Hello all!
First of all, I am not the type of person to write, let alone share things on the internet of strangers, but I already feel really safe here, especially due to reading the words of so many of you whose personalities pop off the page, like @Brenda. Thanks for making this a safe space to make a leap of faith and share my experiences and questions! Here is literally so much text about both of those things!
I’m about 16 days in to full keto (following about 5 weeks of gradual transition of decreasing bad carbs, increasing good carbs and increasing protein, phasing out drinking over the holidays and focusing on increasing hydration and sleep) and I have been absolutely astounded by the positive impacts on my life already. I will give a little bit of history and further detail about my journey so far at the end of the post, but will try to jump as quick as I can to the relevant context, data and questions for those who might have clicked through thinking they might have some insight. But, I am a medical anthropologist, so do please feel free to show me the science, because that’s a huge part of why I have been enjoying reading through this community the past few days!
Here is the TL;DR, which is also still long, yikes!
I am a former competitive ice skater with deeply fluctuating activity levels due to fieldwork. Have gone from 0 workouts per week pre-keto to skating 14 times in the past 12, plus about 3 hours of additional cardio per week on top of that, in addition to double-tripling the amount I am walking. I am in humble disbelief over this sudden transformation.
My questions relate to the scientific principles and nutritional calculations and methods I should be using when trying to establish my overall goals for macro distribution and caloric intake (overall and net) give that my energy and metabolism seem to be changing rapidly. Establishing a baseline and overall principles in how to recalibrate them with time/activity level transitions is a little tricky, right now, as I have two simultaneously deeply shifting variables re: exercise and nutrition. I would also love some advice on timing my eating around skating, as I have read a lot of conflicting data and opinions.
Prior to this transition, in my adult life, I had never tracked what I was eating, never dieted because I came close to developing an eating disorder toward the end of my competitive career when I was 13. I have taken pride in not having a neurotic relationship to eating or food as an adult, but that doesn’t preclude the fact that I certainly developed an unbalanced relationship to both that involved mostly not thinking about it. When I got injured and left the ice, I also went through puberty (which had been delayed due to skating) and gained weight and looked at it me settling into “my natural curvy adult form” and moving away from a world that kept my body smaller than it was likely meant to be (mostly through extreme athletic intensity rather than food restriction, fyi, but there was a little of that).
My activity levels never equalized though, and I think I avoided sports because of the edge of my experience in the unhealthy parts of body fixation in the skating world. I mentioned this because it is important that I explain why I am choosing not to weigh myself in the first 3-6 months of this journey. I don’t want to get caught up in numbers that I know are going to fluctuate wildly due to water weight, activity levels, body adjustment and developing more lean muscle mass simultaneous to losing body fat. The only pounds I am measuring being shed right now is psychological baggage!
The only time in my life I did get caught up in a bad psychological relationship to the scale was my last year competitively skating and I choose not to replicate that. I am taking body measurements today to use as a baseline. My overall goal is lowering my body fat percentage while increasing lean muscle mass, especially in my arms, as my legs are, like females 
strong as hell. I am all about the non-scale victories. I am basing my initial calculations on an estimate of approx. 190 lbs, however. I am little over 5 foot 6. I will get a proper assessment of my BF% soon, as it is difficult to estimate when my legs are very, very muscular, I carry extra weight in my midsection, and then my upper body is neither overly muscular or fat. Different zones have different percentages here! I had a partial elbow replacement due to my career-ending injury and I have excellent range of motion, but I need to be careful in upper weight-lifting as a result because I do have arthritis in that joint (although guess what, no arthritic pain since this WOE transition!)
My background re: overall physical capacity, however, is that I was a competitive figure skater for a decade until a traumatic elbow injury basically ended my career. I have maintained a lot of that muscle, especially my leg muscles, and am very strong in what I can life, carry, etc, but have certainly added a layer of fat to that that has contributed to my decreased energy level. In fact, before keto, I had only skated about 6-8 times total since my career ended 17 years ago, because I was sad about what I lost and I was anxious about the process of having to start over again. I bought myself a beautiful pair of skates 3 years ago for my birthday to encourage myself to get active and do this thing I loved again. I only managed to go twice in those three years, because I kept telling myself I was “too busy.” It was an excuse and it was also embedded in a tired, dazed state I describe more below. It was a challenge to hit 10000 steps a day, the only movement metric I was using. Most days it was in the 7000-8000 range. I have tripled that in the past 2 weeks, easily.
When I used the keto calculator here, I followed the advice of using sedentary for activity level-- at what point in my skate-a-palooza should I shift that? I have a Samsung GearFit 2 which is estimating that my calorie expenditure is about 2500 cals per day, although I take that with a grain of salt. My skate sessions are intense and also on an outdoor rink, so I calculate that I am burning between 550-650 calories an hour, conservatively. Average sessions for me are 90 minutes. I am very open to hearing that my calculations are flawed, especially with respect to interpreting my base metabolic rate.
I have been using LifeSum to learn how to track macros and it tells me the following: I average, without trying one way or the other, literally 1999.1 calories per day (which amuses me). I average about 2000 ml of water. In the past 3-5 days, I have started to notice my appetite is decreasing as my energy levels stay the same, which I know happens for many on keto. Eating to satiation these past few days has been about 1300-1400 calories, which I worry is too low with my new activity levels. This overlaps with having decreased my protein intake and increased my fat intake, however. I went from about 65/30/5 ratio to now about 80/15/5 ratio. I am sure that so much of all of what I am observing is tied to this being early days and my body adjusting to significant changes in both my WOE and my activity levels. However, with my activity levels, I would love some advice on where folks would suggest I recalibrate my macro ratios and what I should perhaps look at as a wise goal for net calories. I suspect I should increase my protein levels given my activity? But I also know I am certainly not fully fat-adapted yet, so I am cautious and seeking your wisdom.
I have hit my target of under 25 net carbs for 3/4 of these days, without exceeding 35, but much of that is kale, zucchini and some onion or cashews. I do not use artificial sweeteners and don’t have sugar/carb cravings (more on that below) My biggest nutritional adjustments have been that I did not previously eat much red meat and I developed a lactose sensitivity following having malaria and dysentery simultaneously over the summer, so I am currently avoiding all dairy except butter, ghee and low lactose cheeses.
Finally, I would love to pick your collective brains about your experiences with fueling for workouts. Do you favor pre- or post- workout eating, and if so, what type of macro distribution?
I was raised in the school of thought of fueling up before skating or risk fainting and concussion, but I know this is wrapped up in blood glucose/insulin-oriented WOE. In making this transition, I realize I am not very hungry in the morning (I tend to skate at 8 AM and then often again at 7 PM) so I usually have some green tea, half a scoop of super greens powder, soluble fiber and collagen powder, some chicken or beef broth with some MCT oil and a glass or two of water and maybe some nori if I want extra salt, and I feel great when I skate and have realized I don’t need to eat before I skate. It is powerful to be able to undo mental conditioning on what is normative eating. I always have almonds on me just in case. I usually have a full meal, including bacon, about an hour or two after I am off the ice, a smaller meal and snack midday, and then I have been somewhat forcing myself to eat a good dinner after my evening skate, but I think I might move that to before my evening skate, as I am not very hungry in the evening.
I didn’t experience keto flu apart from one day, about 7 days in, when I felt forgetful in the morning and afternoon-- electrolytes solved and that is when I crunched numbers and added more sodium. Because I took a long transition into this, during the time I was reading up on keto science, I was able to completely avoid carb/sugar cravings, which I had braced myself for, especially since I literally live on top of a pizza shop. The only food I really miss is sweet potato, because I could do so many easy, fast things with it. If I can contribute anything to the advice for newbies, even as a real newbie myself, it would be a embarking on a transition period of about a month while you are reading up on keto. I think it dramatically helped me psychologically and physiologically adapt because I was primed and I forced myself not to jump in to quickly. I worked on establishing patterns and practices that would support this path and I can’t recommend that enough.
(In case this is relevant for subsequent conversation: for ~6 months I have supplementing with magnesium oxide, but am going to switch given what I have read on absorption), selenium, zinc, 5-HTP, and b-12 in addition to a daily multi and probiotic. Always open to suggestions and ideas of what might be useful to add. I am about to get some lite salt since I would like to increase my potassium levels in different ways than the electrolytes I take (Nuun, but switching to Lyteshow)
Okay, now here is some background on me, since I am planning on sticking around here
I am unclear as to how I would characterize my activity levels over the past 5 years–inconsistent? My work involves a lot of travel for fieldwork and I do plenty of hiking and activity when I am abroad, where I also would naturally eat more fat and protein and less refined carbs due to the standard diets in the places I work (North and East Africa, South Pacific). I feel extremely lucky to be living this life, but I also felt like due to energy/focus/anxiety levels, I hadn’t been living it fully. I live in a major city and my city life had become a cycle of sleeplessness -> tired, unfocused, semi zombie-like state -> stress over that lack of energy and focus -> crash out with Netflix in the evening because I am too tired and stressed to do anything -> oops, I didn’t get the things done I needed to get done today ->stress -> sleeplessness -> repeat.
I even found myself over time becoming more socially anxious because of my underlying, increasing stress and anxiety levels, which was alarming, as I historically am an extroverted person with a wonderful community of friends, many of whom noticed how much I was bailing on plans. It got to a point that I was taking Ubers back and forth to my office every day the past several months because I couldn’t sleep until 3 or 4 AM, was waking up late and exhausted, and the idea of facing people on public transit was exhausting. Concerning and expensive!
Four days into Keto, I woke up, energized and motivated as hell and I grabbed my skates and a friend and headed to the rink. It felt incredible. I stayed on the ice 2.5 hours. I was careful in monitoring my electrolytes, something I have learned from my deep readings into this WOE the past few months, and the next day, I woke up, not sore and ready to hit the ice again. And again. And again. In the past 12 days, I have gone skating 14 times, with my average ice sessions lasting a little over an hour. Two days ago, I ended up skating three times in the same day because of some special events happening on the rink that day. I have only felt some mild soreness in my core and thighs that has easily been easily managed with epson soaks and electrolyte replenishing and pre and post skate stretching. What I have mostly felt is what I can only describe as this feeling of unshackling in my body-- my muscles that were still there, still o strong, are finally getting used to the point of challenge again and it feels like full body happiness. I can’t believe how fast and total this transformation in my energy levels has been. My step counter has hit 20000+ every day the past 2 weeks and I am doing plenty cardio on my new exercise bike simply because I have energy to burn. I’ve even been roller skating around my house when I’m cooking.
I am braced for stalls, for bad days. for injuries, etc. I know that this initial huge high will transform into something steadier and more sustainable, but right now, I am just feeling tremendously grateful, humbled, joyous and excited. I have been balancing being careful in not pushing myself, but in going for it when my body says “Please, go for it!” This has shown me that my fundamental musculature is still there, that my activity level plummeted and my anxiety levels shot up due to psychological stress of city life and sugar/carbs I was putting in my body. I went from cooking one-twice a week “because I was busy” “because I was tired” “because I was rushed” to my kitchen being a full-blown keto test kitchen.
The other things that have slid into place already–I haven’t felt this fully alive, energetic, happy and centered in years…and years. I am astounded that my anxiety and ADHD symptoms are already less pronounced, which was something I thought I might see down the road, but has come to the forefront. I am back to using public transit without it spiking my anxiety and because i am commuting so much to the rink, I am on the subway like 6-8 times a day now. My procrastination has plummeted, which is one of the most significant changes for me. My anxiety across the board has been triggered so much less, I hardly recognize this new psychological lightness.
Other things I have noticed is that my skin is already clearer, brighter and firmer. My digestion has improved dramatically since having had some real issues following my malaria/dysentery combo (I had this combo 9 years ago and the same thing happened). Yes, I am certainly losing body fat already, but for the record, that’s not my immediate goal. Endurance, stamina, strength, stability, clarity, balance and overall-- healing-- those are my first goals. Gratefully, I can tell you that I am achieving those in ways I didn’t know were possible so quickly. Thank you all for the ways you have inspired and supported me already, without knowing.
For those of you who made it this far and have science backgrounds, I just want to add a specific note-- as a medical anthropologist, I travel all over the world talking to people about their healing traditions-- especially their use of plants and animals in traditional ethnomedicine. It has been so interesting to me that I never really looked at my own life that way I understood that I felt differences when I was operating on a standard Western diet versus eating according to local traditions in my travels, but I didn’t probe deeper. I now find myself looking at the data I have on cultural ways of using plants and animals for medicinal purposes through an entirely new lens due to my immersion in this way of life. I have a heavy science background-- prior to going into medical anthropology, I was in the public health sector with a specialty in virology. I have taken so much biochem and yet I understood so little about nutritional science, even though all the building blocks of comprehending it were right in front of me. The “Show me the science” section of this website is my favorite and where I think I will be hanging out.
I knew that keto could help heal the way I was living my my life. I didn’t expect that it would offer me a different angle and dynamic of looking at my own profession. That for me has been one of the wildest parts of this journey. Can’t wait for what’s next!
Thanks for reading!
xo JGL
) speak to that. All the pre-keto changes you made probably helped your body jump right in (reminds me of Mark Sisson’s keto reset). I’ve been low carb for 7 months and I’m so messed up (metabolically) that I STILL haven’t hit that energy spike! It sounds like you are burning fat with a vengeance.
WELCOME! It’s encouraging to read a story like yours as I continue my struggle.
Was a total, total surprise. All of a sudden I was like “Hey, we work there! What’s going on here??”