And here’s an example of what my vegan PSK OMAD looks like. That large cup of pea protein soup has most of the 0.9g/lb lean mass protein I consume.
If I’m on the road in a hotel room:
Just the essentials - pea protein, vegan bouillon and hot water from a coffee maker.
Day 6 of PSK
So just increasing my carbs to ~10, fats a little and upping my calories from 1000 to 1100 seems to be enough to kick me out of the 2.0 GKI range and into ~3.0. My ketones have crashed to 1.6 again and now my glucose is higher as well ~77.
No headache, no hunger… but also no results. LOL
Basically on day 6, I’m at the same weight and composition as the beginning. Not so sure I’m getting this protein sparing keto to work.
Either that or I’m just not very good at it - or the vegan component is making it hard to digest…
Frankly, I’m going to give this another few days, but if there’s no flush by the weekend, I’m going to consider this a bust and go back to fasting.
For those who want to see the composition of my macros - here’s what it looked like today
I will say that the fats do make me feel better… reducing daily fat under 60g seems to be the trigger for the headaches unless I’m completely fasted.
To test whether it’s the total fat grams or the ratio of fat to protein, I’m going to drop fat to 55g but reduce protein even further tomorrow. If I get a headache, then it may be that I need 60g of fat. If I don’t then it may have more to do with the ratio or with the total caloric intake.
**edit - my macros were missing a few things, so updated above.
Another rabbit hole for you - I’ve been making my way through the “watch later” list on my youtube and I watched a few podcasts with Matthew Walker, I found his topic interesting because of my dad. Some people have noted that they were waking up with headaches due to bad sleeping positions, due to anatomical differences (sleep apnea, neck positioning, etc.).
Interesting since I’ve been sleeping in my full recliner lazy boy for the last week. It’s exceptionally comfortable and I’ve actually fallen asleep in it involuntarily because it’s so enjoyable (before my quarantine).
It could just be that I had to adjust for a few nights until I found a position that didn’t cause headaches.
The headache was very much a stress/strain type, so maybe…
Day 7 of PSK
Everything is exactly the same as yesterday. It’s a hard plateau for almost a week now even though I’m eating a fraction of my RMR + exercise + sun + sauna + 8hrs of sleep.
If I were fasting, I would conclude that it’s the result of water retention… unfortunately, eating anything complicates the results and makes it hard to interpret.
I started projecting my caloric deficit (with some assumptions) just to see if I can make sense of it, but it’s not helpful.
It doesn’t help that just going barely over 10 carbs seems to crash my ketones and raise my GKI. Yesterday’s result at 2.7 wasn’t terrible, but really a harsh reminder of how sensitive my body is to carbs.
I’m out of “hard quarantine” so I can sleep in a bed again and I can be let outside my cage (guest bedroom/office) without a muzzle (facemask), but still no hugging - so kids are grumpy 
We’ll see how my numbers turn out before eating my OMAD today.
Day 7 final - PSK
The sauna seems to help.
My numbers before were 71G and 1.4K ~ 2.8GKI then 77G and 2.1K ~ 2.0GKI
So the heat stress seems to help, but I’m losing faith in the PSK approach after a week of no change.
I’m ok with a day or three… but 7 days of absolutely no change is puzzling. With a 7000 calorie deficit, I should have lost at least ~1.5lbs of fat. I could have gained it exactly in water ~ 0.7 quarts but it should flush at this point.
I’ll wait till the weekend and see.
Is my impatience showing? 
Day 8 - PSK
I forced a “flush” today with another heavy hour of DIY sauna.
I started at 74G, 1.6K and ended at 72G and 2.3K. The heat shock proteins certainly seem to activate or be correlated with higher ketones. That’s a drop in GKI from 2.6 to 1.7… so I’ll definitely be doing more of this.
I was drinking while in the sauna, but my water weight dropped from 182.8 to 181.6 … mostly fat mass.
Day 8 - PSK
I had the headaches return last night even though I attempted to reduce my protein to 0.7g/lb lean mass and that increased my fat% to 58% (which was 64g of fat) while keeping carbs at 6g and total calories under 1000…
I would have expected that to be the sweet spot for PSK, but I still had the headache.
I did increase the seaweed again so maybe that’s the culprit. I’ve always consumed these foods in abundance but there may be a unique interaction when I consume them in a PSK diet that exacerbates something in them. I’m going to reduce them again and add something different into the mix today to see what happens.
Today has been good. After the nearly 1.5lbs forced flush (sun and sauna) yesterday, I experienced a second flush this morning at ~2.5lbs and I’m now just under 180lbs = 179.2 lbs!!! 
Body composition is also quite good. It took me 9 days to lose 2.7lbs of fat and the reduction in muscle mass was 0.5lbs. We’ll see how it progresses but I’m glad it evened out eventually.
Day 8 final - PSK
The sauna has been very effective at increasing ketones again and reducing my water weight. Without it, I expect my GKI will be greater than 3 instead of hovering around 2-2.5.
If these results hold, then I’m losing around 0.3lbs of fat mass loss per day on PSK as compared to extended fasting at 0.7lbs.
I’ve also been considering that maybe the two additional supplements (Serrapeptase and Broccoli Sprout Extract) I’m taking may be causing the foods I normally eat to react differently. Or they could be causing the headaches directly.
I couldn’t find headache as a side effect of Serrapeptase or Broccoli Sprout Extracts
I’ve been thinking about how quickly my GKI rises if I eat, even in a caloric deficit of 1000 (with an RMR of 2000) and less than 10g of carbs. And I remember how you said you can be sub 1 while fed.
What are your macros and how much do you exercise/exert yourself on a day like that?
Day 9 - PSK
I feel good. No headache yesterday or this morning. Very low hunger. Calm, clear.
I am feeling some pain in my abdomen… it’s like a discomfort in my lower belly muscles that gets a little intense then fades back to discomfort.
I will post pics soon but I’ll say the combination of new activities and supplements has reduced my belly fat and skin faster than I expected without fasting.
Thinking on the weight gain on PSK …
because I chose a vegan PSK, the fiber in my diet is a lot higher than my usual carnivore+. Add to that the fact that I had just come out of the extended fast. I think that the fibrous material was causing me to soak up a lot of water and it created a lot of bulk that needed time (5 days) to start to work its way through.
I would call that the adaptation period for vegan PSK
If I were to do this carnivore, I would expect the results to be more immediate.
Day 9 - PSK - final
No idea what happened, but my ketones crashed today from 2.0 to 1.2 and glucose shot up from 72 to 85 and negligible weight/composition change…
Here’s what I ate today.
Still PSK but I needed something different so I had a choczero dark and cut out enough of the other fats to compensate.
End of the day and the headache is back… 
I’m starting to get concerned that I may be causing harm…
Thinking of fasting tomorrow to reset but it might mess up the PSK experiment.
Day 10 - PSK
Woke up feeling better. Slight headache & no hunger. I also think I understand what’s going on a bit better.
I’ve been trying to eat protein and fat only at a 50%:50% ratio keeping calories under 1000. That’s how I’ve defined this PSK approach. That basically ends up at 55g of fat and 125g of protein. But implicit in the macro math is the high fiber carb that I’m excluding since I only look at net carbs ~ 10g. This is a biproduct of doing vegan PSK.
So I’m eating fiber and protein with a little fat… the result is that my digestive system is struggling to move the material through. I take a lot of magnesium but it’s not enough. There’s just no signal to eliminate and that creates digestive stress. Add to that the daily saunas that are causing temporary dehydration… And even when I do eliminate, it’s uncomfortable.
I think the digestive stress is causing my headache and since that’s my condition every time I eat and hadn’t eliminated, the headache keeps coming back… It’s chronic unless I fast or find a way to improve my elimination.
Solutions?
More magnesium?
More hydration?
More fat?
Less fiber? (yes, fiber makes it worse - not better)
Less coffee? (it’s a diuretic so it can aggravate dehydration)
I’m going to add some more fat and start measuring my fiber…
any other ideas?
Day 10 final - PSK
Weight loss still progressing but it has a larger component from muscle mass too… and that’s while consuming a lot of protein.
My GKI has been steadily increasing and is in the 3-4 range now… so low level ketosis with Glucose in the high 80s and ketones in the low 1.0s…
I’m getting sun, sauna and deadlifting outside every day now.
Day 11 - PSK - looks like I’ve succeeded in putting the audience to sleep again
Had a lot more fat yesterday and the headache went away.
Gained a lot more water weight (4lbs!!!) overnight but I’m hoping to dry out before my OMAD today.
Day 12 - PSK
I’ll post My results a little less frequently and go over how I’m doing instead.
I decided to eat a little more yesterday. Moving from 1000 calories with 50g of fat and 0.9g/lb protein up to 1400 calories with 80g of fat and 1.0g/lb protein.
That upped my carbs from sub-10 to a little over 11g. I dared to have an avocado and a snack (kale chips)!! 
I still consider it a protein sparing keto day because I was eating 1.7g of protein to each 1.0 gram of fat. I was also still in a caloric deficit since I still had a lot of energy and I weightlifted.
I also decided to stop taking vitamins C and E to allow for more inflammation while lifting. I also stopped resveratrol. I’m not seeing any gains and I suspect it’s the result of the anti inflammation vitamins. I considered the risk of doing this during the COVID 19 pandemic but I’m working from home and I’ve been home bound for two weeks with no symptoms.
Results:
The additional volume of food and extra protein and fat made me very full and sated. Almost uncomfortably so since I’m OMAD. I haven’t measured yet but I’m surprised that I would feel that way on 1400 calories given that I used to eat 4500 calories on carnivore some days while bulking.
Also, the extra volume is helping with the elimination process. I think that consuming less than 200g of food a day is “confusing” to my body. It just refuses to function normally. It’s not fasting, but it’s not eating normally either… so it waits for days instead of hours. That’s my theory on why the volume helped.
I think that fat plays an important digestive role beyond just being there as an energy source. Being too high in protein and fiber without enough fat doesn’t feel comfortable to my digestive system.
Conclusion
Once I’m done with this vegan PKS experiment, I’m going to eat Keto for a couple of days, then go back to an extended fast for a week or so. I’m hoping to flush out the fiber I’ve been building up and start fresh on carnivore+ in late April. My carnivore+ allows fermented plants and mushrooms since they’re not technically plants & instead feed on plants (like herbivores do).
I’ll decide if I want to try carnivore PSK after I’ve had my fill of ribeyes
