N=1: Trying a sustainable loose keto approach

conversationstarters
keto
newbies
fasting
#1

Hi everyone,

I’m new here and wanted to share a bit of background and start an n=1 experiment.

About five years ago I lost around 10 kg (about 22 lbs) with a mix of intermittent fasting, high protein, and loosely restricting carbs. I cut out sugar and ate roughly one-third to one-half of my usual carbs. I also ran about 30 minutes, three times a week. On running days I usually added one or two bananas.

Back then I didn’t even know what “ketogenic” meant. I just threw together bits of information and advice in a trial-and-error way, and somehow it worked.

Now my situation is different. I sit a lot for work and I’ve started to gain fat around my abdomen – a typical “skinny fat” beginning. So I’d like to run a simple keto experiment on myself.

My main focus this time is not fast weight loss, but sustainability. My question is very simple: after two weeks of a loose keto experiment, do I still feel okay to continue, without a big psychological rebound?

For this experiment I’m not planning to track my scale weight or count every gram of carbs/protein/fat. Instead I’m going to pay attention to:

  • what and when I eat (very roughly)
  • my daily energy levels
  • mood and stress through the day
  • what kind of thoughts show up when I’m tired vs when I’m okay
  • whether, after two weeks, this still feels mentally sustainable

I’ll mostly be observing my body and mind in a rough, real-life way rather than doing precise measurements.

If anyone here has tried logging things like energy and mood (not just numbers on the scale), I’d love to hear what helped you or what you wish you had done differently.

I’m thinking of using this thread as a short log for the next couple of weeks as I experiment.

Thanks for reading.

(KM) #2

Welcome! I hope you report on your observations here. Feeling truly well and stable is a difficult thing to evaluate. I sometimes feel we spend a great deal of time looking at numbers to see the impact of our efforts, without ever trying to evaluate whether we actually feel better! Best luck on your new experiment. :slightly_smiling_face:

(Cathy) #3

Welcome to the forum and please let us know how you are getting along.

(Edith) #4

I would say that two weeks is not enough time to give keto a try. It takes 6-8 weeks for your body to really notice the beginnings of fat adaptation. At two weeks your muscles are still going to have that feeling of lead. I think you want to give your experiment enough time to start reaping the benefits of fat adaptation. Maybe two-three months instead of two weeks.

(Ohio ) #5

I might have read this wrong, or misunderstood this. But I’ll take a swing:

I’m micromanaging like you are doing. Right down to the color of every urine trip. I always write down on the calendar when I ingest caffeine (or other drugs) . Mental sustainability, with ya there too. I’d start testing urine for ketones, in my mind I feel like the carb limit isn’t easy to nail down. I get away with red bean pasta for example. I won’t even try to share those numbers.

Micromanaging makes perfect sense for your own health. Everything else, not so much.

#6

Good luck! I like N=1 experiments. General studies never gave me anything as I am unique so I needed my personal experiments to figure out what works for me. At that moment as it is subject to change.
Diet has close to nothing about my energy levels (unless I eat in a highly wrong way for longer term) but keto helps many others, apparently. My mood depends a lot on sunshine… :smiley:

What does it mean keto-ish? Probably keto but without tracking, you can’t tell? Sometimes keto, sometimes not? Or you just eat certain type of food and whatever the carbs and whatever your own ketosis carb limit, you still will see if it’s sustainable and good for you?

2 weeks may give important answers, I always noticed the benefits of a new woe during even the first week. Keto had an additional benefit after 7 weeks though, due to fat adaptation. That was nice but I still quit immediately as I missed my vegs. So yep, I see why you want to think about continuing after 2 mere weeks even though I simply quit the moment things get too hard (my first keto trial lasted for 1.5 days. carnivore probably lasted for a few days first - and it was amazing, carnivore benefits always came very quickly, in 2-3 days at most. mere low-fat lasted super long as it was much more enjoyable than high-carb and super easy, never went back for high-carb afterwards, only for temporary visits).

Okay I only could write more about myself here, good luck again and I am looking forward to see your experiences and thoughts in the future!

#7

First, a small apology and clarification.
English is not my first language, so I sometimes use translation tools for difficult parts and then check them manually. I still made a clumsy mistake with the phrase “keto-ish” in a previous post – I only meant “I’m slowly applying keto” or “moving gently toward keto,” but I know that wording was unclear and confusing. I’m sorry about that, and I’ll try to use clearer terms from now on.

Before tightening anything with keto, I realised I don’t really know what my “normal” day of eating looks like in detail. So I decided to spend one day just observing my usual pattern, without trying to change it yet – as a baseline before I shift toward lower-carb / keto.

Here’s what I noticed on that day:

When I spread my food over about 8 hours with smaller, convenient meals and snacks,
my body feels calm instead of heavy.

This is what I actually ate that day (definitely not keto yet):

  • a tiny microwave burrito while working (just enough to keep going)
  • an apple as a snack
  • a small bowl of rice with side dishes after work
  • four little dumplings before I stopped eating

Obviously this is not a keto menu – there’s rice, flour, and convenience food in there.
But writing it down showed me two things:

  1. When I sit down for one “proper big meal” in the middle of work, I usually get sleepy and my brain slows down.
  2. On a day like this, smaller and more convenient meals/snacks inside a shorter window feel lighter for my body than one big heavy meal.

My next step will be to gently move this pattern toward a keto / low-carb version –
for example, replacing the rice and flour-based foods first, while keeping a similar rhythm.
But before changing anything, I wanted to understand my real starting point.

This post is about Day 1 of my observations.
Because I’m editing and translating my notes before I share them, the upload date may not always match the exact day it happened.

#8

Thank you for the encouragement. I’m really glad to know there’s someone who agrees with this way of thinking.
At the end of this experiment, I hope not only to be healthier in my body, but also to feel more stable and healthy mentally as well. :slight_smile:

#9

Thank you for the very practical advice. You’re right – two weeks is probably more of a warm-up than a real trial of keto.

My long-term goal is to slowly reduce carbohydrates without a big psychological rebound or yo-yo effect , so if I apply what you suggested, it sounds like my full experiment should really last around 6–12 months, not just two weeks. That actually feels similar to the time frame some specialists mention when talking about withdrawal or changing long-standing habits.

I’m thinking of these first two weeks as just one short “block” in a longer process – stacking small 2-week experiments and adjusting step by step, rather than forcing a sudden change.
I really appreciate you reminding me to give my body enough time to adapt. :pray:

#10

Thank you for sharing your approach – it’s reassuring to hear from someone who is also “micromanaging” for their own health.

My working hypothesis is that each person’s ideal ratio is different, because our bodies and backgrounds are not the same.

So in my experiment, I want to find out for myself

  • how far I can safely lower carbohydrates, and
  • how much fat and protein I can digest and feel good with,

and then share the pattern in case it’s useful for someone with a similar background.

I completely agree that mental sustainability is really important. If the way of eating constantly feels mentally heavy, it won’t last, no matter what the numbers say.

Thank you for taking an interest in my experiment. :pray:

#11

In my case, the first clear benefit I noticed from eating carnivore was that I stopped feeling sleepy after meals.
Until then, I thought meat was causing my post-meal drowsiness, but it turned out the real cause was wheat.

A meal with green vegetables on the side is really enjoyable for me – above all, I love the unique scent each one has.
I’m looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts. Thank you. :slightly_smiling_face:

(B Creighton) #12

Totally true. That is not a hypothesis. It is called the principle of homeostasis. Our bodies totally work on this principle, and it is a constant recalibration to find the optimal balance of nutrients etc. For example my wife does not methylate some B vitamins as well as me, so before we figured that out, she would build up homocysteine levels until she became anxious and even panicky. Figuring that out was life changing - for both of us.

Yep. The main one here is starch and sugars. When I found keto and low carb, I loved my energy level throughout the day. I no longer felt like I needed a lunch, although sometimes, I enjoyed a lunch of nut mix. When I went to take care of my dad, he was falling asleep in his wheelchair by lunch. So, I took the sugar out of his instant oatmeal, which got traded in for organic rolled oats mixed into goat yogurt, and some berries or whatever. I sometimes convinced him to eat some of the eggs I was making. I made some of my nut mix for him to snack if he wanted. Lunch was a sardine sandwich or similar instead of the usual fare. By the third day at around 11AM he said “I feel good. Let’s go…:” and I drove them off for a day’s activities. It was night and day.

(Bob M) #13

I think of this as a lack of B vitamins issue, not a too high homocysteine level issue. I say this as a part MTHFR, which is known to cause “high” homocysteine.

In other words, if taking methylated B vitamins causes less anxiousness, are the B vitamins the issue or the homocysteine? I think it’s the former, and the higher homocysteine is a marker of a lack of B vitamins for your wife (or me).

(B Creighton) #14

Yeah, she figured out she has the MTHFR mutation, so doesn’t methylate B12 well, which causes her homocysteine to get high. This in turn causes anxiety, and in some panic attacks. The solution as we found out over some time is to avoid “enriched” and “fortified” foods which are going to have folic acid - which needs to be methylated to be used. As a matter of fact I believe folic acid causes a lot of problems for pregnant women who don’t know they have poor methylation - we’re talking post partem anxiety and depression, and probable problems for the baby as well. Folic acid clogs up the receptors waiting to be methylated, and so prevents whatever methylated folate there is from getting utilized. It is really sad what the cheap so-called “prenatal” vitamins and processed bread industry have done to a fairly large segment of the population. These gene mutations are not exactly rare - affecting up to 40% of the population - and if you get the mutation from both parents, you are in danger of extremely poor health and death unless someone knows to get you the methylated B12 and methylated cobalamin.