Day 8

September 28, 2012

I just realized that I started this diet on the 21st of September, which means that day ONE was on the twenty-FIRST, day TWO on the twenty-SECOND, day THREE on the twenty-THIRD, and so on. Haha. What a convenient coincidence. Also, there are 30 days in September which means this luckily little pattern wont be thrown off by the month change. October first will be day 11. Yay! This makes things really easy to keep track of and I totally didn't plan that. :) Anyway, today I was having some SERIOUS carb cravings that I almost gave in to. I've also been noticing that my moods are way out of whack. I've been annoyed at everyone and pretty depressed the last week. At first I didn't connect it with the diet (all I connected was the dizziness and exhaustion I was experiencing). But today I did some major ketogenic diet research that enlightened me quite a bit. Let me explain:

My insane craving for carbs was what prompted the research. At about noon today I had gotten to the point where I knew the only way I would have the motivation to keep from breaking my diet today was if there was a planned cheat day coming up that I could look forward to. Considering the fact that my best friend is going to the MTC on Wednesday and I knew her going away party on Monday would be loaded with sinful sugary delights, I had almost made up my mind to plan to assign Monday as my cheat day and from then on have one every week. My reasoning was that I had heard from several nutritionists and read in diet articles/books that having a planned cheat day every week can actually do wonders for your metabolism because when you cut calories your leptin levels drop, causing your body to hold on to fat for dear life. But if you overload on calories just one day a week then this can reset your leptin levels to normal and your body will be able to continue burning calories without the dreaded plateau. The trick to this, however, is doing it ONE DAY A WEEK. This means it must be planned, and you also must get right back on the diet with NO exceptions the very next day. That is the only way to do it without experiencing the fat gain from all those extra calories.

Unfortunately on a low-carb diet this cheat-day thing is incredibly hard to implement because part of what makes it humanly possible to stay on a low-carb diet is the fact that carb cravings go away after a few days of not eating any. If you introduce the cheat day, your cravings come back full swing and you have to spend the next four or five days fighting them off, only to have another cheat day two days after your cravings are finally gone again, starting the cycle over. This means you are perpetually craving carbs! Cheat days may be great for some people  (i.e. those who are simply cutting calories but not neccessarily carbs, or those who are not as weak-minded as me), but I personally have never been able to successfully implement the cheat-day into my diets in the past.

For some reason, however (probably the hypoglycemia symptoms, depression, and cravings I was experiencing) I had convinced myself that this time, THIS time, I would be strong enough to "eat my cake and not have it too". Yeah I know that was a silly backwards reference to a stupid saying. Anyway the point is that I thought I would be capable of having the cheat day and getting right back on my diet without gaining weight even though I had never been able to do it in the past (definitely the hypoglycemia talking here). Silly me.

Yeah so here I am planning my cheat day and suddenly I remembered the small amount of previous ketogenic diet research I had done before starting this project. I remembered reading a small bit about how lots of people are miserable the first week or so until their body "adapts" to the diet, with its metabolism switching over into ketone mode. This small piece of information stood out in my mind, I think because the instructions for other low-carb diets I've tried only talk about how cravings and hypoglycemia symptoms go away after the first few days (which I already knew) - I had never heard of anything related to a set period of time where the body has to physically adapt to the new diet by actually changing the mode of metabolism. This was unique to the ketogenic diet. The thought that then followed was, "uh-oh, what if I haven't given my body enough time to fully adapt to the ketogenic diet? Will having a cheat day erase the progress I've made and force my body to start all over with its adaptation?"

So I went to work on google and my quest to find the answer to this question (which is yes btw) opened up a world of knowledge.

Here's what I discovered:

(go to HOW IT WORKS at the top of the page to see what I discovered)


Anyway that pretty much sums up the all the science behind the ketogenic diet. I learned a lot today and eventually decided it was better to stick it out until my body adapted than have a cheat day and have to start all over :) its great motivation to know the science behind why a diet works because if it makes sense you're more likely to follow it!