you sure they got the right person?” Anyway, he asked which one I wanted (NMR or VAP) – I wasn’t picky so I just said “Whichever one is more expensive.” I figure if they’re saying crazy stuff about me taking statins, they need to pay for it. So I got an NMR, the results took about 2 weeks to come back. Turns out that 2 years of a ketogenic diet is treating me just fine. So, let’s compare my “regular” lipid panel numbers!

March 2014 was 3 months after I started People Chow (high carb). January 2015 I was 3 months into keto. May 2015 I was 7 months into keto. September 2016 and I’m very close to 2 years of keto. I’m at less than half my previous triglyceride number, HDL continues to climb. Total Cholesterol and LDL are up as well but that’s why I wanted the NMR.

	3/20/2014	1/6/2015	5/4/2015	9/8/2016	target
Cholesterol	142	135	161	174	0-200 mg/dL
Triglycerides	160	96	75	70	0-200 mg/dL
HDL Cholesterol	43	45	49	53	40-60 mg/dL
LDL (calculated)	67	71	97	107	0-160 mg/dL

OK, now for the NMR numbers:

Test	value	target
LDL Particle Number by NMR	943	<1000
LDL Cholesterol	107	< 100
HDL Cholesterol	53	>39
HDL Particle Number	32.3	>=30.5
Small LDL Particle Number	212	<=527
LDL Particle Size	20.7	>20.5
Large VLDL Particle Number	1	<=2.7
Small LDL (Particle Number)	212	<=527
Large HDL Particle Number	3.3	>=4.8
VLDL Size	43.1	<=46.6
LDL Size	20.7	>=20.8
HDL Size	8.6	>=9.2
LP Insulin Resistance Score	46	<=45

Conclusion from my doctor? “Great on LDL number. Size is good. HDL is good, particle number is a little low but not alarming alone. Overall, I would NOT take a statin at this time. Insulin resistance is slightly elevated.” He’s talking about that last number. It’s a score LabCorp assigns based on a couple factors as explained in their test detail document:

Metabolic Syndrome Markers. Three parameters (average LDL size and pattern, large HDL particle number, and large VLDL particle number ) are reported that are closely associated with insulin resistance and increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Well yeah, Back 2 years ago I decidedly had metabolic syndrome and was well along the path of developing “type 2 diabetes mellitus” as they say. Not any more =)

On a final note, I used the numbers I got from this test to complete a “Healthy Living Assesment” for my health insurance (hey, $70 is $70!) the computer recommends I eat less fat to be more healthy. –SIGH–

By Chris|2017-01-10T09:20:29-07:00September 21st, 2016|Categories: Ketogenic Diet|Tags: saturated fat, nutrition, cholesterol, experience, blood test, results, ketogenic, science|0 Comments

“We’re All Guinea Pigs in a Failed Decades-Long Diet Experiment”
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“We’re All Guinea Pigs in a Failed Decades-Long Diet Experiment”

Ketogenic Diet, Weight Loss

“We’re All Guinea Pigs in a Failed Decades-Long Diet Experiment”

This entry is part 100 of 131 in the series Ketogenic Diet

So what occasioned this rant? A new article published over on Vice.com: “We’re All Guinea Pigs in a Failed Decades-Long Diet Experiment“. The thought of a class action lawsuit against some company is tantalizing but are we also going to posthumously sue “Doctor”Ansel Keys and Senator George McGovern for their roles in all this? I’m going to move on and help as many people as I can. That’s why I make Keto Chow.

As a kid, one of the things I loved to eat more than anything was a bowl of melted cheese. Cut off a slab, microwave it and eat it with a fork. I didn’t do it very often.

Part of that was cheese was (and still is) rather expensive. The main reason was that I knew that it was full of fat and fat is bad for you. I would even microwave it a bit longer and drain off the oil that over-cooking the cheese would render out. Why did I know that fat was bad for you? The 1980 US Dietary Guidelines said so, my parents, my teachers, EVERYBODY said that it was bad. So it was. End of discussion, or so we though.

For almost 2 years now I have been living with new knowledge: that refined carbohydrates are the true cause of the obesity I’ve battled almost all of my life. Some people seem to handle sugar OK; I don’t. For these past two years, I’ve lived with a High Fat, Moderate Protein, Low Carbohydrate lifestyle. I’ve only “cheated” twice (January 2015 when I ate carbs before a weight loss competition, and I ate some breaded fish at a party in September 2015 and immediately regretted it). Knowing what I know about diet and nutrition now, and looking back at my life; I sometimes get angry. It passes when I think that at least my kids won’t have to deal with what I did, but I still get upset.

Along with the aforementioned cheese I also really, REALLY like bacon and sausage. Emphasis on the sausage. Before October 2014, eating sausage was an extremely guilty pleasure. Like when I hear Backstreet Boys and it reminds me of living in Chile back in 1997. When I cook sausage now it’s typically because we’re camping and I cook 2 pounds of it, plus another 3lbs or so of bacon and a couple dozen eggs. Granted: there are 8 of us, but the kids usually don’t have to ask “how many pieces can I have?” – they just get what they want. I didn’t put butter on anything before November 2014 because it was “bad”. When I think about sausage, sour cream, cream cheese, butter, guacamole and the other downright awesome fatty foods I didn’t use to eat: I get angry too.

When I think about Type 2 diabetes, which I thankfully did not develop before I started Keto, I’m filled with grief and a bit of rage.

I suspect everyone has someone they know, love, or respect DIE because of the effects of refined carbohydrates ravaging their bodies. Some people I’ve successfully helped transition to getting rid of sugar, flour, rice and other carbs and turning their lives around. Other people, I’ve tried to help but they didn’t want to make the change. They like bread too much, or candy, or pasta, or potatoes. I’ve never had bread that’s worth dying for (which is saying a lot, we grew up on homemade sourdough bread). Again, while I acknowledge that there are some people who can healthily have some refined carbohydrates, the level of sugar consumption we have attained in our diet is astounding. If Peter Attia can develop T2 diabetes doing Iron Man races, then do the rest of us have any hope?

Probably not unless we ignore the official dietary recommendations and do something else.

When I get an hour block I’m going to watch “Fixing Dad” about two UK film-makers who intervened in their father’s life when he was facing likely amputations due to his diabetes. There seems to be an over-emphasis on extreme exercise but the message about changing his diet looks promising.

By Chris|2016-10-14T07:17:51-06:00September 16th, 2016|Categories: Ketogenic Diet, Weight Loss|Tags: science, saturated fat, nutrition, Weight loss, ketogenic|0 Comments

Why I make Keto Chow
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Why I make Keto Chow

Weight Loss, Ketogenic Diet, Keto Chow

Why I make Keto Chow

This entry is part 57 of 131 in the series Ketogenic Diet

I want to help people change their lives… and help them not go nuts in the process.

Nutritional Ketosis (aka “Keto” or “Ketogenic Diet”) can be highly effective but it’s daunting, especially for beginners. Keto is the only thing I have ever tried that has had any lasting effect on my health and my weight. I consider it like the “Konami Code“: a cheat or hack, because of how effective it has been in turning around my life (and the lives of family, friends, and former strangers =). I’m committed to helping others get into the Keto lifestyle and Keto Chow makes doing Keto easier; not only for beginners that are just starting out, but also for grizzled veterans who have been doing keto for years.

My first introduction to the ketogenic diet was when our oldest son started having seizures. After trying most of the common anticonvulsants (with no success) the neurologist sent my wife home with some information on a dietary treatment to control the seizures. He told her that if they didn’t have success with a medication soon then we would need to try a ketogenic diet. Glancing through the information he provided, my initial reaction was “holy crap, that sounds impossible!” all of the dietary restrictions and rules were more than we could handle. We would be like this family. The next medication worked and I all but forgot about the ketogenic diet. Years later it came up again when I decided I needed to lose weight.

When you first start doing Keto, there is a lot of information to be learned. There’s new vocabulary, new science, new lists of things you should or shouldn’t eat. It can actually be a bit dangerous if you don’t do sufficient research and don’t know that insufficient electrolytes will make you feel terrible (it’s called “Keto Flu” and it isn’t any fun) – that was one of the mistakes I made when I started Keto. I also started keto using a meal replacement shake that was loaded with coconut flour, chia seeds and other gritty stuff.

My goals in making Keto Chow were:

Make figuring out Keto easy. Easy on your brain and easy to prepare the food.
Keep people from running into electrolyte deficiency (the aforementioned “Keto Flu”).
Make it tasty enough that you’ll not just tolerate it but honestly, actually, for realsies, enjoy consuming it (and want more).
Make sure people are getting the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients they need to be healthy. Likely healthier than ever before.

Here’s the honest truth: I completely and entirely believe in this product and the Ketogenic diet. It’s not the end-all, be-all answer to everything in the world and I don’t eat it all day, every day for every meal (because: bacon and cheese). But I do have it for most meals.

I made Keto Chow for myself, it just happens to be the sort of thing that other people like too. It’s easy to prepare meals and I don’t have to worry about missing out on weird vitamins or minerals. I hit my macronutrient goals. I’m getting my electrolytes and it’s REALLY good tasting – like I’m always sad when my Chocolate Peanut Butter is empty. I mix up a couple days worth at a time and am able to just grab containers out of the fridge on my way out the door. Let me give you an example:

Last weekend our family went to help some friends cut wood. They use it to heat their home during the winter and you can get a permit to take dead pines (either that or they eventually fall over and block the road; the pines, not our friends =). It’s insanely cheap to get the permit ($5 a cord, 4 cords minimum – a cord is a really arbitrary measurement). We had to leave by 6 AM to get down to the place at the time we wanted. While I was packing the cooler with food for the kids I threw in several “blender bottle” containers full of Keto Chow… and that was it! I drank one on the drive and the other in between chopping up the tree. It’s easy, it’s effective and it’s tasty. I even brought along Keto Chow to Disneyland.

So I use it myself, how about other people? PrimitiveOrigins posted that he had lost 100 lbs on Keto Chow, complete with before and after pics. I asked him for a full review, here it is:

About a year and a half ago I was having a bunch of medical issues and it seemed my diet had to change and I needed to lose some weight. So after trying diet after diet nothing worked. A lot of this had to do with the nature of the diets themselves, I’m very “black and white” as a person and the diets I was attempting were very just avoid carbs at night or try to eat vegan for breakfast and lunch. That is fine for some people, but since these diets gave me an inch I became a ruler. I needed something as strict and rigid as myself, I stumbled across keto. It seemed very easy for me to do. Want pizza? Nope, can’t have it: carbs and sugar. Want a pineapple? Full of sugar: nope. So I went forth with this idea and it was fine for a while, but I soon realized I disliked cooking and eating; only keto gave me a realization that I was only eating for fuel so I started looking for something that would fit that idea.

I found Soylent quite quickly and marveled at the idea; this was exactly what I was looking for, but soon realized it wouldn’t work for me as weight loss was my goal and Soylent doesn’t really provide efficient weight loss. So I started looking for keto version of soylent and discovered […] Keto Chow. I placed my first order of a months’ worth of rich chocolate.

I explained to my wife what I was planning on doing, she was skeptical to say the least (amplified by the fact that the order came in a ziploc bag lol.), but I pressed and she agreed if anything was going to work it would be this. I got my order and mixed everything up and the next day I would have my first meal.

I had my first meal. Taste wise, I did not enjoy rich chocolate at all, but again I was drinking it only for fuel so I pushed through it. I drink 2 a day as it works for my schedule better, one at around 6am and the other at around 6pm, I have done this for about a year and a half now.

The toughest part was training myself out of eating socially, that took about a month to get used to. Once that was over it was smooth sailing, I started mixing my own.

I didn’t see any weight loss, but I got a scale and I was reading it on the scale, so something had to be working. It was insanely motivating and frankly addicting. When people would offer me food or soda my gut reaction was like: “Are you insane? I’m not working out and I’m losing weight at an aggressive rate, you couldn’t pay me to stop this!” My friends all thought I was nuts for the first month or two then after I dropped my first 50lbs or so they were very interested and I had at least 4 friends try it. None of which could stick with it as aggressively as I did/do. It’s a wonderful meal replacement, but real weight loss takes dedication and I was determined.

I’ve “cheated” on Keto Chow by, now and then – maybe once a month, getting plain meatballs from Noodles&Co. or having scrambled eggs and bacon and that was great while it lasted, but I was having some stomach trouble from that so I gave it up.

Overall my plans for the future are: Keto Chow until I cannot anymore. One of the reasons I’m going to be doing keto chow the rest of my life is because I had undiagnosed absence seizures. For the longest time, my wife and I just thought I’d get mixed up when speaking because of my stutter and forget what I was talking about. I’d have really bad headaches and get randomly tired throughout the day. I was going to the doctor to make sure I wasn’t losing weight too fast and that everything was going smoothly. It was, but one day I happened to “cheat” and grab some Noodles&Co. meatballs before my Dr. appointment; and I had an absence seizure right in front of him. He noticed and we started testing for epilepsy. Apparently I have a good deal of food allergies that also trigger seizures, but apparently I was an undiagnosed epileptic for some time and thanks to you I’ve been seizure free for almost 2 years. (Minus the forced ones.)

It’s so cheap, it’s so simple. I see no reason to ever change my diet at this point. My wife and my friends are all used to it; it’s a bit strange explaining it to new people, but the results speak for themselves. Overall I’ve never been happier or more healthy and it’s all thanks to Chris.

Seriously, that’s just awesome. This is why I make Keto Chow.

By Chris|2017-03-20T12:20:45-06:00September 2nd, 2016|Categories: Weight Loss, Ketogenic Diet, Keto Chow|Tags: ketogenic, on location, easy meals, Keto Chow, portability, nutrition, preparation, User Experiences, experience, video, results, background|3 Comments