Diet Experiment - Very Low Carb, Day 1

I've read enough about the benefits of this and been wanting to try it for a long time. Also, my wife had gestational diabetes, and went low carb, and she actually lost (fat) weight relative to her pre-pregnancy for the first five months - so it works! (That's without ANY additional exercise.) My intention is to get as close to zero carb, and zero fat as possible. I will be providing gory details so if you don't want to hear about blood chemistry, poop consistency, the whole nine yards, this is not the post series for you.

Zero carb!?!? you say? Yes I know about rabbit starvation, but partly I'm trying to induce ketosis, and I doubt I'll actually eliminate all carbs or fat so I will keep that as the goal knowing I may fall short. If I start rabbit-starving because I'm so committed, then it's easier to relax a bit than to wonder why it's not working when I'm aiming at x milligrams of carbs, and overshooting it.

So begins my experiment. I'll be posting my diet here partly to commit myself in public (embarrassing if I don't stick with it) and partly in case it's useful to others. I didn't have any kind of ease-in, just went from my crappy junk food diet day zero to this on...

Day 1:

• 1 can of tuna fish in water
• 5 swallows of heavy whipping cream (forgot about the diet for two seconds. See the crap I eat?)
• 8 oz of lentils (with portions experimentally spiced with Japanese curry, turmeric, cumin, garlic, black pepper, oregano and basil. Japanese curry and black pepper were best.)
• 1 tilapia fillet
• 1/2 bell pepper

Effects: by the end of the day I had a very mild headache. Unusual for me, as I've had probably ten headaches in my life. I'm mildly more hungry, with occasional but not out-of-the ordinary carb cravings; i.e., while thinking I would make a sandwich for dinner, I had to catch myself to remind myself that that wouldn't be happening. No workouts today.


Comments:

- Some question the wisdom of making such a profound change in diet when I'm already sleep-deprived with a newborn at home. But waiting for the ideal time to try something is often just a way of avoiding ever trying it. Another way to look at it: if ultra-low carb makes me feel terrible, well I'm already miserable, so why not?

- I also started taking a probiotic today. While I'm starving my high-carb flora, if I really want to give them the old 1-2, I could either take high-dose antibiotics (not responsible and carries risk) or load in a bunch of new competition just as the old ones are weak. And so far, the only effect is maybe a mildly softer stool. I've tried them before and it smelled like a wet cattle ranch, so this isn't nearly as bad.

- This diet is of course washed down with an ungodly amount of Diet Mountain Dew, which I'm also considering cutting out. People have actually warned me that switching over to all protein and vegetables AND stopping soda could leave me hyponatremic, when suddenly my body that's used to getting of salt is getting NO salt.

- I will be checking my lipids and A1c after 6 weeks and comparing to my most recent values.