I did an experiment back in November where I was testing some stuff and getting a bunch of blood tests done to see how what I was eating would affect my health and blood tests. Over the 4 weeks that I did the experiment, I had one week where I got some really interesting results on my weekly NMR lipid panel (my triglycerides jumped from 113 to 199, LDL-C went down by 37%, and other fun) all because I switched from using heavy cream as my primary calorie source to using avocado oil. @DaveKeto wasn’t sure what caused the change, the theory was that it might have something to do with the PUFAs in the Avocado oil. I tried redoing some of the experiment with half of my calories from heavy cream and half from avocado oil to see if it would give me a middle ground but the test results weren’t as definitive as I’d like. So today I’m starting a new experiment!
The basic premise is that for the next 42 days, I’m going to be using a nutritionally complete keto meal replacement drink for all my calories. I’m going to be doing exactly the same number of calories every day with the only variable that I’ll be changing is what kind of fat I’ll be using. On the weeks that I’ll be using heavy cream, I’ll be hitting 12.3g of net carbs (33.9g total carbs). On the weeks that I’m doing oils, I’ll be hitting an insanely low 1.4g of net carbs (22.9g total and 21.5 of that is acacia gum fiber which gets turned into short-chain fatty acids in my gut). Last time I did the avocado oil like that, my blood ketones hit 5.5 mmol/dl.
- Week 1: Wash-out period, gotta normalize stuff. You gotta know I went to a Brazillian Steakhouse yesterday since I won’t be eating anything else for 6 weeks! This week I’ll be getting all my fat calories from heavy cream.
- Week 2: Grape Seed Oil - high PUFAs. I looked hard to find an oil that was REALLY high in PUFAs. Grape seed is even higher than Soybean Oil (which is saying a lot). I won’t be surprised if my Plantar Fasciitis comes back this week due to the inflammatory effects and oxidative stress.
- Week 3: Back to Heavy Cream - high in saturated fat without MCTs. I feel relieved just thinking about it!
- Week 4: Macadamia Nut Oil - high in MUFAs. This oil looks cool with really high mono-unsaturated fats and almost no PUFAs.
- Week 5: Liquid Coconut Oil - high in Saturated Fat and MCTs. Dave says that MCTs tend to confound results on the “Feldman Protocol” so I’m running this one at the end, mostly to brace myself for what’s coming next…
- Week 6: Just for fun! I’m going to be replacing all of the fat calories with pure dextrose/glucose. 375.9g of net carbs, and only 3.9g of fat (mostly from omega 3 fish pills).
This final week will mark the first time in more than 3 years that I’ve deliberately eaten sugar or carbs (January 21, 2015 - I was “bulking up” for a weight loss contest). I fully expect to feel like crap and gain a lot of weight. Funny thing is: if you believe that macros don’t matter and it’s all about calories then I shouldn’t have any change compared to the previous weeks… riiiiiight. Should be an interesting blood test! I realize it’ll be a N=1 but I expect to have some pretty definitive “CICO is crap” data which will be even better since I’ll be consuming the literal embodiment of the common dietary recommendations so far as fat and carbs are concerned.
I’ll be finishing up the entire experiment before Breckenridge (I should be back into ketosis by Feb 15 or so =) - I was planning on not starting for another 2 weeks but wanted to have my results in time to show them off. For reference, here are breakdowns of the stuff I’ll be consuming with Avocado Oil for comparison:
