I’ve decided to try the ketogenic eating style. Today is day 5.

One of my close friends did this about a year and a half ago and has been working hard at selling the ketogenic eating style to me ever since. The health benefits for her were profound. Better sleep. Less anxiety. Abundant energy. The list goes on.

She has now started towards a more plant based ketogenic approach. Not quite vegan but certainly favouring the vegetables. So before you think it’s going to be a total meat fest, think again. The ketogenic way of eating seems to be very flexible and can be adapted to just about any food preference.

My first impressions of this diet are:

• how much fat?
• really, more butter?
• will i miss mashed potatoes?
• how will we host thanksgiving dinner in a few weeks?
• still more fat?
• oh, my god that’s so yummy!!!

The past 5 days have actually gone fairly smoothly. The biggest take away has been how important it is to get enough electrolytes – which can actually be a bit of a challenge!

By paying close attention to our potassium and magnesium levels (and drinking an epic amount of water) we have managed to mostly avoid any “keto” flu. Though the first few days did find us a kind of behaving like grumpy grumps who’d just had their candy taken away. By day 3 things had leveled out. We bought a ketone tester on day 3 and both measured small amounts of ketones (o.8 mmol/L). When we tested again on day 4 we were both up to about 1.6 mmol/L – a sure sign that our bodies where learning to produce ketones.

If you are considering trying this, find a few like minded people to bounce idea’s off if you can. And definitely buy a few books. I’ve particularly enjoyed Leanne Vogel’s book The Keto Diet.

But I’ve now got a solid 6 books I’m bouncing through.

Be prepared to either follow a meal plan or spend a fair bit of time at first tracking your eating so that you can be sure you are getting the correct amount of fats, carbs, and protein.

Stay tuned for more updates as this experiment of n=2 unfolds.