From April through June last year, I did a 2 month long experiment. I ate no more than 30g of carbohydrates each day, while loading up on all the fat I could. I continued my CrossFit workouts and olympic lifting workouts with almost zero glycogen to run off, and consistently hit the wall.

So why the heck would I want to do that?

The goal was to transition to a ketogenic diet. A ketogenic diet is one that shifts the body’s fuel from carbs to fat. During this process, the body creates molecules called ketone bodies (like beta-hydroxybutyrate) to fuel the muscles and brain for fast fuel.

And it turns out that many of today’s top athletes do some variation of a ketogenic diet. And after Dr. Jeff Volek’s FASTER study came out last year, ketogenesis has exploded in popularity among the athletic community. But being in a state of ketosis isn’t just for athletes. It’s been shown to help with weight loss, most metabolic markers, oxygen efficiency, and longevity.

And while the ketogenic diet was originally prescribed to epileptic patients in the 1930s, there’s promising evidence to suggest it may be massively useful in the treatment of cancer, most metabolic diseases such as diabetes, and Alzheimer’s prevention.

The science around a ketogenic diet is new and exciting, which is why I jumped at the chance to interview Dr. Dominic D’Agostino, a PhD and one of the world’s few expert in subjects.

Dominic (Dom) is a recently tenured professor at University of South Florida where he studies the intricacies of the diet, and studies the most cutting edge exogenous ketones.

The conversation was awesome as it was nerdy. Please enjoy!

 Show notes + TL;DR:

• 3:18 How Dom's PhD in neuroscience and physiology turned into a career in pharmacology, and eventually led to his fascination with dietary and supplemental ketones.
  • Had to understand oxygen toxicity seizures related to Navy SEALS research.
• 6:10 - What is oxygen toxicity, and how is it affected by ketosis?
  • Oxygen is essential for life, but it metabolizing oxygen naturally makes free radicals, or reactive oxidation species (ROS) like super-oxide anion. Having too much oxygen is called oxygen toxicity and is is toxic for the cells because of the dangerous amounts of free radicals.
  • When you're using too much oxygen, you're naturally going to produce a bunch free radicals. They are powerful signaling molecules that tell your body something's potentially not right with the situation. They also disrupt brain energy metabolism.
  • Ketones preserves the bioenergetic capacity of the brain under either too much or too little oxygen, and cause less free radicals than does glucose.
• 10:04 Why ketones are a high-octane fuel that burn with greater efficiency than does glucose.
  • Through the use of oxygen, both glucose and ketones are converted into ATP within the mitochondria, which is the energetic currency of the cell. What’s