Day 5: entering a state of ketosis

Day: 5 of 42
Last recorded weight: 78.4
How I'm feeling today: still pretty weird and woolly in the head. I just want to stay in bed.

I skimmed back through Lost Your Middle-Aged Middle and could find no reference to feeling odd, other than the references to caffeine, Potassium and Sodium, so I did a quick search on the internet.

It quicky turned out that how I'm feeling is common when you embark on a low-carb fat reduction diet, and that I am entering a state of "ketosis". Acetone on the breath, dizziness - this is sounding alarmingly like diabetes.

Of course I shook my head when I realised that my feeling of having low blood sugar was exactly that. Of course my blood sugar has dropped - I'm not eating any! I just hadn't considered what happens when your blood sugar drops and you don't add any sugar back in.

And I'm very surprised, after the screeds of information about insulin and glycogen and amino acids that the Eades include in their book that they didn't explain this process, as it is essential to how the diet works.

Very simply put:

• The body uses glucose for energy, and when it's not available it turns to burning fat instead. 
• However the brain cannot use fatty acids as fuel, so the liver converts oxaloacetate to glucose, and the excess fatty acids to ketones, which can cross the brain-blood barrier
• Excess ketone bodies accumulate in your blood, leading to a state of ketosis, during which you can secrete acetone as the ketone degrade.

I mentioned this to a diabetic friend of mine, and she pointed out this kind of state is extremely dangerous to diabetics and can lead to kidney failure, however I've since discovered that this is a slightly different condition that occurs when your body cannot produce enough insulin. You see the glycogen has no balancing hormone so just goes crazy on the production of glucose, which will cause kidney failure. This condition is known as ketoacidosis.

There is no lack on controversy around deliberately placing yourself in a state of ketosis, with one the extreme claiming it is a state of starvation that puts strain on your internal organs, and the other side arguing that it's fairly likely that ketosis was the natural state of humans living in hunter gatherer times.

The Eades claim that far from damaging your liver with this diet, you are actually giving it a break from the constant insulin spikes and force feeding of cellular fat, and I can see their point. I'm not sure how my tummy's enjoying the lack of vegetable fibre however.

Tips When Using the Book

Apart from the gaping hole where there should have been mention of ketosis, there is one other really irritating thing about Lose Your Middle-Aged Middle, and that's that they have neglected to add page numbers next to the recipe references in both the recommended menus and the recipe contents page. They also use measures for things such as "75g grapes" when a number would be so much simpler: "22 grapes".

I suggest you write them in yourself.

Today's Meal: Grilled Steak with Creamy Cauliflower Puree, carrots and broccoli