I’m on a Keto Diet so I’ll Have Green Eggs and Ham Please

Is the high-fat, medium-protein, low-carb keto diet the best one ever? Sure you’re forcing your body to enter ketosis (where your body starts to burn fat instead of carbohydrates). There’s also a small matter of suffering through keto flu, and yes, sometimes it’s as depressing as it sounds. Suddenly dropping your carb intake means your body is going to resent this carb withdrawal and react. You might be moody, depressed, feel nauseous, and be super lethargic. The upside? It doesn’t last long. Like any diet, there’s a hill to climb, but on the other side is a cornucopia made of bacon, eggs and all things nice. Oh and also Energiser bunny-style energy.

So where does Sahil Makhija’s intensely popular Youtube channel (222K subscibers and counting) and food blog Headbanger’s Kitchen fit in? The vocalist and guitarist of heavy metal band Demonic Resurrection slapped on an apron in 2011 and started the channel, serving up delicious, easy-to-make dishes like baconbombs, while also featuring interviews with metal bands like Lamb of God and George Kollias from Nile. There’s a newly launched (and hefty) Ketogenic Diet Cookbook ( Cider Mill; Simon & Schuster) to add to his profile now. The Simon & Schuster book features his work, and although there aren’t any Indian or Indianised recipes in there, he still picked 100 recipes to entice you to jump into the Keto clique. The journey is delicious.

VICE: Tell us about the Ketogenic Diet Cookbook.
Sahil Makhija: An American publisher Cider Mill found me through my YouTube channel and asked me if I was interested in working on a keto cookbook. After some back and forth, we agreed. I went through their archive of low-carb and other cookbooks, reading over 300 recipes to finally whittle it down to a 100 recipes. I modified these recipes for a keto diet and added some of my most popular dessert recipes too, like the Berry Swirl Cheesecake and Flourless Chocolate Cake. There are no Indian or Indianized recipes in the book since it’s for a North American audience.

How did you learn about the keto diet?
One of my bandmates lost about 30 kgs without any exercise on the keto diet. Shortly after, my wife started reading and studying the science behind the diet and went on it for a while and lost a significant amount of weight. That’s when I decided to try it too.

How much time do you spend thinking about and prepping for your meals?
Not a lot really. I believe in working with whatever is available on hand. It’s just about removing certain food groups—mainly carbohydrates and sugar. So, for instance if you would have omelette and toast for breakfast, you eat a three-egg omelette instead. For lunch, you can have chicken curry with cauliflower rice rather than regular rice and dinner can be as simple as grilled chicken with sautéd vegetables.

What’s the hardest part about being on the diet?
Since your body needs to adjust to burning fat, I stay on the diet for a minimum of one month. Most of the problem to get on the diet for me now is mental and not physical. The physical symptoms, often called keto flu, include feeling a lack of energy and weakness. The body goes into shock trying to learn to burn fat instead of glucose. But the loss of electrolytes like potassium, sodium and magnesium can be fixed with including supplements in the diet and vegetables like spinach, avocados and adding more salt to the diet like Himalaya pink salt or rock salt. Drinking lots of water is essential since the body stops holding water and the water weight is what you lose first when you’re on the keto diet.

Have you ever been grossed out by a keto dish?
No, mostly just my own cooking mistakes.

What kind of food do you miss the most when you are on the keto diet?
White bread and potatoes! In French fries or mashed potato form, otherwise I don’t really care for them.

Do you ever get bored by your diet?
No, I have to create a new recipe every week for my YouTube channel. For most of my savoury dishes, I just wing it. For desserts, I make a few batches before I get them right. Recently I made some korma without ever tasting it and everyone loved it.

What does your family think of your keto diet? Do they eat the same food you make?
My mom, dad, brother and my wife have all been on my YouTube channel and they’ll often taste the food I make. I am quite generous with the fat while cooking because I have to maintain a certain protein to fat ratio for the weight loss.

What do you do when you have guests over?
I had some friends over recently and I served them some of my famous bacon bombs, pulled pork and pizza dip. Pizza dip is essentially cream cheese topped with tomato sauce and some more cheese. I also had some other non-keto food for them. If I’m having people over, I make small adjustments to suit my diet too. For instance, if I’m making some butter chicken wings, I won’t fry my batch with corn flour. For the pulled pork, I wouldn’t add the barbecue sauce to my portion.

What do you do when you’re out at a restaurant or bar?
I’m not very social so I don’t go to a lot of restaurants but it’s fairly easy at an Indian restaurant, you stick to your kebabs or palak paneer. It’s very difficult at Chinese restaurants because most of their sauces have sugar. Otherwise quite a few restaurants in Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore have keto menus. Foodhall even has a section dedicated to keto. When it comes to drinks, I am allowed to have whiskey, rum and other spirits. Beer is a no-no.

What are some of the advantages of being on the keto diet?
Well since I’ve been on it, I’ve lost about 10 kgs, I don’t feel a slump in energy. It has also made me quite disciplined.

Have you ever tried any other diets before getting on the keto diet?
Yes, I must have tried the GM diet at least five times since 1998 with not much success. It was rubbish. I’ve also lost a chunk of my weight thanks to calorie counting for three years before I got on the keto diet.

Follow Prerna Makhija on Twitter.