Day 1
After many months, perhaps even over a year, of seeing articles, advertisements and Facebook feed click bait, as well as listening to gentle suggestions from my personal trainer about the benefits of trying a ketogenic or very-low-carb diet, I have finally been persuaded to at least give this latest (?) dieting trend a red hot go.
I resisted for so long as I was (and always have been) highly sceptical of any diet that involves the exclusion (or extreme restriction) of any one particular food group. My mantra has always been “It’s all about balance.” That said, I had recently (approx 1.5 to 2 years ago) gained around 10kg that I had inexplicably gained very rapidly and that has proven to be just as inexplicably difficult to lose. I have, I believe, a *relatively* healthy diet, neither over-indulging in anything ‘bad’ nor really denying myself any treats. I never really thought too much about what I put in my mouth for a good decade, nor (until recently) did I have to. I basically put this down to the fact that I lead an active enough lifestyle to ward off obesity from the calories I was consuming. I’ve never really considered myself to be super-lean, but definitely within healthy weight range and BMI.
This ‘stubborn’ weight that I found alarmingly hard to move had me very concerned. As I mentioned, I was not eating anything startlingly bad for me. All of the articles and success stories I read all attributed their success to cutting out soft drinks and take-out meals or spending 3 hours a day in the gym (or both), neither of which was a problem for me (I’m not a sweet tooth and would choose water over a soft drink any day) or a possibility (I could commit to 30-60mins activity 5x a week). For so long, I’d wondered if it was the area of exercise where I was lacking – not enough exercise? Not enough of the right kind? Not enough consistency? I would make little deals with myself, “I’ll go out for a run every day during the holidays when I have more time,” or “The weight should fall off when soccer season starts and I can get in that high intensity/sprinting stuff that’s so good for weight loss,” “I’ll just make sure I’m doing SOMETHING at least 5x a week.” etc. But in spite of soccer season starting, my consistency improving and the holidays coming and going, I was not seeing any gains. So about 4 weeks ago, I finally decided to look more closely at my diet.
It’s true that I was eating (mostly) the right foods. At work, I prepped meals that were easy to grab and that would last a week. Cooler weather meant a swing away from salads and a move more to food I could heat up. Never the less, these usually involved some vegies, a little protein and some complex carbs like brown rice or wholemeal pasta. Pre-packaged snacks included things like Greek yoghurt, nuts, a banana, a boiled egg, a second piece of fruit like a pear etc. And water, water, water. I was never far from my re-fillable bottle. I would eat meat and 3 vegies for dinner or a pasta dish such as gnocci or spaghetti, never skimping on the calories, but still not sitting up to KFC every night. And always, with each meal, we had water. But when I started to be more conscious of my eating, I’d noticed I would over-eat quite regularly. I would also have an after dinner snack on a bowl of chips or popcorn whether I was hungry or not. If I went to bed feeling bloated, I would wake up the next day feeling just that much ‘softer’ or heavier and my clothes would just be ever so slightly more restrictive. I knew that if I was going to look at my diet, it was going to have to be something I could track as my lack of understanding/will power in regards to portion control would mean I was doomed from the get-go.
I probably took the first step to making my progress more ‘trackable’ approx 5 weeks ago, on the first of June. The most important factor in ‘galvanising’ my will power was to cut out the alcohol. I set myself a challenge to go booze free for winter as any time I would consume even the slightest amount of alcohol, my self-control around food choices completely went out the window. This had the duel benefit of cutting out those way-too-easily-consumed calories in my beloved wine, but it also gave me a 3 month time-frame in which to achieve my weight loss goals. The cutting out of the alcohol was going along swimmingly, but I was not really losing any weight. So, with two foundations of my weight loss journey firmly underfoot (booze-free for winter + be active for at least 30 mins, 5x a week), approximately 3 weeks ago, I began counting calories. I started with a week of 1200-1500 calories a day, but including all the food groups, including complex carbohydrates. The first week I lost 3.5kg. I gained 800g in the second week after a few days of not recording what I was eating so diligently, and just last week I shed a further 2.1kg. A total of 4.7kg in 3 weeks is certainly not something I would say is not working, but for some reason, I thought now would be a good time to try the keto diet.
I was (am) on holidays so I could do a lot of research, prepare a lot of meals and fine tune the diet to tailor it to my own taste. I also thought it would be good to get the keto flu in the holidays without the added pressure of feeling rubbish while trying to perform well at work. I would have preferred to start the first week of my break (I’m in the second week now and going back to school next Monday), but it took me almost the entire week to do the initial readings and recipe research. I was becoming less and less convinced that this diet was sustainable, the more I read. American measurements, expensive meals that consisted of dozens of (hard to find) ingredients and warnings of the draw-backs of over eating protein made me think that this was just too hard. That was until I discovered the website, “The Diet Doctor.”
I knew that this was a reputable site as a GP that I know had talked about it being a good resource on ALL diets. I knew that if I looked at this site, it would give me information that was less biased than sites designed to promote the keto diet as the best, and who would potentially benefit financially from signing up/purchasing products. The recipes I have discovered have, so far, been very basic and consisting of easily acquired ingredients. The site is also swarming with recipe ideas that you can meal-prep: an absolute must for me to remain on track.
My main concern/s of beginning the diet are less-so the keto flu, a lack of physical performance and carbohydrate cravings, but more the unknown/harder to monitor possible health problems that may come about as a result of the diet, eg kidney stones and osteoporosis. What will this do to my body long term? I won’t really know until it’s possibly too late.
But I think it’s worth a shot. See whether or not my body responds well to using fat as energy instead of carbs. And now that I have an excellent resource at my fingertips that provides me with all the info I need to make this work (and more), I’m feeling good about commencing my keto-licious journey. My goal for this blog is to aid me in monitoring my progress and perhaps (maybe not so much) help someone else make up their mind as to whether or not they want to give it a go.
Til next entry …
My meal tracking in progress. Time consuming, but so far so good.
Wide in Tights 