About one year ago I started having medical problems. After a few months my sister suggested I try the Keto Diet to see if it would help with regulating my hormones. I tried it and it did help. The good results my husband saw led him to try it a couple months later. After 6 months I have gotten a lot of attention from people about my weight loss and I get a lot of questions about Keto.
I am going to give you a review and some tips and you can do your own research if you want to know more or try this out for yourself. Also I will be doing another post on what I used to track my progress. I called it my Body Recovery Record. A big part of my success came through the mindful approach to changes in how I treated and thought about my body.
#1 Is it hard? Yes and No.
Every diet with restrictions is hard. Before Keto I had done low carb before and it was hard. I had done Mommy without Pounds and it was hard too. Any time where you are going to be vigilant about what and when you eat is difficult. Any lifestyle change where you establish new habits and veer away from what is considered normal is hard at first. But when you find a groove that works for you it gets easier too. When you focus on the benefits of the new habit you find enjoyment. When you decide to get creative and innovative you find new ways to make it work for you instead of against you.
It WAS hard doing it alone. The timing was a blessing though. In the 2 years previous to this one I have been teaching my older kids how to cook simple meals and my husband supported me immediately by getting some freezer foods the kids could prepare for themselves as well. So instead of cooking 2 meals for dinner everyday I was just cooking a family meal a couple times a week and my personal meals were either single servings or something I made in a batch and could reheat easily.
It was hard giving up some of my favorite carbs like french fries, rice, beans and especially popcorn. If I wasn't motivated by my health issues I might have given up after a few months. But then my husband joined me too.
He has been the innovator and creative thinker. When you try to get creative and have to eat your failure literally, by yourself, for a week it can be discouraging. When you have another person to help you it makes it so much easier. I was timid. I was only trying recipes I found online and I ate it and decided I would make it a staple or never eat it again. With my husband at the helm, we started experimenting with the sugar substitutes because each of them leave a slight aftertaste on the tongue. But in Utah I got to try Virgil's sugar free soda which used a "proprietary blend of erithitol, stevia, and monk fruit." It made me believe we could do better. Eventually we found a blend that we love and use in our sweet treats. It was a lot of work pulling from each source so I did the math and now we measure it in cups and blend them together to use as our sugar substitute. After making a few treats with this sugar blend I had the fortitude to look sugar in the face and say "I don't miss you, you don't treat my body right. I don't need you anymore because I have a better option." That was when Keto got a lot easier.
Day 1 picture
246.5 lbs 43 inches waist
#2 What do you eat/what is a typical meal?
This is tough to answer. Keto confuses people because it is a HIGH fat LOW carb diet. Really low carb. Really, REALLY low carb. It cuts out a lot of typical foods so it is easier to tell you what I can eat instead of naming what I cut out. I CAN eat nuts, seeds, a small portion of berries, proteins like meat and fish and the greenest most cruciferous veggies plus avocados, also coconut milk and almond milk and heavy cream are good too. I have to be careful of tomatoes, onions, garlic and peanut butter etc. but I can have them in small amounts. So my goal for each meal is to have 70% of my calories from fat, 23% from protein and only 7% from carbohydrates and this is based on a calculator I use from Keto Karma. I began with looking up keto meals and read from websites and picked stuff that looked good to try. I started shopping for ingredients at the stores and built up my pantry with my new diet staples.One of my favorite breakfasts is a waffle made from eggs and almond flour topped with fresh berries and whipped cream. Another one is a cereal I made from toasted nuts and seeds with homemade coconut yogurt. I like eating leftovers for lunch so for dinner we make a variety of things and eat them throughout the week. This week is cheesy, bacon wrapped chicken tenders and coleslaw made with an apple cider vinegar dressing. I also got some asparagus spears from Costco and cook them with coconut oil as an alternate side. Lucas adapted my favorite mug cake recipe to make donuts last night in the microwave with silicone baking mats. That was my dessert after lunch today. We have some taco meat with all the favorite toppings in a bowl or cook some Italian seasoned meat and add fennel for the sausage flavor and Rao's marinara sauce and eat it on spiralized zucchini noodles (zoodles, or zuddles?) for our keto spaghetti. Cream cheese is another staple for us because we make creamed spinach, alfredo sauce and my favorite, keto cream cheese danishes (where we perfected our sweetner blend the first time).
14 weeks later
220.5 lbs 38.5 inches waist
#3 Is it healthy?
This is also tough to answer. The long time Keto eaters have been keto for 10 plus years and look fit and healthy so I want to say yes. But you can do this diet in an unhealthy way too. I have had to pay a lot of attention to my body and how it is affected. I take supplements, I take probiotics. I look for ways to include veggies with my meal in reasonable portions. I know I am doing it right when I don't have cravings between meals. Typically, I feel full after a satisfying meal and don't need to eat for hours. I like that a lot about this diet. I have had to watch carefully to make sure I was getting the macro nutrients my body needs and not letting the sweet treats take the center stage. I also use intermittent fasting which is another aspect of keto dieting.The biggest indicator of the benefit to my health besides the weight loss of course, is my hormones have improved drastically. I don't experience PMS to the level I used to and my periods cramps are barely discernible and I saw a big reduction in bleeding (which was the major problem that came up in the last year). I have hope that when I achieve a healthy BMI I will see a big improvement in that area.
18 weeks later
190 lbs 35 inches waist
#4 How much weight have you lost?
So far I have lost 50 pounds. It is very noticeable. I have also been doing exercise, mostly Yoga and a some cardio like walking and Zumba. I also started a Body Recovery Journal. I measure and weigh myself 2 weeks apart and every 8 weeks I check in with myself on how I feel mentally, emotionally and spiritually. I made a goal to take a picture every 16 weeks. An interesting thing I noticed was that I did lose the same number of inches in my bust, waist and hips in the first 20 pounds lost. I thought my waist and bust were going down faster than my hips but they all shrunk pretty evenly. Measuring was helpful because some weeks I weighed in and lost 1 or 2 pounds but had shrunk half an inch. My 2nd picture day I had gained 1.5 pounds but I was an inch smaller in the waist!Lastly, I made sure my goals were not outcome focused but SMART focused. Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant, Timebound. For example, I will drink 64 oz of water a day. I will do one yoga video when I get up before breakfast. I will use veggies as my main carb for lunch and dinner. I will go to bed by 10:30 pm.
2 weeks later: Time for a new Day 1 outfit since the old one is too loose!
This was taken 3 days after Thanksgiving ;)
I will be sharing our Ultimate Keto Sweetner Blend recipe on a new tab called Creative Keto Recipes. When we come up with something new that we don't see posted by long time Keto Bloggers I will post it in that tab. By the way the biggest complaint I have about recipe blogging is the huge story I have to scroll through before I can see the recipe. No need for that since my blog is and will remain ad free. If you want to support me financially go buy a printable in my etsy shop *wink, wink. My husband created his own pancake recipe that isn't cream cheese based and we may be close to a hot chocolate recipe as well. My sister is trying our sweetener blend in some regular recipes to see how it does with regular baking as well.
My biggest encouragement is for you to do your own research and decide what you can reasonably do for yourself.