January 2017 keto log

1.4.17 – Well, I’m back down to 244 so not much damage done from holiday excess.  I no longer have that background nausea all day either, so that’s a plus.  I do still want lovely caramel candies and toffees but for the most part have been able to abstain (two chocolates the day after New Year’s notwithstanding).

We went to Costco and filled up on a bunch of good stuff.  It’s times like these that I wish we had a double-sized fridge.  We are trying to do more meal prep/make-ahead meals and there is only so much room to be found in our fridge.  We are having to get creative with placement.

I jacked up my knee on NYE while going up a tiny flight of stairs but it’s feeling much better now.  Not sure if it’s the keto or because I’ve been babying it.  I know eating less sugar makes my joints less inflamed…maybe it’s a bit of both.

I’ve been watching “My 600-lb life” on Hulu lately and holy crap, those people are massive.  I feel very fat sometimes but this really puts it in perspective.  I feel for those individuals, it seems like even though they get healthier they still have bone and joint issues and then they’ll need to have skin reduction surgery.  This one woman had huge areas of skin that were just bulbous swathes of fat and skin.  Like, her butt was a completely separate shelf independent from the back of her legs.  It was very sad to see.  And how crazy that skin is so stretchy!

1.8.17 – I am having trouble determining hunger from boredom.  Like, I know what hunger feels like but I’m pretty sure my brain is tricksy sometimes and tells me I need to eat when I don’t.  And I think there is a part of me that is afraid to be hungry.  Take this morning, for example.  I wasn’t very hungry until I started thinking about the food I had brought to eat and then suddenly it was all I could do to stop from eating right then and there.  I try to put off eating until noon but usually it’s closer to 11:30am.  Generally even then I’m not hungry but obsessed with the idea of eating.  I’ve thought about doing fasting, starting out with a 24-hr fast, but I usually sabotage myself.

I have been trying to eat mindfully and today weighed in at 241 which is awesome.  I just cannot seem to break into the 230s.  Today I decided to try tracking my food intake to see where I was on calories and it was fairly high just from my salad and pork belly.  I’ve set my calorie max at 1400 but even now I’m chafing at the idea of being calorically restricted.  I frickin’ hate the idea of tracking.  That’s not true, I like the idea of tracking I just don’t like the manual process of it.  I don’t like to weigh things so I’m usually guessing at amounts (typically going higher just in case) and a lot of the things I eat are mixes of stuff, like homemade alfredo sauce and chicken.  I don’t follow recipes when I’m cooking I just dump stuff together, so how am I supposed to track that?  I create a recipe in MyFitnessPal and guess at the quantities I’ve used and guess at how many servings should be able to be eaten from that.  It’s a total pain in my ass.

1.11.17 – I’ve decided to look into Alternate Day Fasting (ADF).  I was already doing intermittent fasting with a 16:8 approach and figured it shouldn’t be too much more difficult to just fast for the entire day.  While fasting and calorie restriction are the same in the sense of you are taking in less calories overall, fasting actually produces different chemical markers in the body.  It’s much better and can actually increase lean muscle mass while losing fat!  It’s pretty interesting stuff.  Today is the first day, wish me luck!

Later on:  Feeling ok, although would like to eat.  It’s about noon and I typically eat something on my first work break.  It’s weird to not eat.

2:15ish – I’m not loving this.  I want to eat!  I’m a little hungry but not awfully.  It’s just I want to eat food!  Probably a good thing I didn’t bring any food to work today.  I’m chewing gum but not sure if it’s helping or making things worse.

5pm – So, why did I want to do this again?  Oh yeah, to become healthier.  Still not really hungry, just a low-grade feeling that I should have eaten by now.  I keep thinking about food.  The foods I’ve eaten, the foods I want to cook.  I’ve been drinking water all day and just cracked a diet Pepsi but I want to eat.  Maybe I will eat something when I get home.  After all, most people eat 500 calories on their fasting days.

1.12.16 – I did eat a little when I got home.  I had a couple slices of prosciutto and salami, probably less than 200 calories total.  Believe you me, I wanted to eat more.  I weighed myself before bed and was at 240.  I weighed myself this morning and was at 238!  You read that right!  I haven’t been in the 230s in forever!  I still haven’t eaten anything today (though it’s only 9am) and am trying to determine if I want to try and turn this into a multi-day fast or if I will be eating later.  A part of me wants to push it just to see how long I can go but another part of me knows that even fasting for 16 hours provides benefits.

Extended fasting will provide more weight loss more quickly and people report it helps them have a better relationship with food…I guess we’ll see.  I’ve got to do some shopping today and told the boys I would take them to McDonald’s and I’ve been envisioning myself devouring a sausage mcmuffin.  I can almost literally taste it.

1.14.16 – I totally ate a sausage McMuffin that day.  I bought one for Ezra and one for Leo and Leo didn’t eat his.  I tore off a tiny piece and then the floodgates opened.  I then proceeded to eat some candy and other stuff.  Not enough to kick me out of ketosis but still.  Yesterday was another fasting day and I did ok although I did graze on nibbles here and there when I was making the kids their food.  I think I estimated I had between 300-400 calories.  That stuff adds up quickly!  Even so, I weighed in this morning at 236, which is another 2lb loss!  Go me!  My mini goal right now is to hit 220 and my ultimate would be to hit 180.  I definitely think I can hit the mini goal this year, not sure about the main goal.  I’ll probably have to incorporate working out of some kind and we all know how much I hate to perspire.

I measured myself this morning:
Right thigh: 29 (down .5)
Left thigh: 28 (down 1)
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Waist: 43 (down 1)
Bust: 44.5 (down .5)
Left arm: 15
Right arm: 15.5 (down .5)
Neck: 15.5

A couple inches lost overall since I last measured in November.  I’ll take it!  I’m pushing my eating window to until 2pm (or at least I’m going to try) and tomorrow is another eating day.  We made steaks last night that I couldn’t eat (I had a couple small bites) so I brought that today and also some cauli/broccoli/sausage soup.  I was going to throw some kale in there but then forgot.  Oh well.

I was looking through the r/food sub reddit last night and it was akin to torture.  All that yummy food and I couldn’t have any of it!  Still trying to decide if I’m going still with a calorie deficit on refeed days or just eat to satiety and not worry about calories.  I put it out there to the forums and got such mixed answers that I still don’t know what’s the correct way, or even if there is a correct way.  It may not be a “one size fits all” situation.

1.16.17 – I have recently started ADF with last week being the first week. Weds/Fri were fasting days (will be MWF) and eat days are Tues/Thurs/Sat/Sun. On Thursday and Saturday, I ate about 1400 calories (still trying to decide if I want to continue eating at a deficit on eat days or eat at maintenance) and felt good on fasting and refeed days but Sunday was awful! It was like I was starving all day. I ate about 900/1k cals for lunch and by dinner was ravenous. I ate 8 oz of tri tip for dinner and came in with a daily total of just under 1400 calories but still just didn’t feel satisfied.

This morning is a fasting day and I’m quite hungry. I’m thinking maybe I’m not getting enough fat in my feeding days (and just now looking through my nutrition for yesterday I was at 52% fat instead of 75% fat)…

I think I just answered my own question about why I would be feeling so off. I will try upping the fat on refeed days and maybe not eat at a deficit those days and see how it goes from there.

1.18.16 – I checked around with some folks on reddit and this one guy made a good point that if I’m eating at a deficit on feed days then that is like averaging 700 cals or less per day which is not healthy.  So, my TDEE is 2200 calories (to maintain current weight).  That means I should be eating at least 2800 calories on refeed days in order to average 1400 per day.  Yesterday I managed about 2100 with my last food at 5pm and I just couldn’t eat anymore,  Today I weighed in at 236 which doesn’t surprise me as I ate a bunch of food yesterday (still keto) and tomorrow I’ll probably be 233 or less.

It’s 9am now and I’m still not hungry really or feeling weird so I’m thinking today’s fasting day will be easier than the past couple days.  Fingers crossed!

– Later on that day:  You know, ever since I started fasting, I’ve been obsessing about food.  And calories.  Food and calories every frickin day.  I’m tired of obsessing about it.  So I think I’m not going to do the ADF any longer.  I think it’s probably beneficial for faster weight loss, but I think I’m just going to stick with the 16:8 approach and I also think I’m going to up my calories to 1700 from 1400.  I’ll be losing way more slowly, but I’ll probably enjoy living more.  And that’s important, too.  Pretty sure I’ll be eating chicken wings tonight.

1.24.16 – I’m now on day two of a three-day fast.  I finished my lunch around 3pm on the 22nd and haven’t eaten since.  I guess that’s not technically true; I had a couple peanuts and an animal cracker yesterday while packing the boys’ lunch.  The crazy thing is, I’ve been feeling really good so far.  A couple tummy rumbles every once in awhile but nothing crazy and I haven’t been obsessing over eating.  Don’t know what is different this time around.  I started at 238 again and am back to 234 as of this morning.  The plan is to go for three whole days but if I’m still feeling good then I will push it to longer.

1.28.16 – I ended up eating that night, so it put that fast to about 52 hours.  Not as long as the 72 I’d hoped for but my longest fast to date.  I am now about 37 hours into a fast but I’m thinking I will be breaking it pretty soon.  I could probably go longer, I just want to eat.  I tell you, fasting is probably about 90% mental for me and 10% actual physical cues.  This morning I weighed in at 230 lbs, which is my official weight for when I got pregnant with Ezra!  Feeling pretty good about that, it means 44 lb weight loss total so far.  It’s coming off me oddly it seems.  My belly is way more squishy and I was noticing last night that my hips and outer thighs appear way more lumpy.  I seems I’ve been losing weight there but of course it couldn’t be all smooth style.  Oh well, it’ll even out eventually, right?

Reading over this month’s entries I have been all over the place with my emotions and plans and struggles.  I’m still doing fasting (as you can tell) but it’s more loose at this point.  Sometimes I’ll decide to do a 24+ hr fast and other times I’ll just stick to my 16:8 fasting window.  I figure every little bit helps.  I don’t like being stuck to a schedule, either, it feels very restrictive.  I’ve stopped counting calories on the days I do eat and just try to be mindful about what I’m eating.  I should probably be tracking to make sure I’m eating *enough* calories but I’m just trying to listen to my body for now.  We’ll see how it goes.  On to a new month!


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