On Thu, 7 Oct 1999, Susan Carmack wrote:

> Hi Todd,
> Please tell us what you eat daily.
>
> >I mention these things because of my consistent experience that
> >after about three weeks of extreme low-carb dieting I pretty much
> >hit the wall.  That is, I am so uncomfortable that I must give it
> >up.  The heart palpitations are especially annoying.

I presume you want to know what I eat daily when I am attempting
an extreme low-carb ketogenic diet, which is not my usual plan.
First of all, there is the matter of why I even bother to try
that sort of diet.  The answer is that I still need to lose
weight.  I read about various people's successes with ketogenic
diets and I get the idea that I should try it again.

Okay, so here's what I do.  I eat boiled eggs and pork sausage
for breakfast, or maybe sardines in olive oil instead of the
sausage.  I keep plenty of not-so-lean hamburger around (the 75%
lean kind) and have that for other meals; also I get the big
trays of chicken wings and legs and I broil up a bunch of them
and keep them in the refrigerator.  I also eat a lot of beef
ribs, since they have a fair amount of fat on them; I generally
broil them with seasonings.  For snacks I keep bags of pork
cracklings around.  Throw in some romaine lettuce salad with
olive oil and vinegar dressing once a day and there you have it.

For the first week or so, I feel pretty good.  By the end of the
second week I'm dragging a bit.  My legs have the feeling that
they are made of lead when I climb stairs (I do a lot of stair
climbing at work).  My pushup capacity is halved.  This is when I
know I'm tapped out of glycogen.  By the end of the third week
I'm experiencing mood swings, the "fight or flight" feeling, and
heart palpitations.  By this time my appetite is *voracious*; I
can eat an entire bag of cracklings (about 1,000 kcal) at a
sitting and still want more.  If I go ahead and eat more my
weight goes up.

Only once have I had my cholesterol checked after doing three
weeks of this sort of thing, for what it's worth.  It went from
its already high reading of 296 to 320.  Since it's short term,
this may be meaningless.

During the past 2.5 years I have tried this sort of experiment
maybe 6 times, judging by my notes.  Only twice was I able to get
past three weeks; in all cases the experience was eventually
unpleasant enough that I wanted to stop.  The interesting thing
is that my *initial* reaction to ketosis is positive; I really do
feel pretty good for the first few days, up to a week.

My normal diet includes fruit, veggies, and nuts and the
occasional cheat, and my carb intake probably averages around
75g/day, maybe more.

Todd Moody
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