Tuesday, April 30, 2013

INTRODUCTION TO NUTRITIONAL KETOSIS


I first heard this term from Jimmy Moore of Livin La Vida. He discovered that he might be eating too much protein and negating his weight loss efforts. He read the book, The Art and Science of Low Carb Performance, and decided to experiment on himself and you can read all about Jimmy's n-1 life here.

I had begun to buy into the science that says fat is an extremely important part of our diet and in the right balance will contribute to sustainable weight loss. I lost a lot of weight in the first six months after cutting out wheat from my regular diet in 2012. Then I went into a very slow weight loss period that felt more like a total stall. With only half the weight gone that I intended to lose this was becoming a problem. I decided that it was time to change things.

I read the Volek and Phinney book, The Art and Science of Low Carb Performance,  and continued to follow Jimmy's self experiment and decided I had nothing to lose.

I have come a long way from Weight Watchers. I went to my first meeting in the '70s and lost some weight eating a lot of canned salmon. It is now one of my least liked foods. About 10 years ago two of my sons introduced me to Lean For Life, a low carb diet that included a daily urine test for ketones using small test strips, (Ketostix). I was reasonably successful eating this way but I could not sustain the lifestyle.

In the past few years I have had more exposure to low carb, high fat diets and the paleo/primal lifestyles. Nothing quite gelled for me until I read Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis. John, my husband, also read it and since then our home has become a wheat free environment.

I stopped being scared of terms like LCHF, Paleo, dairy free, grain free and possibly many more. That doesn't mean I wanted to buy into any of the specific lifestyles for myself. But there is something about Jimmy Moore that impresses me and one reason must have to do with his quiet but firm Christian Faith. All my reading, successes and failures, were leading me toward nutritional ketosis. I decided to do my own self experiment. This has been going on most of this year, 2013, but somehow I was missing the point somewhere. I was probably eating too many carbohydrates.

We were away from home for 5 weeks, see my Hawaii 2013 Blog, without any real weight gains in spite of having many treats including the occasional dessert or cocktail. I came home refreshed in mind, spirit and body and decided to take a closer look at the Fat Fast Recipe book by Dana Carpender.

Her recipe for a fat fast is something like 1000 calories a day at 90% fat for a maximum of 3 days although someone has tried up to 10 days successfully. I modified the ratio of macro-nutrients to a level I thought was safer for me and settled on 1150 calories with a ratio of  75% fats, 20%protein and 5% carbs. I decided this ratio was safe for me to follow to the letter for 10 days. That's a very long time for someone who wants to eat naturally and not be bothered with weighing and recording every mouthful.

My plan is not a true Fat Fast according to Dana and others who talk and write about this. Nonetheless for me this is a Fat Fast if modified greatly from the ideal.

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