Wholly random wine, ketone, weight, and hunger observation

#1

Normally when I drink I end up ravenous and fall off plan. So, since I’ve been keto I’ve been totaling my teas.

Last night, though, we had some Fit Vine Wine (Chardonnay). It was excellent. Middle of the road between dry and sweet. The wife didn’t like it so I ended up sipping the whole bottle. 5 servings at 3g of carbs each. Fasted all day yesterday. No big whoop. Ketones were 1.7 on blood meter before drinks. Weight was 194.6.

Wasn’t ravenous last night. Handful of macadamias and went to bed.

This morning:

Blood ketones .8 at 6am. Odd. Would have thought they’d be way high, but they tend to be lower in morning for me anyway.

Weight down to 192.6. Probably dehydration, so no inferences here.

Minimal to zero hangover feeling. FitVine claims that their process helps to reduce next day effects. I would say that there’s probably some truth to that as I was up a 5:45am raring to go.

#2

I have cut way back on wine for this reason - I become starving, and the disinhibiting effect of the alcohol can lead to a carb binge. Nora Gedgaudas has some interesting theories on alcohol and blood sugar that she talks about on this podcast http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/2009/04/30/primal-body-primal-mind-primal-tools/. She says that cravings for carbs and alcohol are pretty much the same mechanism, i.e. your body seeking the next energy boost, which leads her to conclude that keto can be an effective tool for treating alcoholism.
"…Once cravings for carbohydrates and dependence on carbohydrates as the primary source of fuel are eliminated, so are the alcohol cravings. Training the body to depend upon ketones rather than sugar for fuel is key to this equation.”
My own experience bears this out. Not having a couple of glasses of wine each night seemed dreadful/impossible before I went fully ketogenic - now I am having just one or two glasses a week with no problem. I never tried Fit Vine, but I am assuming that it is low enough in sugar and alcohol content so that it didn’t trigger the cravings and start the cycle.

#3

Interesting info. I’ll check out the podcast, as this topic interests me. It never occurred to me there could be a link between ketones and how this would all work. I’d like to read/learn more on that.

The disinhibition effect is precisely the problem I had. Poor judgment all around. Just not worth undoing the prior week’s/weeks’/month’s/months’ hard work…

The FitVine is low carb as far as wines go. 3g, but with 13.9% alcohol, so it’s not low alcohol by any means. I was very surprised it didn’t trigger the normally ravenous hunger, as I had a chicken crust pizza ready to go. It’ll be interesting to see where my ketones are later this afternoon. I’ll be testing around 3:45pm.

P.S. Admins, sorry for not posting this thread in the Alcohol category. If a mod wants to move it, by all means!

#4

I just measured 3.7 mmol/L at 2:15pm. Weird how it shot up from .8 only 8 hours ago. The body is a weird and wonderful thing sometimes!