What a Ketogenic/Low-Carb Diet and Researching Health Experts Can Do For You Physically and Mentally6/9/2019 IntroThis post is heavy reading but is well-worth the time. I only know a couple people that have been impacted as much as I have by the health and fitness world that has emerged thanks to podcasts like Joe Rogan’s. One is my cousin, Kevin, who has been low-carb dieter for a few years now and regularly experiments with fasting and meditation practices. The other is a friend, Mike, who turned to the keto diet for the weight loss benefits about a year ago and has seen amazing results. I decided to survey them and try to see where this diet and learning from health experts has taken them both mentally and physically (and I took the survey as well). The answers I got in return were far beyond what I was expecting... Survey DataQuestion 1 of 6: Please give your name and age. Answer: Michael 25 Question 2 of 6: What is your current nutrition and exercise plan? Feel free to be brief or go as in-depth as you want but the more information, the better. If you have been progressively changing your diet and exercise, tell us about how you’ve adjusted. Answer: When I first started my journey to becoming a healthy person, my first goal was to drop as much weight as I could. I started off with the ketogenic diet which was a high fat, moderate protein and very low carb diet. I supplemented that with working out about 2-3 times a week on a good week. It started off great and I was shedding weight at a rapid rate. It started plateauing about 5-6 months in and happened multiple times, so I determined it was time to make some adjustments. I didn’t go as high with calories as I used to and lowered my fat intake but kept carbs at a low level. I then started to work out 4-5 times a week consistently and eventually started to workout twice a day and incorporated intermittent fasting when possible. Currently, I’m being even more strict with my calorie intake while on keto and maintaining the same workout schedule. I’ve been consistently losing weight each week since. Question 3 of 6: What have you accomplished from your nutrition and exercise plan? Answer: I’ve gotten a better understanding of what’s really in our food and how important a diet and exercise plan that caters to you is. Not all health styles work for everyone. Also, I’ve learned to not be content with where I am and finding new ways to improve what I’m doing. Question 4 of 6: Who inspired you the most to start being more health conscious? Answer: This is a difficult one. It’s a mental wall that I had to break that just hit me one day. It’s tough to explain. If I had to pick an event that started it all, I’d say it was the Fourth of July last summer, I felt terrible from the crazy amount of carbs I took in. That was the last straw and I ended up starting keto the next day. Question 5 of 6: Which experts do you look to the most for information on diet and exercise? Answer: Most of my information comes from various health blogs that I research. The rest comes from listening to guests on the Joe Rogan Podcast especially David Goggins whose book was a life changer. The most important part of changing your lifestyle is the mental willpower and Goggins definitely helped out with that. Question 6 of 6: What is the biggest takeaway you’ve gotten from listening to the advice of those experts and those who inspired you? Answer: To just try something. To look into different diet and exercise plans and see what works for you. There’s so much more than the standard American diet and cardio. But ultimately, it’s all about what works best for you. Most of all, I learned how far willpower can take you. Question 1 of 6: Please give your name and age. Answer: Kevin Marchand, age 25 Question 2 of 6: What is your current nutrition and exercise plan? Feel free to be brief or go as in-depth as you want but the more information, the better. If you have been progressively changing your diet and exercise, tell us about how you’ve adjusted. Answer: So, my nutrition strategy is always subtly changing. That being said, it has been loosely based around a low-carb strategy for the better part of three years. Not always strictly ketogenic, but less than 100 carbs a day for sure, and usually less. Sugar too is always very limited, less than 20 grams a day. I also experiment quite a bit with fasting and restricted feeding windows. For instance, this week I am trying for the first time, a version of Dr. Valter Longo’s Fast-mimicking Diet (FMD). Broadly, the plan involves a five-day (mimicked) fast. Eating 1100 calories on day one and then 800 calories a day for the last four days. The strategy promises many of the benefits of a strict water fast, without some of the discomfort and heroic discipline. My workout strategy is also in flux. For the past two months I’ve trained for and attempted the Murph Challenge—this is a yearly CrossFit challenge in honor of fallen Navy Seal, Michael Murphy. So that ended on Memorial Day, when I undertook the task for real. Those two months consisted of a great deal of running, push-ups, pull-ups and air squats. For this month, I devised a strategy I call Around the World. I randomly choose one of four conditioning exercises and one of four cardio challenges each day. The four options for each category are listed below, and so far, they have been randomly selected fairly evenly. Additionally, I would say that this strategy captures the essence of my fitness strategy at present. Cardio Options: 1 – Run 2 Miles 2 – Run 3 Miles + 10 Hill Sprints (about 30-35 meters) 3 – Run 5 Miles 4 – Run 8 Miles Conditioning Options (each exercise is done in sixty sets, on the minute, every minute, for an hour): 1 – 720 Push-ups (12 x 60) 2 – 360 Pull-ups (6 x 60) 3 – 480 Wheels (8 x 60) 4 – 600 Air Squats (10 x 60) Question 3 of 6: What have you accomplished from your nutrition and exercise plan? Answer: I have accomplished a number of things with my workout and nutrition strategies. Most importantly, a severe reduction of alcoholic consumption, which was (and remains) a serious struggle for me. This has been accomplished as a function of necessity—I have found it too painful to slug back five beers and then get up at 6am and run for many miles. Obviously. So, a new level of discipline has been introduced into my life by taking these things seriously. Additionally, my general health has certainly improved. I do not pant going upstairs, I can play frisbee for hours, and my ability to lift and hold heavy things has greatly improved. Most importantly, my sleep seems to be steadily improving (especially on days when I REALLY succeed and drink no alcohol at all). This is evidenced by my Oura Ring, which I love. Question 4 of 6: Who inspired you the most to start being more health conscious? Answer: A combination of some of the experts I will name in my next answer, myself, and my wife. That is the extent of my support. I find very little encouragement in my real life from other human beings in my life. In fact, I have found (to my great dismay) that very few people take the project of holistic self-improvement very seriously at all. Worse: many people in my life seem to take my constant efforts and self-experimentation as something of an affront on their own characters. People do not seem to like it when others try to extricate themselves from the mire. Light emphases darkness, I suppose. Question 5 of 6: Which experts do you look to the most for information on diet and exercise? Answer: Peter Attia Jocko Willink Dr. Rhonda Patrick Dr. Matthew Walker Gary Taubes Dom D’Agostino David Sabatini Ron Krauss Tim Ferris Tom Dayspring Question 6 of 6: What is the biggest takeaway you’ve gotten from listening to the advice of those experts and those who inspired you? Answer: Not to remain to rigid in your approach. And, conversely, not to pretend that we know nothing about nutrition or fitness. We do know quite a bit, but that knowledge is constantly open to revision and addition. Question 1 of 6: Please give your name and age. Answer: Jake Marchand, 25 Question 2 of 6: What is your current nutrition and exercise plan? Feel free to be brief or go as in-depth as you want but the more information, the better. If you have been progressively changing your diet and exercise, tell us about how you’ve adjusted. Answer: My current nutrition plan has recently changed. Since the day after Christmas (when I started this health kick) and up until mid-May, I started a low-carb diet while also cancelling out sugars and fast food. The only fast food I’ve eaten are a few salads from subway and the only sugars I have not gotten out of my diet are those that are on sauces/marinades that are put on meats at restaurants. I was near keto, eating less than 50g of carbohydrates each day, without physically counting or doing ketone tests. I also was doing a 24-hour fast once a week. I was working out 4-5 times a week with mainly kettlebells and dumbbells. Starting about a month ago, after hearing from experts that you can maintain muscle with the keto diet and intermittent fasting but in order to build muscle, you need to eat a certain amount of calories, I decided to:
I still workout 5-6 times per week but in a smarter way, alternating Upper Body/Lower Body each day and I try to incorporate more pull ups and heavy lifting. HIIT Endurance/Mobility training is mixed in once or twice a week on top of the Upper Body/Lower Body workouts (So, 2 Upper Body, 2 Lower Body, and 2 HIIT Endurance/Mobility Training each week). Depending on the results or lack there-of, next month I may adjust my calorie intake/make my workouts heavier. Question 3 of 6: What have you accomplished from your nutrition and exercise plan? Answer: At Christmas, I was between 175-180lb and now I am around 150-155lb. Not only am I lighter, but I also have more energy, confidence, and feel better all-around than ever. There was definitely an adjustment period but I also believe I’ve gained the ability to burn fat for fuel thanks to the keto diet. Not only am I healthier but I have been passionate about how much there is to learn with health and fitness. There are countless experts that go against traditional medicine to find out what really works on their patients and themselves. I’m always finding new books and podcasts and trying new things like foods, exercises, and supplements and I love it. Question 4 of 6: Who inspired you the most to start being more health conscious? Answer: It is a combination of things - not one person. To go ALL the way back, one of my classes had a motivational speaker come in to talk about how to present in the most effective way. My question to the speaker was who he listens to for motivation whether it was a podcast, book, etc. He did not have an answer for me but someone in the class showed me Eric Thomas’s Podcast The Secret to Success. After spending about a year listening to this podcast and going to a conference of his, I looked for a new podcast on iTunes related to motivation and found Jocko Podcast. Jocko Willink became a strong influence and really pushed me to try to be the best I can be. If I’m not living my best for me or my family, then I’ll do it for those who died (and continue to die) for our freedom here in America. This is a seriously strong motivation that Jocko hints at throughout his podcast. Men and women sacrifice themselves for us on the battlefield while we watch hours of television, eat junk food, and complain about our lives on the daily. This message got to me and pushed me. It has gotten me to truly see the importance of my health and how it affects the people around me and also my family’s generations to come. After buying Jocko’s book, Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual and a Paleo cookbook, I realized I could do it. Shortly after (the day after Christmas), I started the nutrition plan of no sugars, seriously limited carbs, and no fast food while simultaneously doubling my workout regimen. Question 5 of 6: Which experts do you look to the most for information on diet and exercise? Answer: Ben Greenfield, Jocko WIllink, and Shawn Stevenson - in that order. This will change because I’m always finding new experts to study. But I don’t listen to EVERYTHING they say. I take everything with a grain of salt, learn what’s backed by science and research, and also learn what works for me and what I’m trying to currently do for my health and fitness. Question 6 of 6: What is the biggest takeaway you’ve gotten from listening to the advice of those experts and those who inspired you? Answer: Take control of what you can. A very small percentage of your health and diseases actually come from your genetics. If we pay attention and do a little research, we can find out how to live a long, healthy life. It’s important to wake up to the fact that the Standard American Diet is so messed up with processed foods, pesticides, herbicides, and foods with low nutrient density that not only mess with your gut and digestive tract but also your lifespan, healthspan, and your brain. ConclusionWhat’s most incredible is that the three of us decided to take control of our health and fitness for totally different reasons - Mike: weight loss, me: strength and endurance training, and Kevin: overall self-improvement and fascination in what he heard from experts. In the end, we all now truly enjoy playing around with our diets, testing out new things, and learning what we can do to take control of our health.
Listening to these experts has sparked something way bigger than just a diet but for our whole lives we have way more awareness of what we can do by doing a little bit of research and letting go of processed foods and sugars. I’m not saying low-carb is the only way to go - it’s not for everyone and you can definitely do it the wrong way. The three of us just all happen to go the low-carb route but I know there are similar stories from USDA MyPlate followers, vegans, vegetarians, etc. What's most important is to open your eyes to what health experts have been trying to tell us for years through podcasts and books and find out for yourself what works best for you. If you have any questions on what experts I suggest to start with based on your goals, feel free to comment or email me @ [email protected]. Also, if you have a similar experience to the three of us, email me and you can possibly use this platform as a place to share your story! If you enjoyed this post - opt in to my monthly newsletter where I give highlights and a look at what’s to come!
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