Ten years

(Gabe “No Dogma, Only Science Please!” ) #1

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Posting this for folks who have given up, are thinking of giving up, etc. Maybe it’ll help someone!

Above is the full raw weight graph for the past 10 years. Most of it is rolling 7-day average data, meaning it graphs only the daily smoothed 7-day average figure to get rid of noise (I highly recommend this – it means weighing every day and ignoring that days reading in favour of only focusing on your rolling average weight.)

You can see that after my initial 2016 drop from above 90kg, I stabilised up in the 83kg range for a long period. I told myself I was eating a lazy low carb diet – and I was – but there were a lot of high-carb and high-sugar “cheats” which had crept into my lifestyle.

The vertical 2021 marker here is a 2-week carnivore elimination diet followed by slow reintroduction of foods guided by my doctor. This led to a sustained period of health for about 2 years.

The vertical 2023 marker is the beginning of a new, extremely high-stress job. Beyond the baked-in fat gains that stress/cortisol will induce, there’s also a return to that pattern of high-carb/sugar “cheats” while regularly complaining to my friends that I couldn’t understand why my low-carb base diet wasn’t working anymore.

A couple of injuries, and what appears to be a latent inflammatory arthritis condition, did not help. But you can see the fat creeping back on to record levels, having material impacts on my health.

That vertical 2026 dotted line shows a new recommitment about 100 days ago, after a series of blood tests that really worried me and a couple of associated health scares.

The current protocol, overseen by my doctor:

  • Metformin
  • Various supplements including NAC, B12, and others.
  • Continuous Glucose Monitor
  • Sustainable, adaptive low carb – not making the perfect the enemy of the good
  • Pushing past stalls
  • Not a single processed high-carb “cheat”
  • Fruit here and there (wild, I know!)
  • Milk coffees, often (I know!)
  • Dark chocolate, 70-85% (I know!)

The reality of all this is that I know the fat loss and metabolic results won’t come as fast, but that fruit/milk/chocolate in my diet keeps things interesting for me and restrains me from wholesale cheating on the diet.

I’ll give you an example of trying to be realistic about things: I tend to have black coffee as my daily staple (instant or batch brew) and I’ll let myself have a cappuccino after lunch as “dessert.” So now I’m having just 1 milk coffee per day rather than 3-4. That’s a huge improvement over 4 months ago when I was pushing 90kg. Moreover, I find myself sometimes getting a piccolo instead of that cappuccino. Again – not zero milk, but a substantial reduction in carbs in addition to the already big reduction.

I don’t know how active this forum is anymore, but I feel like a decade-long update might be of use to someone.

The current recommitment continues, and it’ll be interesting to see where it goes in terms of weight and those blood markers. I’ll update you guys if there’s any interest here.

(Central Florida Bob ) #2

I, for one, find it rather interesting, so thanks for that. I haven’t put together a summary like that, but understand where you’re coming from with your rolling average approach. I have data going back to around '16 or '17 - so I’d have to go dig out old Excel files to try and duplicate it, but went from weighing myself every other day to only once a week, so it’s mixed. It used to be on Friday morning after about 36 hours of fasting, but I tested doing OMAD on Thursdays and found pretty much no difference between the two.

In the world I used to work in (radio design) a good rule of thumb is to make the conditions you measure in as constant as possible - it’s the big reason for tons of money being spent on building test rooms that are radio quiet. For weighing yourself, treating yourself the same way for around 24 hours before you measure seems to be essential.

I’ve been keto at various levels since 2015, so there are differences there, but for the last year, or so and certainly this year, my weight and %BF have barely moved, so I’m getting more interested in what I can do to try and get back down to a better combination of those two than I’ve had in a while.

(Lauren Gratte) #3

This is a great reminder that consistency doesn’t have to mean perfection. I really like the sustainable approach making small changes you can actually maintain instead of relying on an all-or-nothing mindset. Thanks for sharing such a detailed 10-year update!

#4

Welcome back dude! 100% agreed, gotta tweak to what works for you. I’ve have better results since going to CKD/TKD than I did being an insanely strict standard keto’r. Even when it comes to fat loss. Let alone lists of other things like energy, workout quality, thyroid function etc.

#5

This forum isn’t as active as it was some years ago but still far from dead :slight_smile: I am sure it is interesting for some of us, it surely is for me.
My line is flat almost all the time (I am super great at keeping my fattiness, no gain, no loss. I did that for years at different weights) but there were interesting things to find. I still never lose any fat on keto but have made some very useful recipes and learned a lot about myself.

I definitely can’t have an all of nothing mindset but I never was in any danger to have a too strict diet. I am way too indulgent but aim to be better and eventually, it happens.
I can relate to liking milk but my vice is fruit. Lots of fruit. Each and every day. It’s fruit season and I try to resist but I can’t. Sometimes it’s still keto as my normal food is very low-carb since my carnivore escapades and my ketosis carb limit isn’t very tiny either.
Just eating fruit isn’t wild. I ate banana covered with chocolate almost every day on my original keto for a while. It was little sugar as I need my allowance elsewhere. It’s keto, whatever floats your boat. There are no forbidden items, you decide what you squeeze in. I have my own blacklist for health but high-carb fruits and vegs aren’t on them (I mean, not in general, just certain ones I am unable to eat in small enough amounts).

Congrats for the actual very impressive trend, wish you the best for the future!

(Doug) #6

Right on, Gabe. Good to see you post. :+1: