It’s been roughly a month since the last update and as you might expect, not much has changed. Still making slow but sure progress. I’m generally feeling a lot better, although not without some issues for sure.
Generally I have been successful with reducing my average calories, and although not recorded, my exercise is significantly up now too. Later I’ll discuss some of the outcomes of this.
Recap
Addressing the points I made in the previous article:
Exhaustion – This has felt a lot better since I last brought it up - I’m not sure why. I have increased my coffee intake and this seems to have mostly starved off these side effects. Coffee is an appetite suppressant, so perhaps this is somewhat part of it - I’m not sure.
Ketoacidosis – A month ago I had some concerns about potentially dropping into ketoacidosis, due to a rare form of kidney failure. I’ve since had my kidney function checked (I will go into this later) and they are operating perfectly - much to the doctor’s surprise.
Cravings – The other week I had overexerted myself after having already blown through my daily calories and carbohydrates, so I was on a real energy-low. My friends purchased some cake or bread (I can’t quite remember) and that smell drove me mad. I had to remove myself from the situation and go to sleep. Other than this, I was thinking about a friend’s idea to create a tea shop with cakes, and after thinking about many different types of cakes, I was almost visibly drooling. The craving is certainly still existing, but it takes a lot more to make it come out. Ultimately if I don’t adequately address this, it will be a problem when this diet comes to its conclusion.
Protein shake – I have been successful in replacing cheese with protein shake for the most part - except I’ve simply just not had that much of a snack anyway.
Creatine – As I’ve not been consuming too much protein shake, my intake of creatine has not been so high.
Heart rate – This has generally increased, so I am not really sure what was going on there. I generally feel that my heart rate hasn’t experienced a significant drop in the last few weeks, so I think things are much better now. No idea what was happening there, perhaps an illness?
Doctor – I did finally see a doctor, although not under the circumstances I expected. I will discuss this further shortly.
Running – I did attempt to start running again, but mostly failed. Although my weight is much less, my body is still very adverse to running - even more so that it was previously. I suspect this is in part due to being fully fat adapted, meaning that I have zero energy stores available for quick and dirty energy pulls.
Cost – I have very bad at reducing cost recently, but I have made some investments that should allow me to save a lot of money in the near future. Given everything else going on, I’ve been haemorrhaging thousands of dollars this month.
And with that out of the way…
Social
This section worked really well for me last time as the micro-blogging allows me to make small notes that I am able to refer back to at a later date. So again I will go back through my #keto updates and discuss them one by one in reverse time order.
Leg spasms are still something I’m quite concerned about and need to get properly checked after the visa medical is done. The spasms have continued after this post and continue to get slightly worse, although not crazily worse.
I need to stop buying keto ice cream in any case, it’s simply too damn expensive to do so. It’s time to start tucking some money away.
Again I discussed the issue of leg spasms, it’s a problem that has essentially been plaguing me for at least this month.
My leading theory is that it’s some form of vitamin deficiency, as it’s affecting all of my muscles at the same time. Just today even I was trying on shoes in the shop and my foot went into spasm. The fact that it’s happening in random places I think is a good sign. If it was just one muscle I would be much more concerned.
Unfortunately the blood tests required testing my fasting glucose levels. Fortunately enough for me, I’m mostly eating one meal a day or so, and this really wasn’t a challenge for me.
So this was me panicking about having to perform the test with the spasms going on. As you may imagine, I was really quite concerned about having to undergo the tests.
When they were taking the blood samples, I could literally feel my blood being emptied from my brain and the left side of my body. Not a pleasant feeling, I imagine it’s what bleeding out might feel like.
To celebrate completing the tests, I then decided to have six beers - as you do. This went about as well as one might imagine. Was pretty funny for me to talk to people whilst drunk and then awful staying awake long enough to become sober again.
I’ll discuss this in more detail shortly, but in short, the doctor was very pleased with my progress since my previous health check-up in November.
Medical Check
This is probably the most exciting part of the report here! Rather than some bullshit wishy-washy “I feel better” report, I actually have some numbers to share to backup my words. The following are the direct results from the Doctor’s practice and additionally I will add some reference numbers, as these mean nothing on their own to me and I assume to you the reader too.
Disclaimer: I’m by no means an expert, so please do not use me as a reference for your own progress, etc. Please seek proper medical advice, specifically somebody who specialises in keto diets to properly understand your results.
Results: Albumin Creatinine Ratio
According to the trusty internet, this is a urine test to ensure to test my kidneys are operating correctly. As my microalbuminuria levels were much less that 30 mg/L, coming in at 9 mg/L - this indicates my kidneys are operating well.
Additionally, they tested urine creatinine - essentially another by-product of muscles. Apparently it’s just used to test how dilute the urine is, encase I had drunk lots of water or mixed water into my sample. This is then used to produce a checking ratio below.
Results: Glycated Haemoglobin
HbA1c is supposed to be your average blood glucose for the last 2-3 months. It is suggested that if you are at risk of type 2 diabetes (which I was), then your levels should be below 42 mmol/mol (6%). Mine at 29 mmol/mol (4.8%) is very good at preventing diabetes.
Results: Lipids Master Panel
The lipids panel is possibly the most controversial - the jury is literally still out to whether high or low HDL/LDL is good or bad.
Total cholesterol – Desirable is below 5.18 mmol/L - I have 4.4 mmol/L, great.
Triglyceride – Desirable is below 1.7 mmol/L - I have 1.0 mmol/L, great.
HDL cholesterol – Desirable is greater than 1.5 mmol/L - I have 1.35 mmol/L, good.
LDL cholesterol – Desirable is below 1.8 mmol/L - I have 2.6 mmol/L, good.
Cholesterol/HDL Ratio seems to be another internal measurement.
Considering I weigh 110-120 kg, these numbers are actually pretty exceptional.
Results: Renal Function Panel
Apparently my renal function is about average. Not good, not great. It essentially just says that my kidneys are functioning exactly correctly.
Results: Urine Dipstick
This test is quite hard to decipher, but I am told the numbers are as expected. I am currently trying to get more information regarding these numbers.
The doctor remembered me and was generally very impressed with the progress I have made. Before I left my previous medical test I informed him of my intension to lose weight, and I think he seemed pleasantly surprised that I had made so much progress.
Next Steps
In the next steps, I have the following goals:
Further medical tests – I need to figure out why my muscles keep going into spasm. I think I am vitamin deficient, but I cannot for the life of me figure out which one it is.
Running – I am so close to being able to run again it’s unreal. I really want to be able to go out running again. I’ll definitely need to build myself up again, but I am looking forward to the day where I can run again. I really expect progress to massively increase once this is the case.
Coffee Space 
Social
This section worked really well for me last time as the micro-blogging allows me to make small notes that I am able to refer back to at a later date. So again I will go back through my
#ketoupdates and discuss them one by one in reverse time order.Leg spasms are still something I’m quite concerned about and need to get properly checked after the visa medical is done. The spasms have continued after this post and continue to get slightly worse, although not crazily worse.
I need to stop buying keto ice cream in any case, it’s simply too damn expensive to do so. It’s time to start tucking some money away.
Again I discussed the issue of leg spasms, it’s a problem that has essentially been plaguing me for at least this month.
My leading theory is that it’s some form of vitamin deficiency, as it’s affecting all of my muscles at the same time. Just today even I was trying on shoes in the shop and my foot went into spasm. The fact that it’s happening in random places I think is a good sign. If it was just one muscle I would be much more concerned.
Unfortunately the blood tests required testing my fasting glucose levels. Fortunately enough for me, I’m mostly eating one meal a day or so, and this really wasn’t a challenge for me.
So this was me panicking about having to perform the test with the spasms going on. As you may imagine, I was really quite concerned about having to undergo the tests.
When they were taking the blood samples, I could literally feel my blood being emptied from my brain and the left side of my body. Not a pleasant feeling, I imagine it’s what bleeding out might feel like.
To celebrate completing the tests, I then decided to have six beers - as you do. This went about as well as one might imagine. Was pretty funny for me to talk to people whilst drunk and then awful staying awake long enough to become sober again.
I’ll discuss this in more detail shortly, but in short, the doctor was very pleased with my progress since my previous health check-up in November.