My first 2 weeks

I started following a ketogenic lifestyle on 1st December. I don’t want to call it a diet, because it’s more about what NOT to eat, rather than what you should eat. Because of this, it is so much easier to follow than a diet. There’s no calorie counting, you don’t have to weigh your foods (although you might want to just so that you can get used to what 100 grams of something looks like. But that’s not my bag. I have a rough idea and anyway a lot of foods these days have the weight written on them.

On a typical day (although after only 2 weeks nothing is really typical yet, I am constantly refining things) I am doing ketogenics (75% of calories from fats, 15% from protein and 5% from carbohydrates). Since I started, I have not eaten any bread, pasta rice or noodles. Now, as many of you know, I live in Vietnam, so that’s not easy. I can’t think of 1 meal in Vietnam that doesn’t have either rice, noodles or bread. Also, the biggest problem here is sugar and MSG (modified food starch). In Southern Vietnam people have a really sweet tooth.

MSG increases insulin production in the body by 300%! MSG is in almost all fast foods, even their salads! MSG is “hidden” by calling it a variety of different names – modified food starch, modified corn starch, autolyzed yeast extract, natural flavors and smoked flavors.

Bo Kho - Vietnamese Stew — Bo Kho – Vietnamese Stew

So, at the moment, if I have to eat out, I normally eat a dish called Bo Kho (I call it Vietnamese Beef Stew, but it’s not really a stew). It has a small amount of fatty beef, carrots and a beef broth with some fresh herbs. Now, the only real problem is the sugar and MSG in the broth. But the thing about Vietnam is servings are quite small compared to Western meals, so my exposure to “the white death” (sugar) is small. If I occasionally eat a different type of meal I will eat Pho or Hu Tieu (both types of noodle soup) I will only eat the broth, the meat, the vegetables and the herbs. Vietnamese foods is often served with a side of fresh herbs – basil, parsley and a heap of others that I have no idea what they are, but they taste good and I’m sure they’re good for you!

I actually started going to the gym a week before I started Keto – in fact it was in researching safe exercises for old fat men that I came across Keto and Intermittent fasting. So I have been exercising in the gym for 45 minutes to 1 hour 5-6 days a week. The gym doesn’t actually create a lot of weight loss – 30 minutes on the treadmill at 6km / hr only burns 90-100 calories! The gym improves tone and most importantly, testosterone production. Low testosterone is a real problem for older guys like me – lower libido, erectile dysfunction, decreased vitality. Testosterone decreases as we get older – quite dramatically.

As we get older we have to avoid 3 things – insulin, oestrogen and cortisol. You can do things to increase your testosterone, but they are a small improvement compared to avoiding these 3 things. Eating a lot of mushrooms, parsley, kale, cruciferous vegetables, olive oil and celery won’t increase testosterone, but they will decrease the amount of oestrogen in your body. We create oestrogen naturally (smaller in men, higher in women) but we get oestrogen from soy and other GMO foods like corn. So be really careful with grain fed beef – they are stuffed full of oestrogen before slaughter and we absorb the oestrogen when we eat grin fed beef, pork, chicken etc.

A typical evening meal for me will be 100 – 150 grams of beef or oily fish with a heap of leafy greens. I cook the meat in coconut oil, then saute the vegetables in the remaining oil and throw in a stick of butter and sometimes some fresh cream.

Beef with mushrooms in cream and green leafy vegetables

After 1 week I lost 3kgs – I didn’t get too excited because I realised a lot of that was fluid. But I am happy to say that after 2 weeks I have kept all that weight off. The bigger indicator that I am doing well is my belly size. I have to put an extra notch in my belt now because if I’m not careful my pants fall off. I am really happy because in my adult life, I’ve never been able to get under 92Kgs. Today I weigh 91 kgs.

Well, it’s been 18 hours since I last ate, so I am going to have a small meal now (2pm). I’m not really hungry but I am going out for dinner tonight, so I don’t want to get too hungry and then eat before I go out. So now I will have a piece of cheese, 2 squares of dark chocolate (85 – 90% cacao – great for energy), a tablespoon of peanut butter and half an avocado.

I took my blood sugar 10 minutes after eating. Normally, when we eat out blood sugar should spike and then come back to normal after 2 hours – mine was 5.9. So good! (I should have taken it before I ate, but, next time.)

PS – I just weighed myself – 90kgs! So happy.

I feel like shit

For the last 6 months or more I’ve been feeling crappy – no energy, need a sleep at lunch time, everything aches, my skin is getting thinner and a heap of skin cancers that I’ve been meaning to get looked at and I’ve noticed muscle wasting and lots of loose skin, particularly on my arms.

I’d been saying for a while, “I really should go to the gym”. The night I really noticed my flabby arms, I decided that was it. The next day (23/11) I signed up at the gym.

Not having been to the gym for years, I started doing some research on safe exercises for fat old guys like me. In researching exercise, I came across this Keto diet thing. I spent the next few days researching it and on 1/12/2018 I started a Low Carbohydrate High Fat Diet (LCHF). I also started Intermittent Fasting (IF). Typical me, I went balls and all. No sugar, no carbs (except from Vegetables and dairy), 100-150 grams of protein (from meat and fish) and lots of leafy green vegetables every day.

I thought it was going to be hard – I live in Vietnam so EVERY meal has rice, noodles or bread and everything has sugar added. The Vietnamese (in the South where I live) love sugar. So, I mainly cook at home now, although my 1st meal (between 10 and 11am) is normally out because I am teaching. Truth is I have taken to it like a duck to water. I haven’t missed carbs at all and the food is great. Low fat diets can be pretty boring – high fat means I can eat butter, coconut oil, full cream – my meals are delicious.

To understand what I was feeling like, I’ll give you a short history of my life over the last 20 odd years. I’ve always been a little fat – even as an active teenager I always carried a weight, especially around the belly and chest. By 2001 I was 130kg (more than carrying a little weight!). I’m only 5’11” (183cm) so I was fat. I went through a really nasty divorce and major traumas. In 2002 I had a stroke – I lost the use of the right side of my body, had trouble speaking and basically was in a fog mentally. So, after thinking I was going to die, I decided to change things up. Over the next 2 years I lost 38Kg, I was running 7km a day, stopped eating junk food and soft drinks, even gave up my beloved rum and coke – the nectar of the Gods!

I believed I was eating well – I followed the “food pyramid”, eating lots of grains, moderate carbohydrates and very little fat. I even saw a nutritionist to make sure I was eating right. I’ve never in my adult life been able to break 92Kg, no matter what I did. Running 7km 6 days a week, I was still 92Kg.

I managed to keep most of the weight off, although lately I gained 2 kg, so when I started keto I was 94kg. Within 4 days I went off all medications – my blood sugar was a little high, but not too bad, but I started getting a little dizzy occasionally. I live in Vietnam, so I don’t have easy access to an English speaking doctor and definitely don’t have access to a doctor that understands Ketogenic diet, so basically I self diagnose.

As of today, my blood sugar level, 1 hour after eating dinner was 5.6. Perfect!

After a little less than 2 weeks, I feel great. I’ve lost 3kg, I have 1000% more energy, I’m never hungry even though I only eat 2 meals a day now, almost all of my aches and pains have gone (still a little pain in my right shoulder which I think is a calcium spur) and my skin is improving daily.

I have learnt so much about my body and nutrition in the last 2 weeks it’s scary. Instead of sitting on Facebook all day, now I’m constantly watching videos on diet/nutrition, liver function, adrenal glands, hormones, ketones , metabolism, minerals, cell rejuvenation and more.

I owe a lot to Dr. Eric Berg. He’s an American Chiropractor who’s spent the last 20 years studying nutrition. If you haven’t already, I strongly suggest you check him out.

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

I’m going to chronicle my ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting journey, warts and all. I am not a nutritionist or a doctor, just a fat old guy (I’m 59) who wants to get healthy.

I was diagnosed as diabetic and hypertensive (high blood pressure) nearly 20 years ago. I managed to lose 38 Kgs in 2003/2004 and have kept the weight off pretty much, but I still have a belly and man boobs and I’m sick of it.

Get healthy to lose weight, don’t lose weight to get healthy.

– Dr Eric Berg