A year of keto and crono with screen shots

[charlie3]

A couple days ago Cronometer wrote me an email to say they would charge my credit card to renew my one year subscription, money well spent. Crono becomes more useful when there is some data to summarize.

Over the year calories are creeping up because of increasing walking and stationary cardio. The down spikes are the saturdays when I eat nothhing.

I know how to limit carbs but during this year I experimented with higher carbs to see if it would influence exercise. Lately I’m letting carbs go to 30-50 for the sake of foods I enjoy which might help with diet fatigue. Since my calories burned by exercise are 35% of daily calories I suspect they are absorbed quickly wiithout resistance. The chart below records a few cheat days but overall I’ve done reasonably well.

Below, a weight loss chart. I was losing weight before this chart was started. The line is jaggy near the end because I’m letting crono link to the app for my bio impediance scale. I’d like to be gaining weight as lean mass. This stall is mildly frustrating but I do a lot of cardio and hesitate to increase calories the way the gym bro’s insist is necessary.

One of the virtues of Crono is it will keep track of micros. If I’m going to all this trouble why not be thorough. So it’s hard to get enough potassium but some days it happens. Crono lets you make a report for one micro. I can discover a day when I hit the RDA, drill down, and see how it happened that day. I’d like to phase out vitamin and mineral suppliments.

Below is a summary of my nutrients for the last 7 days including today (Teusday 2-12-19). I maintain weight by eating about 350 calories per day more than I burn for 6 days–if I also eat nothing one day a week, usually Saturday. Combined with two meals a day, and so many calories burned above BMR, those meals are large and satisfying, even satiating (so why am I feeling like a slab of cheese at this late hour?)

Finally here is how 6 days of surplus calories plus one day of no eating looks like in a graph. It represents the data from the chart immediately above.

After doing all the above I figured I’d better do a shot of the results, so far. Me in my 31" jeans. I’m a bit puffier around the middle compared to 6 months ago and a couple pounds heavier. I think my 70 year old body is telling me 12% body fat is okay for day to day living but not 10%. I can live with that.

[PetaMarie]

Looking fit, congrats and thanks for sharing the graphs. interesting stuff there!

[Iced]

Nice date and congratulations on getting fit.

[Dantheman]

I’d like to be gaining weight as lean mass.

Charlie, this very cool to see, I do the paid version of crono too, it looks like your at the normal weight for yourself, I would venture to say you could eat more carbs, my numbers are almost the same as yours, no matter how much fat I eat I don’t seem to gain weight, but upping the carbs brought me from 140 to 143. it’s funny cause I started at 165 and went to 140 similar to you, then 143 after more carbs. I upped the carbs cause I was getting too scrawny.

[ClarenceKonrad]

Thanks Charlie for this detailed post. You look very fit and that’s awesome.
Very inspiring for a newbie like me.

[charlie3]

Except if I’m going to increase weight I want it to be muscle. More important, I want to gain for as long as possible, not as fast as possible. Simply eating more calories may not be the charm. I don’t use being 70 as an excuse for anything but it does change priorities. I have no patience for injuries or over use. I’m cautious, think a lot before making changes, allow extra time for results to emerge and deliberate at lenght about what I’m seeing.

Cronometer has taught me where the nutrients are and helped create a diet where I love everything I’m eating and all of it comes from a produce market. (The butcher loves filling my 70% lean ground chuck special order.)

Below is a chart of net carbs for the past year (including a couple of binge days that apparently had no effect on body weight). Eating more meat recently, in place of other things, lowers carbs but doesn’t seem to lower my energy level but it’s too soon to be sure about that.

[Dantheman]

do you know you’re ketone levels? and if so, at what time of day do you check it?

[charlie3]

I’ve never checked keytone levels. From what I’ve seen those can be ambiguous, hard to interpret. I already have too many interacting variables. Recordingdiet, eating times, and exercise session is a lot to track and interpret.

BTW 98% of my nutrition comes from eggs, whipping cream (in coffee), ground chuck, fish, olive oil, avecado, green leafy vegetables, seasonings, and a couple of vitamin and mineral suppliments.

I find the Crystal Lite drinks to be helpful for minimzing hunger pangs between meals. I often start work days with a cup of bullion. In a really desparate situation I might eat a celery stick.