I hate food rules. IMO, the most important thing one can do for oneself is to be aware of how your own body responds to certain foods. Sometimes this requires experimentation.
Right now my mom is experimenting with the “leaky gut” diet. For quite some time she hasn’t been feeling that great. My dad read a post about a leaky gut diet and thought my mom was experiencing similar symptoms. Post shared and two days later my mom announced that she was on said diet. That was about two months ago. Within a couple of week she was feeling better. Now, I am not saying this diet is good or bad. What it did do is had her cut out foods that typically cause issues (as well as nasty processed foods) and now she can begin to reintroduce those foods one at a time to evaluate if they are right for her body or not.
That was a long introduction to why I am going to try Keto. Many years ago I was vegan. I felt amazing during those years. However, I was also consistently training 12-18 hours per week. I stopped because I felt my body was craving foods it needed (eggs). Since then I have tried to eat sensibly while not putting myself into a restrictive food box. As years have passed, I’ve gotten further away from the amazing feeling I remember from my vegan years so it’s time to experiment.
So, why Keto? There are a few reasons. I grew up during the low-fat craze. If you had asked my college self if I would ever strive for 65% of calories per day from fat, I would know that you were completely insane. I’m curious to see how my body will respond and how I will feel. Second, as an endurance athlete we spend a lot of time training our bodies to burn fat. Ketosis is when your body switches to fat for fuel because it doesn’t have enough carbohydrates (typically do to restriction or starvation). If this is preferred state for endurance training and racing, it makes sense (to me anyway) to see what impact there might be to adapting my body to this state of fuel usage. Lastly, something new to try in the new year!
Over the next few weeks I will log My Keto Experiment with information related to macro percentages, workouts, weight changes, how I’m feeling, and of course any great recipes I discover or create along the way.