My Personal Nutritional Ketosis Report Card 10 January: Through Week 36

It’s been a few months since I shared my personal perspectives while engaging with a run of nutritional ketosis; my last update was here (15 August 2018), and here’s my post outlining why I wanted to give NK a run.

My Nutritional Ketosis Report Card at Week 36

Once again, for the most part, I’m pleased as punch overall after spending now slightly over eight months in nutritional ketosis, though for at least two weeks (one over the holidays), I’m sure I was drifting in and out of NK during the week.

My schedule is for the most part the same as I outlined in the 15 August post linked above, save for altering my walking routine due to a fairly impressive plantar fasciitis and calcaneal stress fracture (dammit).

A Closer Look at a Few Metrics

As noted in my last personal NK update, I have continued tracking a fairly close estimation of my macronutrients –

Up until starting my NK run, I’d lost 100 pounds without tracking a single calorie consumed over the 15 months window we’d been eating a fairly compliant LC/MP/HF diet around our camp, though of note been in a weight loss stall for several months (Dec-Feb).

I did however, principally at first as a learning tool, and later in part due to my medical training induced affinity for objective data, track a fairly specific diary of my daily carb intake (net carbs), which from the get go were always under 100 per day, and most often under 60 gm/day.

Again, largely as a matter of intellectual curiosity, when starting my NK run, I decided to track, as closely as possible, daily intake of carbs, protein, and fat, and to calculate my total caloric intake and deficit against my estimated BMR (adjusted for activity), as well as the percentages of carb / protein / fat contributions to my total calories.

Please note this point about tracking data: I still don’t recommend that most folks I work with track their intake as obsessively as I have been; it’s simply not necessary to make nutritional ketosis work for most. If you’re a data nut like me, go for it. Over the 36 weeks in NK thus far, the rolling averages of my intake and macronutrient accounting include –

Daily Carb Grams: 22.9 (91.4 calories)
Daily Protein Grams: 81.5 (326 calories)
Daily Fat Grams: 122.9 (1106.1 calories)

Average Total Calories per Day: 1525
Average Calorie Deficit per Day: –1565.7

Average Carbs as Percent of Total Calories per Day: 6.0%
Average Protein as Percent of Total Calories per Day: 21.4%
Average Fat as Percent of Total Calories per Day: 72.5%

Of note, without any conscious effort on my part, the trend of eating less protein and less calories overall continued most weeks, and several weeks I’ve dropped my carb grams to less than 20 g/day just to mix things up a bit, with no change in cognition, energy levels, exercise tolerance, hunger, or satiety.

Weight loss during my 36 week run now totals 59 pounds, fairly consistent with what I noted previously.

My Nutritional Ketosis Week 36 Bottom Line: Let’s Make It a Year

Overall I’ve been extraordinarily pleased with the results of my NK trial, especially in the context of my daily ability to engage with my life tasks, consistently and impressively improve my personal fitness, and chip away at the primary goals I originally outlined.

At this point, barring any unforeseen changes, I plan to ride the keto train to complete a full year in nutritional ketosis. Another report to follow in April.