Keto Grinder

I was having success with the ketogenic diet and beginning to incorporate fasting into my routine. My wife was encouraged by my success and looking to find out more information.  She is a pharmacist by trade and all of the information I was telling her went against her training as a diabetes educator.  But she couldn’t argue with my success and she wanted to start experiencing the benefits of the ketogenic diet herself.

At this point I had listened to over 100 hours of podcasts, read a lot on the ketogenic forums and had educated myself quite a bit.  I was looking for a way to help motivate her and bring her up to speed while learning even more myself. Luckily 2 Keto Dudes came to the rescue once again with Ketofest.  They were planning a ketogenic festival in New London, Connecticut July 14-16 2017.  I had heard about it early on and had wanted to join the Kickstarter created to secure the minimum funding needed for the festival, but I thought it would be a hard sell to get my wife t…

As I’ve mentioned previously I was introduced to the idea of fasting from the podcasts I was listening to.  So in May 2017 I decided to seriously consider adding extended fasting into my routine.  My average fasting blood glucose had improved significantly from 220 – 260 mg/dL in 2016 to 150 – 170 mg/dL in the beginning of May.  But I really wanted this number to be below 100.  At 150 mg/dL I was still causing damage to my body.  Therefore I really wanted to pursue fasting as a remedy to my high blood glucose, and maybe as a way to speed up my weight loss.

One of my main sources of information about fasting was the “Fasting Talk” podcast which featured Megan Ramos and Dr. Jason Fung of the Intensive Dietary Management (IDM) program based in Toronto, Canada.  IDM had a long distance program in which they would act as nutritional consultants for customers. I decided to sign up and just in time for an introduction web seminar on May 19.

In the meantime, Brenda Zorn had announced the May …

With the success I was seeing I became ravenous for information about keto.  So in March 2017 I decided to go back to my preferred information gathering medium, podcasts.  I wanted to add to the excellent “2 Keto Dudes” podcast I was already listening to.  I started with “Keto Talk”[1] by Jimmy Moore and Dr. Adam Nally and the “Ketovangelist” podcast by Brian Williamson.  I quickly added “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” by Jimmy Moore, and “Fasting Talk”[2] by Jimmy Moore, Dr. Jason Fung and Megan Ramos.
[1] Dr. Adam Nally has left the “Keto Talk” podcast and been replaced by Dr. Will Cole.  Dr. Cole is a good addition.
[2] The “Fasting Talk” podcast has been discontinued.  However, the Dr. Fung and Megan Ramos have started “The Obesity Code” podcast instead.

The “2 Keto Dudes” podcast gives a good practical advice of how to live the ketogenic lifestyle as well as delves into the science to help explain how and why keto works.  The hosts, Carl and Richard, often have guests to help elaborate o…

I really hated being on insulin.  It made me feel like a failure, because I knew that it was a result of my poor choices in the past.  This was one of my strongest motivators for following a ketogenic diet, I really wanted to stop taking insulin.
So after about six weeks on keto I decided to talk to my doctor about when and how to reduce my insulin (Lantus which is a long acting insulin).  He said that if it helped to motivate me he had no problem in slowly reducing my insulin (2-3 units per day) as long as my blood glucose didn’t go too high.  So I decided to start tapering my insulin mid-December 2016.
I started by lowering my insulin by 2 units each day.  If I felt my blood glucose was going too high, I’d pause for about a week before continuing.  Slowly and gradually I was able to keep reducing my daily insulin dosage while keeping my average morning/fasting glucose reading between 150 and 200 mg/dL. That is much higher that I would want to see now, but at the time this was normal…

I listen to a lot of podcasts.  And by “a lot” I mean I subscribe to over 80 podcasts.  This results in over 60 hours a week of content, which I listen to on double or triple speed.  To my good fortune one of the podcasts I listen to is the ".NET Rocks" Podcast, a show which discusses software development using Microsoft’s .NET framework.  Carl Franklin, one of the hosts of the show, mentioned on one of the shows that he was starting the "2 Keto Dudes" podcast to use motivation to keep following a ketogenic diet.

I had heard of the ketogenic diet before, but thought maybe it was too extreme for me.  But I liked listening Carl, so around May or June 2016 I started listening to the "2 Keto Dudes" podcast.  It is hosted by Carl Franklin who had just starting keto as he started the podcast and Richard Morris who had been practicing keto for a few years.

They explained that the ketogenic diet was a low carbohydrate, high fat, moderate protein diet which helps…

After my many failed attempts at losing weight I had pretty much given up.  I started to eat even worse than ever before, not avoiding sugar at all and eating tons of bread and pasta.  In June 2008 I was officially diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and my doctor gave me a prescription for Metformin, a drug that helps control blood sugar.  My initial Hemoglobin A1C (also known as HbA1c which is an average of blood glucose for 3 months) was 7.0%.  Anything over 6.5% is considered diabetic, and anything over 6.0% pre-diabetic.  Normal ranges are 4.3% to 5.5%.

I took it seriously, exercised and cut out sweets.  Four months later I had lowered my HbA1c to 5.5%.  However, by July 2010 it had crept back up to 7.8% and in September 2012 it was 9%.  Then for about a year my wife and I were going to the gym several times a week and working out hard.  I managed to eventually lower my HbA1c back down to 5.7%.

But then we stopped exercising and my HbA1c shot up to 10.7 by the end of 2015.  That is da…

In 2001 I decided I to give the Atkins diet a try.  I read “Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution”.  Dr. Atkins was the main champion of low carb diets.  And while his book definitely showed the low carb way of eating, it downplayed the need for fat in your diet.  This is understandable given that it was published in 1992 and fat was considered to be almost as bad as poison at the time.  My interpretation of the Atkins Diet was low carb, moderate fat, high protein.  Despite that I still had some success.

I officially began the diet in April 2001, with a starting weight of 317 pounds.  I focused on lots of meats and cheeses.  By March 2002 I hit my lowest weight for this diet of 260 pounds, a total loss of 57 pounds.  Not too bad.  But I stalled, and was unable to lose any more weight.  I was engaged to be married in August 2002.  So in June I decided to stop the Atkins diet for a bit so I could enjoy my wedding cake and enjoy fine dining on the honeymoon.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get back on …

I’ve struggled with weight my whole life.  In fact, I went on my first diet when I was 7 years old.  I remember having to buy “husky” jeans at JC Penney's when I was a child.  And nothing changed as I grew older.  When I was 13 I even went on RAGBRAI which is a 7 day, 500-mile bike ride across Iowa.  Even though I was in shape enough to handle that without any trouble, I was still overweight.

Part of my identity has always been “the fat kid”, not a part of my identity that I particularly like. I’ve always been overweight.  I don't know what my weight was every month or every year, but I do have a few moments where I remember my exact weight.  My sophomore year of high school I wrestled in the 168-pound weight class.  Given my height, I was easily the most overweight person on the team.  And I remember having to cut weight to make the weigh in.

My junior year of college I went on a low-fat diet and did lots of exercise over the summer and was able to get down to 210 pounds.  I&#…

I've been following a ketogenic diet since November 1, 2016.  I’ve decided to celebrate my 1 year ketoversary by starting a blog to share my journey toward health.  My name is John and I’m a 40 something male who has struggled with weight my entire life. In this blog I plan to discuss how reversed my type 2 diabetes, stopped taking 120 units of insulin daily, lowered HbA1c down from a high of 10.7 down to 5.0, reduced my waist by over 12 inches and lost over 120 pounds.

Lots of people have helped me on my journey and I hope to pay it forward by helping other people struggling with some of the same issues that I do.  In the end maybe we can all help make the world a healthier place.

This process has truly changed my life. Maybe it can change yours.

Keep Calm and Keto On!

In my next post I'll start describing a little bit of my background before I started with keto.