Unkind labs with keto diet - where to go from here?

[Julie G]

Kudos on figuring out the skipped thyroid = elevated LDL-P connection, Dan. Make sense as upregulated thyroid activity promotes improved LDL-R activity. My guess is that the SunFiber will also result in improved lipids. One way that it works is by absorbing liquids (including fats) in the gut and increasing transit time. The fact that it improved my sleep so dramatically blew me away. No one advertises it for this purpose. I'm hypothesizing that the prebiotic quality must be feeding some gut bugs that create serotonin. It's pretty amazing stuff. The extreme sedative effect plateaus after a while, but I'm still getting decent benefit.

Julie, I think that SunFiber is really great stuff! Once I got to 5g / day, my sleep problems were over. I thought this was due to the extra running, but the sleep has been too, too consistent to be that. I'm at 12g now, and I will continue adding until I get 50g total per day - like you say you get. I also added a probiotic; maybe that contributed.

Whoa, Dan- did I say that I use 50g? Where? Please let me correct. I use one scoop a day, 7.5g. This is the stuff I'm using per my FMP's recommendation.

[DanH44]

Kudos on figuring out the skipped thyroid = elevated LDL-P connection, Dan. Make sense as upregulated thyroid activity promotes improved LDL-R activity. My guess is that the SunFiber will also result in improved lipids. One way that it works is by absorbing liquids (including fats) in the gut and increasing transit time. The fact that it improved my sleep so dramatically blew me away. No one advertises it for this purpose. I'm hypothesizing that the prebiotic quality must be feeding some gut bugs that create serotonin. It's pretty amazing stuff. The extreme sedative effect plateaus after a while, but I'm still getting decent benefit.

Julie, I think that SunFiber is really great stuff! Once I got to 5g / day, my sleep problems were over. I thought this was due to the extra running, but the sleep has been too, too consistent to be that. I'm at 12g now, and I will continue adding until I get 50g total per day - like you say you get. I also added a probiotic; maybe that contributed.

Whoa, Dan- did I say that I use 50g? Where? Please let me correct. I use one scoop a day, 7.5g. This is the stuff I'm using per my FMP's recommendation.

Sorry, Julie, Didn't mean to alarm you. I said "until I get to 50g total" meaning until I get to 50 g total fiber from food + SunFiber. Which is what you said you get. Apparently, the food in my diet has less fiber than yours. Clearly there's room for improvement. What are your food sources of fiber?

[Julie G]

Phew! I had some really bad images of you cursing my name . Yes I do get around 50 g TOTAL of fiber- tons of non-starchy vegs, nuts, seeds. Avocados are a surprisingly good source. Evidence shows that it even lowers LDL-P.

[DanH44]

Phew! I had some really bad images of you cursing my name . Yes I do get around 50 g TOTAL of fiber- tons of non-starchy vegs, nuts, seeds. Avocados are a surprisingly good source. Evidence shows that it even lowers LDL-P.

Sorry to keep bugging you, but can you tell me about how many fiber grams per day you get from each of non-starchy vegs, nuts, seeds, avocados and how many g of protein, fat and carbs you get typically? I want to do just what you do.

[Julie G]

Dan, keep in mind, what works for me; may not work for you. I suspect that I’m taller (5’9”) and weigh more (125 lbs.) You may have to scale my fiber intake to accommodate your slighter frame. I tend to switch it up a lot lately. One spread out meal a day is becoming my norm (4 days a week) with a two hour eating window. The longer fast allows me to to run BHB higher. I tested yesterday a few hours after waking at BG- 78 and BHB- 1.6 mmol/L. My typical macronutrient ratios are around 68% fat, 13% protein, and 19% carbs. You can do the math to figure grams. (See the photo below to see a breakdown of fiber grams on a sample day.) Only on days when I get around 2,100 calories (heavier work-out/2 meals) do I reach my 50+ grams of fiber from food. On lower calorie days, I obviously get less. FWIW, I've never added in my SunFiber on CRON-O-meter so my actual intake is 7.5 g higher.

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[DanH44]

Dan, keep in mind, what works for me; may not work for you. I suspect that I’m taller (5’9”) and weigh more (125 lbs.) You may have to scale my fiber intake to accommodate your slighter frame. I tend to switch it up a lot lately. One spread out meal a day is becoming my norm (4 days a week) with a two hour eating window. The longer fast allows me to to run BHB higher. I tested yesterday a few hours after waking at BG- 78 and BHB- 1.6 mmol/L. My typical macronutrient ratios are around 68% fat, 13% protein, and 19% carbs. You can do the math to figure grams. (See the photo below to see a breakdown of fiber grams on a sample day.) Only on days when I get around 2,100 calories (heavier work-out/2 meals) do I reach my 50+ grams of fiber from food. On lower calorie days, I obviously get less. FWIW, I've never added in my SunFiber on CRON-O-meter so my actual intake is 7.5 g higher.
IMG_2624.JPG

Julie, Thank you for this; it is so helpful. I see I've been going at this from the wrong direction. I'm actually totally amazed at what you eat! Working back from fiber content to gram intake, I get


That's a huge amount of broc, spinach, asparagus and lettuce to eat in a 2 hr window, even scaled down by 10%!! Well, anyway, it's something to shoot for - you probably didn't eat like this right from the get-go. I'll be finishing up on my current diet experiment [12g SunFiber (total fiber 42), fat rolled back to 70%, and SFA rolled back to 7.5g] in a few weeks, so I'll get tested again and then try to shoot for doing what you do. It will be interesting!

Again, thank you so much for all your help!

[Julie G]

That's a huge amount of broc, spinach, asparagus and lettuce to eat in a 2 hr window, even scaled down by 10%!!

True , you'll note that I mentioned I only reach 50 grams of fiber via food on days that I eat two meals. I'm much less meticulous than you in record keeping, but I'll try to work up a few one meal fiber values for you to see where I end up on those days.

[DanH44]

I only reach 50 grams of fiber via food on days that I eat two meals.

Aha, so that day was a 2 meal day; that makes it more doable! And I guess then, to hit 2100 cals with your macros, you would have to eat an additional 50g protein, 65g fat, and 17g carb from food without fiber.

When you have 2 meals in a day, how big a window do they fall into?

[Julie G]

When you have 2 meals in a day, how big a window do they fall into?

It varies, but around 6 hours. It's also worth noting that my caloric intake is obviously less on one meal days. Have you gotten your fiber intake up? How many grams a day?

[DanH44]

Have you gotten your fiber intake up? How many grams a day?

It's 44 g/day now, up from 32 g/day just before that scary 2004 LDL-P NMR on July 12. This has been enough to totally end the sleep problems I was having, so hopefully it might be enough to reduce LDL-P.

That 44 number includes my 10g of SunFiber fiber per day, so I've only improved my fiber intake from food by 2g/day. I plan to increase that after I complete this experiment and get tested. The next experiment will be a "Julee diet mimetic". I will let you know the results of that one when it's complete.