I think the biggest hurdle I’ve had to endure in terms of becoming Keto adapted has been both understanding what the hell I’m doing and also participating in social activities. Embarrassingly the first few weeks of my Ketosis journey resulted in, well— no ketosis adaptation at all. This failure was also in large part due to my decision that I wanted to start going out more and enjoying the night life. Interestingly, the latter was the result of increased energy due to the drastic change in food I was eating in trying to achieve Ketosis. No sugar, low to no carbs from vegetables, and an exorbitant amount of Korean short ribs and pork belly that I felt I needed when I stopped eating rice and french fries.

My knowledge of Ketosis at the time was that as long as I consumed a certain set of food I would trigger lipolysis which according to Google is the breakdown of fats and other lipids by hydrolysis to release fatty acids. Even as I’m writing this I’m realizing just how much I’ve forgotten from the books I’ve read and after doing a few quick Google searches just how little I do know about the entire process. I should note that if you are attempting Ketosis and you find significant discomfort that you talk with someone preferably with a nutritional and medical background or perhaps even exit Ketosis just to be safe. I feel fortunate that whatever I’m doing seems to be working well for me and the positive reinforcement that I get from those friends who have observed my transformation compel me to push forward and share what I’ve learned.

The idea of how Ketosis works is by training your body to produce more Keytones by restricting carbohydrates. Based on varying information I’ve read, an individual can be consuming less than 20 grams and as much as 150 grams of carbohydrates a day to achieve this accelerated fat burning state. To put this into perspective, that’s about a big bowl of chopped lettuce. (I’ll add some images here to help at some point for those of you who hate having to measure things). Protein restriction is necessary as well. How much protein? Depending on your activity level you can be consuming between .6 grams to 1 gram per lean muscle mass. I have about 150 lbs of lean mass so that’s on the far end I try to eat less than 5.29 ounces of protein — that’s about 25 eggs or 3 really thick pieces of short ribs. The fattier the better! The rest of what you should be eating if you’re still hungry should be fat. Non-saturated, saturated is all good.

A big note here. I personally avoid trans fats, however, I’ve read nothing mentioning the evils of it but research indicates a high correlation to medical issues. By the way, trans fats are not natural nor are they from any form of animal meats that I’m aware of. According to Google Artificial trans fats (or trans fatty acids) are created in an industrial process that adds hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils to make them more solid. The primary dietary source for trans fats in processed food is “partially hydrogenated oils.” Here’s a list of restaurants (sorry if this site resembles click bait) that still use trans fats in their food. Sadly Burger King is on this list. Goddamn it Burger King; I seriously love your whopper burger. One day I’ll eat you again. But not today.

Naturally when you take away all the carbs that are so normally consumed day after day, it’s easy to think that it’s hard to find alternative restaurants to eat at. But really everything you need is available. Just don’t order the fries on the side. Really the biggest temptation to order those things are your friends when they’re eating with you! Just the other night I was eating out in a group and we ended up talking about cheesecake and Krispy Creme for almost an hour.

(that conversation lead to this btw).

This left me full of desire (note: with no cravings) to break my keto and have a cheesecake, fortunately the Cheesecake factory was closed and Krispy Kreme no longer kept a drive thru open 24/7. The other difficulty slated towards the social aspect is also around friends who feel so strongly about how they think about consuming a high fat diet.