My previous experiment where all of my calories for 4 weeks came via Keto Chow brought out some interesting data in my 3rd week. That week I changed my fat source from heavy cream over to avocado oil, this resulted in some remarkable blood tests. A question arises as to whether my elevated triglycerides, lowered LDL, lowered HDL, and more oddities are a result of the reduced carbohydrates (under 2g net a day average), or the composition of the fats I was eating: Saturated vs. Monounsaturated, vs. Polyunsaturated. I’m planning on doing a more in-depth experiment in early 2018 but this shorter experiment will serve to further solidify a hypothesis and steer the latter test.
Experiment Methodology
Food for the experiment:
- My plan was that all of my calories would be coming via Keto Chow. Specifically a pre-release version of Keto Chow 2.1 (uses milk protein isolate instead of whey protein isolate)
- Half of my fat calories came from heavy cream and half from avocado oil – specifically, I did 66ml of heavy cream and 33ml of avocado oil in each meal.
- Part of the Keto Chow recipe is fish pills – I also took these to get the necessary EPA and DHA Ω3 fatty acids.
Test Plan:
- I did a 1 week “Washout” period where I ate the half heavy cream, half avocado oil Keto Chow.
- I did a blood test at the beginning of the actual testing and repeated it again after a week.
- Comp. Metabolic Panel
- CBC With Differential/Platelet
- Insulin
- C-Reactive Protein, Cardiac
- NMR LipoProf +Graph
- Lipid Panel
- Every day I tested my blood ketones – I used a “KetoMojo” blood tester for this due to the lower cost per ketone test.
- My weight was tracked using a Withings scale.
Food Logs
One of the main criticisms of Morgan Spurlock’s “Supersize Me” is that he absolutely refuses to release his food logs. You can’t take an experiment, even a N=1 experiment seriously unless you can look over the data. I’ll have my entire food log available here in various formats. Mind, it’s going to be pretty dull. The data will be collected using Cron-O-Meter.
If you’re REALLY into the data, I also have my Cron-o-meter export in CSV format for all the nutrients consumed during the experiment.
Blood and Other Tests
I have added my results from this test to my previous test’s spreadsheet so that you can compare the results of both experiments.
Testing Experience
For the most part, it was quite nice to be back on exclusively Keto Chow. The only real downside was that this experiment fell right in the middle of the run-up to Christmas with the accompanying parties and dinners. That sucks in that I passed on some really awesome Keto food that I normally would have eaten, but what better time of year to skip all that? =)
This experiment I didn’t limit myself to no other non-caloric sweeteners, so I did have some sugar-free gum every day or so. That was enough to keep the “filminess” I experienced with my teeth in my last experiment. I also used some “water enhancer” which helps me to drink more and stay hydrated.
Results of the Experiment and Analysis
Here’s where the cool stuff will show up!