Day 3

Any explanation of how things are going isn't going to make any sense without a little background.

The main limitation of this diet is that carbohydrates must be kept to less than 50g per day.  You still have to get nourishment so the question is... where?  You can't use protein.  Any protein you eat above what your body needs is converted to glucose by your liver.  That glucose is processed like any other glucose and, if you have too much, can throw you out of ketosis.  Vegetables are mostly water and undigestable material providing very few calories.  What is left?

FAT

And, herein lies a problem.  In our whole grain, low-fat world, you get a lot of funny looks when you pile four tablespoons of butter on your plate... if you can even find any butter.  (I gotta remember to take some butter or coconut oil to work tomorrow.)

Of coarse, this leads to a long and detailed discussion about the perils of consuming fat that I am not prepared to discuss.  Instead, please check out Dr. Peter Attia's website at http://www.eatingacademy.com/.  Specifically, "How did we come to believe saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for us?" is a good one.

So, how is it going?

Well, I have never felt more full in my life.  I am consistently eating about 1800 calories per day and can't imagine eating more.  To give you an idea of how crazy that is, I have estimated that my basal metabolic rate is about 2800 calories a day and I exercise to the tune of 600 calories.  Kind-of crazy.

The books warned about the sodium crash.  It seems that removing the carbs from your diet causes your kidneys to start dumping sodium like crazy.  A lot of people complain of flu-like symptoms when on an Atkins diet.  Yesterday I started to feel a little run-down around 10:30.  The Phinney and Volek books recommended an extra couple of grams of sodium per day.  Within an hour of drinking a cup of chicken bullion I was feeling much better.  Two cups of bullion per day since then and I am feeling pretty good.

The food is pretty good.  Eggs and bacon for breakfast... heavy cream in my coffee... lots of butter and such.  So far, my workouts haven't suffered.  So, I feel pretty good.

Sadly, I haven't been getting anywhere near the sleep I need.  I think it is bedtime now.

More to come...