Day 12

Breakfast
Sausage
Half of a café creme (other half put in fridge for later), with extra heavy cream added.

Lunch
2 hot 'n spicy flavour Kroger brand italian sausages (Kroger has them super cheap this week!)

Dinner
Other half of the café creme

Late-night movie-snacking stress-eating deliciousness
8 Brown 'N Serve brand hot and spicy sausages (I'm really on a sausage kick. No idea why.)
Some beef jerky
A small amount of Cracker Barrel brand Vermont white cheddar cheese
Heavy cream

Drinks
Selzter water (ingredients: carbonated water)
Café creme
About 3 oz heavy cream (one big serving)

Energy level
Physically and mentally much better than yesterday. I think my mind is slowly getting used to the idea that carbohydrates aren't a part of my body any more. In a few weeks (about 5 weeks from now, once the "food diary" portion of this blog is complete), I plan to write a detailed post about how your body can run on fat + protein alone. Until then, the quick and sweet: you will feel a small drop in cognitive and physical function for anywhere from 1 to 4 weeks while it does something called "ketoadaptation."

The physical drop happens because your body needs time to respond to its environment. It's not sure whether you just ate a single fat-based big meal, or whether it needs to permanently ramp up production of fat + protein digesting enzymes. The more fat you ate in your old diet, the faster you'll feel normal. After some time, you'll actually have more energy than before, since you'll no longer have the ups and downs of an insulin-based blood sugar (the "carb high" spikes and "carb crash" lows you get after eating a lot of chocolate cake, for instance, are only the extremes. Your blood sugar actually flucates all day when you eat carbs; when you eat primarily fat + a little protein, your blood sugar is steady all day. Don't believe me? Buy a diabetic blood sugar monitor and test yourself pre-carnivorous diet and one month into a carnivorous diet).

The mental drop happens because your brain's old fuel -- glucose -- is no longer available. Your brain cannot run on fat, so for a short time, your liver will try to meet your brain's ~100g/day requirement (not 100g of any carbs, 100g of glucose specifically) through a process called gluconeogenesis. Literally translated, that process means "making new glucose." After about 7 days (there's a scientific paper to back that 7 day statement; I'll dig the URL out of Evernote and link to it when I do the big post in 5 weeks), your body will begin using ketone bodies for fuel. This is where a lot of people freak out. Ketone bodies are not bad. Again: ketone bodies are perfectly normal, and are actually a better source of fuel for your brain than glucose. Okay. Now that you're not worried about starving brain tissue: ketone bodies are... sort of.... hm. The best way to describe them are as side products of fatty acid breakdown, except they're made purposefully when you run on fat + protein exclusively. Your brain can easily turn them into fuel. They also are building blocks for some very important lipids in the brain (myelin, for science readers). After a few weeks on a low carb (or zero carb) diet, participants in a study had increased cognitive function and increased attention span (link to published paper when I do the big post in 5 weeks). That last one is particularly important to me, with the whole upcoming-5-hour-long-MCAT thing hovering over my head and all. Unrelated, it also makes me wonder about the link between ADD/ADHD & carb intake.

So why do ketone bodies get such a bad rap? Diabetics have uncontrolled ketone body production when their disease is undiagnosed or untreated. The production is so out of control that their ketone bodies reach a concentration that can lower their blood pH. That's called ketoacidosis (concentrations above... 7mmol/L, I think), and can be fatal if not caught and corrected. Regular ketosis (about 0.05 to 0.3 mmol/L) is perfectly normal, though -- in fact, it occurs every time you exercise. So chill, and enjoy your ketone bodies.

Oh a note: This is one reason why it's so important to live on fatty meat. You need the fat for fuel. Don't try and live on lean chicken breast.

Cravings
N/a.

Overview/Crohn's symptoms
Not Crohn's related, but I have noticed I need more water than usual. Kind of expected -- you need lots of water to break down protein.