Keto for a Week

So I have to be honest with you all…

I did not lose 10 pounds in 1 week doing keto. In fact, I barely lost any weight because I simply wanted to do it for educational and research purposes. I wanted to be able to speak more from experience so I can lead others better.

The main thing I did was annoy my wife since she was not doing it with me.

I did do a very strict ketogenic diet for the full week though and here is what I found out:

I personally enjoy eating a lot of the healthy fats: nuts, seeds, avocados. I found that it was difficult to actually get in enough fat to be in a ratio that would get me into ketosis. I almost felt like I had to drink olive oil straight out of the bottle!!!

Days 1-2

I noticed the slight brain fog from dropping my carb intake so drastically. One nice thing that I started to notice was that I lost a little water weight that sits around the belly. This makes sense because the body is burning up glycogen. One gram of glycogen generally stores about 4 grams of water. That means even eating healthy we can hold on to quite a bit of water in our bodies!

Days 3-4

I actually started to enjoy the style of eating which made my meals smaller; this is because they are more calorie dense. Here is why: Carbohydrates and Protein have 4 calories per gram. Fat contains 9 calories per gram, more that double. Sometimes I tend to overeat on meals with carbs, but overall I try to stay portioned and balanced. I monitored my macro-nutrient and micro-nutrient intake with a free app called Cronometer. I wanted to make sure I was not depriving myself of necessary nutrients for the sake of just wanting the experience. I really had to try hard to get in enough potassium without going over my net carbs. The easiest way to do that for me was with zucchini, avocado, and spinach. I still fell short though!

Days 5-7

I started to feel better energy and could tell I was not as hungry as I usually am when I wake up in the morning. I also noticed once I ate breakfast I could go for quite some time without feeling too hungry. We try to have at least 30 minutes of activity per day, and I did not see diminished energy when doing it. My seventh day doing the keto diet was on a Saturday, so I started out strong. By the end of the day, when I was originally going to stop anyways, I was craving all sorts of food (mainly carbohydrate and sugary stuff) I enjoyed a little too much food that night. The next morning I paid the price for it! I did NOT feel well. If I were to ever do this again, I would make sure to slowly increase my carbohydrate intake and slowly increase my protein.

Here are my 3 takeaways:

1. It is very difficult to actually get enough fat to make sure I was going to get into ketosis.

2. I enjoyed having a lot of healthy fats in my nutritional choices.

3. I do not feel like this is something that could be sustainable for me personally. I just love my carbohydrates too much.

Would I recommend the keto diet to my clients, friends, or family? Probably not. Unless a doctor prescribes the plan for a specific medical condition, I do not feel like this style of eating is as realistic for the average person. I feel a balanced nutritional approach to eating is a lot more sustainable and fits most peoples lifestyles better.

Zachary Schott, Owner and Director of Coaching