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The Biggest Loser Diet – Explained!

This entry is part 126 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

This week results of a study were posted showing that contestants from “The Biggest Loser” from several years ago had mostly regained all their lost weight. From the conclusions offered in the findings it would seem there is no way to lose weight. The subjects metabolisms slowed down so much that it was nearly impossible for them to maintain their weight loss. Doctor Jason Fung does an excellent job of distilling what’s really going on here. I suggest you head over and read his article. I’ll wait.

This is what is sometimes termed ‘starvation mode’. This is what people imagine happens as their body starts to shut down in order to conserve energy. Basal metabolism (Calories Out) falls and you feel like crap. As you eat less, your body burns less calories, so that eventually weight loss plateaus. Then you feel like crap, so decide to eat a bit more (your hunger hormones are also rising like a spire), but not as much as you used to. But, your ‘Calories Out’ is so low that you get weight regain. Sound familiar? Happens to every dieter out there. What’s unfair, is that their friends and family silently blame the victim of having ‘fallen off the wagon’, or not having enough will power. Actually, the dietary advice – Eat Less, Move More is guaranteed to fail. So don’t blame the victim when they actually do fail.

You did read the article right? If you didn’t the TL;DR is:

  1. Caloric Reduction as Primary strategy puts you into starvation mode (lower metabolism).
  2. The key to losing weight in the long term is maintaining basal metabolism, or keeping ‘Calories Out’ high.
  3. Failure rate of Eat Less, Move More is proven to be 99% or so. This remains the diet advice favored by most physicians and dieticians.
  4. Actual starvation (fasting or bariatric surgery) does not put you into starvation mode (metabolism remains high).
  5. Ketogenic diets do not put you into starvation mode either (metabolism remains high).

My own experience confirms this. When I had a DEXA scan done I also did the resting metabolic rate test. Despite being on a Ketogenic diet for over a year and a half, my metabolism isn’t crazy low, quite the opposite:

The RMR report also said I probably want between 1776 and 2218 calories a day for weight loss; and that my metabolism is 10% faster than people of similar sex, age, height and weight. There were some less than useful platitudes about “you must burn more calories than you consume to lose weight” which is the same as saying “you must save more money than you spend to save money” or “if more people leave a room than come in, there will be less people in the room” – um… thanks?

So. If you want to lose weight because your body doesn’t handle carbohydrates well (like me!) and keep it off, it seems these are the steps:

  1. Switch to a ketogenic LIFESTYLE – no cheating, no end. If you go back to eating the sugary junk that got you fat in the first place, what do you think will happen?
  2. Do intermittent fasting (just don’t eat for two meals but keep drinking water) or outright fasting (24 hours without calories)
  3. If you’re feeling ambitious, try lifting weights. I’m currently a few weeks into StrongLifts5x5 (along with my wife, she’s awesome by the way; our anniversary is tomorrow) and so far it’s been simple and easy to stick to. Takes around 30 minutes, three times a week.
By |2016-10-13T07:27:40-06:00May 5th, 2016|Ketogenic, Weight Loss|Comments Off on The Biggest Loser Diet – Explained!
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Stronglifts5x5 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 =)

I had the day off yesterday so I went and found some of the stall mats I wanted to get. Indeed those things are heavy, like 100lbs each. I managed to get two of them onto a cart, into my vehicle and then my wife helped get them downstairs and under the equipment. My hands still hurt from gripping them. The StrongLifts program seems to be going well so far. I’m still lifting a mostly empty bar, concentrating on form more than anything. I am glad that my quads are happy now.

When I did my first lifting session a week ago I had some weirdness going on in my right quadriceps. It kinda felt like a cramp or something and I was rather worried it was going to be an ongoing problem or something. I didn’t know if it was related to being in keto for so long, not having lifted for so long or not enough magnesium since it felt like low magnesium even though I’m positive I’m getting enough. Anyway, the first two days after I lifted I was really, really sore. Then it went away and even though I’m lifting more (marginally: 55lbs 5×5 instead of 45lbs) it has not returned. I had previously noticed a tendency for my muscles to want to cramp up when I did serious stretching and starting lifting seems to have alleviated that everywhere. Should have done this a long time ago! My wife is also doing the SL5x5 program with me and she’s liking it so far. It’s quick and (for now) easy. The SL5x5 App is great and I finally got the watch integration figured out so I can see how many more sets I’m doing, how much weight and it even has a timer for how long to rest, it’s pretty awesome.

Now for the random stuff: I talked with a different co-packer that says they are able to do bags. This is a good thing since it would allow me to do a more incremental change with production instead of a major change to square bottles. It’s also good because it will keep shipping costs the same, I’m able to fit more bags in a box than I can fit hard walled bottles. I’m really looking forward to seeing where this may end up.

Next thing: I picked up a package of the chocolate “Keto Fuel” to see how it is (always a good plan to scope out your competitors). The guy in charge of SuperBodyFuel is allergic to a lot of things so he is VERY conscious about allergens in food. I’m lucky to only be allergic to cats (which is why you will never find any cats or cat hair in Keto Chow) so my recipes include potential allergens because the results taste better (to me). Anyway, Keto Fuel is “gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, and nut-free”, It’s also barely not vegan (has trace gelatin from the vitamins). Because it’s dairy free it needs a plant based protein source and soy protein would invalidate the “soy free” claim so they use rice protein, which is what Rosa Labs Soylent 1.x also uses. Rice protein is a difficult beast because it can impart a gritty texture. The Chocolate Keto Fuel also has Cocoa powder for flavoring which can add some grittiness too.

Lately I’ve been experimenting with using Acacia Gum for fiber in Keto Chow instead of Psyllium husk powder, the result is what little discernible texture there was is now completely gone so I’ve been drinking almost oddly smooth stuff for a bit. The texture of Keto Fuel was quite a change compared to that. Personally I’ve had some REALLY gritty meal replacement drinks in the past and Keto Fuel is actually pretty smooth by comparison. It’s far smoother than People Chow was (corn Masa) and given the goals in the recipe I think it’s probably as good as you could possibly do. Now one caveat: I followed the instructions on the package with the heavy cream option instead of the olive oil option since I’m not lactose intolerant and know it’ll taste WAY better this way.  I drank one meal and kept the rest for family and friends doing keto to try. I’ll not lie: none of them liked it, but none of them have allergies that would prevent them from drinking Keto Chow. I’m of the opinion that if you do have problems with dairy, soy or nuts then it’s an excellent product; especially considering how difficult a ketogenic diet is with those kinds of restrictions.

By |2016-04-26T13:11:54-06:00April 26th, 2016|Weight Lifting, Ketogenic, Soylent|6 Comments
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Want to participate in the “soylent eaters survey”?

I tried to send this out via email but Gmail got pretty mad at me and rejected it pretty quick. My only recourse would be to create a mailchimp list for a single use and that’s not something I want to do to my customers. I HATE companies shoving me onto a mailing list without me asking or consenting. “Gee, this guy emailed us once, let’s SPAM him to death until he unsubscribes”. No way man.

There is a survey for people who have tried “soylent” products like Keto Chow. If you want to participate you can at http://www.instant.ly/s/d6Eug?source_type=email (and if you don’t, that’s cool too).

At the end of the survey there’s a bunch of coupon codes for Keto Chow along with other powdered foods. If you’re interested, there’s some more info about the survey in the reddit thread about the survey.

 

By |2016-04-19T09:16:48-06:00April 19th, 2016|Keto Chow, Ketogenic, Soylent|Comments Off on Want to participate in the “soylent eaters survey”?
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Testing with acacia gum progressing well, thinking about starting lifting

This entry is part 125 of 139 in the series Ketogenic Soylent

So my test of Keto Chow with Acacia gum instead of Psyllium Husk powder seems to be going pretty well. Acacia gum doesn’t thicken like psyllium does so I’m having to use a thickening agent too, MOAR fiber I guess. It’s smoother that the psyllium, like really smooth with almost no texture at all except the peanut butter flour I added to this batch.

I’m still rocking 100% Keto Chow since Tuesday (well except the pickles I ate yesterday…. and then I drank all the pickle juice in the jar which was fun since they were hot chili pickles. My wife has planned for us to go out to dinner with friends tonight so I’l going to break my streak. I’m still down 4lbs from Tuesday.

I’ve been thinking about starting lifting at a gym, particularly since this post. It kinda snowballed yesterday when somebody posted a home gym on a yardsale site. I ended up talking to my brother (the one that is supposed to eventually post his experience with Keto and lifting) about it. His advice: “rent” the equipment with a gym membership, if you’re truly serious about it you can buy some later. OK, good plan. The price of the bowflex would be 3.5 years of membership at the gym nearest my house. Now the problem becomes: when will I have time to work out!? I think the solution will be to stash gym clothes in my car and stop on my way home. My awesome wife said she was going to suggest I start going to the gym but didn’t want to offend me =) So good timing I guess.

By |2016-04-16T08:26:29-06:00April 16th, 2016|Keto Chow, Site or Store Stuff, Ketogenic, Weight Loss|Comments Off on Testing with acacia gum progressing well, thinking about starting lifting
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Day 100 – 100 days of Keto (Chow) retrospective plus a rant about skinny weight loss coaches

This entry is part 81 of 81 in the series 100 days of keto

Weight change for the 100 days: 209.9 lbs to 205.4 lbs. That’s not really stellar progress but compared to gaining I suppose I’ll take it. I also didn’t “cheat” once; meaning I didn’t ever deliberately eat foods containing sugar, starch or other carbohydrates – but that wasn’t a surprise, aside from “robins eggs” that are still kicking around my house I’m not tempted at all by carby foods. For the most part I did have 3 meals of Keto Chow a day for the 100 days but it’s the “extra” stuff that was detrimental.

This 100 day experiment was a good experience though. I can see a direct correlation between my progress and the amount of malitol I consumed, for one thing. Malitol is a relatively common “sugar free” sweetener. And by “sugar free” I’m using the loose standard the food industry uses since it is a sugar alcohol and is arguably better than sucrose, though not by much. Because malitol is cheaper than most of the sugar alcohols like Erythritol it gets used pretty frequently in sugar free stuff. Like Russell Stover chocolates, sugar free lemon heads and others. My advice to myself and to others: if it has malitol then you can’t subtract the sugar alcohols from the total carbohydrates. In other words: just avoid it entirely. Go get some Swerve sweetener and make your own stuff instead. Seriously, it’s my downfall and I’m finally coming to terms with it. As much as people rail against aspartame and sucralose at least I know they don’t affect my metabolism.

So, I didn’t lose much weight during the experiment, what about blood ketones? First off: measuring your ketones is generally a really bad idea. It’s motivational to get some of the urine test strips when you are very first starting out doing keto since you can see a tangible and almost immediate result. As your body adapts to ketosis the urine test strips become useless though, you stop producing extra that gets excreted and the strips stop working. So you can test with blood tests or breath acetone tests. The blood tests are like $2 each and the breath tester is $150. You also fall into a non-constructive pattern if you are constantly testing and “chasing ketones”. You’re better off just limiting your carbohydrates, tracking food in general and keeping at it. Keep Calm and Keto On (KCKO) as they say. So I did measure my blood ketone levels every day. Near the end of the experiment I discovered that I was doing it wrong! Thanks to the “dawn phenomenon” my glucose was high and ketones were low every morning when I tested. That can partially account for why I only averaged 0.5 mmol/L during the experiment (you want to be in the 1.5-3.0 range). the rest of it is the aforementioned malitol.

So here’s where I get into my rant: I feel your pain because it’s my pain too.

Losing weight can be very, very difficult for people (at times it can also be really easy for others). The irony is that almost all of the people you see that advocate exercise, active lifestyles and other “traditional” forms of weight loss have never experienced Metabolic Syndrome, Insulin Resistance or Diabetes. You see the rail thin “never been overweight” paragons of fitness selling exercise plans to get people skinny, or body wraps, or ab crunchers. Even the models they use for weight reduction surgery look like they’ve NEVER been obese. They just don’t understand, and it drives me nuts. Unfortunately society as a whole also subscribes to the notion that all you have to do to be skinny is exercise, fat people are lazy, it’s a moral weakness.

Being fat is a lack of character so far as being allergic to peanuts is a lack of character. Some people can’t handle gluten, others get sunburn almost by looking at a photograph of the sun. Are those problems with their moral fiber, with their will power? Should society look down on them? Maybe they should just try not being diabetic, or celiac , or ginger. Your body’s ability or inability to process glucose/carbohydrates isn’t your fault. If people happen to have won the genetic lottery and their cells haven’t become resistant to insulin yet then that’s also not something they should be applauded for. That’s just how your body may be.

When I was a skinny little kid with asthma I couldn’t gain weight for anything. Then I overcame that and, by the outward indicators, slowly worked up resistance to insulin. I stopped processing glucose like I was supposed to. I don’t know if that was genetics, environment, or (more likely) a result of what I was eating combined with the two.  Regardless, I got fat and stayed fat. To date, the only thing that has had a consistent effect on my weight was coming to terms with how I personally metabolize glucose (or rather don’t). Switching to a ketogenic diet has impacted my health and weight tremendously and I don’t see any reason I would ever stop. Why eat bread when you can eat bacon?

So I consider these 100 days a success for the additional experience I gained. Sure it would have been awesome to be down to 180, but when people report that they’re having issues losing weight I more than understand. I’ve had the same frustrations and maybe even done the same things that are hindering your/their progress.

By |2016-10-13T07:27:40-06:00April 13th, 2016|100 days of keto, Weight Loss, Keto Chow, Ketogenic|6 Comments
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Day 099 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)

This entry is part 80 of 81 in the series 100 days of keto
  • Weight: 208.0
  • Blood ketones: 0.1 mmol/L

So I’m stuck in a up and down cycle – it’s entirely what I’ve been eating and has a simple explanation, despite that I’ve decided it serves as good experience; I’ll call it “gives me a better understanding of what others are going through” yeah – that’s it. I’ll harp on that a bit more for tomorrow when I do my retrospective on the “100 days of Keto (chow)”

The acacia gum fiber did not come yesterday, which kinda sucked – I had the day off work and I was all prepped and ready to spend a few hours testing it out. Instead I’m going to have to figure out some time later this week to do that =(. We got a shipment of Choline that was DL instead of L – apparently their product codes got messed up. I’m getting a credit for it but now I have to dispose of 100kg of Choline DL-Bitartrate. That’ll be fun.

By |2016-04-12T09:05:09-06:00April 12th, 2016|100 days of keto, Keto Chow|Comments Off on Day 099 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)
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Days 096, 097 & 098 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)

This entry is part 79 of 81 in the series 100 days of keto
  • Weight: 206.6
  • Blood ketones: <0.1 mmol/L
  • Weight: 205.5
  • Blood ketones: dunno
  • Weight: 207.5
  • Blood ketones: 0.2 mmol/L

Saturday was a busy day with loads of physical activity in the yard with the kids, followed by everyone but me getting a slurpee (I had some diet rootbeer instead) then we hit the park and played there until the rain came and sent us running for cover. I made some Keto Chow muffins that I ended up having for breakfast this morning. I used my immersion blender and it worked WAY better than a regular blender for making the muffins. I’ll be doing that in the future now.

Yesterday we had a little get together. We brought deviled eggs and little cups of chocolate mousse. About 1/4 of the people there were doing keto and our friends brought some smoked pulled pork and low carb tortillas. I ended up so full I didn’t even bother eating dinner, so only 1 keto chow for me yesterday.

Anyhow, today was keto chow muffins with some creme cheese. I’m planning on shakes for lunch and for dinner too.

By |2016-04-11T08:31:56-06:00April 11th, 2016|Keto Chow, 100 days of keto|Comments Off on Days 096, 097 & 098 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)
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Day 095 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)

This entry is part 78 of 81 in the series 100 days of keto
  • Weight: 206.0
  • Blood ketones: 0.2 mmol/L

Had an awesome time at the IFT Food Suppliers trade show yesterday. Met some great people and might have found some new suppliers for ingredients. It was funny to see some of the places I’m getting some of my current ingredients from too. I happened upon one supplier that does fiber and asked if they have psyllium husk powder. They don’t but the guy asked what I was using it for, I gave a quick explanation to which he responded “wait, you’re doing Keto? so am I!” We had a rousing conversation that went all over the place but the end result was I’m going to be getting a sample shipment of their acacia gum fiber and their thickener to test in Keto Chow. Allegedly it’s a far better source of fiber than psyllium so I’m anxious to try it out. We’ll see!

By |2016-04-08T14:42:54-06:00April 8th, 2016|100 days of keto, Keto Chow|1 Comment
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Day 094 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)

This entry is part 77 of 81 in the series 100 days of keto
  • Weight: 204.8
  • Blood ketones: 0.2 mmol/L

Yesterday I only did two keto chow shakes – we got a new waffle maker and my wife made keto waffles, figured we might as well go all-in on “breakfast for dinner” so I cooked a bunch of bacon and sausage. Also yesterday I got some preliminary figures for the costs of the protein for keto Chow 2.0. In the early stages I had asked for a blend of Whey Protein Concentrate, Whey Protein isolate and Casein Protein (milk). Casein has some advantages in that it’s slower to absorb which can keep you feeling full longer, it’s also beneficial for weight lifting with a higher glutamine content. The problem is: it’s three times the cost of concentrate, it also adds an additional allergy possibility. From the looks of things we’re going to be using a blend of whey isolate and concentrate that is very similar to the Dymatize and I’ll probably add a recommendation that anyone doing body building use casein to supplement the protein in the Keto Chow (which is likely going to be just a touch higher than the current recipe).

This evening I’m going to check out the IFT Food Suppliers event, with any luck I might be able to find some additional industry leads for production/packaging or ingredients. Only problem: I’ll have to do it quick because weigh-in for the Pinewood Derby is at 6:30 and I don’t want to miss the event!

By |2016-04-08T13:47:01-06:00April 7th, 2016|100 days of keto, Keto Chow|Comments Off on Day 094 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)
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Day 093 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)

This entry is part 76 of 81 in the series 100 days of keto
  • Weight: 204.7
  • Blood ketones: 0.3 mmol/L

I launched the new front page yesterday, overall the reactions are positive; should have done that a long time ago =). Yesterday I did 3 keto chows, it’s awfully convenient to have when you’re really busy and have to work through lunch.

I got a letter from my health insurance, seems they looked at my most recent lipid profile test (strangely enough, that’s from nearly a year ago). They wanted to mail me to let me know that they think  I have hyperlipidemia and think I should be taking statins. They also say I should stop eating cheese, red meat and eggs, eat more fruit and use low fat dairy products. So… I should ignore the last 50 years of ACTUAL scientific study that show dietary cholesterol does not affect serum (blood) cholesterol and start poisoning myself with carbohydrates again. Yeah, no thanks.

The fact that my Triglycerides are about half what they used to be, my HDL is up I guess the next step to do is get a VAP or NMR test, I’ll probably arrange for that during my next doctor appointment.

By |2016-09-01T13:19:37-06:00April 6th, 2016|100 days of keto, Keto Chow|Comments Off on Day 093 – 100 days of Keto (Chow)
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