Week 8 results are in, and the numbers look good again. I also have my results back from my blood work. more about that in a minute. This week, I had a couple of times this week where I cheated a bit. I ate three hot dogs (1 with the bun), but they were being served at a Fall Festival I attended on Sunday, so I don't know anything about the carb content of the dogs themselves. The bun, however, probably had 20 or so grams of carbohydrates. That said, I think things still turned out okay this week as the numbers show:
Day 0 - 197 lbs, 35% body fat.
Week1 - 195.5 lbs, 33% body fat
Week 2 - 194.5 lbs, 32% body fat
Week 3 - 192.5 lbs, 31% body fat
Week 4 - 190.5 lbs, 33% body fat
Week 5 - 188.5 lbs, 31% body fat
Week 6 - 186.5 lbs, 31% body fat
Week 7 - 187.5 lbs, 29% body fat
Week 8 - 186.0 lbs, 29% body fat
On Day 0, I weighed in at 197 lbs with 35% fat, which equates to 69 lbs of fat. (yuck).
At week 1, I weighed in at 195.5 lbs with 33% fat, which equates to 64.5 lbs of fat.
At week 2, I weighed in at 194.5 lbs with 32% body fat, which equates to 62.24 lbs of fat.
At week 3, I weighed in at 192.5 lbs with 31% body fat, which equates to 59.68 lbs of fat.
At week 4, I weighed in at 190.5 lbs with 33% body fat, which equates to 62.87 lbs of fat.
At week 5, I weighed in at 188.5 lbs with 31% body fat, which equates to 58.43 lbs of fat.
At week 6, I weighed in at 186.5 lbs with 31% body fat, which equates to 57.82 lbs of fat.
At week 7, I weighed in at 187.5 lbs with 29% body fat, which equates to 54.38 lbs of fat.
At week 8, I weighed in at 186.0 lbs with 29% body fat, which equates to 53.94 lbs of fat.
So, last week, I lost 1.5 lbs of weight, but lowered and kept body fat at 29%. I only worked out twice, again, not nearly as often as I would like. I've started just doing a 45 minute weight routine, and have cut out the cardio as a means of building up lean mass. I will start doing the cardio again with the shortened weight routing I've talked about previously to see what effect that has on my fat loss, but it appears that the most fat loss happened when I was doing the cardio routine with the shorter weight routing. I'm at my lowest weight again, which is awesome!
After only 8 weeks on a 'diet', I've lost a total of 11 lbs. That's 1.4 lbs per week. Typical weight loss on a ketogenic diet is 1-2 lbs, so I'm still right in the middle. I actually lost just over 15 lbs of fat, so I've gained some muscle with the weight training I've been doing.
Now for the interesting stuff. My blood work numbers. Below is a chart showing my before keto, and after 8 weeks on keto blood values for the things I deemed keto-appropriate.
Results from 6/4/2018 Results from 10/24/2018
A1c on 6/4/2018 = (H) 5.7 (<5.7) A1c on 10/24/2018 = 5.2
Lipid Panel Lipid Panel
Total Cholesterol = 151 Total Cholesterol = 156
HDL - 49 HDL - 45
Trig - (H) 198 Trig - (H) 169
LDL - 72 LDL - 84
Metabolic Panel Metabolic Panel
Fasting Glucose - 120 (H) Fasting Glucose - 90
Sodium - 140 Sodium - 138 (135-146)
Potassium - 5.0 Potassium - 4.8 (3.5-5.3)
Chloride - 103 Chloride - 103 (98-110
Alkaline Phosphatase - (L) 31 Alkaline Phosphatase - 38 (L)
A1c and Fasting Glucose results are a clear positive. Fasting Glucose tells you what your blood sugar level was at the moment that your test was performed. A1c is an indicator of your blood sugar over a period of time. The higher the number, the higher indicator of diabetes. My result showed that my A1c, which was borderline high in June (3 months prior to my starting keto), but down in the normal range.
Lipids (cholesterol) numbers tell an interesting story. For 2 months, I've been eating lots of fats, some 'good', some not so 'good'. I love bacon, and eat it occasionally. I use bacon grease to fry things in quite a bit. I also made a batch of soup, and used ghee as the primary fat (in addition to whatever fat the beef had in it). This, coupled with the fact that I reduced my statin by half (from 40mg to 20mg daily), and saw a rise in total cholesterol of only 5 points. My HDL, the so-called 'good cholesterol', went down 4 points, while my so-called 'bad' cholesterol went up by 12 points. I think this is to be expected owing to the decrease in statin, and the increase in fats and meat in general. Of course, new research is showing that cholesterol numbers play ZERO role in development of heart disease on their own, so these numbers are likely moot anyway. :)
The weird one is my triglycerides. I expected them to rise, but they decreased by almost 30 points. NIH (National Institutes of Health) say that keto diets can lower these numbers, as well as LDL. They took measurements at 8, 16 and 24 weeks. However, the study participants ate only polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats (those good fats I talked about earlier). It's been know for years that removing the saturated fats in the diet and replacing them with good fats such as olive and avocado oils, will do the same thing to cholesterol numbers. Not to discount the study, as they were able to accomplish both the weight loss and cholesterol goals by using a ketogenic diet!
Unfortunately, mainstream medicine has yet to fully accept the ketogenic lifestyle as an ideal way to reduce or eliminate many common ailments, but with more and more studies done by these large medical organizations, it's only a matter of time before people start to realize how healthy the ketogenic lifestyle actually is.
Scott
#keto #ketolife
Interesting and inspirational. I am going to be giving this a try myself soon. I look forward to seeing your next blood work result and hopefully see you off the statin completely.
ReplyDeleteMy plan is to discuss that with my doctor when I see her this week. Unless she has some major problem with removing it, I will. Based on the fact that I'm already only taking a half a pill at this point, and have been for a few weeks, I don't think she'll have any issues with it, as I'm not going to suddenly go out and start eating potatoes by the truckload, even at Thanksgiving. :)
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