Week 16 – Ketosis Update and Using Data for Weight Loss

In Week 7, I announced to the blog that I was on a ketonic diet. It was a long post so I’m not sure how many caught it, but the good news is that its still working!  I’m down 16 lbs since January! Still a long way to go, but its progress, and I think its sustainable.

What are the dimensions of something that changes behavior?

1. You have to own it – this cannot be for someone else

2. You have to have unambiguous data feedback to see if its working

3. You have to make it simple

Let’s go through it real quick.

1. Own It – don’t do this for someone else.  If your doctor or your boss or you wife or your husband is bugging you about this – forget about it. This is for you, by you. Any change has to come from within. If you’re not ready, if you don’t feel like you can really push it forward, that someone else is pushing you into it, don’t bother. For me, this also represented a move to join a half-marathon. I wanted to maintain my metabolism and assist weight loss. Exercise can’t get you there, but this should the system a boost.
2. Use Data  – This is something that a Keto diet excels at.  You see there’s these little pee strips that you can use and it’ll tell you (roughly) if you’re in Ketosis, the state of burning fat.  This is the primary advantage it has over traditional diets. How can I test if I went over my 1500 calorie limit?  The scale is the LAST place for that. Weight is so variable, it wont’ show up until its too late.
3. Make it Simple – Put the keto strips out the night before.  Make sure the scale has some sort of automatic scanning in it so you don’t have to type it in. Count as few things as you can. This is another great thing about the low carb diet -you count ONE thing. Now, if you’re using an app like CarbManager then good on you.  It’ll estimate your fat-protein-crab percentages, and those should be 70-20-10 respectively.

Here’s the strips I use. I know blood is more accurate, but…its blood, so nah.

So in a way its impossible for this to fail if I work it. I count during the day using the app, and I get a nice reality check in the morning through the strips.  One last tip – set expectations with yourself. If you told me I’d basically quit sugar and I would say 1) over my dead body and 2) I better lose 50 lbs in a month.

Neither happened. But this did: 

You can see by this Google sheet I’m trying to establish a causal relationship between my Ketosis level and my weight loss. The analysis is still not complete , but that’s not the point.  Once I started doing this, it became less about me, and more about the data. I was my own science experiment, and as such, it took the weighty emotions (pun intended) out of the picture.

It’s about the data, and as such I’ll be creating F02 – Filter using Data, as my 2nd HappyWisdom STEF Filter.  Watch for it!