Kind of a mixed bag this week but definitely feeling a lot more energetic and 10 times better than I did during weeks 1 and 2.
I felt full of energy all day Monday and Tuesday morning. Kinda hit a proverbial wall on Tuesday afternoon, went home and had 2 nettle tables (for allergies, I have loads of bloody allergies) and put 4g of pink salt on my dinner – you needs loads of pink salt whilst on a ketogenic diet.
Not sure which did the trick but I felt great afterwards and the next day. Had a few dips in energy Thursday & Friday afternoons, but generally feeling much better.
Strength is actually slightly up from week 1. Pretty tricky to measure as I mainly do bodyweight exercises but my lat pull down has gone from 5 reps with 107kg to 8 reps.
I’ve been doing ‘targeted ketosis’ on Mondays, which is my main day in the gym/longest & hardest session. I drink 50g of maltodextrain & 5g of creatine about 30 minutes before training. This kicks me out of ketosis for a couple of hours but allows me to train at a higher intensity.
During this session I do 4 rounds on the punch bag, 2 sets of 1 arm row, 2 sets of chin ups and 2 sets of box jumps. I had to bin-off deadlifts as my back went into spasm last time I attempted them 2 weeks ago.
I’ve lost loads of weight from around my face, although I’m not sure how much actual bodyweight I’ve lost (too tight to buy some scales).
I need about 3,000 calories per day, this is a bit of a challenge without eating any carbs or junk food. I tried adding a tin of coconut milk to my evening smoothie ( a tin of 60% coconut milk/40% water is about 600 calories) but this made me feel like shite for some reason – I think it must be mucous producing as it was making me wheeze and would bung my nose up. So I tried necking 500 calories worth of olive oil – this gave me terrible acid reflux; so finally I tried avocados for extra calories – this is working well so far!
As well as ketogenic, I’m trying to keep my diet alkaline. I’m making up a drink each morning with 500ml of filtered water, 5g baking soda, a 1/2g of pink salt and some lemon juice. I am peeing like a race horse though.
nom noms alkaline goodness
I’ve tried MCT Oil in coffee a couple of times too, but so far it’s given me energy but also stomach cramps.
I’ve also had some issues with dry eyes – apparently you need carbs to make tears! This seems to have improved this week though
Ketogenic Diet & Mental Health
I started the ketogenic diet because I felt shite and tired and pretty depressed all the time. In fact I’ve gone down to 4 days a week at work mainly for this reason.
Like every good middle class office worker, I’ve had mental health issues since I was a child. I don’t resonate too well with the people that I work with and I think that this was starting to affect me quite a bit. I’d built up quite a bit of confidence in my last job – it was relatively stressful with an immense workload & more responsibility that I’ve been used to, but I think I handled it well and progressed lots & learnt a hell of a lot. My confidence was high but I wasn’t managing to get to the gym and I found it hard to shut off when I got home. So I left.
This new job is easier but the people I work with don’t share my enthusiasm for gratitude and for pushing positivity etc (I understand this can be annoying) and my ideas are shut down pretty quickly and I don’t feel valued. Instead of having a pity party, I’ve rebuilt my confidence by learning a new skill – graphic design with Adobe Illustrator and I’ve spent time with ‘my tribe’ at the MMA gym, at least once a week.
So I’ve changed a few variables – learnt a new skill, spent more time with the family, spent more time with like-minded friends and moved onto the ketogenic diet. I can’t therefore pinpoint what’s had the most influence over my mindset, but I do definitely feel better, less anxious and depressed. Hope this continues!
Weirdly on the ketogenic diet, time seems to go faster! Maybe I’m just being nuts though…quite possible.