Keto. Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe you haven’t. I recently decided to try the Ketogenic Diet. I had a few reasons for doing so, which I will share below. I will also talk about my experience with it thus far (including my first fatbombs). However, before I talk about that I want to briefly summarize what the Ketogenic Diet actually is (in case you haven’t heard of it).
What is the Ketogenic Diet?
The Ketogenic Diet is high-fat, moderate (not high) protein, and low-to-no carbohydrate. The principle behind it is that when you deprive your body of carbohydrates, your body will start burning fat for fuel instead. The liver will produce ketones to burn as energy. This metaboic state of producing (and subsequently burning) ketones is known as ketosis. Ketosis is the goal of the ketogenic diet.
There’s a lot more to the keto diet, but that is the core part.
The decision
I have known about the ketogenic diet for several months now. I believe it to be much healthier than the SAD (Standard American Diet), and given some medical history in my family I think it would be particularly beneficial for me. However, I was in the middle of track season when I first considered that it might be a good idea. I knew that after one enters ketosis, it takes time for the body to adapt to burning ketones instead of glycogen. During that time, athletic performance (especially high-intensity stuff like sprinting) suffers greatly. I decided I would wait until summer to do it.
The end of the school year came around. I went to Tennessee for DI global finals. When I went, I ate low-carb for most of the trip, but it was not completely keto. Afterwards, I had a trip to Mexico. I wanted to enjoy myself, so I still didn’t worry about eating keto. When I got back, I forgot about keto for a while. It wasn’t until about two weeks ago that I remembered that I was going to go keto. I wanted to do so ASAP so I had enough time to become keto-adapted before Cross Country season started again. I knew it would be a rough few weeks, but I decided to do it anyway.
My experience so far
I started eating keto two weeks ago on Monday. I did not notice any difference the whole week. Looking back, I think I was eating too much protein and it was keeping me out of ketosis (the body will convert protein into glucose if you eat way more than you need). However, on Friday, I did enter ketosis for a few hours, only to be kicked out shortly after. Let me explain.
It was my fifth day of eating keto and I still hadn’t entered ketosis (from what I could tell). I went for a bike ride in the morning, skipped breakfast, and had lunch at about 1 in the afternoon. I made a carnitas salad (carnitas, spring mix vegetables, sour cream, and avocado). It was delicious. I went to movie theater later that day to watch Incredibles II with my family. When we got there, I went to the bathroom. My urine was noticeably fruity (one of the signs of ketosis), however I thought it was just because I was in a movie theater and maybe some kid had left his Jolly Ranchers lying around.
We get ready to go into the movie and my sister wants popcorn. It smelled good, and I was hungry. I thought to myself “I haven’t even entered into ketosis yet, and I’m going to be traveling again tomorrow, I might as well allow myself a cheat weekend.” So I ate some popcorn (quite a bit, actually). I went to the bathroom again, and my urine was still fruity, which made my conclude that I had in fact been in ketosis. However, I knew that eating the amount of popcorn that I had eaten had probably kicked my out of ketosis, and my body was just getting rid of its last few ketones. Regardless of whether I had actually eaten too much popcorn or not, I thought I had. I decided that if I was going to cheat, I was going to cheat well, so I ate even more popcorn. This guaranteed that I was put out of ketosis. The next day, we went for a short road trip and I enjoyed carbs once again. However, the next day (Sunday), I became serious about eating right again.
So far this week I have been working out 2-3 times a day and I have been very careful about my protein intake. I made some lemon cheesecake fatbombs using this recipe (I used stevia instead of Swerve). I also have enjoyed more carnitas, chorizo with eggs, and lots of bacon. I’m trying to make sure I eat more coconut oil, because I need the MCTs. Soon I want to try making fathead pizza (and a couple other famous keto recipes).
There you have it. If you are considering going keto, I would warn you to make sure you have all the ingredients you will need to make some keto desserts because cravings will hit you out of the blue sometimes. I also recommend you read r/keto’s FAQ.
Do you have a keto story? Tell me in the comments below!
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