Staying on the Keto Wagon

In my private support group on Patreon, members can access a "topic suggestion spreadsheet" and—you guessed—suggest topics for the short videos I record every weekday morning. (After over 850 of these "snippets," it helps to have input about subjects people want to hear!)

One recent submission was from a who advised they kept "falling off the wagon" after about ten days following the ketogenic protocol. They had, in the past, successfully followed the diet. They lost weight, felt great, and all the good things that can come when one lays off carbs. But there was some back-sliding with the predictable results: weight gain, joint pain return, generally feeling lousy. But this time around, staying on track seemed more challenging. In their words:

"Hello, Casey. I have been restarting every 10 days since the beginning of November. I have done keto well and have lost 50 pounds in the past (several times), and now, as I'm older, I feel like I keep falling off the wagon. I cannot get away with anything - I can't have caffeine (can't tolerate it anymore), etc., and I gain weight super fast now. I have just been in a bit of a rut for several months where I start to get back on board, start losing, and then ten days in - I lose focus or something. I guess I'm wondering about being able to really establish this habit ... since I keep getting off course at the 10 to 14-day mark. Thank you!"

A conversation I had just had with another patron inspired my response. During a one-on-one session, they shared with me a point made by a medical professional who cautioned against using phrases like, "I fell off the wagon." That is a passive way of diminishing our responsibilities for our choices. Let's face it—we don't fall off the proverbial wagon: we jump. One of the few things over which we have control is what we decide to put in our mouths. Absent someone force-feeding us, it is our forks in our hands which we raise to our pie-holes.

It may sound harsh, the idea that we are powerless in the face of food. But, c'mon, y'all. After all, we've been through in our lives, as varied as our histories are, do we want to peddle the idea that we are helpless in the presence of cheese puffs, that chocolate bunnies staring at us with their creepy eyes render us defenseless? Are fries omnipotent?

No way! No matter our age, gender, or stage of life, we've been through harrowing things. We've buried loved ones, lost homes to bankruptcy, had partners betray us. People have broken our hearts. We've endured terrifying diagnoses and even scarier treatments. But we crumble when presented with a muffin?

Please know that I used all the mental dodges back in the day. I didn’t do myself any favors. Just the opposite. Look at my before photos to see where self-delusion got me.

"I’m stronger than a cookie" is one of the best-selling slogans on my teespring shop. It's on stickers, shirts, mugs. I bought a shirt myself. And what does that have to do with staying on the wagon? It comes back to what we tell ourselves. Words matter. And those we say to ourselves matter the most. We don't fall, and no one has the power to push us. We decide (whether we want to own that fact or not.)

A suggestion I made was to, first, stop repeating in their head how they’ve failed before. Replace it with affirmations, replacing negative with positive thoughts: I will stay on track for 11 days. Then devise a visual reinforcement for those 10 days. It can be marks on a calendar, post-it notes with numbers 1-11 on them, 11 marbles moved from one to jar another. Whatever inspires. Then, after getting to day 11 successfully, do it again. Soon, there will be weeks of success stacked up. And it becomes easier and easier.

We are strong. We have survived. We choose.

Now, stay on that wagon and enjoy the ride. The view is great from up there.

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Disclaimer: I’m not a medical doctor, researcher, or Ph.D., but instead, I’ve been fortunate to have had the time and resources to research the ketogenic diet, also known as LCHF (low carb/high fat). The information I share is based solely on my understanding of that research. We are all responsible for our own choices, including what we put in our mouths, and there’s no substitute for each of us checking things out ourselves. And I’m not a medical professional in any way. Go Keto With Casey is not a medical site. “Duh,” you might say. But best to make it clear to all. I welcome questions, comments, and even civil criticism. I’m still learning. So, if you have something to add, go for it. Links in this post and all others may direct you to affiliate links, where I will receive a small amount of the purchase price of any items you buy through those links. Thanks!

Keto and the Cuckoo

OUR CUCKOO (BEFORE SHE GOT HER MINUTE HAND REPLACED)

We have a cuckoo clock. It's one of my favorite things, chirping throughout the days and nights since it was given to us by the grateful father of a German exchange student our family inherited. (That's a story for another time.) Cuckoo has hung in our kitchen, overseeing our lives for over twenties year. Comings and goings, graduations, parties, weddings, wakes. And innumerable meals. 

What does our Black Forest clock have to do with the ketogenic diet—the main raison d'être of this blog? Stick with me here. The metaphor is on deck.

Cuckoo has been ubiquitous in my life, heard in every room of the house, and even in the gardens when weather permitted open windows. 

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock ... *cheep! cheep! cheep!*

Cuckoo is the very definition of complex simplicity. Keep her chains pulled every day to ensure the pendulum continues moving side to side, and let the intricate mechanisms behind her face do the rest. (Can you sense the metaphor building?)

There came a time recently where the usual tiny adjustments to Cuckoo weren't enough to keep her going: a little nudge to the cabinet to make sure it was plumb, correct the placement of the maple leaf on the pendulum, up or down, to speed her up or slow her down—gravity has its effect on clocks as well as people—all to no avail. The ticking faltered again and again.

We're fortunate to have a clock specialist in our city. He brought my late mother's grandfather clock back to chiming health. Could he help poor Cuckoo, or was she beyond hope?

Happily, she' back home, cleaned up, her chains are shiny, and the wooden components have a rich stain. She now even has a minute hand! (Yet another long story.)

The real work, though, is inside the cabinet. It turns out that her delicate works were gummed up and grimy. I learned that just a little check-up every few years is in order.

Alright though. What is the connection between Cuckoo and keto? When she was reinstalled at her vantage point overseeing our lives and started back with the ticking and chirping, she sounded different. I realized that her sounds to which I had become accustomed before were not at all how they should have been. Her now smooth, clear cheeps were in contrast to her pre-cleaning. She had been clanging before. And haltingly so. I had gotten used to it, not noticing the changes because they were gradual—chronic, if you will, instead of acute. Cuckoo was sending signals that changes were needed. *CLANG JANGLE CRACK*

And now the allegory arrives.

Our bodies are let us know when things aren't right. From joint pain to weight gain, blood sugar to blood pressure issues, brain fog to heartburn to depression, the signals are there. The changes for the worse can be so gradual as to be unnoticed. We get used to the clangs of our joints. Putting on ten pounds turns into an extra fifty. Our moods can't seem to come out of the basement, and having energy is a nostalgic memory. 

For me, all those messages from my corporeal self were ignored and for too long. The solution was to eat the food I am designed to eat. The ketogenic diet has brought me to good health—no more clanging.

I guess one could say I cleaned bad health's clock. 

That metaphor might be too tortured, though.

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Disclaimer: I’m not a medical doctor, researcher, or Ph.D., but instead, I’ve been fortunate to have had the time and resources to research the ketogenic diet, also known as LCHF (low carb/high fat). The information I share is based solely on my understanding of that research. We are all responsible for our own choices, including what we put in our mouths, and there’s no substitute for each of us checking things out ourselves. And I’m not a medical professional in any way. Go Keto With Casey is not a medical site. “Duh,” you might say. But best to make it clear to all. I welcome questions, comments, and even civil criticism. I’m still learning. So, if you have something to add, go for it. Links in this post and all others may direct you to affiliate links, where I will receive a small amount of the purchase price of any items you buy through those links. Thanks!

How Much Protein on Keto?

When commencing on the ketogenic diet and researching what it’s all about, one can quickly read and hear a great deal of ‘rules’:

• One must consume fat to burn fat. (Not)

• The ratios of fat, protein, and carbohydrate need to be strictly monitored and kept in line. (Not)

• It is vital to restrict food intake to certain feeding windows. (Double not. Besides, that phrase always conjures an image of a horse standing in their paddock with their head sticking out of a window, awaiting oats.)

This is just a quick list of the so-called practices that some advise must be followed for success on the protocol. You may have come across many more and some that strain logic, like suggesting that incorporating so-called ‘cheat days’ into the mix will shock the body into losing weight.

Wha…? Stabbing oneself in the thigh with a steak knife would also shock the system but is probably not an effective fat loss strategy. 

Through all the mishegas and noise there is one particular question I am asked often; “how much protein should we eat?”

My response is always that I have no idea. The answer to 'how much protein is right for me?' can only be answered by your body. And each body is different. There are formulas out there for recommended protein consumption but, not owning an abacus, I've never tried to calculate for myself. Plus, the recommended ranges are pretty wide. To quote from the one book I’d recommend on the topic of the ketogenic diet if limited to just one, The Art & Science of Low Carbohydrate Living, the formula to calculate protein intake reads:

[...] We recommend protein between 1.5 and 2.0 grams per kilogram reference body weight (.7 to .9 grams per pound reference weight). This translates to between 90 and 150 grams per day for a range of adults, which is about what the average adult in the US is already eating. (Phinney & Volek, 2011, p. 44)

This is all great information, but do you notice that the range of “between 90 and 150 grams” is wide, namely, more than a 50% swing? And as for “reference weight”, that means what our bodies weigh without all that pesky excess fat. So, go figure that one out.

Seriously, take an hour or so and go figure all that out.

Or, keep things simple. Follow ‘page 4’, don’t eat if you’re not hungry and stop when satiated. Eat the fat that comes with your protein (animal product) of choice and let nature do the math. For myself, I’ve never measured nor calculated anything other than grams (not percentage) of carbohydrates. And I didn’t escribe to the idea of ‘net carbs’ whereby one subtracts the grams for fiber per serving from the total carbohydrates. Again with the math? Plus, there’s not really good science behind the idea that fiber isn’t absorbed by the body and therefore minuses out carbs. By that logic, one could scarf down doughnuts with abandon as long as one followed up with a corresponding amount of psyllium husks. Not science and, also, ick.

The tenets of the protocol - keep carbohydrate intake to 20g/day or fewer (total, not net), eat fatty sources of protein, don't eat if not hungry, stop when satiated - covers what we need to be successful. Of course, just because we don’t need to measure protein doesn’t open the door to consuming platters of lovely, keto-friendly steaks and chops and duck and eggs and chicken. The ‘not eating if not hungry and stop eating when satiated’ part of the protocol pretty much precludes pulling a Coneheads move, gorging on vast quantities of food.

This is about fueling and nourishing, not gorging. And it’s not about perseverating over grams and percentages and ratios. We’ve spent enough of our lives tormented about measuring and calculating and micromanaging our food. Let’s try giving all that a rest, shall we?

So, calculate away if it pleases. I prefer to use math for more practical and pressing matters. Like, how many eggs are we likely to get from our 24 chickens in the course of a month once they start laying, and where the heck are we going to store them all? But that’s another story altogether.

For those inclined to videos, here’s one on the topic I made a while ago.

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Disclaimer: I’m not a medical doctor, researcher or PhD but rather a I’ve been fortunate to have had the time and resources to research the ketogenic diet, also known as LCHF (low carb/high fat). The information I share is based solely on my understanding of that research. We are all responsible for our own choices, including what we put in our mouths and there’s no substitute for each of us checking things out ourselves. And I’m not a medical professional in any way. Go Keto With Casey is not a medical site. “Duh,” you might say. But best to make it clear to all.  I welcome questions, comments and even civil criticism. I’m still learning. So, if you have something to add, go for it. Links in this post and all others may direct you to affiliate links, where I will receive a small amount of the purchase price of any items you buy through those links. Thanks!