Dear Diary

A 3796-post collection

MCT and how it's saved me

You all know how the Keto Flu has been kicking my butt of late. I'm really knocked about because I had a lot of fat stored in random places in by sad old body1.

And with loss of fat cells comes a loss of water weight (because stored fats also lead to water retention) which means peeing a lot, which also means loss of salt.

Which also means my immune system is knocked a bit off-kilter. Which is probably how my Keto Flu managed to team up with some other Yule Bug and really put me on a low.

But - Beloved and I found a cure. It's basically more fat, but this one is a special fat. It's called MCT - Medium Chain Triglycerides - and it is the magic ingredient.

We're going over the Keto Hump, which is where things stop being all sunshine and rainbows and your body really wants all of that easy, evil carbohydrates to come back. So it chucks a massive shit about it and gives you hell as a direct result.

But... instead of back-sliding and reaching for the chippies... reach for the MCT and eat a spoonful. It is practically a miracle cure.

It's derived from coconut oil, which also contains LCT's2 which are slightly more trouble for the digestive system to use. MCT's are as easy to digest as sugar, but not nearly as addictive. And they make your innards happy because they have an easy fix while they're swapping gears.

I came up with a pretty good metaphor for Keto, last night. Your body is like a steam engine. It's meant to run on coal (aka natural fats) but over the years, the experts have been telling you to use diesel fuel without much in the way of scientific evidence3. This lead to a lot of soot buildup and subsequent engine trouble (read: diabetes, heart attacks, cholesterol buildup, obesity etc) while the experts insisted that the answer was more diesel, less coal, and more and more measures that took away the soot but also caused more engine trouble.

Then some smart bugger figured out how to read the instruction manual. Suddenly, more and more people are realising that coal was the answer the entire time. And existing industries centred around soot removal are kicking up a huge stink and trying to smear coal by any means necessary.

But there's a rising tide of folks also realising that the "low fat, high carb" chant of all doctors (who make their money out of us being sick, BTW) is absolute bullshit. And they're telling their friends. And they're telling their relatives. And they just keep spreading the word.

It's natural to resist the good word, here. We've "known" for more than half a century [The experiments began with rabbits in 1913 and moved on to humans in the 50's] that a diet low in fat and salt, and high in carbohydrates is supposed to be good for us. Now... how much other science from 1913 do we still use in day to day life? And no, I'm not counting the children of Nikola Tesla's work. That man was ahead of his time.

It's not a co-incidence that the incidents of diabetes, heart troubles, obesity, cholesterol and all that noise... rose significantly after the Lipid Theory got into our collective heads.

We've had well over fifty years of LFHC ruining, shortening, and otherwise impairing people's lives. That counts as a mountain of evidence for failure of the experiment in my mind. Beyond time to try a different way.

And for those of you using the Paleo version - which is amazingly close to Keto, by the way - primitive man probably got their MCT out of something that no longer exists in the modern age. Like Aurochs milk or mammoth kidneys or something like that. Now... we get it out of coconuts.

And it's getting late in the morning, so I should go on a walk instead of ranting about proper nutrition.

  1. I'm still draining it out of my bum. The thunder thighs are next! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA...

  2. Long Chain Triglycerides, if you didn't already figure it out.

  3. AKA the Lipid Theory, which was debunked almost as soon as it came out, and now qualifies as general ignorance.

Heavy and Light Keto and how it kicks your butt

Beloved and I are doing heavy Keto, which means that we try to take a maximum of twenty grams of carbs per day.

Light Keto, on the other hand, allows you a maximum of fifty grams of carbs and is a lot easier on the body. You can have more ersatz rice or potato mash, for instance, by doing strange things to cauliflower. You can even have really small doses of actual rice or potato.

People doing Light Keto, for instance, never

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Health check

Saturday is Stabbin' Day for me. When I stick a needle in my finger and do the blood-on-a-stick tests to see how well I'm doing.

Ketone level: 1.9 [Ketonic normal is between 0.5 and 5]
Blood Sugar: 4.5 [Human normal is between 4 and 6]

I may have picked up Lurgi1 from Wet'n'Wild, or from dear little Mayhem... or it may be Keto flu. But whatever it is, I'm feeling a little tiny bit rotten this morning.

It

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Saggy, floppy progress

It is week three on Ketogenics and the fat is melting off of me. And, like all weight loss, it's happening head-downwards.

I have skin hanging off me in deceptive lumps - translated, that means my spare tyres are only visible when I'm upright.

And the really good news is that the melting has gone down to butt level. Once that's finished draining, maybe my thighs will shrink down to a more acceptable minimum.

Both Beloved and I are having real trouble

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Another big day

School's ending, so of course the party atmosphere skyrockets. Yesterday, it was graduation. Today, it's a trip to Wet and Wild water park for fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun.

And since I'm whiter than creamed rice... that means loads of sunblock.

I've cheated a little and got a long-sleeved Rashi shirt. Which means I only have to worry about my hands, face, and pasty white legs. We did the same for Miss Chaos. And since I have a roll-on,

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Small starts

Lots of people who use Ketogenics don't often talk about Ketogenics. Possibly, this is due to the huge amounts of opposition directly related to having everything they know being suddenly wrong.

It's more than a shock to realise that everything you thought was good is actually evil. And it does take a special mind to turn everything upside down.

Attempting to convert people over to the LCHF side doesn't have to be a fight to the death. I found a Keto-recipe app

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A week's difference.

For fairness of data, I'm using three Tuesdays for comparison. This Tuesday, last Tuesday (Nov 29) and the Tuesday before that (Nov 22). And I have the help of my blog entry for the day to gauge my overall mood. With a side helping of contributing factors.

Tuesday, November 22nd:

Weight: 89 kilograms
Diet: Lo Fat Hi Carb
Mood: Pissed off and looking forward to an apocalypse.
Contributing factor: The Muppet just became the alleged leader of the free world.

Tuesday, November

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The strangeness of me

I've always known I'm not 'normal', and protest much that there's no such thing. My creativity and whims of creating, aka my Muse, takes me to strange places, sometimes.

My stories, fanfic and professional, are... odd. Just as I am odd.

As a kid, I was "weird". According to the professionals at the time, I was "brilliant but disorganised" and needed something to keep my creativity in one place. Not that that worked very well.

I did not have a wide social

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Waiting for equilibrium

The diet's going fine, before you get worried. Going out and eating at the same time is a pain in the arse because there's carbs freaking everywhere. Every single take-out deal has chips and if they don't have chips, then it's noodles or rice.

Carbs, carbs, everywhere, and hardly a scrap to eat.

Beloved recorded an audio of themself trying to get deconstructed burgers for the family, this Friday gone. They had to explain 'no buns' four times. They just didn't understand.

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Converting the masses

Everyone who's figured out that modern medicine is trying to kill us for profit has had zero problems whatsoever flipping to Ketogenics, and flipping their nearest medic the bird. It's the people who believe in doctors like they believe in The Powers That Be1, who are all over the others with objections of their own.

  • "But my doctor says..."
  • "You need carbs (for brain function/to live)."
  • "That can't be good for your cholesterol..."
  • "But [CARB-LOADED THING] is healthy."
  • "But I
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Shitstirring for humanity

Vegans struck me as a little peculiar. Okay. You don't want to eat anything related to animal exploitation? Good for you. Just... please don't try to make me change my ways and we're aces.

Alas, there's a certain section of people (coughcoughivorytowergranolasetcoughcough) that claim that honey is bee slavery.

This just gets a big fat WAT from me because they continue eating fruits and vegetables that use bee labour regardless.

Like... I've tried to do some research on this and... unless you're

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Easing up

Beloved informed me on our morning walk that we had been hitting the Ketogenic diet hard. It's why I've been having difficulties the way I have been.

So we're easing up. We're no longer fasting for 16 hours. We're going back to 12 hours and allowing some fruity sugars in as well as the carbs that come in the veggies.

Both Beloved and I have been waking up earlier and I forwarded the idea that it would be an ideal time to

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The down side

Every diet has a down side. Slowly rationing fruit to small amounts so I get just the right kind of carbs in the correct amount is just one of them.

And I've discovered what fellow dieters are calling the "Keto flu". As the body gets used to not having carbs around, it goes into carb panic and starts trying to conserve energy. The result is a listlessness and a lack of energy that gets some people swarming back to carbs.

But what

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Proof in the absence of pudding

This is my fourth day of doing the Ketogenic Diet and I have some fantastic news: I now weigh 87.4 kilos. My previous lowest record, recorded in 2012, was 87.7 kilos.

In four days, I have gone to my lowest recorded weight.

I feel energetic and happy and Beloved and I have gone on our 15-minute walk and not felt drained or strained as a direct result.

Hell, I even put on a load of washing before I was desperate

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I feel fantastic!

Okay, to start off, I have to note that what I've been calling the "Ketonic" Diet is actually the KETOGENIC Diet and works similar to Fatkins but doesn't induce Ketoacidosis like Fatkins does.

How? By replacing carbs with natural animal fats and the simple sugars found in fruit. That keeps the ketones behaving themselves and reduces the need for processed, carb-o-riffic nastiness that makes everyone fat.

That skim milk the doctors recommend based on the Lipid Theory? Carbs.

That lo-fat, Atkins-approved diet

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