Well, I've been having more trouble keeping up with my blog than keeping up with the diet.
It's been 3 weeks and 1 day. I weighed in at exactly 266.0 this morning. That is 1 pound short of 20 pounds in three weeks!! Pretty good.
I have been eating eggs with cheese for breakfast every morning, cheese and luncheon meat for snacks, and some sort of big piece of grilled meat for dinner (fish, sausage, steak, chicken, pork) and I often supplement with a side salad. I still have quit the nuts. Last week was my birthday and my wife's birthday, it was hard not to have sweets. I survived, but came home and had an Atkins bar. I guess that's what they are for. I still can't imagine doing this my whole life.
I previously talked about what is down regulated with the Atkins diet, so now I would like to touch on what is up regulated. Essentially, because the Atkins dieter takes away the insulin response, the body starts metabolizing dietary fat as well as body fat to survive. This is first accomplished by hormonal control. When blood glucose falls below a certain level (3.58 mmol/L), growth hormone, epinephrine, and glucagon are induced to signal the body to start burning fat (glucagon actually is used to initiate glucose release from glycogen in the liver, of which there is very little on Atkins). Epinephrine and glucagon in particular signal fat tissue to break fat into fatty acids. Fatty acids are just long carbon chains with an acid group at the end. These fatty acids, via the beta oxidation cycle, are converted into acetyl Coa which can be thrown into the TCA cycle for energy. The excess acety CoA (there is a lot off it due to the amount of fat burning going on) is shuttled to other tissues and converted to ketones. Hence, the name ketosis. Eventually, these ketones are converted back to acetyl CoA and sent back into the TCA cycle for energy. Simple as that.
My question still is, how many calories am I consuming a day? I will try and begin to take note of this on my blog next week (today is Saturday, maybe I will start Monday). That way I can compare how much I am taking in calorie wise on the Atkins and compare it to my normal basic metabolic needs when I was not on the Atkins.
Transforming biochemistry knowledge into weight loss:
This page was begun as an experiment. An experiment I was conducting on myself. An experiment to test which conditions would allow me to loose weight. Now that I have been at it for a while I realize this page serves as more. It serves as a means for me to research. It is a way for me to pick health topics of interest, research them from a biochemistry stand point, and then share them with the world. Sharing them with you gives me an official feeling and keeps me motivated. However, as described below, I am still experimenting on myself.
How did this happen? I don't know exactly although I am almost sure it boils down to diet and exercise. I hope to find the answers as I explore my journey through weight loss on this blog. I was not always fat. Therefore, I know that I can be unfat again.
I am a biochemist. I should have known better. Of all people, I should have known how to avoid this predicament I am in now. I now wish to harness my scientific knowledge to experiment on myself as well as explore the chemical basis for weight loss methods.
Methods:
I will try new diets. I will experiment on myself. The diets will be chosen from among the most popular in our society. I will chronicle the results and my general experience in my blog here. I will also explore the biochemical basis for these diets as well as evaluate their effectiveness and truthfulness. I will also exercise as regularly as possible, 3-5 times per week, to avoid biasing the results. I will try to keep everything constant in my life except the diet. My method is not perfect. I don't necessarily want to lose raw pounds, but rather gain an understanding of what methods work best for me to permanently regain my health.
Hypothesis:
1. No diet will be clearly better than the others. Conversely, each diet will offer some truth, some piece of knowledge or methodology that I can take away with me to help myself. I think that in the end, I will be able to formulate my own diet based on a synthesis of all the things I have learned from all of these diets.
2. I have been on diets before, lost weight, and then regained it. I wasn't born fat. Given that, I think that my main problem will be shown to be psychological. I think that I may have compulsive eating problems- compulsive eating problems associated with very unhealthy foods.
3. I will lose quite a bit of weight. My blog will help keep my motivation levels high.
4. There will be a lack of clear scientific basis to many of the diets.
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