I want to try to sum up the experience as best I can, and try to be unbiased about it... However possible that is... What has shocked me the most about the experience as a whole is how not abnormal it has been. I haven't really felt any different, with the possible exception of some digestive differences - most of which were not even very unpleasant, or significant. I didn't lose much weight, which didn't surprise me too much (I don't have a great deal of it to lose though, so I'm not exactly complaining) - and though I don't have (or ever intend to take) before and after pictures, you're simply going to have to take my word for it when I say that I am now at least less fat than I was when I started (though this likely has something to do with the fact that I have been working out). It has been very inconvenient to try to eat at restaurants or people's houses though. I usually try to simply be polite and eat what I am offered, or choose restaurants that suit my needs, like sushi bars or steak houses.
I do want to get into the details of the digestive stuff though, so please skip this part if you aren't interested...
And it actually gets a bit gross if you thought you had the stones but want to change your mind...
It's not too late...
I may have mentioned this before, but one of the strangest things I've noticed is that I just don't pass a great deal of poop these days... In fact, it seems like a tiny amount in comparison to what I've been eating. When I first noticed this it got my hypochondria acting up, Which of course led to me being utterly convinced that I had a blockage and was going to die (which... led to a laxative... which of course convinced me that my fears were entirely unfounded). After that, I decided to go with it, and however unusual it seemed to not poop much, the movements were regular - perhaps even more-so than they had been before. In addition to that small issue, I have also dealt with occasional bouts of diarrhea. Considering that this happens to most people on normal diets I wouldn't consider it too abnormal - except that it has a tendency to last a little longer than expected... As I have noted before, there is a reason to believe that this will result from not consuming enough fat, and there is also some evidence to suggest that adding salt to the diet can prevent it (weird...). I have personally noticed that I tend to have this problem when my diet is mostly boiled eggs (or when I am simply stressed out) - boiled eggs are lower in salt and fat than what I generally consume, and when I have free range of things like butter and heavy cream and thoroughly fatty ground beef, this problem entirely vanishes. I haven't really been constipated at all on this diet - pooping is never something difficult, though occasionally I expect to poop, or expect to poop more and there is no more [This goes back to the first digestive change, of course - the belief that I ought to be pooping more than I am has led me to occasionally, at least temporarily, conclude that I am constipated, then I turn out to be wrong] (This has been an improvement for me - I actually dealt with occasional constipation before, and considered it unpleasant, naturally) {TMI?}. Anyway, I have also noticed the occasional acetone-smelling urine that is common among those on high fat, low everything-else diets {I warned you that this part maybe should be skipped!} (Some say this is a sign of dangerous ketoacidosis, but that is simply untrue - dietary ketosis, which is a much safer biological state, can lead to this as well). The smell is unnerving and immediately makes me assume something is wrong, but it's really no big deal.
It's done.
You can start reading the blog again.
It's interesting again without being gross - really.
I didn't know to expect this when I started, but there is some debate about the body's ability to function without glucose. I haven't noticed a significant difference, to be honest, but according to Dr. Peter Attia (I briefly mentioned him before - fitness fanatic and ketogenic diet advocate) it should be expected that high-intensity, short duration exercise (like lifting weights) should be slightly negatively impacted by a ketogenic diet, and aerobic exercises should be positively impacted by such a diet. I can't run to save my life, and the numbers I've been putting up on the weights have gone up... so either the diet hasn't affected me much, or I haven't been truly ketogenic (Either is possible, really. According to him, the impact on high-intensity exercise is quite small - and considering that I couldn't run to save my life before, if you increase that capability by - say - 150%, I still can't run to save my life!).
I've been surprised by my own ability to change my tastes more than anything else. I mentioned long ago that I am practically addicted to milk, I have a serious sweet tooth, and I do not prefer fatty cuts of meat. Well, I've been able to change all of those. I have recently made the decision to wean myself off of milk. I know it sounds sad, as I may never be capable of going back - but really, what am I missing out on? The lactose intolerant can still consume a wide variety of dairy products since only milk and ice cream (and maybe a few others) are actually high in lactose. There's also the fact that the lactose intolerant are supposed to still be able to tolerate some lactose, just not the nearly limitless quantities those of us with working digestive systems can handle. I have replaced most of the milk in my diet with cream (I'll get to why in just a minute), though I still cut it with a little milk because it's too thick otherwise. As for the sweet tooth, I literally don't have cravings anymore. I can smell waffles in the morning and think, "Damn those smell good!" while I dive into a plate of ground beef and scrambled eggs, perfectly content not to eat a half a cup of syrup. Of course, if I do get started on eating something sweet, I usually can't stop myself... Some time ago I decided to have one piece of toast with honey. And a cupcake. And another piece of toast. And another cupcake... I had a good excuse, but it was still inexcusable. As for the fatty cuts of meat - that just took realizing the difference between fats that taste good and those that don't. The fat that is marbled throughout a tri-tip steak as beautifully as if the cow were descended from heaven into the feedlot to be slaughtered especially for me tastes fantastic. Whereas if you try to saute the 3/4 inch of fat from around the corner of a pork shoulder blade steak, it feels like rubber and is virtually inedible. Either kind of fat is desirable when slow cooked until it is like butter stuck to meat. Come to think of it, sticking butter to meat is also a fine way to make it taste butter... better.
I've been delighted by the fact that the diet is a fantastic conversation starter - even if it does make me a hipster to use it in that way. Though I do occasionally run into someone who simply cannot be swayed, most people are open to hearing what I have to say (and most of them still think I'm going to die). I do occasionally struggle to explain why epidemiological studies aren't solid proof of anything, or how hormones work, or what studies actually show about people on high-fat diets (mostly because, except for being able to explain away epidemiological studies, I know very little about the other two areas of scientific research - and the reason I struggle with epidemiological studies is that people tend to believe them anyway...).
That about sums up the experience - it has been not as difficult and far less expensive than I expected it to be. It's been fun, and it seems like it hasn't killed me - so naturally I intend to keep it up. I do want to make some changes though. I want to start including non-starchy vegetables. Why? Variety is definitely a huge issue, but another one (believe it or not) is that I want to try to up my fat intake even more. How to non-starchy vegetables help with that? Simple - how do most people eat non-starchy veggies? If you can't come up with the answer, think of a salad or a raw veggie tray - what is it that sit in the middle of either one? That's right! A giant blob of salad dressing. What are the components of any (good) salad dressing? Right again! Some sort of fat, and some sort of acid, usually with salt and pepper. So that's the idea in a nutshell - I will eat non-starchy veggies like broccoli and celery and asparagus and drench them in homemade dressings or hollandaise sauce or peanut butter and try to incorporate that into the meat diet in an effort to eat more fat. A plus side of this is the purported beneficial effects of fiber ( mentioned before that I haven't had too much trouble with that area of digestion). Since the veggies will have some vitamins in them (not that I haven't been getting most of what I need from meat and eggs) I am going to stop taking my multi-vitamin, but I will continue to take my vitamin D unless there is a miraculous change in the weather and I turn into some douchebag who walks around shirtless in the sun (protip: not gonna happen). I do want to get a blood test done too, but I just think it isn't going to happen :/
The last topic to discuss is pi day (March fourteenth, aka 3/14 for the uninitiated)! Last pi day, my brother and I celebrated the commencement of my meat diet with a glorious meat pie (I had actually been on the diet for a bout a week or so at that point, but whatevs). A meat pie in our case was essentially a meat loaf, with no breadcrums, topped with a bacon weave lattice as a sort of "crust." We basically used a meatloaf recipe by Alton Brown (of Food Network fame) and removed any offending ingredients, and added extra bacon, and baked it in a pie plate. Needless to say it was basically the most fantastic thing I had ever tasted. It also looked beautiful. I took pictures, and a giant slice of it was my facebook profile pic for a while.
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| The obligatory bacon |
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| The meat pie, sans bacon weave |
That about sums it up for now! Until next time!
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| The finished product, artfully displayed |
