Choosing Keto
My husband, @loganarchy, and I have been married for 4 years now, and in our case happiness leads to overeating. We used to be very active - hiking, running, rock climbing, dancing, bike riding, etc. But since we have been married we have started eating poorly and exercising less. This slow addition of flab and degradation of muscle was weighing us down, literally.
A couple of months ago my husband starting talking about this new diet he wanted to try. I was (and still am) a little skeptical of all diets. There are SO many fad diets, it's hard not to be. I feel that most diets are silly, unless you can sustain them for the rest of your life. If you need to merely lose weight they're great, but if you can't learn how to be healthy, it's all going to be gained right back. This diet sounded especially fishy and unsustainable because you have to eat NO carbs (less than 20 each day), and you must to eat TONS of fat and protein. I love me some sweets and bread. But he told me that some of his friends were successful in losing some poundage and it sounded like there was actual science behind it, so I was intrigued.
Then he gave me more details. He starting talking about something called the "keto-flu" and having to drink TONS of water. I had to stop him. I'm a middle school teacher, and there's NO WAY I can do something like that during the school year. My bladder has learned the routine. Also, I can't leave a room of 35+ kids to run to the bathroom. Teaching is brutal on the bladder - but that's a story for another time.
So, we decided to wait for my summer break to start the diet. This gave me time to do some research. As a middle school science teacher I had to check out the cellular processes and the simple science behind it. It sounded pretty legitimate... so I agreed to try it. Understanding myself and my love for sweets, however, I have no idea how long I can sustain this. But I love adventure, so let's try it! We may have had one last hurrah when we received a McDonald's breakfast coupon in the mail...
We found some great resources, weekly meal plans, and recipes. And this also gave us time to clear all the carbs from our kitchen! I'm not a fan of wasting ANYTHING! So, after a couple of months, we were finally ready.
It Begins
We started on Friday, 6/16/17.
That morning we made a shared Google Doc with links, meal plans, shopping lists, etc.
I wrote out our first shopping list and off we went.
Here are our first 3 day's meals, since we started at lunch after we went shopping on the first day:
Day 1
Lunch: cream cheese wrapped in deli meat and pork rinds
Dinner: Chicken thigh and steamed broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower
Snack: Cookies and Cream Ice cream and Moose Tracks Ice Cream.... Oops... but seriously, it was in the freezer and someone had to get rid of it.
Day 2
Breakfast: 2 hard boiled eggs, 1/2 can tuna with mayo, bulletproof coffee (coffee w/1 TBSP butter, 1 TBSP coconut oil, 1 TBSP heavy cream)
Lunch: BLT salad, full-fat ranch dressing
Snack: cheese stick
Dinner: Taco salad with ground beef, tomatoes, olives, sour cream, and salad mix
Day 3
Breakfast: bulletproof coffee
Lunch: 1 1/2 lettuce-wrapped burgers with mayo, cheese, and tomato; 2 hot dogs; 1/2 nectarine tart with coconut flour crust
Dinner: shredded cabbage mix salad with avocado cubes and ranch dressing, steak
Snack: hardboiled egg with salt
Day 4 (today - woohoo!)
Breakfast: bulletproof coffee, scrambled eggs with cheese
Lunch: nada (I got up late - yay summer break! - so I wasn't really hungry)
Dinner: Beer can burgers - roll ground beef into a ball, press a can into ball to make a beef bowl, fill with mushrooms, bell peppers, onion, cheese
As you may have noticed, I quickly fell off the wagon. I couldn't let that ice cream go to waste. So, my husband is about a day ahead of me, clearing his body of all carbs.
Also, yesterday was Father's Day, which I expected to be a very challenging day. We went to my husband's father's for a bbq where there were carbs galore! I was in charge of bringing dessert, so I got creative and as "low-carbby" as I could. My husband and I ended up sharing a non-sweetened nectarine tart (I sweetened the rest), which ended up pretty tasty! And then we went to my parents for dinner. It was very reassuring to be able to eat what was there and just NOT eat what we knew we couldn't. I didn't feel like a complete weirdo or a food snob.
I have not yet experienced any of the keto-flu symptoms yet, but my husband has had a slight headache and has felt dehydrated all day.
Tomorrow I'll post our menu and more about our progress!