So I’ve already completed Week 2 of my Ketogenic Diet Experiment and so far it’s going well. If you haven’t read week 1, read it here. I’ve decided that this week I won’t break down each day, I’ll just highlight the key moments of the week.

Stats

• Weight: 82.5kg (84.7kg last week)
• Blood Pressure: 101/72 (114/72 last week)

Blood Pressure Has Dropped already

My weight has dropped and so has my blood pressure. Nice! This is a pretty big weight loss compared to last week and I’m under no illusions that this is all body fat.

Most of this weight loss is going to be water. That’s pretty typical after a week of Keto. I know that due to the amount I was back and forth to the loo during the first few days and drinking like a fish!

Reduced water retention usually results in lower blood pressure which of course is a big plus!

I’m quite surprised at the differences in such a small amount of time

Physically I already feel leaner and a lot less bloated, another big tick for me.

Photo’s

Some more cringy photos! I can see a considerable difference here between this week and last weeks photos. At the beginning of week 2, I’m looking a lot less bloated – my waist has shrunk and there’s definitely more vascularity. There is only a weeks difference between these photo’s as both were taken at the beginning of weeks 1 and 2, so I’m quite surprised at the differences in such a small amount of time!

Butchers – Full Fat Sausages Please!

On the weekend I made a visit to the butchers on a mission to find some sausage mincemeat and also some oxtail or some bones for some bone broth!

So I popped into Prinns Butchers on Crwys Rd in Cardiff. It’s pretty well-known butchers that’s been around since I was a kid. I thought these guys are bound to have some fatty delights in stock. I ask for some sausage meat, at first, they said they don’t sell it separately only separate sausages in the casings. Then he managed to find some ‘out the back’, ha – it was a bit pricey and unfortunately ‘low fat’, but it was my only option 🙁

I can grab it from Asda/Tesco but up to now, I’m finding it difficult to find sausagemeat that doesn’t have sugar added to it! Keto is enlightening – it’s amazing how much stuff I’m finding has sugar added to it. A bag of pork scratchings that I mentioned last week, added sugar. Why?!

Week 2 Day 1 Food Diary

Anyway – with the sausage meat from the butchers I made a big batch of breakfast muffins. They were delicious but not quite filling enough. I suspect this is because of the lack of fat in the sausagemeat, lesson learned!

Here is the ‘Keto Breakfast Muffins Recipe‘ from cavemanketo.com. These little beauties are really handy to grab and go when rushing to get to work!

I also made some ‘Keto Lemon Poppyseed Muffins’. These have been a godsend this week – no sugar in them whatsoever but you’d never guess. They’ve helped me inject some calories into my day, especially on a training day.

Training – Full Body Strength Workout A

It was a decent week for training. I made some progress on my strength workouts despite the lack of carbs. However, the finisher routine at the end of Full Body Strength Workout A really did kill me this week. I found I was out of breath a lot quicker than usual when doing med ball slams and jumping lunges. I had to sit down for ages afterwards to recover!

I’m not surprised at that at all. The body has different energy systems for different intensities of training. At higher intensities when the heart rate increases, the body immediately looks for its old trusty source of carbohydrates for energy. That’s because it is usually more readily available and quicker to access, technically this is known as the Anaerobic/Lactate System. In Keto, this previously readily available source is no longer available hence why I started to fatigue a lot quicker. My body has not yet fully adapted to using fat as it’s energy source, especially when training at higher intensities.

I had brain fog and a headache and literally could not think straight in work

Here are my stats for this workout straight out of Excel:

Training – Full Body Strength Workout B

Similar story for 30 Minute Full Body Strength Workout B. Good progress on all the exercises but tough on the higher intensity stuff. The farmer’s walks were particularly hard. These are done immediately after 2 lengths of walking sandbag lunges so my heart rate is usually already increasing by this point.

Overall though, I still made progress on nearly all of the exercise so It’s all good!

Training – Running Workouts

Attempted a run on Friday with OBSTAFIT Run Club. This was my first run in 2 weeks since breaking my toe, it was painful but completed it no probs. We did about 9.5k – energy levels consistent throughout. This was at a pretty slow steady pace.

Low Potassium/Keto Flu

This week I definitely had a taste of Keto Flu. It wasn’t as bad as some people report it to be and I quickly resolved it.

It happened on Wednesday. I had brain fog and a headache and literally could not think straight in work. I checked my Potassium levels in My Fitness Pal and noticed they were very low. On Keto, it’s recommended that we get at least 5000mg of Potassium (2000 more than the recommended amount. Simple reason being, when carbs are dropped we lose lots of water and therefore electrolytes.

This was a bit of a mare for me as it happened just before my first workout of the week, Strength Workout A and I was not feeling up to it. So I did some more reading and found out that Lo-Salt contains 450g of potassium per 1/4 tsp. Perfect, I picked up some Lo-Salt from Morrisons before going to the gym and chucked 1/2 tsp in some water. It did the job nicely, I felt much better. It’s crazy how finely tuned our bodies are – I now think I should have paid more interest during my chemistry/biology lessons in school!

Brain Clarity/Focus

Other than the brain fog/keto flu on Monday, I have to say I’ve been feeling pretty good. My energy levels feel constant throughout the day. No ups and downs like I was getting sometimes on my usual diet. My days have been pretty productive in work. I can’t say I’ve noticed a massive difference in clarity so far, mainly the fact that my brain feels constantly ready to go – I don’t get the flagging feeling that I used to get sometimes in the afternoon after consuming carbs at lunch!

Week 2 Keto Diet Summary

It’s been a good consistent week. I’m starting to get the hang of things now, just need to work on my energy levels for my workouts!

Read Week 3 Here