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42 Days of Keto Chow – Day 06

This entry is part 6 of 44 in the series 42 days of Keto Chow Experiment

Day 06. I had a pretty bad dehydration headache this morning. I actually stopped on my way to work and grabbed a small jar of pickles, ate them all and drank the juice. USDA reference database says it had approx 33.6 calories with 3.7g net carbs. I’m still counting it as “Keto Chow only” though. I do feel better, pickle juice always makes me happy =)

My blood ketones are still hanging out in the 0.4-0.6 mmol/dL range. I expect in 2 days that’ll jump up quite a lot when I start my week of GrapeSeed Oil. (more…)

Fun Videos – Coconut Oil will (not) kill you & Low Fat food will make you fat

First we have JP telling us how the American Heart Association has to be right about Coconut Oil killing you

And then we have Adam ruining low fat food

Weird thing is: Adam uses a lot of references from Taubes and Teicholz about sugar being bad but fails to follow through on what you should eat. If you watch the entire episode the clip above comes from the nutrition advice they do give is more of the same “eat less, move more” – guess they decided telling people fat is good was a bit too much.

By |2017-07-28T09:34:09-06:00July 28th, 2017|Categories: Weight Loss, Ketogenic Diet|Tags: , , , , , , |0 Comments

New Video on Preparing Keto Chow 2.0

This entry is part 93 of 131 in the series Ketogenic Diet

Now that Keto Chow 2.0 is available, I figured it was a good time to do a new video on how to prepare Keto Chow, specifically 2.0 now that there’s a scoop included. I also wanted to show off the cool shirt my wife bought me and the awesome scar on my left bicep I got when I attacked myself with a quadcopter a while ago =)

Now, the production quality isn’t the best and the circumstances were actually pretty bad. I did have a really nice microphone (that was hooked up to my cell phone, strangely enough) this time so the sound quality is considerably better, but I ran into a bunch of issues:

  • My house is undergoing some pretty serious remodeling, now that we stopped making 1.9, so I couldn’t do the video in my house where I have supplies on-hand. Instead, I had to take everything to our warehouse and shoot the video there. I used the backdrop we bought for KetoCon but the field of view was too wide so I rolled over a pallet of blender bottles to hide some of the background.
  • I screwed up doing the blender and ice – only had a little ice left when I did the second take.
  • Then the large warehouse door was opened in the middle of take 2. I didn’t have any more ice so I had to just roll with it.
  • I flubbed what I was saying a few times but couldn’t re-shoot it – whatever! =)

In case you were curious here is the stick blender I was using. It’s really expensive but works exceptionally well. For comparison, here’s one of my earlier videos back before I started doing Keto, I’m less of a man now =)

By |2017-05-23T15:41:38-06:00May 23rd, 2017|Categories: Keto Chow, Preparation|Tags: , , , , , |0 Comments

Check Out “Carb Loaded” – available free on YouTube

Excellent documentary about a super skinny guy that was diagnosed with type-2 diabetes. Does a great job at simply explaining many of the key points of a high fat, low carb diet. Here’s their “press release” description from their website:

It’s a classic image. An athlete bingeing on massive amounts of carbs before a race. It is believed that by consuming carbohydrates beforehand, an athlete is more likely to complete endurance events. Many people dress and talk like their sports heroes. They also EAT like them. While dressing and talking like your favorite athlete might not hurt you, many experts say carb-loading without the intent of strenuous physical activity can be destructive. This is just one aspect of our food culture to be addressed by Lathe Poland in his upcoming documentary, Carb-Loaded: A Culture Dying To Eat. Lathe, a slim build man in his mid 30’s, was diagnosed with Type2 diabetes in late 2010. “I wasn’t overweight. In fact I weigh the same now as I did back then. To be honest, I was completely blown away when my doctor gave me the diagnosis. Why would a seemingly healthy 30 something man like myself get a disease like this? My misconception like most people was that there were two scenarios where you get diabetes…Either it’s hereditary and it’s not your fault, or you eat junk food like it’s going out of style and end up diabetic.”

Lathe’s general practitioner wanted to start him on three different prescription medications, IMMEDIATELY. He recalls, “I guess what alarmed me was the ‘matter of fact’ rubber stamp approach. Is this the way it was for everyone? Feeling very discouraged, I resigned myself to the fact that I would be taking medication the rest of my life.” Not long after that, Lathe heard an NPR news segment about cases of diabetes and pre-diabetes skyrocketing. “I remember that was the tipping point for me,” he continues “for my own sanity, I needed to piece this puzzle together.” That journey began when Lathe spoke with his business partner, Eric Carlsen. Since 2004 the long time friends have run their own video production company. Lathe was interested in making a documentary, uncovering the reasons behind the shocking rise in diabetes over the last two decades. Eric though was a bit skeptical at first. “We have been producing video together for over eight years, so I have a lot of confidence in Lathe’s individual talent and our ability as a team. But the scope of what he was talking about was a bit overwhelming to say the least.” Buoyed by his friend’s enthusiasm, Eric finally agreed they could do it. The next obstacle that needed to be addressed was how to finance the film. “I had heard about filmmakers using crowd funding sites as an alternative to seeking financing from studios or private investors,” Lathe relates, “and I wondered if we could do the same.” Lathe and Eric decided they would use KickStarter.com to host their crowd funding project. However, as they continued their research they realized yet another challenge had to be met. Eric continues, “Crowd funding sites are a phenomenal tool, but they’re only effective if you attract a crowd. We knew we would have to build awareness and create an audience prior to launching our KickStarter campaign.”

As it turns out that audience would come from a multi-pronged approach. The two friends designed a website and set out to get experts to contribute content to the site. They also decided to make use of social media, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. As content on the site grew, so did their fan base on Twitter and Facebook. At least once a month Eric and Lathe create an update video and post it to YouTube and their website, informing interested people how the pre-production work is progressing. The pair decided they would include their outtakes for each update at the end of the segment. Lathe explains, “We wanted people to be able to relate to us right away. By letting them have a behind the scenes peek at what we were doing, it seems to attract a lot of interest in the project. We get great feedback when we post our video updates.” The duo plans to launch their KickStarter campaign in March of 2013, with the goal of beginning full scale production by late this spring. If all goes well they hope to complete filming toward the end of 2013. “It’s a way to take a negative (having diabetes), and turn it into a positive,” Lathe observes. “The idea is not to just scare people, but to help them realize that they have a measure of control over their health and the health of their kids. It requires education, and we get to play a small role in that process…what’s not to like about that?”

By |2017-01-26T14:35:05-07:00January 26th, 2017|Categories: Ketogenic Diet|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments

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:

  1. Make figuring out Keto easy. Easy on your brain and easy to prepare the food.
  2. Keep people from running into electrolyte deficiency (the aforementioned “Keto Flu”).
  3. Make it tasty enough that you’ll not just tolerate it but honestly, actually, for realsies, enjoy consuming it (and want more).
  4. 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.

Stronglifts 5×5 update, random stuff

This entry is part 3 of 6 in the series Weight Lifting

My Dad made the news last night. Funny thing is I was in a bunch of the photos shown…. though you can’t see me because I’m hiding behind rocks holding lights =) Glorified light stand and pack mule I am. So I guess I made the news too =) (more…)

By |2021-09-20T13:11:59-06:00April 26th, 2016|Categories: Ketogenic Diet, Weight Lifting, Keto foods|Tags: , , , , , |6 Comments

Day 073 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)

This entry is part 60 of 82 in the series 100 days of keto
  • Weight: 206.0
  • Blood ketones: 0.2 mmol/L

The only big news would be that I did a new video showing how to mix up meals of Keto Chow: a single meal, two meals with ice in a blender and 6 meals in a gallon pitcher (more…)