Boy, You’re Gonna Carry That Weight, Carry That Weight A Long Time

Wow.

Just, wow.

Honestly, the response to my last post – where I bared my soul about my changing nutritional philosophy – has just completely floored, astonished, overwhelmed and amazed me. I am so touched by the comments, support, empathy and love that you all sent my way, and I cannot say thank you enough. I was scared to hit “publish”, convinced that I would be laughed off the internet, and the condemnation would rain down upon me like… well, rain. But that didn’t happen. So, let this be a testament to the power of opening yourself up and allowing yourself to be honest and vulnerable and genuine. You might just reap rewards you didn’t even know existed.

Photo Credit: nvartscouncil.com

You all rock (so hard!), and I send a whole lotta love and thanks to each and every one of you.

So, in that vein, I decided to share a little more about where I’m at and where I’m headed with this whole shaking-the-shackles-of-dietary-dogma thing. While publishing the last post was one of the greatest and coolest things I’ve ever done, it sure wasn’t the end of the story. It’s all very well to say “Yeah! I’m going to eat! Eat everything! Wahoo!”, but there are real-world ramifications of that, and I think I owe it to you all to share the good, the bad, and the ugly.

What I’ve Been Doing

So, as you’ll probably recall if you’ve read the last post, I’ve been nutritionally adulterous. I’ve been eating all kinds of weird shit, some of which strays far outside the bounds of Paleo. I’ve been eating what I feel like, when I feel like eating it. If that means chocolate for breakfast, so be it.

It had been so long since I’d eaten oatmeal, I couldn’t remember what I liked with it. So I tried a little bit of it all.

It has all felt so wonderful. So liberating. So freeing. It has almost been scary, at times – the freedom to choose whatever I want to eat. I had to remind myself of it a few times - anything is a viable option for lunch, I don’t have to wait until the next “meal time” to eat, it doesn’t matter if there’s not enough protein in that meal, I can eat it all or none of it if I want to. It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten this way – perhaps I’ve never really eaten this way. So it takes some getting used to (though, admittedly, there are worse things – I’m not complaining!).

I want to underscore something here, too: I am not making any claims about the relative health or nutritional qualities of what I’m eating. I don’t want you to come away from this thinking I’m suddenly saying “BREAD IS HEALTHY! EAT LOTS OF IT!”. I’m not trying to eat “healthfully”. What I’m trying to do is just eat. Sometimes – that means eating stuff that probably isn’t doing me any good, but I’m going to do it anyway. This is not an exercise in achieving perfect physical health (yet), but in overcoming the mental barriers I’ve established for myself in my relationship with food.

I haven’t really learned anything all that new since my last post, in terms of what my body can physically handle and what it can’t. It can handle sugar. It can handle legumes. It cannot handle gluten. Gluten-free grains haven’t caused any issues that I’m consciously aware of. I enjoy eating, and I enjoy the freedom that this new philosophy affords me. I don’t *have* to look up the menu of a restaurant online, before I agree to eat there – I can if I want to, but if I don’t, I’ll still eat there. I’m not counting anything, I’m not measuring anything, I’m not trying to weigh up in my mind whether the two extra bites are going to throw off my supposed “balance”, or whether I put more than a tablespoon of coconut cream in my coffee. All of this makes me feel great, joyous, on top of the world.

What Else Am I Doing?

Of course, I’ve been doing something other than shoving food in my face. I’ve been trying to master new software programs (to bring you an improved choosingtoeat experience). I’ve been dipping my toes in the pool of strength training, trying new classes, running just enough to keep me in shape for a race I’m running but not so much that I completely eff up my legs (injury issues still at play). I’ve actually got a whole other post in the works about working out, so I’ll shelve that conversation for now.

In other news: I’ve also accepted a full-time job, which I’m very excited about. Of course, this has thrown my life into a bit of a tail-spin, with preparation and buying suitable-yet-flattering pants and trying to figure out when the hell I’m going to get to the gym or write my blog when 40 hours of my week gets sucked into an office… All of that has certainly kept me busy.

And I’ve got my family in town, for my graduation ceremony. That’s right, I’m finally getting my hands on the piece of paper that proves I didn’t entirely waste four and a half years. Exciting stuff!

Photo Credit: ccsf.edu

But, I will confess, it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses. In amongst all the liberation and the happiness, I’ve had moments of real anxiety and despair.

But, Why Would I Be Sad?

See, there’s this thing that happens, when you start eating a lot of food after a long period of restriction, and it can be quite distressing, but it’s almost embarrassing to talk about.

You get bigger.

That sentence doesn’t look like much, but it’s been a serious issue for me, and for a lot of other people in the ETF community that I’ve been speaking to. You bloat, you put on fat, you put on a little muscle – you start feeling like Helga the Heffalump.

The reasons for this should be fairly obvious, and I can’t pretend I didn’t know that this would likely happen. I could try to explain the mechanisms behind this, and how it all occurs, but I think I’m best off leaving that to the experts (like Amber at http://www.gokaleo.com). What I really want to describe here, though, are the psychological side-effects of this phenomenon.

When I let go of the diet reins, I cruised by for a few days. I ate sugar, I ate starch, I ate peanuts, I felt great! My body didn’t seem to change one iota, but I wasn’t weighing myself anyway, so who the heck cared? It truly was all sunshine and rainbows.

Then the gluten happened. And I got all bloated. And I noticed my pants were a little more snug. And I could feel a little more jiggle in my wiggle.

Then a lot more jiggle in my wiggle.

Right now, I’m still refusing to weigh myself, but I’m pretty convinced I’ve put on at least a good 5-8kg. Some of which is just water retention, some of which might be muscle, but mostly I’m guessing it’s fat. I feel bigger, and I certainly look it. I had to buy jeans in a size I thought I’d left behind a long time ago.

Photo Credit: answers.com

I am a person who lost a bit of weight – enough that people would notice and want to talk to me about it, enough that I had to go and buy a whole new wardrobe… heck, it was enough for me to start my own blog. I’m starting to realise that my weight loss became a bigger part of my identity than perhaps it should have. I was defined by my new physique. It changed how I related to others, to the world, to myself. I didn’t approach the world as a “thin girl”, I approached the world as a “former fat girl” – there’s an important distinction there, in my mind.

And to feel that going backwards now? It doesn’t feel good.

Part of the problem, I think, is that I’ve somehow come to believe that gaining back weight is a cliche. That gaining back the weight means losing the respect of people I care about. That gaining back the weight means I’m not as worthy, or that I won’t be loved. Gaining back weight means I am taking a step backwards in my life, that I am losing progress I have made, that I am a failure.

For the majority of others who ETF, as Amber from GoKaleo has described it, this weight gain is temporary. They keep working out, they eat a reasonable amount of food, and their weight levels out at a healthy point. It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing, though, that it won’t happen for you. That you’ll be an exception to the rule. That you’ll have to give up this newfound freedom to eat, and go back to counting lettuce leaves, in order to not cringe when you look at yourself in the mirror.

The worst part, for me personally, is that I’m seeing friends and family members that I haven’t seen in a while – and I’m terrified that they’ll only be able to see the “failure” on my hips. They won’t see how happy and free I feel, they won’t notice how much more relaxed and open I am, they’ll only be able to see the (hopefully temporary) evidence of my supposed gluttony written all over my thighs and belly. When they see it, they might not love or respect me as much. They might not value my opinions as much. They might raise their eyebrows when I put a lot of food on my plate, or when I ask where we’re getting dessert. After all, if I’m gaining back weight, I don’t deserve dessert.

Do I?

Photo Credit: glorifybasecamp.com

Writing this post has been like therapy for me. It’s so much easier to acknowledge your unreasonable assumptions, your negativity, and your illogical conclusions when you see them written out in front of you. If one of my friends was saying this about herself, I would laugh in disbelief – I love all of my friends and family, no matter how fat or how thin they are or become. I want all of my friends and family to be happy, in whatever form that takes – and I’m sure they want the same for me.

In a way, I’m still nutritionally dancing on a train. No matter how much my philosophy changes, I can never seem to manage to get on the same page as my community, or even my government – I’ve always got to be doing things differently. There are costs that come with that, but there are great rewards, too. In the end, I’ve got to be true to myself, and listen to what my gut tells me is right. I still think I’m on the right path for now.

My plan of attack:

(1) Keep eating. Even when the old demons raise their voices, telling me to put down the peanut butter and pick up exactly 200g of chicken breast, I will keep eating the food. I will not allow myself to believe that returning to old, restrictive, unhealthy patterns is the solution.

(2) Keep writing this blog. You all rock, and I’m so grateful for all of your support and love and input and empathy.

(3) Push through the “fat” days, the “ugly” days, the “I don’t belong in this gym” days – because I do belong, no matter how fat or how ugly, and I can be happy just the same.

(4) Remind myself that my loved ones love me, exactly as I am, whatever shape that takes. The jiggle in my wiggle does not change my sense of humour, my taste in music, my love of Star Wars, or my argumentative streak. They’ll be happy if I’m happy. It will be okay.

So, that’s the good, and the bad, and the fat, of ETF. Have you experienced anything like this before? Do you get so wrapped up in your weight?

If I’m Gonna Tell It, Then I Gotta Tell It All

Hi! I know, I know – you’ve missed me. There’s been quite a bit going on behind the scenes here at choosingtoeat. Living, loving, laughing – all of that. But I think I owe you another update, and a bit of an explanation. I’ve got some confessions to make.

Pull up a chair, folks – it’s about to get real here.

As most of you would recall, I’m smack bang in the middle of writing a series of posts about nutritional ketosis (you can flick back through my recent posts for more details if need be). Essentially, nutritional ketosis is a metabolic state induced by a diet very low in carbohydrate, and very high in fat – your body stops relying on sugar as a primary fuel source, and your body burns fatty acids and ketones for energy instead. It’s a pretty restrictive diet, by any standard. I accidentally kinda experienced this during my sugar-elimination program (which I started after the chocolate explosion that was Easter Sunday). And, as you may also recall, my experience wasn’t all that great – which is precisely why I wanted to do the blog series on the topic, to investigate and learn more, and maybe help others avoid the same mistakes.

The series has been HAWT!! I mean it. It’s been shared on Reddit, on Pinterest, on Twitter, on Facebook. Even Jimmy Moore got in on the action – he read it, shared it, congratulated me. I got a tonne of new followers. My Mum called and told me I did a good job. It generated more traffic than anything else I’ve posted here. That is, of course, phenomenal and fantastic and I can’t overstate my gratitude.

However, I began to suspect something wasn’t quite right.

See, all of these lovely, lovely people who were reading and sharing their stories with me and giving me such wonderful feedback – they seemed to be under the impression that this was something I wanted. That ketosis was something I was actively seeking out, trying to accomplish, achieving great things with. I did try to clarify a couple of times – that it was merely something I was interested in, and something I wanted to learn more about – but I’m not sure that message really came across. I mean, if I was going to all the trouble of explaining it and describing it in such great detail, I must believe in it, right? I must advocate it in some fashion.

Really, that’s not the case at all. And this is where I’m worried that choosingtoeat is getting a bit off-track.

When I started this blog, I was determined that I wasn’t going to advocate any particular diet or methodology. I am not a “guru”. I do not write books, I haven’t studied nutrition, I have no magic bullet. I wanted this to be a safe space where I could explore aspects of nutrition that interested me, and share what I learned with all of you. There was to be no judgement here. If you ate vegan, if you followed Atkins, if you only ate blue foods on days beginning with W – whatever it is you’re into, you’re welcome here, and I’m open to it all.

Then – and you all came with me on this journey – Paleo happened. I heard about it, I learned about it, I “ummed” and “ahhed” about it for a ridiculous period of time. Gradually, I dipped my toes in that pool, and I started sharing more and more of my experiences on here. I talked about why grains were evil, why carbohydrate intake should be low, whether or not we should avoid dairy… then, I went even further down the rabbit hole, and described – in painstaking daily detail – my Whole45. And you – lovely, dear, wonderful, I-couldn’t-ask-for-better readers – came with me then, too. Most of you are on-board with this Paleo schtick, some of you think it’s whackadoodle, but you all supported me nonetheless. And I am endlessly appreciative.

But (and this came to a head when I started developing my Paleo orthorexia post) I started to worry that I had drunk just a little too much of the Kool-Aid. I had lost sight of the original philosophies of this blog. I had started demonising foods; I didn’t want to admit it, of course, but wheat was “evil”, legumes were “dangerous”, dairy and nuts were “slippery little devils”. I used this language when I thought about food, wrote about food, spoke to others about food.

This stretches beyond me as a blogger. I started to think about myself as a person. As an individual who eats food.

Looking back at who and where I was when I started this blog, I see that I was a person who had lost a lot of weight in a conventionally “healthy” way (i.e., restricted diet and exercise), but I was also a person who had developed a very unhealthy relationship with her body, and with food. I measured every morsel of food that went in to my mouth. I counted calories the way other people count dollars. I was euphoric when I restricted my intake below my self-determined “maximum”, I was devastated and filled with self-loathing when I exceeded it. I would go on “benders”, and then spend months “making up for them”.

When I transitioned to Paleo, I thought I had healed myself. I stopped counting calories. I stopped weighing and measuring. As long as I was eating the “right” foods, that didn’t matter! I was free!

But, my list of “right” foods became shorter and shorter. Quinoa was off the list. Then potatoes. Then I started thinking maybe sweet potatoes should go, too – after all, they’re only for “athletes”. Nuts went on the “occasional” list, then the “never” list. I cut back on my fruit. And so on, and so forth…

These thoughts swirled around in the back of my mind for a long time, but they really crystallised for me during my sugar-free program. When I found myself barely able to stumble home, after a run I would have absolutely powered through a few months ago (in fact, I could have doubled it, easily). When I realised I was back to weighing myself everyday, and wondering whether a tomato had too many carbohydrates. When I was tracking my macronutrient ratios in exactly the same way I had once counted calories, and basing my opinion on myself on what that little pie chart looked like. Something wasn’t right.

I like to think that, where previous generations may have received “signs from God”, Gen Y now gets “signs from the Internet”. I fortuitously stumbled across a magnificent blog by a truly inspiring lady: http://gokaleo.com/
I won’t reproduce her entire blog here, but I strongly, strongly encourage you to check out her stuff, especially if what I’m saying here is ringing true for you.

Essentially, what I realised was this: I was eating a nutritionally healthy diet, in the most unhealthy way possible. I found a way of eating that I enjoyed, and somehow made it unenjoyable. I take everything to extremes – I always have, and it’s the most pronounced in what I choose to eat. I was either Whole30-compliant, or post-break-up-Bridget Jones – “moderation” was not something I was capable of.

More than anything, I was manufacturing my own misery, paralysing myself with analysis, and ultimately doing all aspects of my health – physical and mental – a great disservice.

I don’t want to pretend like my life completely sucks, or that I was wallowing in the depths of depression, but I don’t think I ever revealed on this blog how truly unhealthy my relationship with food is. I saw it as an arbiter of myself worth, a weapon, a comfort, a symbol, a friend, an enemy – it was never simply a source of fuel. I have spent years now oscillating between restriction and overindulgence. I’ve tried to achieve “balance”, and even convinced myself that I had done so a few times (maybe I even convinced a few of you). I’m only now recognising the damage I’ve actually done to my body and my mental health. And it’s something I can’t ignore, or set aside.

So, here it is. The bare bones truth of “where I’m at”. I think that Paleo is the most nutritionally healthy paradigm for me, but – right now – I’m not sure it’s the most healthy for me psychologically. I have a lot of work to do. And it starts with a concept called ETF – “Eating The Food”. (See Amber’s blog that I linked to above for more details. There’s also a Facebook group you can join, if you search for it – I’m a member.)

I wouldn’t want to speak for everyone that espouses an ETF philosophy, but to me it means this: freeing oneself of dietary restriction and dogma, eating intuitively and rejecting externally-imposed “rules”. It means eating enough to fuel activity (you’d be surprised how many of us under eat), to repair the body, to build the body, to support health (in all of its forms). It means eating in a way that feels right to you, and – if you want to take this step – encouraging others to eat in a way that feels right to them.

This means – get ready for it – I’ve been cheating on Paleo. Yes, I confess, I’m nutritionally adulterous. Over the course of the last week or so – which happened to include my birthday – I had sugar, I had legumes (peanut butter!), I had commercially-prepared food, I had alcohol, I had… gluten! No shit.

My birthday breakfast.

A birthday mojito (the sun was still in the sky, even)

 

A sugar-laden chocolate milkshake (and note the super-special birthday princess badge!)

Some crusty bread and organic butter, alongside our dinner.

 

A gluten-filled carrot cake… with birthday sparklers!

And I learned so much, from all of this.

I learned that the world won’t explode if I eat exactly what I feel like, no matter how sugary or how calorically-dense it is.

I learned that my stomach won’t revolt at a whiff of peanut butter. Indeed, it won’t revolt at all, even after half a jar.

I learned that, somewhere along the way, I found my limits with alcohol and figured out how to respect them. My days of tying-one-on are long gone, but I can enjoy a drink or two and make it home standing upright.

I learned that I can eat a banana before a workout, and it seems to actually help!

I learned that I can eat half a packet of chocolate-coated almonds – I don’t feel the compulsive need to demolish them all. But, even if I do feel that compulsive need, and I do demolish them all, that’s okay. My parents and my partner and my friends will love me anyway.

I learned that, no matter how gung-ho I get about Eating The Food, old habits and insecurities and fears and demons will come back to haunt me.

I learned that, no matter how gung-ho I get about Eating The Food, I cannot Eat The Gluten. That shit nearly killed me. Crusty bread is good, but so not worth it.

I have been ecstatic, and terrified, and nervous, and determined, and miserable, and crazed, and full. I have been energetic, dancing around the house like a maniac, working out as much as I can. I’ve been waking up ridiculously early for no apparent reason – my body just doesn’t seem to need the sleep. After the Gluten Incident, I felt bloated and sore and achy and sick and disgusting. I’m sure I’ve put on a couple of kilos, in a super-short space of time, but I have no hard evidence because I refuse to weigh myself. I refuse. I am not counting calories, carbs, fat, protein, or any other component of food. I am enjoying myself. I bought a chocolate bar because I felt like it, and had half a dozen squares with lunch, even though it contained soy lechitin. It sounds ridiculous written here, but that is a big deal in my brain.

So, I guess you could say my mindset has changed quite a lot, in quite a short space of time. And I’ve got a lot of shit to work through. I don’t think I was “wrong” about Paleo – I just need to start applying it differently in my life. I need to eat a freakin’ sweet potato.

I couldn’t keep writing this blog as normal, pretending that none of this was happening. It’s happening. And I’m determined to bring some of those positive changes to the choosingtoeat table.

To be honest, I think I’ll shelve the ketosis series for now – maybe I’ll finish it one day, but right now my mind is on other things. I’m very sorry if you subscribed to this blog, under the impression that I would be sharing a miraculous keto journey with you. I do hope you stick around anyway. If not, I understand But ketosis is not right for me, not right now.

Actually, how’s this – I’ll finish with a clear description of my current eating philosophy. Just so we’re all on the same page.

My name is Sheree, and I am reforming my relationship with food. I eat when I am hungry, and I don’t track how much. I eat mostly foods that fit into a Paleo nutritional paradigm, because these are the foods I enjoy and they fuel my body the best. However, I refuse to demonise foods outside of this paradigm, and I will eat those foods when the urge strikes. Gluten is off the table for me, but that’s cool. I eat sugar, I eat dairy, I eat nuts, I eat fruit, I eat lots of vegetables, I eat chocolate, I eat meat, and I am not afraid to try new things. I do not eat this way in the hopes of attaining a certain body size, weight or composition, and I do not weigh myself. I work out in ways that I enjoy, as often as I feel my body can handle, and I fuel this activity as best I can with food. I eat as ethically as I can, where I can afford to, and this is very important to me – I will avoid products that contain palm oil, for instance, on a purely ethical basis. I am determined to develop a healthy relationship with food, no matter how many magazines or advertisers want the opposite, no matter how many setbacks crop up, no matter how many diet gurus tell me I’m wrong and destined to die fat and alone. I’m cool with whatever you want to eat, vegetable or animal or mineral – my own choices are no judgement upon yours. On my blog, I hope only to describe what I know, what I learn, what I think about, and what I explore; I will not tell you how to eat, how to move, or how to live. And that’s where I’m at.

Don’t You Be Wasting All Your Money on Syrup and Honey, Because I’m Sweet Enough

Hi!! You’ll be glad to hear, I’m sure, that this post is a bit of a “break” in my nutritional ketosis series. I’ve just finished up my sugar-free program, and I’ve been going through some personal revolutions and revelations when it comes to nutrition, so I thought it was a good time to post a more personal update. You on board?

My Sugar-Free Summary

So, last you heard of this, I was just past halfway through. The first half of this program actually went really well, and did exactly what I intended – got me on an “even keel”, eating lots of meat and veg, etc. But not everything went according to plan – does it ever?

First, that weight that fell off me in the first few days? All water weight. Once that was gone, my weight stayed very stable – perhaps even moreso than usual. I noticed, though, that I very quickly and easily fell back into the habit of weighing myself every single day. For those of you who don’t remember or haven’t read about my relationship with the scale, you can do so here: http://choosingtoeat.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/here-is-a-scale-weigh-it-out-and-youll-find-easily/
So, I need to jump right back down off that horse – now that the program is over and I have all the data I need to work with, there is no need for me to be weighing myself every day. Or at all, really. I’m going to try not weighing myself indefinitely, and see how it feels. Part of those personal revolutions and revelations I was talking about

In other news, I didn’t experience the massive surges in energy that a lot of other users report. I half-heartedly hoped that quitting sugar would give that magical “zing”, pep me up and brighten my day, but it really didn’t. Everything stayed pretty much stable on that front. I can’t even put that down to poor sleep – I had some issues at first, but my sleep was pretty much spot on after the first week. Except, of course, the occasional food dream – the most memorable being shovelling sugary cereal down my gob, despite insisting over and over again that I didn’t actually want to. The father of my academic studies, Freud, would surely have a field day with that one!

Still, the program wasn’t all downsides. It certainly helped me get back in tune with my body – distinguishing true hunger signals, assessing the feedback my body was giving me, in a weird way it encouraged me to make my body and my health a priority in my daily life. If nothing else, programs such as this and the Whole30 are good for this reason alone; it’s easy to lose that connection with ourselves in the day-to-day bustle, eating and drinking and sleeping out of habit or convenience rather than assessing and filling needs. I realise this all sounds a bit hippy-dippy, but it’s quite important and tangible to me – so there!

I also did end up coming good on my promise, to incorporate more raw vegetables. I didn’t get too adventurous, but I did stop feeling obligated to cook for every meal and started eating a little less conventionally – carrot sticks with breakfast, anyone?

Photo Credit: swiftproduce.com

What did I end up eating throughout this program? Mostly:

• Zucchini
• Salmon
• Onion
• Carrots
• Bone marrow + broth (a LOT of bone-in meat)
• Spinach/kale
• Avocado
• Cauliflower
• Bacon fat (oh Lord, why did I never render my own before now?)
• Coffee with coconut cream (better than crack!)
• Coconut oil

I started adding some more dense carbohydrate sources – parsnip, mostly – towards the end, for reasons I’ll explain in a minute. I also discovered brussels sprouts (very yummy roasted, with that God of all fats - bacon fat!), and asparagus (steamed, then served with ghee). I made osso bucco for the first time, in the slow cooker (the same “recipe” as my lamb shanks, just with osso bucco instead, and mashed cauliflower instead of sweet potato: http://choosingtoeat.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/thirty-eight-times-ive-looked-in-those-eyes/)

And, the final great discovery: Cocoa Loco tea from T2 (http://t2tea.com/tea/herbal-fruit-tisanes/herbal/cocoa-loco-2/). It is a herbal tea containing only cocoa bean husks – it gives that perfect subtle chocolate-y taste, without any sweetness, and without tasting like you just took a big mouthful of baking cocoa. I honestly think I could be satisfied with this for “dessert” almost every night, sugar-free or not.

Cocoa Loco tea – AMAZING!
Photo Credit: t2tea.com

And Now, I’m Going To Pull A Swift One On You

I know I promised that this post wasn’t part of my “decoding ketosis” series, and we were going to take a break from it all… but I’m going to talk about ketosis. I’m hoping this will explain how the topic even became of interest to me, what my background is, and kind of where I’m “at” with it all. As I’ve alluded to before, I’m worried that the series is coming across as a blanket advocacy of nutritional ketosis and something that I’m going to definitely use and work within for the foreseeable future – not the case at all. So, hopefully, this will provide some clarification.

So, as some of you may recall, a few days into this sugar-free experiment, I decided to plug my food into one of those online food trackers, just to see what it would spit out. I have a long history of tracking calories (sometimes obsessively and unhealthily so), but not so much macronutrients or micronutrients. I was quite curious to see where I sat on the carbohydrate/fat front. I was honestly, truly shocked – my carbohydrate intake was very low. As in, 5-7% low.

I was always under the impression that it took a lot of concerted effort, weighing and measuring, special recipes, etc., to get that low. I didn’t think it was possible – I triple checked my dietary inputs. Apparently it is entirely possible, and I’m just a bit of an over-achiever. I was suddenly eating *very* low carbohydrate.

Photo Credit: diagnosisdiet.com

Looking over a few day’s worth of food, I’m as sure as I can be that I entered ketosis. Of course, this was completely unintentional. I didn’t make the connection that cutting out all fruit and a good hunk of vegetables and all nuts and all dairy would by default reduce my carbohydrate intake so dramatically. As such, I wasn’t testing my blood or urine for ketones, I wasn’t looking for the “side effects”, I wasn’t at all prepared. Still, mathematically – and by the “feel” of my fuel and my body – I’m pretty certain that I transitioned to a ketogenic metabolism. I even experienced a bit of a carb flu, which only lends weight to the idea.

So, here’s where things start to get a bit shit. I don’t think ketosis worked for me in this circumstance, at all. And there are several reasons for that – its haphazard accidental application being one. This doesn’t seem like a nutritional approach I could take on easily, without much additional effort – it requires measuring, testing, observing, tweaking, none of which I was engaging in.

Second problemo: I didn’t make any “athlete” modifications. The sugar-free program provided them of course – recommending starchy carbohydrate intake timed with workouts, and so forth. But I figured that they didn’t apply to me. I mean, I’m not an “athlete”. I run. I’ve just started at the gym. I’m much more Average Jane (even Below Average Jane in some regards) than G.I. Jane. So, no starchy carbs for me.

Photo Credit: incrediblethings.com

Turns out, even if there’s still a bit of jiggle in your wiggle and you’re a huffed sweaty mess trying to keep up with the perky blonde runner, you might still be an “athlete”, and you might still need some carbohydrates to support that. I discovered this in a particularly nasty way, completely “bonking” mid-run on Day 14.

… the “bonk” describes a condition caused by the depletion of glycogen stores in the liver and muscles, which manifests itself by sudden fatigue and loss of energy. Milder instances can be remedied by brief rest and the ingestion of food or drinks containing carbohydrates. The condition can usually be avoided by ensuring that glycogen levels are high when exercise begins, maintaining glucose levels during exercise by eating or drinking carbohydrate-rich substances, or by reducing exercise intensity.

- Wikipedia.org

I can only describe it as feeling like I’d suddenly run into a brick wall, fallen on the ground and had the wind knocked out of me. I stumbled home, and felt miserable and exhausted all day. I didn’t recognise what it was at the time – I initially suspected I was just being a lazy sack. However, when I started to look at the numbers and do a bit of reading, I realised that nutritional ketosis might have been the instigator. And, thus began my quest to fully understand and interpret this metabolic condition.

When I put my finger on this issue, I started making a conscious effort to eat a greater proportion of carbohydrates. I didn’t go to the extent of the athlete modifications (green bananas, sweet potatoes, pumpkin, etc.), but I did start having spaghetti squash, lots of parsnip mash, and more veggies generally. I pushed it up as far as I could within the paradigm that I had set for myself. This worked okay, but I honestly still didn’t feel “on top of my game”. Looking over the numbers at the end, I averaged about 61% fat (anywhere from 49-70%), 10% carbs (anywhere from 5-20%), and 29% protein (from 16-39%). Of course, all of this takes into account my concerted effort to bump up carbs after bonking – prior to that, carbohydrate % was much lower.

Photo Credit: marathondynamics.com

So, that was my experience. I generally don’t feel like it worked well for me – eating that way clearly could not sustain my level of activity. Of course, this would likely all be different if I was testing and measuring more precisely, taking a lot more care in my approach. I also didn’t investigate the possibility of a cyclical ketogenic approach. All of this is to say: I’m going to have a lot to say about nutritional ketosis and exercise in coming posts. I’ll be looking at other side effects and common concerns as well, kind of the “downsides” of ketosis. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know so I can address them – there might be some really obvious points that I’m missing.

I should also confess here, too: As I alluded to earlier, I’m working through some personal ideas and revelations about food and nutrition, which is really colouring my perspective in this whole debate. I’m increasingly concerned about my relationship with food and restriction, and I’m trying to address that on a variety of levels. No doubt, that bag of tricks will get its own post or two at some point in the future as well, when I’ve got a more firm idea of where I’m at and where I’m headed. For now, suffice to say, I’m becoming highly suspicious of any restrictive eating paradigm with my current personal circumstances, and I’m working on “letting go” and simply Eating The Food. So, no more ketosis for me, at least for a while.

The Take-Home Message

My experiment with eliminating sugar led me down a very interesting and convoluted rabbit hole. The program itself is a useful tool to have in my box. I have no doubt I’ll use it again as necessary, with certain modifications (e.g., perhaps not for as long – it did drag on a bit towards the end, with everything else going on). It wasn’t particularly difficult – indeed, it was easier than I expected. There was a container of raw honey in the fridge for the whole time, and I wasn’t tempted to touch it once (and we all know how I feel about my raw honey…). However, I’m not in a hurry to do it again; I have a lot of other issues to work through first, and I’m really excited to get started on that. I had an interesting flirtation with ketosis, essentially by accident, and it’s piqued my curiosity, but I’m in no hurry to go down that path either. For now, I’m closing this chapter.

And today will probably look a lot like this:

Photo Credit: thefifthtine.com

Just kidding.

But I *am* looking forward to a kilo of bananas and a massive block of cheese. Come at me!

Quick Bites: Ketosis and Protein

Hi guys! As I was writing the previous instalment of my little “decoding ketosis” series (btw – WOW! thank you for all the love!), I realised something; I’ve talked quite a bit about minimising carbohydrate intake, and burning fat, but I haven’t really spoken much about the role protein plays in ketosis. So, today’s post is a short one, covering just that.

First, A Whoopsie!

I’m awfully sorry, but I have discovered that I actually made a technical error in my previous posts, and the nerd inside me simply won’t let me breeze past it – allow me to confess my sins and correct my errors. I have been using the term “ketones” to describe the molecules produced by the liver – this is technically incorrect. Typically, the term “ketone” refers to a molecule where a carbon atom is sandwiched between two other carbon atoms, and double bonded to an oxygen atom. (Yes, we’re getting down to the atomic level here – this stuff is HARD!). “Ketone bodies”, on the other hand, is the correct term for the three specific molecules (acetone, acetoacetone/acetoacetic acid, and beta-hydroxybutyrate/beta-hydroxybutyric acid) – only the first two are actually “ketones” in the technical sense. It’s a common mistake, but one I need to correct if I want to maintain a modicum of credibility So, henceforth, I will be using the correct terminology – my apologies for misleading you all!

Right, now, down to business.

To Reiterate…

If we go back and look at my first post in this series, we can see a bit of a breakdown of the recommended macronutrient ratios for nutritional ketosis: roughly 65% fat, roughly 30% protein, and about 5% carbohydrate. This is a high-fat/moderate-protein/low-carbohydrate approach. It’s pretty obvious why we have to keep carbohydrate so low (because otherwise the body switches back to a “sugar burning” metabolism), and eating fat simply provides the body with more of the fuel that it’s using… But why would we stick to “moderate” protein? Why not more of it? Why not less?

Here’s Why

Protein plays an important role in nutritional ketosis, and one must maintain a very delicate balance with dietary intake.

Ketosis, as a metabolic state, is “muscle sparing” – i.e., it helps maintain lean body mass (muscle and bone). Your body is capable of breaking down muscle into proteins that can be used for energy. When you get the balance right, this doesn’t happen on a ketogenic diet – proteins no longer compete with fatty acids for energy utilisation (fat is the primary energy source, it “wins”), and muscle mass is largely spared.

However, there are some problems with eating both too much and too little protein in this type of approach – and this is where things get tricky.

Gluconeogenesis

We’re introducing a new word to our ketosis vocabulary. “Gluconeogenesis” literally translates as “making new glucose” (gluco = glucose, neo = new, genesis = the making). In this process, other substances are converted into glucose in the liver and the kidneys. Setting ketosis aside for a second: If glucose requirements are high (say, we’re exercising hard), but glucose availability is low (say, we haven’t eaten for 24 hours), our bodies will break down muscle (which could be considered our “protein stores”), and use the process of gluconeogenesis to transform that protein into the glucose we need.

Back to ketosis: Our bodies will always have a small glucose requirement – always, even if we’re the most ketogenically-adapted individual in the history of nutrition. Seeing as we’re probably not getting that from our low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet, our bodies will use the process of gluconeogenesis to make up the deficit. If we don’t consume any protein, our bodies will have to take the protein to fuel this process from our muscles, breaking down our lean body mass – we certainly don’t want that. The way to stop our muscles being broken down this way is to eat enough protein to repair the muscles as necessary, and support gluconeogenesis.

However, if we eat too much protein in a ketogenic diet, ketosis may be halted. We will use the excess protein for additional gluconeogenesis, which will push our blood glucose up, which will signal our body to make the switch back to sugar burning – just like eating too much carbohydrate would.

See what I mean when I say it’s tricky?

Ultimately, Here’s What You Need To Know

Eating an adequate amount of dietary protein will allow you to maintain ketosis, while simultaneously preventing the breakdown of muscle. Your body would really rather use dietary protein to meet its glucose requirements. Bear in mind, too, that your body becomes very efficient in a ketogenic state, and reduces its glucose requirements altogether – so less and less protein is required for gluconeogenesis.

Ultimately, at least some of the protein that you consume will end up in your bloodstream as glucose, which raises insulin levels, and so on and so forth. This is normal, and necessary. However, this also means that protein must be restricted to some degree, as an excessive intake will generate too much gluconeogenesis. The only way to find your “sweet spot” in between these two extremes is personal observation and testing – trial and error. It’s different for everybody, based on age, size, existing muscle mass, goals, activity levels, etc.

Adequate dietary protein is essential to maximising fat loss and minimising muscle loss, whatever nutritional approach you take – it’s just a little harder to find the perfect “zone” with a ketogenic diet, given the delicate balance you’re operating in.

And, P.S., it’s important to remember that any intake of carbohydrate (even a few extra leaves of spinach) will decrease the demand for gluconeogenesis, which will decrease your protein requirement accordingly. Just to make things even more complicated!

Have you tried a ketogenic diet? How did you approach the protein issue? What do you think about this nutritional ketosis series so far? Anything you’d like me to add?

Mmmm, But She Blinded Me With Science

Aaaaand, we’re back!

Yowzer, folks! The feedback from yesterday’s post – an introduction to the world of LCHF and nutritional ketosis (if you haven’t checked it out, you can do so here: http://choosingtoeat.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/get-low-get-low-get-low/) - has been pretty astounding. I’ve had quite a few people get in touch and share their experiences, which I appreciate more than I can say. The shining jewel in my blogger crown? Jimmy Moore – Mr Low Carb himself – shared my post on his Facebook page! I feel truly honoured!

I think, though, that it’s important I point out something here (perhaps something I should have mentioned earlier). The point of this series of posts is merely to describe nutritional ketosis, to give you an understanding of what it is and how it works and why people are so interested in it. At this stage, to be quite frank, I’m not 100% sure how I feel about it. I am planning on doing a post about my own experiences, and where I’m “at” with it all, but I thought it would be a good idea to give you all some background information first. So, I guess what I’m trying to say is please don’t take this series of posts as a blanket advocacy of nutritional ketosis. All I’m hoping to do here is give you a bit of an introduction, in the hope that – if it piques your interest – you have an idea of what you’re getting into and how to go about finding out more.

Alrighty-tighty: on with the show. You’d better strap yourselves in, folks, because today’s going to be a bit of a doozy. I want to try and untangle, in the simplest way possible, the biological mechanisms for the state of ketosis (so, what actually goes down in your body). I am not a nutritionist, I haven’t got any qualifications in this field, and you certainly shouldn’t be looking here for medical advice - but I do want to try and decode this process in plain English, so we can better understand and evaluate this nutritional paradigm. Sound good?

A Brief Reminder

Just in case you’ve forgotten, I thought I’d give a quick refresher: under “normal” circumstances, your body burns primarily carbohydrate (sugar/glucose) for energy. A “ketogenic diet” involves radically reducing one’s carbohydrate intake, to induce a state of “ketosis”, where the liver will begin producing chemical compounds we call “ketones” and one’s body will begin preferentially burning these ketones, and fats, for fuel. This approach is believed by some to be extremely effective for the treatment of many ailments, and also for weight loss, but it is still criticised pretty heavily by most nutritional authorities.

So, with all of that in mind, let’s start breaking this thing down.

What “Normally” Happens

I thought the best way to begin would be looking at what happens with a “normal” or “standard” metabolism – what happens when we eat an average amount of carbohydrates on a regular basis.

“Normal” carbohydrate intake?
Photo Credit: livestrong.com

Let’s say we eat a “healthy” whole wheat sandwich, with anywhere around 80-90g carbohydrates. We chow down, and the food reaches our gut. All of the digestible carbs (so, all of the carbs, except fibre) are broken down into simple sugars in the intestine. This is what people mean when they say all carbohydrates are sugars.

The sugars are absorbed into the bloodstream. Your body wants to maintain a pretty steady level of blood sugar (a.k.a., blood glucose), so, when it senses the level rising, it signals the pancreas to start pumping out insulin. Insulin is the “storage hormone” – it will send the glucose where it needs to go, and get the blood levels back to normal pronto. If your body has no desperate need for sugar/glucose, insulin will store the surplus of nutrients in the fat cells, which kind of tucks it out of the way for a bit (the way you might hide dirty dishes in the oven when unexpected company arrives).

A few hours later, your blood glucose will start to go down again – this is interpreted by your body as a shortage of nutrients in the blood. The quickest way to get more nutrients? Eat more carbohydrates! So you start to feel hungry, you get the ol’ sweet-tooth cravings happening, and you eat some more carbs…

Must. Get. More. Sugar!
Photo Credit: reinounido.org

… and the cycle continues.

And, no, you don’t actually access the excess nutrients that were stored in the fat cells from the original sandwich – it’s much more efficient for your body to get the nutrients it needs from food. However, if you go a little longer without carbohydrates, it will break in to these stores… and that’s where the fun begins!

One final point, too: if you eat a meal with lots of fat and protein, but little or no carbohydrate (say, a big plate of bacon and eggs), nothing much happens to your blood sugar. It stays relatively stable, which means your pancreas doesn’t have to send out insulin, and everything cruises along just dandy without any massive spikes.

What Else Can Your Body Use, Aside From Sugar?

There are four main types of fuel our body can use: glucose (sugar/carbs), protein, free fatty acids (FFAs), and ketones. We eat glucose, protein and fat, our liver produces ketones, and we have a few storage systems available to keep some fuel in reserve.

Several factors affect which types of fuels our body prefers to use. Primarily, it is determined by how much of each macronutrient (fat/protein/carbohydrate) we consume. Hormone levels, bodily stores, and enzyme production each play a role – but each of these is, in turn, influenced by what we’re eating. Typically, the body will use a given fuel in proportion to its concentration in the blood. For instance, the more glucose we have in our bloodstream, the more glucose the body will use to fuel itself. If there’s not much glucose around, the body will turn to other sources of energy. Our primary mechanism for determining the concentration of a given fuel in the blood is – you guessed it – what we consume.

By choosing what we eat, we choose what our body uses to fuel itself.

And, a quick note on storage, too: interestingly, we can’t actually store all that much carbohydrate, in comparison to protein and fat. A certain amount can be stored in the muscles and liver – about enough to provide us with a day’s worth of energy. But, at the same time, most of us have enough body fat (also called “adipose tissue”) to fuel us for weeks, or potentially months. So, our bodies burn through carbohydrate much quicker – prompting us to eat much sooner.

How Ketosis Happens

When your body is focused on burning sugar for energy (a “glycolytic metabolism”), you will produce minimal ketones, and your body will only burn fat for fuel as a last resort. It should be fairly evident that this is how most of us walk around all the time, when we’re consuming “standard” amounts of carbohydrate.

However, when you drastically reduce carbohydrate in the diet, and your body burns through its (fairly wimpy) stores, something interesting happens: your body starts looking for other sources of fuel, and settles on a combination of fat and ketones. Fat becomes your primary energy source.

When you minimise your intake of carbohydrates, insulin levels go down – after all, there’s no sugar to be stored away or moved around, so it doesn’t have much of a job to do. When this happens, another hormone – glucagon – comes out to play. Glucagon is a “fuel mobilising” hormone – it gets your body to release fuel from storage, so it can be used for energy. This sparks the following process:

I made this diagram myself. Neat, huh?

So, what we can see here is part of “the Krebs cycle” (the mechanism by which the human body extracts energy from food), when carbohydrate intake is very low. Ketone bodies are essentially by-products of the breakdown of fat in the liver, and they are used alongside FFAs for fuelling the body.

The major determinant of whether the liver will oxidise the FFAs and produce ketones is the amount of liver glycogen present – that is, the amount of carbohydrate stored in the liver. This store needs to be depleted in order for ketogenesis (the production of ketones) to occur.

How Do We Know We’re In Ketosis?

That’s the million dollar question.

“Ketonemia” describes a build-up of ketones in the bloodstream – so, the liver is pumping out enough ketones to increase the concentration of them in your blood. This is the truest indicator that ketosis has been induced. We can test our blood for ketones, in a similar fashion to testing our blood glucose levels – pricking the finger, and whirring the blood through a fancy gizmo.

Hope you’re not squirmish!
Photo Credit: dtc.ucsf.edu

“Ketonuria”, on the other hand, describes the build-up and excretion of ketone bodies in the urine. This occurs because ketones ultimately accumulate in the kidneys, when they’re not used up by bodily tissues. As such, you can also test your urine for the presence of ketones, which is a semi-reliable indicator that you have entered ketosis as well. However, when your body starts using ketones more efficiently, you will excrete fewer and fewer of them, so they won’t necessarily show up on the urine test. Also, by the time there’s a build-up in your urine, you’ve already been producing ketone bodies for quite a while, and ketonemia has already occurred. In the end, urine tests are less painful, cheaper, and more easily accessible, but not as reliable.

Of course, there are other symptoms of a ketogenic metabolism, and you can look out for those. If you’re closely tracking your carb intake, too, you can make a pretty solid guesstimate as to when you’ve entered ketosis. Though, it goes without saying, that these methods can be a bit hit-and-miss as well.

A Couple of Final Notes

Photo Credit: philipvickersfithian.com

I’ve thrown a lot of info at you very quickly, so I’ll just add a couple more small notes to send you off. Firstly, we need to remember that there will always be a small requirement for glucose, under any metabolic condition – your body never stops using carbohydrate completely. But – and this is a big but – your body can adapt, conserve glucose for where it is needed most (instead of burning it indiscriminately), and it’s very hard to take carbohydrate intake down to absolute zero, anyway (so you’ll still be consuming enough to meet your needs, even on a ketogenic diet).

Your body doesn’t technically require dietary carbohydrates for survival, either – it can generate glucose from other sources, so carbohydrates are not “essential” for this purpose. However, just “surviving” isn’t really the ultimate goal, is it? Whether we need carbohydrates for other endeavours, such as exercise or muscle growth, is a different issue.

And, I’d hope it goes without saying, don’t jump headlong into a ketogenic diet based on this post alone! What I’ve depicted here is the perfect scenario – where a healthy person minimises carbohydrate intake, and induces ketosis. It does not always play out that way, and given how complex this whole system is, there are a lot of ways it can go wrong. We’ll be looking at those more in the near future, I promise.

The Take-Home Message

This post has (hopefully) explained in a little more detail how ketosis actually happens in the body. Essentially, when your liver realises there’s not going to be much carbohydrate around to burn, your body starts breaking down fat tissue, and your liver burns some of it to create ketones. Both the fats and the ketones can be used by your bodily tissues for energy.

Do you feel like you have a better understanding of how ketosis works? What did you think of my diagram? Is this something you’re curious about, or does it sound just a bit too whack-a-doodle?