Ilana's beef binge buster thread

(Full Metal KETO AF) #21

And I believe the one of three ketone types, specifically the one that causes toxicity problems for T1 people if I am correct. :cowboy_hat_face:

(mole person) #22

Yah, itā€™s not a complicated equation once it strikes you (I didnā€™t come up with it myself). The more delicious food is the more you will want to eat it. If you are trying to eat less then reducing desirability is a fabulous ā€œleverā€ to pull (borrowing @CaptainKirkā€™s metaphor cause itā€™s great).

The first one to get rid of for pretty much anyone our age who wants to return to a leaner physique is all sweet things. Forgot about artificial sweeteners. After a certain point almost everyone stalls out if they use them. For all that itā€™s denied around here the science that sweeteners are antithetical to weight loss is large. Further, itā€™s not a whole food. These are chemicals with real biological effects on our bodies and whose long term impacts we have not sorted out yet.

Here are just some of their effects:

-They increase lipogenesis (fat production).
-They decrease lipolysis (fat breakdown).
-They increase the cellular rate of glucose uptake.
-They significantly increase the rise in insulin caused by consuming any other calories (one study shows that the insulin increase of sweetening foods with Sucralose is worse than that from fructose).
-They bind to sweet receptors in the digestive tract exactly the same way real sugars do.
-Clinical trials show people fed artificial sweeteners with their food simply consume more calories.

The list goes on. Thatā€™s just what I remember off the top of my head.

I rarely eat sweet things anymore but when I do I just take the carb hit from real sugars. At least there I know the physiological impact of the drug that Iā€™m using. And honestly, there is no evidence at all that real sugar causes more weight gain than non nutritive sweetners when consumed as part of a regular diet, and a fair bit that the relationship goes the other way.

(mole person) #23

Iā€™ve never significantly tapered off of my excess ketone production. There are lots of people here who never stop making them. Itā€™s why I never bothered with blood measurements. The urine strips still tell me when Iā€™ve reached my ideal level.

I did finally start showing yesterday evening actually. Itā€™s not yet the level that I feel best at, but hopefully I will see that tonight.

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So it took four days to get to a measurable ketone reading. I think that says something about my level of fat adaptation after 2.5 years in ketosis. My muscles are now glucose sparing and carry on fine on fatty acids and that glycogen tank that I filled on ice cream, honey, dates, berries and apples took forever to deplete.
@carolT, does that make sense, or can you think of a better explanation?

(mole person) #24

Not exactly. Acetoacetate in the urine is merely what the type 1 diabetics measure since it is a very cheap, effective test that doesnā€™t require a stabbing to draw blood. Ketoacidosis is caused by ketones in the blood raising the acidity of the blood to toxic levels.

This article actually fingers the other two ketone bodies as the more relevant acidifying agents. Acetoacetate is just a more easily measured marker of when ketoacidosis is occurring.

ā€œKetone bodies (primarily BHA and AcAa) are strong acids. They dissociate freely and produce a large amount of hydrogen ions. This overproduction of hydrogen ions overwhelms the buffering capacity of the body, quickly leading to metabolic acidosis.ā€

(mole person) #25

Day 4 update:

I ate pretty much the same as the day prior. Four small beef bones for lunch and a big meaty slow baked beef rib for dinner. Both meals had added fat and broth gel. Iā€™m still intensely enjoying the food when I eat it.

As I said I had ketones finally although Iā€™m still not feeling that good ketone feeling. Why do I ever cheat? Itā€™s almost insane how I fail to remember every time how not worth it those flavours are. My guess is that itā€™s because the sugar high itself feels pretty amazing and my stupid brain is not up to calculating the risk side of the equation but only the reward side. This is probably why itā€™s so bloody hard to stop. You feel crappy when you do and you can fix that crappy feeling a little bit with another injection of sugar.

Anyhow, at least the weight loss is continuing.

Weight: 108 lbs. -3.2 lbs.

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(Jane- Old Inky Crone) #26

Thanks @Ilana_Rose, this was what I suspected, but didnā€™t want to face.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #27

This is because fructose doesnā€™t spike insulin. It can only be processed by the liver so it canā€™t be pushed into cells directly like glucose with insulin. Thatā€™s why large amounts of fructose cause NAFLD or NASH (fat on the liver). I was shocked reading yesterday that fructose is sometimes used by diabetics for this reason.

Just a stab in the dark here, but maybe you binge because your diet is fairly austere most of the time, and you still crave more flavor. That builds up till a binge occurs. :cowboy_hat_face:

(Kirk Wolak) #28

Always measure blood ketones and blood glucose.
Especially if you are stalling. Urine is not accurate for me and MANY people after keto adaptation.

One doctor said clearly: GKI = (Glucose/Ketones) [US: Glucose/18/Ketones] is the best measure. Above 6 is meaningless (light ketosis, maybe) 3-6 is maintenance, and below 3 is therapeutic. 1 and below is where Deep Healing (Fighting Cancer, Epilepsy, etc. FROM what I have read, do your own research).

Why is this more important than making ketones. Because as you Keto Adapt, your morning reading (the one that counts, before consuming anything), tells you where your health is, AND because your ketone numbers go lower. I am now at 0.5 - 0.8 DESPITE eating 5g or less of carbs! Today I was 1.1 Ketones, but that was after FASTING 30hrs.
(I am on Day 1 of 6).

But my glucose was only 85 today. It will was 101 yesterday after having eaten later than normal! Tomorrow it will be in 70-80 range. But ketones should be 1.6ā€¦

GKI = 85/18/1.1= 4.29 (I am only in maintenance mode right now. Because I am accustomed to 2-3 days of fasting! I ADF a lot). I am just returning from vacation, and having gotten sick on the airplane ride back, and ate KETO (but had some allergens because of being in a foreign land). It throws off my blood numbers first. And it takes DAYS to recover them still.

Please check your blood values. If you get a keto mojo, and buy their GKI special on their website, itā€™s like 1.10/day to check BOTH numbers. And blood numbers are so much more informative and insightful. And they change much faster than urine. BTW, I canā€™t PEE a ketone to save my life. My body uses them. I will test day 4,5,6 of fasting, to confirm. There is a chance on a longer fast, I will waste someā€¦

Also, add in some walking. Walk for 30-50 minutes if you can, while fasted, and THEN check your ketones. Itā€™s summer. Walk laps in a POOL! easier on the joints.

Play with it! Experiment. Just give a couple of days between experiments to clear things up.

Good Luck!

(Susan) #29

This makes sense to meā€¦ I could never eat just carnivore, I could for like a week or something but I am not big into meat to begin with, donā€™t really enjoy it unless it is covered in avocado mayo and vegetables to mask the taste of the meat.

(mole person) #30

The thing is that until now urine testing has given me the data that I required. I do pee ketones as long as Iā€™m compliant with keto principles and I will even see different readings depending on degree of compliance. I have to measure at the exact same time daily to get consistent readings, but thatā€™s not a hardship.

I am aware that the actual numeric reading is meaningless due to hydration effects but the color itself is giving me a piece of data that Iā€™ve been able to associate with my physical and mental wellbeing. I know that I feel my best when the colour is between the 4 and 8 mmol range. Iā€™ve managed to get all this information every day for over two years at 13 cents a day Canadian.

I will eventually get a blood meter. But I mean to do that only after I really get into fasting. Right now I never stall and know how to reach maintenance with relative ease. Even the urine tracking is really just a security blanket at the moment since I actually know when Iā€™m ā€œthereā€ by my buzzy, happy keto high.

So as much as Iā€™m curious about the data, until Iā€™m ready to push for greater autophagy and need a way to quantify it (and I agree, I cannot get that with urine strips) Iā€™m not sure what valuable information Iā€™d be getting from blood reading that would justify the additional expense.

And I do walk a ton. Generally between 12-20 km a day. :slightly_smiling_face: Keto makes me! Lol.

(mole person) #31

Iā€™d be interested in this.

I have to admit, I am curious about a couple of things that I could get with a blood meter. As you said, tracking fasting glucose would be interesting. Secondly, I am curious what range of actual blood ketones are matching up with what I consider my happy place on the urine strips. It could be that itā€™s a very large range due to hydration differences.

Hmmā€¦ maybe Iā€™ll buy it for myself as a reward for getting off the coffee when I manage it. I donā€™t actually have to use the blood ketone strips daily if I donā€™t want to.

Thanks for making me rethink this.

(mole person) #32

This has some truth but you may remember from my ā€œwillpower warsā€ thread that things were actually worse for me on the less austere full keto diet. The difference was that then I struggled with poor eating choices on a nearly daily basis.

The less choices I have, it seems, the less my brain thinks that the other thing it wants is a reasonable food choice. Remember my excessive dairy use, my big salads, and even my periods of daily Mars Bars?

ā€œIā€™m slimā€ said my brain for almost 100 days in a row at one pointā€¦ ā€œ35 extra carbs a day is no big dealā€.

But on carnivore it stops being about carbs and I have perfect control until an event like a family thing or, in this case, a birthday treat intervenes.

So yes, the last binge was bad, but it only lasted a few days as opposed to long months of lighter problem eating that prevents me from achieving my happy size. Itā€™s only since Iā€™ve gone carnivore that Iā€™ve been able to repeatedly hit the 104 lb range and thatā€™s because the limits are extremely clearly defined and I seem to need that.

Also, it only sounds really austere. My normal diet includes basically every meat and even a small amount of dairy. The diet Iā€™m eating now is austere but itā€™s less so than a fast which is essentially how Iā€™m using it.

In fact, I really love this way of eating. Nothing about it feels like deprivation at all and I feel physically wonderful on it. I only run into a problem when an excuse for a sweet breaks through and then I think what happens is what @Madeleine described. My brain says ā€œYay, you found the honey!!! Eat it all!ā€

(mole person) #33

Yes. And thatā€™s whatā€™s so interesting. Fructose doesnā€™t get pushed into cells and so has no need to spike insulin. Sucralose doesnā€™t get pushed into cells either and yet does cause an insulin spike that is much closer to that of sucrose.

The whole reason we avoid carbs on this diet is to control insulin. If non nutritive sweetners donā€™t actually do this then we are fooling ourselves when we count carbs while consuming them.

(Andi loves space, bacon and fasting. ) #34

I did that 3 weeks ago. Weirdly, I never felt that bad when doing it (neither physically nor emotionally). Iā€™m glad I did, got it out of my system and now I think Iā€™m all set for maybe a year or so.

I am also trying to change my mindset to ā€œfood is food for energy and life, it doesnā€™t have to be some kind of special thing.ā€

(Kirk Wolak) #35

You are very welcome.
And do consider it. Once you test enough (especially both), you will be able to predict your numbers pretty well. I love doing it under stress, and seeing my Glucose rocket up (sarcasm, but it explains why stress used to make me eat!)).

There is little to NO correlation. Blood is real-time available energy. Urine is wasted energy, and could be carry-over from 3-4 hours ago. Itā€™s like measuring your hair for toxins. Different meaning if you have 12 inches of hair, or a buzz cut!

And the amount you are wasting may never be a good indication of blood. My buddy was always purple. Later I found out he was chronically dehydrated. LMAO. I envied his purple strips. LOL

(mole person) #36

Day five update:

Food was basically the same except dinner was a slow baked bottom blade roast which is another favorite fatty meat (I think this is the same as chuck). I love the taste of this meat but it requires a very long cooking time. Either 48 hrs in the sous vide or 6 hours in my oven at a very low temperature. Again, I added plenty of extra fat and bone gel. Itā€™s interesting, I think Iā€™m actually liking the diet more each day. Yesterday I was absolutely grooving on the taste of my bone gel.

Unfortunately, I forgot my 5 pm ketone check.

Weight this morning was 106.6 lbs. -4.6 lbs in five days and well past the halfway point of the original 7.2 lb gain.

This is why I love this protocol. I can lose weight really fast while eating as often and as much as I want even though Iā€™m already basically in my maintenance range. Further, the lack of variety kills all cravings since there are no options available.

The downside is that Iā€™m not convinced by the Shawn Bakerā€™s of the world and I believe that ultimately more variety is needed for optimal health then just ruminant muscle meats. So, I do have to go back to liver and seafoods, and eggs eventually. This is a fast equivalent for me, not a permanent diet.

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(mole person) #37

Never say never. When I started keto I would have said exactly the same thing. I absolutely adored my fruit and vegetables and although I liked a bit of meat most of my food was plant based. But as I did keto I started to see that I actually liked them too much.

Iā€™d have too much salad with fatty dressings, too much cauliflower with cheese and butter etc. Itā€™s not talked about a lot here but I find it pretty easy to overdo fats if the delivery food is itself carby. This is also why dairy is a big problem for me, and the same with nuts. Any food that delivers both significant carbohydrates and fats together go off like a fat accumulation bomb inside me and increase my desire to eat as a result.

Meat is never something that I want to eat when Iā€™m not hungry and that is one of the big powers of pure carnivory. But I didnā€™t start carnivore easily. Even after I knew that I wanted to try it, and even though I only meant to commit to 30 days, it still took about 6 months to will myself to give up plants. And even to this day Iā€™m still having one creamed coffee a day.

Actually, this is supposed to be my last dayā€¦lolā€¦againā€¦

But overall the health benefits have been very worth the experiment as losing the last few pounds is probably the least of the benefits Iā€™ve had since going carnivore. Keto made my health better than it had been before, but carnivore has taken it to a hugely better level.

I never was able to drop a single medication that I take for neurological pain in 2 years of keto. They all got dropped in 4 months on carnivore. Massive, massive win.

(Susan) #38

I just donā€™t like the taste of meat, I have to mask it with Avocado Mayo or something. I donā€™t enjoy it at all. I never have really is all, unless it was masked. I have never been the type that liked steak or ribs or roast beef, etc. I will eat what I have to to lose the weight, but I donā€™t want to never enjoy food for life is allā€¦

(mole person) #39

Ahh, thatā€™s too bad. Eating a lot of fatty meats makes keto a lot easier. I hope with time that your taste for it grows. I never disliked it as you do, but Iā€™ve definitely come to enjoy it much more over the last 2 years.

(Susan) #40

I also have been trying to do it as cheaply as possible, so I end up eating more fish, chicken, ground beef, luncheon meats, etc to try to be as cheap as I can with it. I like fish and chicken, but I donā€™t like skin (find it really gross) and I always loved vegetables, but I have cut way down on them since Keto, as you can see on my cronometer. As soon as the stress around here lessens, I will do a nice 48 hour fast. I will do the 72 hour ones later as well, but need to do a 48 hour one first =).