If you’ve been following my recent posts, you may have seen that I’ve gone keto, if you haven’t you can get the whole scoop here. In my attempt to become a more efficient, energetic, and ultimately, a faster endurance athlete I’ve been working on a lot of tweaks to how I approach endurance events, such as the Georgia Death Race and the Mojave Death Race that I am currently training for. Now, a large part of my going keto is to enhance my race day performance while minimizing or eliminating my intake of sugary goodness and all those gu’s and gels that I usually take.
After having a very upset stomach moments before our 1-hour yoga session under the moon at the SISU 24, I decided to read the keto books that were recommended to me and discovered there might be something to this keto diet. So with how close my body was to already being keto I figured it wouldn’t have too big of an effect on my health and wellness. In theory, it was a good diet, filled with (mostly) good fats.
To provide some background, a couple years ago I had my blood tested by InsideTracker, they tested 28 biomarkers with the Ultimate Plan, since then the Ultimate Plan has gotten an upgrade to a whopping 42 biomarkers, including the most important markers for strength and endurance, Creatine Kinase, Testosterone, Free Testosterone, DHEAS, Cortisol, Sex-Hormone Binding Globulin, and Albumin.
While it’s awesome that all of these biomarkers are offered, the ones we’re going to talk about today are the ones that stood out on my recent test results. That’s the beauty of InsideTracker, when you get your results, you can hone in on the most important biomarkers relative to you and your needs to optimize your health.
Before we dive in let’s take a look at my diet back in 2015, and then let’s look at my keto diet now, and then compare the results from these two diets as it relates to me and my body.
2015 Typical Daily Diet
Breakfast
- 3 Eggs with Yolk
- 1-2 Pieces of Bacon (3x week)
- Half Avocado
- Dark Roast Coffee with 1tbsp Kerrygold Grass Fed Butter and 1tbsp Coconut Oil (the cheap man’s MCT oil) you may know this as, “Bulletproof Coffee”
Second Breakfast
Lunch
- Ham Sammich (typically on wheat or multi-grain bread)
- Tomato, Onion, Lettuce, Olive Oil Mayo, Honey Mustard
- Occasionally add salami or other meat
- Mixed Greens Salad, Tomatos, Cucumber, Onion, Peppers, Balsamic
Second Lunch
- Protein Shake (made with or without fruit and veggies)
Dinner
- Main Course Protein (Red Meat, Chicken Breast, seafood)
- Brown Rice with Quinoa
- Veggies (Broccoli, Asparagus, Zucchini, or some sort of Veggie mix)
80% of the time that’s my diet, that’s what I eat day in and day out with some variability but not too much, I abide by the 80/20 rule when it comes to food, 80% is healthy, clean, and capable of providing adequate fuel to support my training, while 20% is reserved for pleasure and enjoying myself and my taste buds every once in a while. I mean, who doesn’t love a good ol’ Ben & Jerry’s Americone Dream, and yes, I’ve used Amazon Prime Now to have ice cream delivered in under two hours, don’t judge me.
With the Keto diet, it’s pretty much all in, you can’t do the typical 80/20 because to stay in ketosis, which is a primary objective of this diet, you have to stick to a very specific balance of macros.
My standard diet above equates to these macros 40% fat, 34% protein, and 26% carbs, basically it's a low-carb diet:
And as you can see, the goal column on the right is the standard macro balance for the keto diet which is 60-75% fat, 15-30% protein, and 5-10 carbs. With my current diet, I need to introduce 20% more fat and reduce my carbs by 16%. Basically, I need to eliminate the remaining sugars from fruits and any carbs and add some more high-quality fats.
Here’s what that looks like:
2018 Keto Daily Diet
Breakfast
- 3 Eggs with Yolk
- 1-2 Pieces of Bacon
- Half Avocado
- Dark Roast Coffee with 1tbsp Kerrygold Grass Fed Butter and 1tbsp Coconut Oil (the cheap man’s MCT oil) you may know this as, “Bulletproof Coffee”
Lunch
- Chicken
- Lots of Veggies
- Full Avocado
Second Lunch
- Cup of chicken bone broth with dash of black pepper
Dinner
- Main Course Protein (Red Meat, Chicken Breast, seafood)
- Mediterranean Salad or Mixed Green Salad of some sort
- Veggies (Broccoli, Asparagus, Zucchini, or some sort of Veggie mix)
The macros for this Keto Meal Plan above come within the bounds necessary to enter ketosis.
As you can see all I had to remove from my typical daily diet was the banana, brown rice with quinoa, and the bread from my sandwiches, besides that, I added in some more avocados, and just like that my diet qualified for the keto status. It won't be this easy for everyone, and keto is a very difficult diet, so don't let me make it sound simple, it's really not. (WARNING: Keto is probably the most difficult diet I've ever experimented with.)
Nevertheless, it didn’t take much to switch over. And after being in keto for over 6 weeks, I figured it was time to see how the diet was affecting my overall health, so I reached out to Jonathan at InsideTracker and I had my first blood draw booked. I waited a few weeks to receive the results and then a few more to analyze them myself, with doctors, and with other sports medicine professionals. Here’s what we discovered and the changes I’ll be making to optimize my health.
CHOLESTEROL (LDL, HDL, TRIGLYCERIDES)
As it relates to me, my results revealed to me some interesting tidbits about myself. In my family, we genetically have a higher cholesterol, specifically LDL (yes, the bad stuff) this is something that is difficult in my family to keep the numbers low on and that is true for me as well. When I discussed this with my doctors and other health consultants, the conclusion was not to worry too much about it, my ratio of HDL to LDL is good and has remained good, even though overall my Total Cholesterol and LDL have risen. The goal of using InsideTracker is so I can achieve optimum performance at my ultra events this year, that is why I had my blood tested in the first place. So, I spoke with Jonathan Levitt of InsideTracker and we came up with a game plan to supplement my diet in hopes of lowering my cholesterol with the addition of a spirulina supplement (available as a powder or tablets) to my diet. Currently, I am taking four tablets per day.
