Only if you had been marooned on a desert island, or perhaps blasted into outer space, could you claim to have not heard about the Keto diet over the past few months. Ironically, should either of these situations actually apply to you, then you probably would be – by virtue of starving to death – in ketosis already!

Fad dieting can be dangerous, I found this out the hard way when I lost weight on the Atkins diet and ended up in a urologist’s office having my kidneys scanned. So, I personally took a lot of convincing to try the Keto diet for weight loss. As Michael Jackson would say, I started with the man in the mirror. And what I saw I didn’t like. You see, I had spent the entirety of 2017 working out in my home gymnasium, and yes – for sure – I had the muscles to prove its effectiveness. My lifts had vastly improved from deadlifting 80kg on a good day to easily lifting 140kg for 15 reps. From a 16kg kettlebell to an enormous cannonball-like 32kg solid iron kettle, the same size as used by the Russian military. All that was fine; what was missing was the weight loss to go with it.

Weight is a funny thing. As a married and settled man, who works on a computer, commutes by train 20% of the day and sits at home in the evening, I knew that the effort levels I would need to reach in the gym to lose weight. They would be basically impossible. I would simply continue to bulk. Instead, I set out to focus my efforts on losing some kilograms through a new diet.

It is often said that losing weight is a simple case of calories in and calories out. The media is, however, full of celebrity methods for seemingly circumnavigating this “rule”. I looked through the latest methods of the fad diets that infest the internet. They range from the sublime to the ridiculous. I recall one, which was aptly named, “the bananas diet,” being particularly, well, bent. I was reading a forum where an “expert” in this diet was chastising someone for their question regarding what to have for breakfast as they were already eating 7 bananas in the morning and wondered why they were not losing any weight.

“Ha-ha, dude!” He wrote, “7 bananas are far too FEW for breakfast!”

Truly the mind boggles as to what is happening to these people… perhaps even this is how a new species is born; split off into a genetic niche? Is this how the panda became purely a bamboo eater? Chased into the snow-covered mountains by the giant – now extinct – bears of ancient times? I can see them now, rolling back with their feet in the air, crying in laughter because some idiot can only manage 7 bamboo shoots before lunch! And presto, you’re stuck with it and can never eat anything else again.

Actually, I may have theoretically tried that with pizza before, so perhaps not?

Regardless, one diet started to reappear more often in my searches, mainly because it was the purview of a group of people I had come to respect in terms of high performance. No, not the Kardashian’s, I am talking of CrossFit addicts. There is truly no group more obsessed with physical performance and diet. If they were doing Keto, then I knew it would be at least worth looking at.

The first thing I decided was to ask Cesca if she would like to do this diet as well. With both of us recording our progress, we could support and encourage each other, and – as she makes the food during the week – with Cesca involved it would be able to easier plan the meals.

Indeed, planning is a large part of succeeding on the Keto diet as we shall see.

The second decision was to also stop drinking alcohol during the diet. This is for two reasons: firstly, I always stop drinking for January through March, every year. Second, many drinks have carbs in them. Lots of carbs. And carbs are out.

The final upfront decision I took was to go and speak to my doctor. In fact, I did a lot more than this. My company offers people of my grade a full medical every two years. It’s part of my package. So, I booked one for after two weeks on the diet. This included blood work and a whole hour with a doctor.

So, armed with a couple of keto diet kindle books, I began.

Normally (on a +100g carbs a day diet), the carbohydrates contained in food are converted into glucose, which is then transported around the body and is particularly important in fuelling brain-function. Before sending excess energy to fat cells, your liver and muscles will store carbs in a mechanism called glycogen. However, if there is little carbohydrate in the diet, the liver converts fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies. Ketone bodies are produced mainly in the mitochondria of liver cells, and synthesis can occur in response to an unavailability of blood glucose, such as during fasting. The ketone bodies pass into the brain and replace glucose as an energy source. An elevated level of ketone bodies in the blood is known as ketosis.

The result is a drop in insulin and what is called “leptin-induced satiety”.

That is, you feel full and have very little hunger.

So, in reality you lose fat on a ketogenic diet the same way you do on other diets: you burn more calories than you consume.

The next thing I purchased to prepare was Keto friendly foods and ingredients. Lots of high-quality meats, tons of vegetables, “keto” flour (which is made from almonds), American measuring cups (most keto recipes are in American measurements), MCT oil (which you add to coffee) very good vitamin tablets and Himalayan Pink Salt.

Pink salt?

Yes, this pink salt, which you use just like normal salt, is full of magnesium and potassium, which you will be very short of on the keto diet (unlike on the bananas diet, eh?).

How long these effects last is up to your physiology; but, you can help with the following:

1. Drink water. I drank water with electrolytes added.
2. Take your vitamins. I also took a pro-biotic.
3. Eat more salt. Pink salt everything you can.
4. Do not eat outside your macro’s. Any carbs in over the macro % will reset this period.

Eventually, 3 days for me, you transition and your energy levels come back to somewhere like normal. You can tell when this happens as you suddenly lose a lot of your appetite. This is because your body is eating fats, and they are energy dense.

Welcome to ketosis!

For the first month, I tracked all my food religiously. Every morsel. This meant scanning everything into the app on my phone, planning and measuring every meal and stopping when the system said to.

As a rough rule of thumb, and this is by far the hardest part of keto, you can only have a food that has less than 6g of carbs in any one meal. Now, technically, you could save up and have your 20g of carbs all at once; but, that is almost impossible because almost everything has a little carbohydrate in it. This proves extremely difficult when out and about or at work. As, sure, you can find foods with either high fats or low carbs, but not at the same time. It isn’t good enough to eat a just low carb food, you need to also eat high fats. So, 95% of what is out there in stores for lunch is off the menu. Another problem is not overdoing the protein. Too much of that and you start to affect your kidneys. Yes, quite a pickle.

I found myself having salads; but, nothing from a root vegetable, with lashings of dressing and I really mean lashings of dressing. My fridge was stocked high with Ceaser salad dressing, the original high fat one, not a “diet” one with lots of sugar. My other staple food was eggs. Boiled eggs for preference, on the go. Finally, sashimi is ok in a pinch. I honestly regret having not planned to make all my lunches.

After a week of this, I must admit to being bored of the food. I wasn’t hungry in the slightest. Keto kills your appetite; but, I was, well, suffering some kind of ennui. It wasn’t until I managed to return to working out that I felt “better” and started to gain the keto energy I had read so much about.

At the end of the second week, I went to the health check. Firstly, the phlebotomist took a large amount of blood.

“Please don’t worry if you see high ketones,” I told him. “I’m on the keto diet”

“Oh really?” He said, “so am I!”

I took a longer look at him and immediately could see he was a CrossFit person.

“Wow, cool, so you know then?”

“Oh yes,” he assured me, too cool for school – definitely a CrossFit person, “I have been on it for ages, lose loads of weight”.

“Oh, right. Great. How do you manage the 20g of carbs per day?”

“20g!” He said, shocked, “that’s hardly any. I am on a much lighter version than that. You must be hardcore keto?”

“Well,” I said happy to have impressed him, “One tries, you know…”

While the bloods were being spun up, I spoke to the doctor. She was also supportive of the experiment as in general my health was good. Then the blood results came up on her screen.

“Hmmm,” she said.

This is never a good sign I thought.

“Your cholesterol is high for your age and you have a lot of acid in your urine.”

“Those are both known side effects of the diet,” I pointed out.

She turned to look at me, “Yes, Basho, but you must understand that no one knows what being on this diet long term is like. The evidence is not clear if it is healthy long term.”

“I see,” I said, “so, can I do it?”

“For two months only, Basho, OK?”

“OK”

“And for the acid, drink lots of lemon juice.”

So, with the permission slip from the doc, I carried on.

Being keto is a little like being vegan, and I don’t mean just in terms of talking everyone’s ears off about it. I mean in terms of it somewhat coming to define your life. All meals are keto meals and all events are considered from the “keto perspective”. I went to see Chris Rock on tour at the O2; but, could hardly find a thing to eat the entire time. Indeed, I ended up eating bacon crispy strips from M&S and drinking water. Moreover, many invites were turned down and friends disappointed, as I was not happy to go down the pub all night on water only. Not because they might laugh, that’s what mates are for; laughing with, it’s because I might stray and drink the bar dry, leading to failure on the diet and another transition to look forward to.

I felt like a monk.

And then the upside kicked in and I started to lose weight, and losing weight is addictive. You start to enjoy looking in the mirror, old clothes fit again, and new ones are looser. Your belt moves up a notch, then another. Should you be lucky enough to have a lover, well – there are benefits for you both there and indeed that side of things made up for a lot of the missed nights out with “nights in”.

Bonus!

Moreover, you don’t crave foods. I was amazed to find this an upside to the flatness of keto foods. No crashing, no ups and downs of mood. It becomes very even. I realised just how much a victim we all are to our emotions in eating. How I had been driven to snack by energy drops, and how much we like to eat heartily in celebration. I also realised just how much sugar was in everything. It’s crazy just how addicted we all are to that product and how the food manufacturers take advantage of this.

Soon my energy was back to levels where I could work out. Now, I have always used technology to track my workouts and have a well-developed routine for evening limits. After all, I have work in the morning and going too hard could mean an injury. So, I know my energy very well. In my subjective estimation, I was running at 90% of normal while on keto. And this is interesting because I have come to perhaps think that this 90% is actually 100% of normal; but, that I dose myself up over this limit with carbs and caffeine. Usually, before working out I take a pre-workout and perhaps that final 10% is accounted for there. Nevertheless, I was lifting slightly less, going slightly easier on the heavy bag and running shorter before hitting my calories target for the workout. My workout rules are simple:

Light workout: 300 – 400 Kcal burned. A light workout will not include much weights. Maybe some kettlebell swings. It will mostly be cardio, bike and plyometrics.

Medium workout: 400 – 600 Kcal burned. This workout is almost all martial arts, TRX and kettles before lifting for about 30 reps of various types. This is my usual evening workout.

Heavy workout: 600 – 800 Kcal burned. This is a lifting focused workout with cardio to warm up. I am currently pyramiding up to 140kg and then back down to 50kg on the bar. Mixing different lifts, particularly the military press, deadlift, squat (wide), bent over row and snatch. I also do a cardio bike finisher to bust out a hard stop.

Very Heavy workout: 800+ Kcal burned. These are reserved for weekends or days where I won’t work the next day. They need to be carefully managed against a specific target or training goal. Last summer I did a 1500Kcal workout with a friend and took 2 weeks off after through exhaustion.

In order to track all this, I wear a top of the range heart rate monitor and track to either my phone or a wrist monitor.

When on keto, not only was I slightly weaker; but, I was also hitting these range limits a lot quicker. In other words, my body was working harder. Of course, for losing weight, this is great; but, for performance, this is not so good. Fat is a very smooth energy source, people in keto can run “steady state” for ages as there is no “carb wall” to hit – you hit it in the transition – however, I wouldn’t like to have entered a fighting tournament on keto. I used to compete at international level in Taekwondo and Karate, and I am not sure if I could have sustained the pace of combat, which is a hyper high effort (akin to multiple Tabata rounds back to back), as “gassing” is very easy. Still, I am sure that if I had to fight to save my life, I could once through the transition – I found no problems in breaking boards and hitting the bag hard and my ability to enter “the stream” was not hindered.

If you have heart problems or have not worked out for a while, then trying to improve performance on keto could theoretically be dangerous and, for god’s sake, don’t lift anything over your head during the transition. Dying under one’s own weights is a thing.

Workout logs since January

Cheat days are not a thing on keto. Not that you lust after one, due to the suppressed appetite. However, I always allow myself 1 per month on my usual New Year’s diet. Firstly, there is the romance of Valentine’s day, and I love this day in the year and always make a massive effort. This year I bought the greatest steak I ever cooked and mastered the reverse sear, then spent the day at a health spa. I drank and ate cake and made very merry with Cesca. Romance is not something to forego. The other cheat day was more solemn and was my late mother’s birthday. My brother and I spent the day together, drinking in her honour. Again, not something to forego.

The result of both these days put a significant dent in my progress as will be seen in the data. In both cases I crashed out of ketosis and had to transition again, and in both cases, that transition was harder. I believe my progress would have been another stone, had I not done these two days and counted my macros until the end. Crashing out of Ketosis sucks. It is like being hungover, famished and flu ridden all at once. Both times I did so, I felt terrible in the morning after and continued to do so until lunchtime.

As March came to an end, I decided to stop. This is half a month short of my target; but, I am going to try and get there non-keto. Indeed, planning for post keto is vital to success. In general, I believe that one should always have two types of goals:

Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGS). These are 10-year goals. The sort to say, I shall learn to write very well, or master hand to hand combat, or becoming the greatest airsoft player in the game (all three of those were my BHAGS in the past). In order for these to work, they need to be “moonshots” and hard to achieve; but, they must also have some way of deciding that you have achieved them (those being respectively: getting published by Cambridge University, winning a European title and the judgment of some retired-commandos). My current BHAG is around bringing together my talents both professionally and personally. I can say no more at the moment.

Tracer Goals. These are called tracer goals because they are to ask a simple question of yourself, “what is the next thing I should do to progress my BHAGS?” They require you to consider your current direction in light of those larger goals, as though firing a tracer round to check your aim. Losing weight was one of these, as was building the gym, or indeed writing this article.

So, for keto to be more than just a fad for you, you must have two types of goals in mind. Firstly, you must plan a diet “after keto”. Secondly, you must do something with your new, lighter self; you must create a new BHAG. For me, keto was a means to that end. It remains to be seen if I have taken the right approach. I shall post in the comments if I am successful.

My diet after keto is to be high protein while I recover, until after Easter, and then a “Light Keto” plan on my app. I am not sure if this will result in full ketosis while I am on it, I shall see. I shall be counting my calories carefully after Easter and report back with an update.

Here, then are the weigh-in results as data in graphs:

All in all, the keto diet worked. I mean REALLY worked. However, I am not sure if this was just because of the appetite suppressant effects resulting in my simply eating less, or if there is some complex chemical effect in play. Either way, I am looking significantly thinner after only 2 months.

Is the keto diet right for you? If you can answer yes to most of these questions:

1. Can you plan and track your meals?
2. Can you stop drinking?
3. Are you able to manage the transition?
4. Will you consider your medical condition?
5. Do you like cooking or preparing meals?

And both of these:

Do you want to be thinner?
Do you have Big Hairy Audacious Goals?

If so, then yes – give it a go.

I plan to go keto every January and drop the Christmas weight.

Kind regards,

Basho