Jonathan and I have been following a ketogenic diet since February of this year.   I am the more neurotic one – first using urine strips to check my ketosis levels, then switching to blood testing when I heard it was more accurate, then buying a breath tester from Sweden to test a different way.  I am also the one who had the tougher time getting my body to adapt to ketosis.  About  6 weeks in I went through a day of the “keto flu” where my stomach waged war against me and would not keep anything down.

As I reflect back on the last 6 months, there is a lot I’ve learned about ketosis and my body.  While every person reacts differently to a ketogenic diet, I decided to share what I’ve learned so far.  Perhaps others who read this have had a similar experience, or it will help others who are trying to adapt to this type of lifetstyle.  This is part 1 of what I suspect will be a multi-part series!

1.  I still eat more than I need to.    I am still not fully confident in the whole idea that I don’t “need” to eat in order to have energy.  I feel hungry a lot.  What I’ve read suggests that it may be thirst rather than hunger, but I also drink a lot of fluids during the day.  It may also be that I burn a lot of calories riding my bike, especially over the weekend when we do 6+ hour rides.
2. The less I eat, the better my ketone levels.  If I don’t eat breakfast, and wait until 1:00 pm or later to have lunch, my ketone levels are usually pretty good – 1.0 mmol or higher.  When I eat, my levels drop, even though I try to greatly minimize my carb intake.  This leads me to believe 2 things:  I am very sensitive to carbs, and I’m taking in more carbs than I realize.
3. Once I became keto-adapted, it is fairly easy to get back into ketosis if I drop out of it.  I’ve only done it on purpose once (which I will never do again – see #4 below) but thankfully my body re-adapted pretty quickly – within 2 days.
4. I won’t intentionally go out of ketosis again. I had 1 instance where I intentionally ate what I wanted for a weekend.  In my defense, it was in France and I wanted to enjoy the breads and pastries…and ice cream!  I paid for it for 5 straight days.  Not doing that again.  Ever.
5. I don’t need to worry if my ketone levels are low when I start a ride.  My body still prefers to burn ketones and will once I start exerting myself.

In 5 days I’ll be doing a 207 mile ride in one day and I’m sure I’ll have many more lessons learned to add after that experience!