This past week I took the IF'ing to a whole new level/extreme, starting last Wednesday (the 2nd) I ate all my calories for the day in a 2 hour window. I thought I might share my experiences and how it went:
It's hard to ingest 2000 calories... If it wasn't for my BPC (bullet proof coffee) I think I would really have a hard time with not only my macros, but also being able to fit in all that food. I would begin by planning out my meal in the morning with the available food in my fridge and tweak it to make sure I was getting my protein and fat allotments, carbohydrates ended up being less than a net of 10 most days. I really enjoyed this aspect of this regimen as I was only required to log, cook and eat once a day, really liberating. As I've written about before with Fat Fasting it seems that all you think about during the day is your next 200 calorie meal, not the case with this, I didn't really think about food at all!
I lost 4 pounds... Recently my exercising has appeared to be affecting my weight loss, either through water retention or through muscle building it is unclear, but I wasn't seeing the loss that I was happy with. While still on a general downward trend, I would gain, then lose, then gain, then lose. So I quit exercising. It's hard not to get frustrated when you feel like you should have a good loss for the week and you step on the scale and it's up 2-3 pounds! I don't know if it's related, but I feel like I'm smaller during the IF, it's almost as if I can feel the fat melting away as I rely on my body's storage for a majority of the day.
Yes there's some hunger throughout the day... There is but not really, hard to describe. I feel a twinge in my stomach, but drinking water, or as I prefer, brewed iced tea generally satisfies any feelings going on down there. Last year I bought a 72oz Bubba Keg and I drink at least 1 of them while at work, usually closer to 2 during the course of the day.
I enjoyed it... I didn't really experience any downside to this WOE, I doubt I'll be as strict on my weekend, but during the work week I think it's a great way to go!
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Update
So I've recently jump-started my weight loss once again by introducing Intermittent Fasting into my eating routine. I had read many people online saying to try it and it helped them, so I figured I'd give it a try. While at the restaurant it's hard to not want to eat all the time, but perseverance has paid off. I eat my last meal before dinner service, somewhere between 4 and 5 and don't feed again (aside from tasting dishes here and there) until my morning Bulletproof Coffee at 7 or 8 am. So anywhere from 14-16 hours of fasting, most of which is during busy dinner service periods, driving home and sleeping, so it's been relatively easy as my brain is occupied or I have no access to food during all those times. It also has helped me evaluate my hunger quite a bit more and come more in tune with my body. As many people can probably relate to this story: You are told most of you life to eat many small meals and make sure you don't skip one, Breakfast, Lunch, Afternoon Snack, Dinner, Dessert... That overwhelms me just thinking about trying to manage calorie intake and nutrients, nevermind logging all that food into MyFitnessPal every time I eat! I have structured my eating patterns to coincide my hunger with my eating schedule, my two meals I eat each day are typically around 500-800 calories, plus my 2 cups of Bulletproof Coffee is just under 400 calories, I typically eat under 2000 a day and don't really ever go hungry "MUST EAT NOW!!!" There is a calming effect to hunger on Keto, you know you should eat, but it's going to be ok if you don't get to it right now, I'll just keep burning fat (lord knows I've got plenty to feed off of!) Before on the high carbohydrate roller coaster it was all I could think about until I got something to eat.
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
5.6.14 Progress Report
Weigh in this morning showed 3 pounds of weight loss(despite vacationing last week), measurements around the hips and waist showed 1/2" lost in both areas. I did experience the trouble sleeping that I experienced during my last FF last night. Despite getting up at 6:30 Monday morning I was unable to fall asleep until after midnight, woke up at 6:30 again this morning, though only 6 1/2 hours of sleep, I still feel refreshed and good. I did break the FF this morning with a great breakfast of what I called Breakfast Fajita Scramble: Broke the sausage up into chunks and roasted them at 400 until browned in my cast iron skillet, as well as the mushrooms and peppers(which I already had roasted and peeled, they just needed to be heated up.)
4 oz New York Sausage Co. Italian Sausage
1/2 avocado
2 scrambled eggs
Peppers and mushrooms roasted in avocado oil
1/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
All seasoned with Chacherie's creole seasoning
According to MyFitnessPal: 876 calories, 13g impact carbs, 53g protein, 65g fat
4 oz New York Sausage Co. Italian Sausage
1/2 avocado
2 scrambled eggs
Peppers and mushrooms roasted in avocado oil
1/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
All seasoned with Chacherie's creole seasoning
According to MyFitnessPal: 876 calories, 13g impact carbs, 53g protein, 65g fat
Monday, May 5, 2014
Fat Fast Day 2
Day 2:
Day 2 is going well, heavy cream in the coffee and 2 oz brie for my first 2 meals, 2 oz cream cheese on celery for my afternoon meal. I do have a bit of a headache today, but I'm not sure if it's the diet/water consumption or that my GF is having her hair done in the kitchen this afternoon! At any rate, I'm drinking mason jar after mason jar of water and it seems that my headache is getting better.
I don't know if it's associated but I do find that my mouth is watering almost constantly/more than normal. My Keto-stix are purple, previous to this we were on vacation and managed to knock myself out of ketosis despite not going crazy on the carbs, but when on vacation I seem to over do it on calories. Never mind the alcohol!
So far so good. I only weigh in once a week and that's on Tuesday mornings (they are my Saturday.) I tend to not let the scale rule my progress and just check in with it periodically. So we will see how my progress for the week ends up with the vacation and the fat fast!
Sunday, May 4, 2014
The Fat Fast
The Fat Fast: Please don't take this as dogma, only information that you can use to formulate your own plan and what works for you!
Crazy? Controversial? Effective? Boring? Interesting? Dangerous? Whether or not you have heard of the fat fast doesn't matter. Let's assume you prescribe to the conclusion that fat doesn't make us fat and you eat a relatively high fat diet already. Then this should probably come pretty easy to you. If you haven't adopted a Ketogenic diet then it may seem pretty crazy to do this. I don't know if going from a SAD diet to fat fasting would be wise because of the carb flu symptoms, but if you are going in feet first and want to get yourself into deep ketosis as rapidly as possible, then a fat fast may be for you. Many people who eat LCHF are already eating 70% or higher of their calories from fat, a fat fast consists of 90% of calories from fat. The catch is to eat only 1000 calories, 5 "feedings" of 200 calories each. It was originally called the Kekwick diet. Internet searches will include lots of results and recipe ideas (CarbSmart has a whole book dedicated to this) however, for myself I find it much easier to stick to the KISS method and Keep It Simple Stupid. I have to remember, I'm not eating for pleasure and that if I expand my menu it becomes more pleasurable. I keep it simple in the morning and put heavy cream in my coffee with one Splenda. Then during the day I generally have 2 oz of double cream brie lightly spread with my favorite (not sweetened) mustard, the wheels come in 8 oz portions so cutting that into 4 pieces give me 4 meals, pretty simple! So with the cream and coffee and the wheel of brie, that's one day's food! Not much, not exciting, but that's not the idea here. I also really love cream cheese, 2 oz of cream cheese fits into the menu as well, I will put that on a stick of celery with salt and pepper. While I'm at work in the kitchen it's much easier to grab 1 oz of macadamia nuts, but it's not my favorite way to go as they aren't as satisfying to me. I just love the creamy texture of the brie and the cream cheese. Other than those ideas, I might whip 1/4 cup cream at night with a Splenda and some unsweetened cocoa powder to make a "mousse" as a treat. And there is always 4 slices of cooked bacon to use as a meal, which we always have laying around at the restaurant!
How do I feel and perform during this? Great. Nutrittional Ketosis as Dr's Jeff Volek and Steve Phinney (check lectures on YouTube) have coined it gives a mental clarity that I have not really experienced otherwise. Even after a long day at work the drive home finds me more inquisitive and observant than I would otherwise experience. I find myself just wanting to get up and "do," it doesn't matter what, just something, boundless energy. I go for a walk and don't really want to stop, I keep coming up to my destination and keep going to a new one, no big deal to walk 4-5 miles at a clip just for fun. Before that would have been an insurmountable task and just 15 minutes down the street and back would warrant a great deal of mental convincing. The only thing I don't care for is the wanting to eat. I think about food constantly. I think this comes back to a food and carb addiction and just eating to eat. It really helps you remember (or find out if you don't know) what hunger really is. You don't get hungry per se, but you know when your time to eat is coming up. I find if I can occupy myself it's easier (hence this blog!) Yes, I'm Fat Fasting right now, started this morning!
I FF'd back in January with good results for 2 days and it helped me break my plateau and reinvigorate my focus to eating when I'm hungry and to satiety. I believe I lost 3 pounds... I did notice that I slept differently. With a virtually empty stomach my mind seemed to want to keep going, not necessarily a restless sleep, but a reluctance to. Hard to describe really, but I do remember reading that people who fast generally have a hard time sleeping, we'll see if it happens this go around as I chronicle on this blog what I'm going through.
Again, do your own research. Fat doesn't make us fat. Insulin is the fat storage hormone, insulin drives fat, sugar drives insulin, carbs are sugar. It's that simple.
Crazy? Controversial? Effective? Boring? Interesting? Dangerous? Whether or not you have heard of the fat fast doesn't matter. Let's assume you prescribe to the conclusion that fat doesn't make us fat and you eat a relatively high fat diet already. Then this should probably come pretty easy to you. If you haven't adopted a Ketogenic diet then it may seem pretty crazy to do this. I don't know if going from a SAD diet to fat fasting would be wise because of the carb flu symptoms, but if you are going in feet first and want to get yourself into deep ketosis as rapidly as possible, then a fat fast may be for you. Many people who eat LCHF are already eating 70% or higher of their calories from fat, a fat fast consists of 90% of calories from fat. The catch is to eat only 1000 calories, 5 "feedings" of 200 calories each. It was originally called the Kekwick diet. Internet searches will include lots of results and recipe ideas (CarbSmart has a whole book dedicated to this) however, for myself I find it much easier to stick to the KISS method and Keep It Simple Stupid. I have to remember, I'm not eating for pleasure and that if I expand my menu it becomes more pleasurable. I keep it simple in the morning and put heavy cream in my coffee with one Splenda. Then during the day I generally have 2 oz of double cream brie lightly spread with my favorite (not sweetened) mustard, the wheels come in 8 oz portions so cutting that into 4 pieces give me 4 meals, pretty simple! So with the cream and coffee and the wheel of brie, that's one day's food! Not much, not exciting, but that's not the idea here. I also really love cream cheese, 2 oz of cream cheese fits into the menu as well, I will put that on a stick of celery with salt and pepper. While I'm at work in the kitchen it's much easier to grab 1 oz of macadamia nuts, but it's not my favorite way to go as they aren't as satisfying to me. I just love the creamy texture of the brie and the cream cheese. Other than those ideas, I might whip 1/4 cup cream at night with a Splenda and some unsweetened cocoa powder to make a "mousse" as a treat. And there is always 4 slices of cooked bacon to use as a meal, which we always have laying around at the restaurant!
How do I feel and perform during this? Great. Nutrittional Ketosis as Dr's Jeff Volek and Steve Phinney (check lectures on YouTube) have coined it gives a mental clarity that I have not really experienced otherwise. Even after a long day at work the drive home finds me more inquisitive and observant than I would otherwise experience. I find myself just wanting to get up and "do," it doesn't matter what, just something, boundless energy. I go for a walk and don't really want to stop, I keep coming up to my destination and keep going to a new one, no big deal to walk 4-5 miles at a clip just for fun. Before that would have been an insurmountable task and just 15 minutes down the street and back would warrant a great deal of mental convincing. The only thing I don't care for is the wanting to eat. I think about food constantly. I think this comes back to a food and carb addiction and just eating to eat. It really helps you remember (or find out if you don't know) what hunger really is. You don't get hungry per se, but you know when your time to eat is coming up. I find if I can occupy myself it's easier (hence this blog!) Yes, I'm Fat Fasting right now, started this morning!
I FF'd back in January with good results for 2 days and it helped me break my plateau and reinvigorate my focus to eating when I'm hungry and to satiety. I believe I lost 3 pounds... I did notice that I slept differently. With a virtually empty stomach my mind seemed to want to keep going, not necessarily a restless sleep, but a reluctance to. Hard to describe really, but I do remember reading that people who fast generally have a hard time sleeping, we'll see if it happens this go around as I chronicle on this blog what I'm going through.
Again, do your own research. Fat doesn't make us fat. Insulin is the fat storage hormone, insulin drives fat, sugar drives insulin, carbs are sugar. It's that simple.
Tools I Use
This post is all about the tools that I use to keep me on track and motivated. In my previous post I listed many of my favorite references. Here I'll detail my tools like I mentioned in my first post.
My food journal I have come accustomed to using is the MyFitnessPal (MFP) app and website, I've used it now for 6 months and love it. I was never much to count calories or even carbohydrates during my first go around with low carb, I just tried to keep the carbs to a minimum and did ok. This app, which I use on my tablet 95% of the time, keeps me motivated and mostly helps me to realize whether I am actually hungry or do I just want to eat. As I have stated, I do truly believe in food addiction and logging helps me to keep myself focused. I have never been the person who can skip a meal. I always made sure I ate with the clock and not with my stomach. You can probably imagine that hunger is something I wasn't really familiar with. I often rode the insulin wave and developed a carb addiction along with it. I got sidetracked a bit there, back to the app! When initially setting up the app or website you input your body statistics, current weight, and weightloss goal, and it formulates a goal for calories and nutrients from that data. The really nice feature is that you can tweak these goals to your liking: i.e., more fat, less carbs, less calories, more calories, even down to macronutrients and percentages of which fats you intake if you want to get that deep into it.
It's got a reports tab where you can track your weight, measurements, calories, calories burned and a number of other items. And it will give you graphs and charts to correspond with each category, and if you like data like I like data it's a pretty sweet setup.
There is a barcode scanner feature built into the app so you can quickly scan a food item and add it into your log. It has a huge database of items and I believe I have yet to not be able to find an item listed. The only problem I see with the database is that it is so extensive there are often times many different items to choose from and you have to double check each one to make sure it's the right one to put on your log, it would be nice to see them consolidate the list a bit for this purpose.
There are numerous other features and I use many of them, but don't want to go into detail about them here.
The other tool I use is my Fitbit Tracker. It's essentially a pedometer that links with the computer and gives you more data to look at. And it syncs with MFP and automatically adjusts calorie intake according to your exercise for the day. So the two programs work interchangeably to give me data in both my activity and my food consumption. Fitbit does have a food log, but I was already established on MFP and didn't want to switch over. The biggest advantage for me having the Fitbit was to confirm that I get a ton of exercise at work and don't essentially need to exercise to lose weight (referenced in Gary Taubes: Why We Get Fat). As I always hit my 10k steps on the days I work, often getting over 15k for the day which amounts to over 5 miles a day and close to 10 on really busy days.
With these two tools along with the internet and YouTube I have been able to stay focused and informed in my LCHF journey. Hopefully they can help you too!
My food journal I have come accustomed to using is the MyFitnessPal (MFP) app and website, I've used it now for 6 months and love it. I was never much to count calories or even carbohydrates during my first go around with low carb, I just tried to keep the carbs to a minimum and did ok. This app, which I use on my tablet 95% of the time, keeps me motivated and mostly helps me to realize whether I am actually hungry or do I just want to eat. As I have stated, I do truly believe in food addiction and logging helps me to keep myself focused. I have never been the person who can skip a meal. I always made sure I ate with the clock and not with my stomach. You can probably imagine that hunger is something I wasn't really familiar with. I often rode the insulin wave and developed a carb addiction along with it. I got sidetracked a bit there, back to the app! When initially setting up the app or website you input your body statistics, current weight, and weightloss goal, and it formulates a goal for calories and nutrients from that data. The really nice feature is that you can tweak these goals to your liking: i.e., more fat, less carbs, less calories, more calories, even down to macronutrients and percentages of which fats you intake if you want to get that deep into it.
It's got a reports tab where you can track your weight, measurements, calories, calories burned and a number of other items. And it will give you graphs and charts to correspond with each category, and if you like data like I like data it's a pretty sweet setup.
There is a barcode scanner feature built into the app so you can quickly scan a food item and add it into your log. It has a huge database of items and I believe I have yet to not be able to find an item listed. The only problem I see with the database is that it is so extensive there are often times many different items to choose from and you have to double check each one to make sure it's the right one to put on your log, it would be nice to see them consolidate the list a bit for this purpose.
There are numerous other features and I use many of them, but don't want to go into detail about them here.
The other tool I use is my Fitbit Tracker. It's essentially a pedometer that links with the computer and gives you more data to look at. And it syncs with MFP and automatically adjusts calorie intake according to your exercise for the day. So the two programs work interchangeably to give me data in both my activity and my food consumption. Fitbit does have a food log, but I was already established on MFP and didn't want to switch over. The biggest advantage for me having the Fitbit was to confirm that I get a ton of exercise at work and don't essentially need to exercise to lose weight (referenced in Gary Taubes: Why We Get Fat). As I always hit my 10k steps on the days I work, often getting over 15k for the day which amounts to over 5 miles a day and close to 10 on really busy days.
With these two tools along with the internet and YouTube I have been able to stay focused and informed in my LCHF journey. Hopefully they can help you too!
References
Through my journey I have also come across several different sites and books I like to frequent and use for reference and I thought I would list them here in case you would also like to check them out. You may have heard of them or are familiar with them, but here they are anyhow:
The Atkins Book: The New Atkins Made Easy (Amazon's Weblink)
Why We Get Fat: Gary Taubes: Why We Get Fat (Amazon's Weblink)
The Diet Doctor: Andreas Eenfeldt, MD
Authority Nutrition
Livin' La Vida Low Carb: Jimmy Moore
Mark's Daily Apple: Mark Sisson
Fat Head: Tom Naughton (Check out the movie too!)
CarbSmart
And of course the many videos of lectures regarding Low Carb High Fat diets and the science behind them and why they work for many of us.
The Atkins Book: The New Atkins Made Easy (Amazon's Weblink)
Why We Get Fat: Gary Taubes: Why We Get Fat (Amazon's Weblink)
The Diet Doctor: Andreas Eenfeldt, MD
Authority Nutrition
Livin' La Vida Low Carb: Jimmy Moore
Mark's Daily Apple: Mark Sisson
Fat Head: Tom Naughton (Check out the movie too!)
CarbSmart
And of course the many videos of lectures regarding Low Carb High Fat diets and the science behind them and why they work for many of us.
Introduction
I'd like to start my first post with a little background and what I would like to do with this blog. I am a chef and have struggled with weight my whole life, getting up to almost 300 pounds at one point. I have decided to journal my journey with Keto-adaptation coupled with my career as a chef. I did Atkins about 11 years ago and had great success, coming out of culinary school, and during my couple years after, I had gotten up to 297 pounds and was prompted by my mother to lose 100 pounds and I would receive $500 for my accomplishment. I went to town, went to the gym 6-7 days a week, even ran(which you wouldn't ever catch me doing) I discovered racquetball and would play for 3 hours without even thinking about it. Needless to say I accomplished my goal in about 8 months, got down to 184 pounds and was feeling great. I religiously followed the Atkins diet despite the judgments from others, but weight loss is weight loss, so I ignored all of them. Unfortunately the science wasn't as readily available back then and a low fat diet was still quite readily accepted as the dogma to lose weight. So many people would make the heart attack comment that many of us know so well. But I was fitting into a size 34 jeans again, and probably not since middle school!
Then I got lazy with my diet and the pounds came back on, I'll skip the details, but I recently got back up to 275 October of 2013. Sure I had halfheartedly tried to get back on the low carb bandwagon throughout that time period but my heart wasn't really into it. The carb addiction was just too strong for me to stick with it. I will most likely get into this later, but I do truly believe that carb addiction is what has fueled my weight struggles.
So in comes October 2013, I say I'm going to do it and my mind is made up. I know the Atkins routine and just before Halloween I embark on my weight loss journey once again. About a week after I start induction I came across a great app for my phone called MyFitnessPal and begin to journal my food intake on November 1, 2013. The program is great because you input your height, weight and goal weight and it will automatically setup your calorie goal, and nutrient goals, which are totally adjustable. So I began to log, mostly to keep my self accountable, and to avoid the carb creep that can invariably plagues us all. I did good and lost 10 pounds a month for the first couple months. As I did this I did not exercise, I didn't do anything different from my daily routine of going to work and coming home. I was happily burning fat and semi watching what I was eating, typically around 2200 calories a day with at least 70% of that being fat, and only 5-10% being carbohydrate. I typically stick to around 30 grams of carbohydrate per day.
I did have an issue with weight loss during the past 3 months and struggled to figure out what it was, I was losing but not as rapidly as I may have liked... kind of discouraging, but I have stayed the course. I often do research online which is a tool that I was not as readily afforded 11 years ago. And realized that perhaps that "Eat as much as you like" doesn't necessarily hold true. I have had much better success with keeping my calorie count around 1800 per day with the above mentioned ratios of 70% fat, 20% protein, 10% carbohydrate. I also believe that logging my food intake has helped me immensely to hold myself accountable and really ask the question if I'm actually hungry or not. I find that it is hard to get above 70% fat in my diet while still eating to enjoy eating, if that makes sense...? With a calorie count of only 1800 per day, often times closer to 1600, it's hard to eat for enjoyment as I often find myself doing instead of eating for sustenance. Don't get me wrong, I love what I eat, but it's different... I most generally don't eat more than 800 calories in a sitting, and that's stuffing myself, so someone who has in the past eaten to "feel" full or with emotions and just eating because I'm bored. It's a quite different experience and it's still taking some time to get used to.
As I mentioned earlier I am a Chef by trade and have been in the foodservice industry for 15 years. My job is pretty physically demanding and typically am on my feet for at least 9 hours a day, sometimes 12 or more. During dinner service, there is much walking, bending, spinning, turning, reaching and hunching over, nevermind the often times 120 degree heat of the hot line... Through my experience and knowledge I plan to share many of my recipes and techniques that I use quite often and find that many people may not know or have and would like to have access to. Look for me to share many of my favorites in upcoming posts.
Then I got lazy with my diet and the pounds came back on, I'll skip the details, but I recently got back up to 275 October of 2013. Sure I had halfheartedly tried to get back on the low carb bandwagon throughout that time period but my heart wasn't really into it. The carb addiction was just too strong for me to stick with it. I will most likely get into this later, but I do truly believe that carb addiction is what has fueled my weight struggles.
So in comes October 2013, I say I'm going to do it and my mind is made up. I know the Atkins routine and just before Halloween I embark on my weight loss journey once again. About a week after I start induction I came across a great app for my phone called MyFitnessPal and begin to journal my food intake on November 1, 2013. The program is great because you input your height, weight and goal weight and it will automatically setup your calorie goal, and nutrient goals, which are totally adjustable. So I began to log, mostly to keep my self accountable, and to avoid the carb creep that can invariably plagues us all. I did good and lost 10 pounds a month for the first couple months. As I did this I did not exercise, I didn't do anything different from my daily routine of going to work and coming home. I was happily burning fat and semi watching what I was eating, typically around 2200 calories a day with at least 70% of that being fat, and only 5-10% being carbohydrate. I typically stick to around 30 grams of carbohydrate per day.
I did have an issue with weight loss during the past 3 months and struggled to figure out what it was, I was losing but not as rapidly as I may have liked... kind of discouraging, but I have stayed the course. I often do research online which is a tool that I was not as readily afforded 11 years ago. And realized that perhaps that "Eat as much as you like" doesn't necessarily hold true. I have had much better success with keeping my calorie count around 1800 per day with the above mentioned ratios of 70% fat, 20% protein, 10% carbohydrate. I also believe that logging my food intake has helped me immensely to hold myself accountable and really ask the question if I'm actually hungry or not. I find that it is hard to get above 70% fat in my diet while still eating to enjoy eating, if that makes sense...? With a calorie count of only 1800 per day, often times closer to 1600, it's hard to eat for enjoyment as I often find myself doing instead of eating for sustenance. Don't get me wrong, I love what I eat, but it's different... I most generally don't eat more than 800 calories in a sitting, and that's stuffing myself, so someone who has in the past eaten to "feel" full or with emotions and just eating because I'm bored. It's a quite different experience and it's still taking some time to get used to.
As I mentioned earlier I am a Chef by trade and have been in the foodservice industry for 15 years. My job is pretty physically demanding and typically am on my feet for at least 9 hours a day, sometimes 12 or more. During dinner service, there is much walking, bending, spinning, turning, reaching and hunching over, nevermind the often times 120 degree heat of the hot line... Through my experience and knowledge I plan to share many of my recipes and techniques that I use quite often and find that many people may not know or have and would like to have access to. Look for me to share many of my favorites in upcoming posts.
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