This is not at all a suggestion for what anyone else should do with their diet.
I am truly of the belief that because of all of the factors in play,
there is no one diet that everyone should follow.
This video is just really intended to document my own experiences
and evolution through this whole journey
and share what i've learned about myself.
I started keto seriously in 2018, and I made a video in
2019 documenting my one year on keto.
I should have made a two-year keto video last year, but it was 2020,
so that didn't happen.
So at this point, I'm kind of more like 2.5 years on keto,
and things have evolved a little bit.
In 2019, focused a lot on my gut health, and I feel like I
made great progress with that,
so during 2020, I did a few food experiments, mostly
involving the endocrine system.
I actually started off 2020 with six months of no caffeine and
absolutely no sugar, and I didn't tell you guys about it,
because it was 2020 and completely irrelevant.
But I did it, and part of that was to reset my hormones
and to really de-stress my body.
And at the same time, I actually increased my fat intake to 200 grams
at least per day, which is a lot,
so I did gain some weight, but I did successfully reset my hormones and got the
thumbs up gold star from my gynecologist, so it worked.
At the beginning of July, after that initial six months, I did visit my
parents house and started drinking caffeine again in coffee,
and I had some dark chocolate, which had sugar in it, and
I had some fruit, which has sugar in it.
And then when I came back here to my own house, I started trying
to incorporate other kinds of carbs,
so starchy vegetables, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, white rice.
Obviously, these things kicked me out of ketosis, but
I wanted to see what the feelings would be -
how I would react cravings-wise to these things, and ultimately
to see if they would make me feel sick, which they did not.
But of course, they did kick me out of ketosis and
therefore I didn't feel as good as I did in the prior six months,
and unfortunately when I'm not in ketosis, it's much more likely that
I am going to eat something that's going to spark sugar cravings,
and i would consider myself a sugar addict.
I know that that word is very strong - I do not use it lightly.
I have had addictive behaviors around sugar in the past,
so I try to stay abstinent to it, in the same way that an alcoholic
would stay abstinent to alcohol, to successfully avoid it all together.
So at that point, I started getting cravings and then
I'm battling my cravings for months - no joke, months.
I was going back and forth - my brain would want certain foods
that i knew that my body would not respond well to,
and it was just a constant battle to try to regain some kind of balance.
I got it all under control eventually, but it did take some time
and patience with myself, and I'm definitely not perfect,
so that entire time, I would say I was not in ketosis.
It was probably a period of four months.
The cool thing though, is that because of that first six months
of complete abstinence from sugar, in the next six months,
although I did have some more sugars,
while i was eating them, I realized that I didn't really WANT them.
I would be eating it because of my habit loop,
because I wasn't able to figure out what else to do at that point in time,
so I would still enact the habit, but while I was eating things,
I would say, "Why am I doing this? I don't even want to eat this right now."
I was not any more attracted to sweet things, and even now,
if I think of - like - a Hershey's bar,
it's really not appetizing.
So I started reading this book called "The Feeling Good Handbook."
I've talked about it before, but it actually really helps me
to kind of work through those details, because it's mental at that point,
rather than something physical.
Cravings can be both, but for me,
I had to learn how to address my feelings that I was having.
Oftentimes, because of learned behavior and habit,
if I was feeling down about something,
or bored, or lazy, or tired, or I felt like I needed a reward,
it's just my habit to go get something sweet,
but I needed to figure out how to work through those feelings
without reaching for that thing.
So it's taken a little time, and I feel like now I'm pretty solid with it.
Of course, with time you'll be able to repeat good behaviors,
and that'll start to burn new neural pathways into your brain,
create new habits, and on top of that for me,
I found out that complete abstinence from sugar is probably the best method for me.
I will still eat fruit, but I don't necessarily go out of my way to get it into my diet.
I'm just not interested in eating sweets anymore.
It's pretty crazy, and I do feel more capable now of
addressing feelings without just going and pouring
a whole bunch of sugar on top of them.
When I visited my parents house in December of 2020,
I ate a lot of cheese - so much cheese that it inflamed my sinuses,
and my - I think it's called "eustachian tubes," which are from your front sinuses
to your inner ear - and I actually got an ear crystal that gave me vertigo
for like two days.
I would stand up in the morning after being asleep all night,
I'd stand up and I'd almost fall over - and I didn't know what it was.
Luckily, my dad did, and he was able to teach me something called
"the epley maneuver - the epley maneuver."
It dislodges the crystal in your ear, which stops the vertigo from happening,
with some crazy kind of lying down and turn your body this way
and turn your head this way.
The vertigo went away immediately, and apparently
cheese now gives me vertigo.
So I think that it would be okay to indulge in occasionally,
but not in mass quantities, and it's something that
I don't really need in my diet, so at this point,
it's not a usual occurrence for me to eat cheese anymore.
At the beginning of 2021, I was still putting some heavy cream
in my coffee, and at that point, I realized that every single day,
20 minutes after I would have that heavy cream in my coffee,
I had digestive issues.
So, uh, one plus one equals two.
Had to stop drinking the heavy cream, and everything got better.
So apparently there's something in dairy that my body
doesn't like. I don't know if it's whey or casein or lactose;
it would be really interesting to take a test at some point
and see if they can pinpoint exactly what it is, but again,
for now, I don't think it's worth it to have that happen every single day,
but if I wanted to indulge once in a while,
if it was in some kind of food that i was eating,
i'm not completely opposed to having heavy cream.
But it's definitely a less common part of my diet than it used to be.
I eat pretty simply at this point - some people might say it's
really boring. I would say that I love every food that I put in my mouth,
so I don't see if there's a problem with it.
There is not a ton of variety, but what I have pretty much supplies
the general nutrients that I need.
I do still take a couple of supplements, which i'll show you,
and right now, I just have a few remaining kind of "health mystery problems."
I still have these milia under my eyes - I don't know why I have those.
I think it would be good to do some experiments this year
and see if there's some way to reduce them from coming up.
The thing is, it takes a really long time for them to appear on my face.
I'm sure that they are forming much farther underneath, so
that's going to take a lot of time to try to do some experiments
and see if anything can fix that.
And of course, I have back problems because I'm too tall.
But beyond that, I really don't have any kind of physical problems
right now. I'm not on any medication, I don't have any mental problems
right now, so this diet seems to be working for my body.
And here we go; this is what I eat basically every day.
I start my morning with eggs cooked in butter.
Sometimes I even add more butter on top of this - I'm not joking.
Sometimes I add two tablespoons of butter on top of it.
Occasionally on weekends, I'll make a more fancy breakfast,
which basically is the same thing but includes bacon and some veggies;
sometimes avocado if I have it, maybe some pesto, hot sauce...
I have been loving these coffees: they're all organic and
they are water-processed or sugar-processed decaf.
I'll drink it either hot or iced with coffee ice cubes so it doesn't get watered down,
and I've really been drinking a lot of decaf lately just because
I have such high ketones that I don't need the energy from caffeine.
And in fact, the stress that it puts on my body and the
feeling of the cortisol shooting in my brain is just not something
that i need - but I still like drinking coffee.
I still enjoy the experience of it, so at this point,
this is my compromise.
Whenever I'm hungry again, usually around 11am,
I'll have a salad with greens, this very specific dressing,
and some kind of meat.
If I have an avocado, I'll add that too.
This dressing is my favorite at the moment - it's got a
little bit of a kick to it, which makes salads a bit more exciting,
and it does have a tiny bit of honey in it, so i'm not completely
devoid of sugar, but this honey doesn't seem to spike my glucose
after I eat it.
Might spike it a little bit, but not any more than usual,
and my ketones are still charging, and I don't get cravings from it,
which is fascinating.
So I don't know if it's just because it's honey rather than cane sugar,
but at this point, I'm okay with still eating this.
It's worth it because it makes me eat my salads.
And these bacon brats are super delicious - they are amazing.
They're from U.S. Wellness Meats. I highly recommend them.
I'll sometimes grab another cup of coffee at this point,
or I might grab a chocolate or two.
This Raaka brand is really great; the chocolates feel really luxurious.
I put it at the top of my mouth and just let it melt,
and all it has in it is cacao and cacao butter - there's no sugar -
so it's actually not that great if you bite into it,
because it's a little bit chalky, but it feels like a treat.
It feels luxurious. I feel wealthy and rich when I have them.
And usually one is enough to make it feel like,
"okay, my meal is complete and I don't have cravings."
My last meal is somewhere between 12 and 3pm - sometimes 3:30pm -
and I'll cook up some kind of meat like salmon (or steak, hot dog, sausage),
and a bit of fat and steam some veggies as a side
(usually broccoli because I really like broccoli).
Once in a while, I'll sauté some mushrooms and onions,
especially if I'm having a steak, or I'll do peppers and onions -
bell peppers - if I am eating sausage,
but usually I'm lazy and just stick to the steamed vegetables.
Though my ingredients are few, I actually am a lot less strict
about when I eat than I used to be.
I now just eat when I'm hungry, and I eat as much as I need to.
I'm not trying to cut food in any way, I'm not trying to change my body
in any way currently. I just eat as much as I want when I want it,
and usually that means that I'll add fat if I'm more hungry,
or I won't if I'm not hungry.
I do like to get a certain amount of protein in every day,
so even if I'm not hungry, when it gets to be about three o'clock,
I'll make myself at least eat some protein.
Not keeping to any kind of specific meal times, I think,
helps me to obsess over food less.
I think about food not at all, unless I'm actually hungry,
and then I just eat, and then it goes away.
But in the meantime, I don't ever have to consider food,
and I don't put as much weight and thought on it as I used to,
especially now that I've found the foods that seem to work for me.
I'm no longer worried that things are going to make me sick.
I pretty much know going into it how I'm going to feel once i've eaten it.
I do still eat as much grass-fed, pasture-raised, wild-caught, organic stuff
as possible, but I'm not perfect with it at all.
I think that right now, really, money is the thing that's stopping me.
Availability is fine - you can order stuff online if you don't have it locally,
but it does add up quite quickly.
As far as supplements go, I do have nutritional yeast and electrolytes,
but I only really use them when I feel like my body is lacking in something,
and I do take liver in the mornings daily for Vitamin A
and Magnesium Glycinate before bed to make up for our
American soil deficiencies.
I have histamine issues, aka seasonal allergies, and
I've had these since I was maybe seven years old.
I used to take antihistamines twice a year for big chunks of time,
because of the springtime seasonal allergies and the fall seasonal allergies,
but instead of taking antihistamines, I now take thymus,
which actually is absolutely wonderful and works within 10 minutes of me taking it.
For me, this means no more allergy headaches, inflamed sinuses,
stuffy nose, or bloodshot eyes, which is great.
Thymus helps to regulate DAO, which is diamine oxidase.
It's an enzyme that your body uses to clean out the histamine through your kidneys,
and sometimes people's DAO production or balance,
with the amount of histamine in their bodies, is not correct.
And therefore, sometimes you gotta take it.
So thymus is my current solution, and it seems to be working and helping without hurting.
And I say "helping without hurting" on purpose, because
when I did have histamine issues growing up for 21 years of my life,
I took Claritin - which I did not know at the time, because it's an antihistamine,
it's actually damaging to your gut.
Along with that, in eighth grade, I took antibiotics for a while for acne reasons,
and I used to take probably 20 ibuprofen a month
because of menstrual cramps.
That's a lot of Ibuprofen - but it's true.
I would take it multiple times a day, and I don't really have
that issue anymore, which is crazy.
In college, I remember we would have a certain amount of
days allotted to us that we would not have to come to class,
and we wouldn't have to use a sick day or anything -
we could just have - I think it was three days - where you didn't have to come to class,
and I would always use those days when I knew that I was going to have major cramping.
I would just not go to class, because it was debilitating.
All I wanted to do was be in the fetal position, and I think
that caffeine and sugar probably were the main culprits of those cramps for me,
because as soon as I really stopped including those so much in my diet,
I haven't had that issue.
At this point, I do still get the hormone fluctuations.
I can feel the emotional changes that I have - starts about a week beforehand -
and I do still get pain, but it's not at all debilitating.
It's not nearly as severe as it was.
Now it usually lasts a day, whereas before, it would last sometimes three
or four days, and I can just go about my daily life and kind of ignore it.
It's more of an annoying pain now, rather than a completely debilitating one.
The reason I believe that it's sugar and caffeine that did that to me
is because when I have sugar, my blood sugar spikes, therefore my insulin spikes.
When I have caffeine, my adrenals shoot out a bunch of cortisol, which also spikes blood sugar,
but all of your hormones need to be balanced at some kind of equilibrium,
and if I'm stressing out certain parts of my hormones,
then I can't expect other parts to stay in sync and stay balanced and regulated.
I need to just - kind of - try to keep this kind of an equilibrium.
There's no way that you can always keep a perfectly straight line, but
just kind of a little bit of a flow to it is what i'm trying to achieve.
Seems to be working.
I would still like to play around with body composition;
it just hasn't been at the top of my list.
I've had other things that I wanted to work on and experiment with.
And I really wanted to make sure that I was getting my hormones pretty regulated
before I tried to do something like recomposition.
And I'm not saying that I want to lose weight - I'm saying that I want to exchange
some of my fat for more muscle and just get a little bit of a stronger visual "look" to me.
I also would really like to be able to do some physical things, like a chin up -
I've never done a chin up in my life.
And I feel like doing a bit of a body recomposition would probably make that easier;
to be able to do a chin up, and be able to do 50 push-ups in a row,
and be able to do a walking handstand or something.
It'd be fun. Hasn't been top priority, but maybe later this year,
I'll be able to get around to committing to it... We'll see...
That's all i have today.
Uh - if you have any questions, let me know, but again,
this is just based on MY experience with MY body, so it's not at all guaranteed or even a question
that this would work for you, because my body is completely different than yours.
We've had different experiences, we grew up in different places,
we've had different budgets around food, and we've had different
nostalgia, memories, habits around food,
so I definitely - again, don't think that this would work for anyone besides me.
But maybe this was helpful in some way.
If not, I hope it was at least entertaining enough.
'till next time!
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