User Experiences

Clinging with all their might

This entry is part 110 of 131 in the series Ketogenic Diet

OK, so I recently did an experiment where I consumed the same 2000 kCal a day for 6 weeks. I was messing around with the source of the bulk of those calories, mostly using different fats but the final week I substituted out all of the saturated fat I ate the week prior, and instead ate candy. Remember – still the same 2000 calories. I had been losing weight pretty consistently the 5 weeks I was living on fat. I gained weight the week I was eating the same 2000 calories from carbohydrates. It’s all documented ad nauseum on the experiment page, with data, graphs, DEXA scans, and more. I posted about it on reddit and have gotten some rather interesting comments from people who insist that the type of calorie is irrelevant and the only cause for weight gain is eating too many calories and not exercising enough. I’m rather forthcoming with my views on the subject (I think sugar is fattening and fat is not).

Today I got the best one yet. I said:

It’s like saying “Bill Gates is rich because he saves more money than he spends” or “The room is crowded because more people entered than left”. Sounds rather silly right? That’s because it’s the EFFECT and not the CAUSE.

To which they replied:

Bill gates isn’t rich because he saves more money than he spends. He’s rich because he takes in more money than he spends… which sounds an awful lot like calories in calories out.

Wait…. what? I’ve never had anybody actually think that “he makes money” is the CAUSE and REASON Bill is rich (as opposed to his ruthless business acumen and the lucky break he got with licensing QDOS, among other things) but if that’s what someone wants to believe, that’s what they want to believe.

By Chris|2018-02-26T15:37:14-07:00February 26th, 2018|Categories: Keto Chow|Tags: Weight loss, Keto Chow, science, saturated fat, nutrition, User Experiences|0 Comments

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: Coconut Oil, Keto Chow, science, saturated fat, nutrition, cholesterol, experience, User Experiences, Weight loss, Oil, blood test, 42dayExperiment, results, Macadamia Nut Oil|0 Comments

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: cholesterol, User Experiences, experience, video, Oil, 42dayExperiment, blood test, Coconut Oil, science, saturated fat, nutrition|6 Comments

Guests on another great Keto podcast: Ketonian Korner
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Guests on another great Keto podcast: Ketonian Korner

Keto Chow

Guests on another great Keto podcast: Ketonian Korner

Miriam and I (Chris) were guests on another awesome Keto podcast a while ago and it was posted yesterday: Interview with Chris and Miriam Bair Keto Chow

I should have posted about this yesterday but ran out of time with everything going on (live broadcast, replacing the fat in my Keto Chow with candy for an experiment, finalizing packaging for Keto Chow 2.1)

By Chris|2018-02-10T07:24:22-07:00February 10th, 2018|Categories: Keto Chow|Tags: User Experiences, podcast, experience, Keto Chow|0 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: science, saturated fat, nutrition, User Experiences, experience, video, 42dayExperiment, Oil, blood test, Coconut Oil|0 Comments

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 20, off to S.F., Grape Seed Oil results

This entry is part 20 of 44 in the series 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

I’m heading off to San Francisco in a few hours. Rather than worry about how to transport my shakes, I’m just going to do time-restricted feeding (“intermittent fasting”) by drinking all my meals this morning and afternoon, then I’ll eat again after I get home tomorrow. I had to bring everything I need with me to work, including an umbrella. Fun fact: I’ve been to San Francisco almost 10 times now, I’ve never been rained on (misted on, yes, but no rain) looking at the forecast, this might break that streak.

This morning I got back my blood tests from the week of doing Grape Seed Oil. Feel free to head over to the spreadsheet of results and check them out. Grapeseed oil is on Column O.

Let’s see… my LDL-P came way down (1242 to 849) – into the “normal” range thanks to the PUFAs, my LDL-C also came down (116 to 72) – again into the “normal” range. My triglycerides did indeed go up, though nowhere even close to the result I got with avocado oil in November: that one went from 113 to 199, this new test with grape seed oil went from 104 to 117. I guess we’ll see what happens with the subsequent tests with Saturated and MUFA: will the triglycerides go down or not?! While you’re on the spreadsheet, you can pop over to the other tabs and see the ongoing results coming in from the n=3 experiment that’s also going on. Both females have had really stable triglyceride levels, regardless of heavy cream or avocado oil. Makes me wonder if the 199 was a freak aberration (yes I was fasting at least 12 hours before the test).

So what else does the blood test show? On PUFAs my cortisol increased dramatically (9.8 to 12.7) and my fasting insulin predictably went down to 2.4. That’s actually the lowest I’ve ever gotten, 2.7 was the level when I did Avocado Oil. Oddly, my CRP (which along with cortisol is a marker for inflammation) was slightly up but still far lower compared to what I was getting in November.

By Chris|2018-01-24T10:11:49-07:00January 24th, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: cholesterol, User Experiences, experience, video, Oil, 42dayExperiment, blood test, results, science, saturated fat, nutrition|9 Comments

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 18

This entry is part 18 of 44 in the series 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

Looks like I have a mustache =)

Day 18 of my experiment. Hey, let’s talk about weight loss! I started this experiment on January 5th and I’m currently (as of this morning) down 14.7 lbs. Some of that is due to me eating a bit more than normal right before the experiment to fit in a few more yummy foods before I stopped eating, and some is from Christmas/New Years; but I currently weigh less than I did when I finished my December experiment. I’ll call that definitive progress =). My ketones are most definitely lower doing heavy cream compared to just oil: around 1.3-1.5 compared to up in the 3’s. That’s not a problem but it is interesting.

I noticed something yesterday when I was getting out of the shower: My back wasn’t sore and neither were my arms. That’s odd because the day before (Saturday) I spent around 3 hours shoveling over a foot of snow and typically I’d expect to be exceptionally sore. Kinda weird.

This week I’m gearing up to go to San Francisco for an event we’re sponsoring on Wednesday. It’ll be rather interesting: I’ll fly there, set up a table and hand out samples, and then head back to the airport. I’ll have maybe 5 hours before my flight so I don’t want to go through the hassle of getting a room so I’ll just camp out in the airport and try to get some sleep on the chairs, maybe watch some “Flash”.

By Chris|2018-01-22T14:51:57-07:00January 22nd, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: 42dayExperiment, experience, Weight loss, video, blood test, User Experiences|1 Comment

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 14
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42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 14

42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 14

This entry is part 14 of 44 in the series 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

Day 14, last day of grape seed oil! The kids had a really good dinner last night (see above) – it was about everything I could do to not eat some of the pork, it smelled AMAZING. Speaking of not eating stuff, today was my last full day at my soon-to-be old job, we did a meeting where we got together and brainstormed solutions to problems. Our product manager brought in (at her own expense) a bunch of food including some diet soda for me. I actually forgot to eat breakfast until lunch and am just finishing lunch at 2.

Tomorrow I get to do the blood test for the grapeseed oil week… and then wait for the results until next week. Should be interesting to say the least.

By Chris|2018-01-19T07:14:48-07:00January 18th, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: User Experiences, 42dayExperiment, Oil|2 Comments

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 12, how I got started on nutritionally complete foods

This entry is part 12 of 44 in the series 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

Day 12, ketones up slightly at 3.3 mmol/dL. The numbness from my molar crown wore off yesterday just in time for a dull ache to replace it. I doubt I could have chewed anything before this morning so I would have been doing 3 meals of Keto Chow yesterday anyway =) Late in the afternoon I noticed that the crown has a high spot in the middle so I’m going back to the dentist today to get that taken care of. Any weird “bathroom” issues I had at the beginning of the experiment are completely gone now, which is what I expected.

This morning I mixed up 80 meals of Keto Chow 2.1 to take me through a few weeks. Of note: I made 20 meals of the Savory Chicken Soup flavor, mostly so my wife could have some that wasn’t messed up. The coloring test ones we got kept coming with the sweetener in it, which makes for a really weird taste. Anyhow, that’s what I’m drinking for breakfast today. I put a bit of water into the bottle, added the fat, powder, then hot water and shook it up. Put in in my backpack for the 5 minute drive and it’s still nice and warm.

By Chris|2018-01-19T07:12:24-07:00January 16th, 2018|Categories: 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: video, flavors, User Experiences, 42dayExperiment, ketochow2.1|0 Comments

42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 07

This entry is part 7 of 44 in the series 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

Day 07 – going well still. Ketones are still steady at 0.6mmol/dL Tomorrow is my first blood test for the experiment and today is my last day of doing heavy cream only in my Keto Chow. I’m mixing it up a bit by adding raspberry flavored Torani sugar-free syrup (which is one of the tips you’ll find on the flavor hacks page AND you can use it on Keto Pancakes) since vanilla can get… boring sometimes.

Taking the probiotic yesterday worked like a charm (it always does for me, which is fortunate) though I did find out that at least one of my kids has a stomach bug that’s unrelated to doing Keto Chow for all his meals (which he isn’t doing ANY of his meals as Keto Chow), there’s a possibility it’s unrelated but who knows?

By Chris|2018-01-12T07:17:42-07:00January 11th, 2018|Categories: Uncategorized, 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment|Tags: experience, video, Keto Chow, saturated fat, User Experiences, 42daysofketochow|2 Comments