I was in ketosis for years & here’s what I learnt

Nomming a grass-fed beef burger wrapped in lettuce leaves while my hubby eats his with the bun

I used to test my blood and urine most days.

In my bathroom, I kept a monitoring device and batches of test strips - some that you pee on, others you dab with a drop of your blood - so I could check the level of ketones and glucose circulating in my body at any given moment.

This fascinated me.

A certain level of ketones in a reading confirmed that my strange new eating habit was having the desired effect and I was in a metabolic state of ketosis. I say “strange” because very few people I knew had heard of a ketogenic diet when I decided to begin experimenting with it back in 2013.

I was eating a heck of a lot of fat and very little carbohydrate. As a result, my body was using those fats for energy instead of the glucose that would usually have come from eating carbs.

I’d decided to ‘go keto’ for a number of reasons. Curiosity, for one. But also, after hearing I could consistently eat all of my favourite fatty foods to satiety and feel the effects of longer-lasting energy, rather than deal with the highs and lows of blood sugar swings from frequent snacking - all without putting on a ton of weight, apparently. I'm one of those people who’s pretty much always hungry and loves nomming large portions. In fact, even typing this right now is making me hungry.

I’d learned of the reported benefits of a ketogenic high-fat low-carb diet, such as mental clarity and upgraded mitochondrial health. And, with a job in TV as a news journalist and presenter - frequently filming on location with little time to eat - I wanted a way to sustain my energy for longer periods. I’d heard that being in a state of ketosis would help achieve this.

The ketogenic way of eating has actually been around for decades and is known as a management tool for seizures in children with epilepsy. 

It’s also been found to significantly reduce weight in obese patients while lowering triglycerides, LDL cholesterol and blood glucose, and increasing the level of HDL (that’s the ‘good’) cholesterol. 

While other studies suggest the diet could help reduce the growth of cancer tumours in mice, which raises questions about its potential for humans trying to fight the disease.

Before going keto, I’d absorbed a wealth of information on it and felt I’d got my head around the basics.

This article isn’t a recommendation for you to try a ketogenic diet, it’s merely a piece about my experiences. If you choose to try it out - read the science and let a nutritionist or dietician know what you plan to do so they can advise on how to keep the diet nutrient-dense and with adequate fibre.

Did I enjoy it?

I loved it. 

I gorged on fatty grass-fed meats, oily fish, cheeses, olives and green leafy vegetables. I covered nearly everything I ate with my favourite fats: olive oil, coconut oil, grass-fed butter and MCT oil. I would eat thick cream neat off the spoon (by the bowl full). Sometimes, a snack would simply be a stick of solid butter. There were lots of avocados too - further drizzled in good fats.

Oily fish was one of my fave dishes while in ketosis

When you hear people say being in ketosis is simply eating “high fat foods,” that doesn’t mean you eat calorific ice cream and donuts.  Those kinds of foods are high in sugar too.

Ketosis is all about scrapping sugar. Carbohydrates like bread, pasta, rice, oats and potatoes are also out (the carb factor diminishes ketone bodies in the blood and you are therefore thrown out of the state of ketosis).

Instead, you focus on healthy fats and some saturated fats, not hydrogenated or trans fats and refined processed vegetable oils.

I was loving keto so much I even tailored my wedding day dessert to fit with the diet. Instead of eating our stunning wedding cake - I tucked into a large bowl of pure full-fat clotted cream. On its own. But to be frank, I would opt for big portions of yummy thick cream rather than cake any day. I genuinely just prefer it.

As for birthday celebrations during my keto phase - I remember my mum making up a plate of full-fat cheeses (complete with birthday candles!) for me one year.

All of this might seem like utterly miserable carb-deprivation, but I didn’t actually find it hard (sounds smug even writing doesn’t it?). I want to point out here that, separately from my keto endeavours, I haven’t eaten sweets since 1998 when two practitioners linked my debilitating teenage anxiety and panic attacks to blood sugar swings. I was 14. My mum even booked me a session with a hypnotherapist to help quit my sugary habit. I haven’t craved sweets since. I can’t say if it was the hypnotherapy that did it, but I can say that the fear of living with anxiety attacks felt greater than the fear of living without sweet stuff.

Ketogenic living was high-fat heaven for me

You might be thinking that I must have gained lots of weight during this four-year period of full-fat gluttony. But no - I didn’t gain significant amounts of fat. Although looking back on photos I’d say I gained a couple of kilos, nothing to write home about.

I covered most meals in extra virgin olive oil to boost the fat content in my ketogenic diet

There’s a theory that eating so much fat makes you feel fuller, therefore you naturally eat less on a keto plan. Perhaps that’s why the keto diet is used by some as a weight-loss tool. However, my appetite has always been big, no matter what kind of foods I’m consuming.

Near the beginning of my keto journey, I got in touch with an experienced doctor who was knowledgeable about a ketogenic lifestyle. I became a patient of hers. She encouraged me to introduce some carb cycling as she felt women fared better from a hormonal point of view if they included some starches in their diet.

For a while, I followed my doctor’s advice and added a carb 're-feed' day once or twice a week. But I didn’t enjoy it so didn’t keep it up for long. I much preferred the feeling (and tastes) of my super high fat foods.

I made mistakes

Looking back, the first couple of years of my ketosis experiment were full of trial and error, and I now realise I often ate way too much protein (remember what I said about having a big appetite?).

It turns out, when you eat more protein than you actually need, your body starts to treat it like sugar and you can still get blood glucose spikes.

I ate a lot of meat and a moderate amount of greens while in ketosis

Keto experts have written more about this process, called gluconeogenesis. Here’s an example if you want to read more.

The final two years of my keto living were better measured and slightly more scientific. In this phase, I had started doing regular urine and blood tests to check I was actually in ketosis at any given moment. It seemed worth checking that my efforts were actually working.

I also felt part of the growing keto community on social media, which helped support my seemingly odd lifestyle choice.

The good, the bad & the ugly

Over time, it did seem like my energy was better sustained while I was in ketosis. I could go for longer without desperately craving my next meal.

As a TV news journalist and presenter, I would regularly film on location for several hours without eating anything because I was simply too busy doing my job. Prior to going keto, I couldn’t even think straight if I went longer than three hours without a snack, let alone deliver a decent piece-to-camera.

This effect appears to have continued even though, at the time of writing, I am no longer on a keto diet. Perhaps I’ve simply trained my metabolism to handle longer gaps between meals. This probably makes me a happier person as I’m able to get on with other things and focus on my work more without stressing over when/where my next meal will happen.

There are some reported benefits to being ketogenic that take place inside your body, ones you can't see. I obviously liked the idea that I was potentially boosting my mitochondrial function and lowering inflammation.

My immune system may have been more resilient too. I have no actual biological evidence of this. I only mention it because I don’t remember ever getting bad winter colds or coughs during my keto years. 

However, my physical fitness saw no real gains despite my love of working out. I just seemed to plateau. There’s no way of knowing if this was because of ketosis. Maybe I got too comfortable with my usual routines.

One thing I missed majorly during ketosis were the large amounts of vegetables I used to eat as part of a meal when I was pre-keto. Don’t get me wrong - I ate plenty of greens while maintaining ketosis, but vegetables still contain carbs, more so in colourful veg (e.g. tomatoes, aubergines and bell peppers), so if I ate too many of those then I’d risk getting kicked out of the biological state of ketosis.

I also sometimes missed eating bigger quantities of yogurt, cottage cheese and milk (there are more carbs than you might expect in dairy).

Frustratingly, for about three of my four years in ketosis, I dealt with a stubborn and upsetting skin condition.

It was an irritating, burning, inflamed and dry skin rash across may face called perioral dermatitis. It got so painful sometimes it would cause me to wake up in the night. I had to hold cold flannels on my face to get some relief. At weekends when I wasn’t at work, I would hide away indoors making the most of time spent without my TV make-up on, hoping it would help my skin get better.

None of the doctors or consultants I visited had been able to cure it for good.

And then I tried a specific probiotic kefir drink (anecdotally reported to be helpful for some skin conditions and gut health) over a period of months and the rash vanished. Sounds bizarre, right? I know. Read the full details here.

There’s growing evidence in the scientific community of a gut-skin connection and it's believed one of the keys to good gut health is to eat a varied diet, as you can hear in healthHackers® episode 2 with Professor Tim Spector.

If there’s not enough diversity in your diet then your gut can suffer leading to negative knock-on effects. 

Therefore, could my limited keto diet have damaged my gut diversity leading to a chronic skin issue? Opinions differ depending on which health expert or doctor I speak to about it. But any suspected gut problem may also have been caused (or exacerbated) by years of hormonal birth control, antibiotic use, stress, synthetic cosmetic chemicals and food pesticides. 

After four years, I stopped

In 2017, I decided to quit ketosis. I’d begun seeing a second doctor who suggested it might benefit my hormones - and unexplained lack of a regular menstrual cycle - to stop avoiding carbs. Now that I’m out of ketosis - I much prefer it.

I’ve still got a major love of fats, especially olive oil - although these days it’s more about drizzling it on my food rather than drowning it in oil. 

Cheese is my vice. I can easily devour an entire packet in one go. And then another.

In terms of notable negative side-effects from switching back to my non-keto way of eating - well, initially I didn’t notice any.

At first, I was convinced my memory wasn’t as sharp (mental clarity is one of the reported benefits of being in ketosis), but I could have imagined this effect.

I also unintentionally lost a small amount of weight after quitting keto. Quite the revelation considering keto is used as a means of losing weight for many.

The keto craze

There’s a growing trend of people now trying out the diet, with rumours of increased mental clarity (Google ‘Silicon Valley CEOs and keto’ to read more on that), as well as celebrities and a whole host of convenience foods aimed at the keto market.

Since coming out of ketosis and starting my healthHackers® series, in which I've been lucky enough to interview some pioneering figures in the health space, it’s clear that no dietary method is ever perfect. New evidence is always emerging, showing us our mistakes and presenting new ideas. Sometimes you just have to see what works for you. And believe me, there are people out there thriving on a ketogenic diet. Same goes for a vegan, pescatarian, paleo, low fat, low carb, high-protein, fruitarian, plant-based, carnivore, vegetarian and every other diet.

I have huge respect for every individual who has settled on a way of eating that makes them feel good and genuinely improves their biomarkers.

For me - I’m enjoying a bit more variety and diversity in my food choices these days; doing my best to keep that gut microbiome happy ;)

It’s also nice not peeing on test strips any more.

Update January 2023 - life changes

Since publishing this article, some key developments have happened.

I relocated to the USA in 2019 and now live in California. I never returned to the keto way of life. After chatting with an endocrinologist here, I deliberately put on some extra weight to see if it would help kickstart my menstrual cycle again. In the past, this hadn’t worked (maybe it was because I had the effects of a stressful career back then) but this time, it seemed to do the trick. I was then able to get pregnant and have a baby!

The skin rash I mentioned I had during my keto years (the one that vanished after my kefir regime) came back, then vanished again - and I completed an article all about the eight year journey, and the knowledge I gained while getting over it, here.

I reviewed the ZOE personalized nutrition program on the healthHackers® channel and the experience made me value gut-optimizing foods and garnering ‘good bug’ diversity far more than any other way of eating I’ve come across. See part one of my review and then part two.

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