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Sunday, Nov 29, 2020 - 21:46 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Data Binge (Keto)

Given that there's so much on the backburner already, this week will be devoted to a brief data dump. Here we go!


Weight, over past four months
[N.B. Possible "healing phase" observed?]


I figured I had let myself go a little sometime back in July, after accidentally catching sight of my profile in the bathroom mirror, and figured it might be time to do something about it - with minimal effort expended, of course. First, the results: almost 10kg lost in slightly under four months, from 82.2kg at a maximum to 72.3kg minimum, at a roughly 1.5 pounds/week clip - which appears to be smack in the middle of the recommended rate. Measurements above were averaged from that taken twice daily whilst minimally clothed, once upon waking and once before going to bed. Although weighing scales are hardly exactly precise, and appear to possibly give slightly-different results depending on exactly how one stands on them, the above should be a fair approximation of progress made.

A natural plateau seems to have been reached at around 73kg, and it looks like it won't be broken without additional adjustments, but we'll get to that. As to how the initial 10kg was lost - which took BMI down from 26.8 to an improved 23.8 for now - it was done almost entirely through caloric restriction. As the most-entertaining fat loss article I've found on the Internet has it, it doesn't matter that much what your macros are (i.e. distribution of carbohydrates, fats and protein), and even less when and in what portion size one chooses to consume them. Basically, nutrients in equals energy out/burnt or stored as fat over the long run, and there's no real getting around it.

It follows then that it's much easier to lose weight (or maintain one's ideal weight) by eating less, as opposed to exercising (which is probably good, otherwise we'd be dropping left and right from starvation) - a single chocolate chip cookie (about 100 calories) would take nearly half an hour of jogging to burn away, and while exercise undeniably has other health benefits (R.I.P Maradona, an object study in how a great athlete can succumb to the fast life), there are only so many waking hours in a day, after all, and there's no running off an extra pizza for most people on regular workday schedules.



The more weight one begins with, the faster the loss!
(Source: r/pics)


The sad truth of the matter is that it's generally only too easy to comfortably exceed one's caloric needs in developed countries in modern times, if one avails themselves of government aid and does some planning (not always done, even locally), which to be fair doesn't guarantee tastiness or specific nutritional value (instant ramen, rice and beans, anyone?). As such, the biggest challenge for those of even mediocre finances would be in consciously refusing a munch - and let's face it, life's often easier with a cookie or ice cream or two. You have those who can eat a single banana and workout for eight hours a day nearly non-stop to lose several pounds daily (N.B. each pound of fat contains about 3,500 calories), but frankly, that's not nearly sustainable for most. The idea, then, is to obtain enough nutrients to run at a slight caloric deficit whilst not feeling hungry, such that one can go about one's duties are per normal - which is where the ketogenic diet comes in.

A big selling point of the "high-fat, medium protein, low carb" diet is that it supposedly encourages the body to enter ketosis, which in turn causes stored fat to be burnt. While this may well be true, the key benefit seems to be that a high-fat diet keeps one feeling satiated, which is most of the battle right there. Indeed, the demonization of fat intake appears to be another example of medical research being twisted to favour stakeholders, though the culprit may have been Big Soda here. Apparently, they've funded research - along with the sugar industry - to push the blame for obesity and heart disease from sugar to fat over the past decades, and it's only now that the link between sugar and say diabetes is being emphasized.

It's not that straightfoward to embark on a strict keto diet in Singapore, admittedly, given how much rice and other carbs feature in our restaurants and food courts, before going into how my requests for less rice from the campus economy rice aunty seemed to have wounded her sense of hospitality. There are a few keto-friendly outlets dotted around, but being the lazy bum that I was, I opted to try the Ketomei meal subscription service (founded by a fellow NUS Computer Science alumni) out. There have been no real complaints thus far, and the variety has been good for about S$9 per meal (after discount), two meals a day. Cost really shouldn't stop those on a budget from trying keto out, since one can probably get great deals on tasty self-cooked alternatives like rotisserie chicken and eggs.

I confess I haven't even been following the diet all that cleanly, what with weekly family dinners (cheat meals, I suppose), the occasional fast food takeout and plenty of nuts and mints as supplementation, so ten kilos in fifteen weeks should be a fair start; I'll probably coast along for a bit here, while figuring out the next step of the body recomposition plan.



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