Category Archives: Cheese
Day 21: Ups and downs
Today’s loss: +1 Total weight loss: 11
Yesterday was a beautiful, sunny day and it started with a one-pound weight loss. Today, I woke up to find that pound has returned!
I see no reason why I would gain today, so I’m just going to put it down to the vagaries of life, and keep on truckin’.
Last night, I was reflecting upon how this lifestyle change is progressing. It’s really a “livable” plan. I doubt that I will be able to forgo carbs completely for the rest of my life, but I was going over some of my favorite keto recipes in my head, and I’ve enjoyed them all quite a bit. I really liked the Cincinnati chili, tacos in cheese shells, spaghetti squash alfredo… and the fried eggplant was pretty good, too. Most of these recipes taste as good as any of the carb-rich foods I used to enjoy. Some taste even better.
I had Rick’s bacon and sausage special for breakfast. Lunch was leftovers again: Cincinnati chili. After work, I wanted to take a couple of hours to finish assembling my new desk. I hadn’t had any time over the past few days. Before I got started, Rick invited me out to the gazebo in our yard for some “wine time,” but I was reluctant to use up my valuable carbs.
Instead, we looked up vodka – zero carbs. I combine it with Diet Coke, and had a no-carb drink. I only drank one, because some of the sites I found online said your body will burn the drink calories before it will burn the fat. I don’t want anything to delay the fat-burning process.
For an appetizer with the drink, I had some BBQ pork rinds with spinach and artichoke dip. Since I had staved off the hunger pangs for a bit, I went in and finished the desk.
Late dinner (after 9) was two tacos made from leftover taco beef and freshly micro’d provolone shells. Somehow my carbs were all used up by that point (I thought), so I just drank water the rest of the evening. Later, I went over the list again and found that I inadvertently put in a glass of wine. I guess while playing with the alcohol choices to see which were bad choices, I left that glass in my daily count. I ended up going to bed with 4 carbs to spare. I’m sure I’ll make them up another day.
Day 18: The best tacos I’ve ever had
Lost: 0 Total weight loss: 11.5
Saturday mornings Rick and I like to go to the local diner. It’s our “celebrate the weekend” thing to do. The keto plan works well for breakfast anywhere; as long as there are eggs and sausage or bacon, it’s easy to start the day on plan.
After a breakfast of sausage and cheese omelet, we headed out to do some errands before it was time to pick up my friend at the airport. Jo and I were due at our trivia league finals, and before leaving home, I had an early afternoon meatloaf and cheese (1/2) low carb wrap.
At trivia, I ordered a Caesar salad with some water and lemon. (And our team performed terribly)
Dinner was the highlight meal of the day. I fried some ground beef with taco seasoning and made cheesy taco shells. While I was waiting for the meat to cook, I also threw together a pot of some Cincinnati chili with ground turkey, while I was cooking today’s dinner…I’m trying to get ahead on the meal plans so I have some quick choices when I’m hungry.
When the shells were ready, I put a couple of ounces of taco beef, shredded cheese, onions, and sour cream in each taco. Then I pitted and chopped up an avocado and topped each some of that. The result was the best tacos I’ve eaten in a long time. I’m not sure if it was the cheesy shells, the fact that I used beef instead of my normal ground turkey, or the avocado topping, but they were very very tasty.
I’m still amazed that I can each rich, delicious foods like this and continue to lose weight so quickly. I guess I was “allergic” to carbs? This is by far the easiest diet to adapt to that I’ve come across. At the most, I think I’ve lusted over the idea of some steak fries. Besides that, I’d like to find some type of low-carb bread, but I’m not missing that too much so far.
Day 8: Beginning week two
Weight loss: 2 pounds Total: 9 pounds
Yesterday was pretty unremarkable, except that I finally tried BBQ pork rinds and greek yogurt. Both were pretty good.
I woke up feeling under the weather. We’ve been passing some kind of bug around the family. I wasn’t very hungry for lunch and I also didn’t feel like cooking anything. I made a few cheese chips, topped them with artichoke dip and called it a meal.
After sleeping most of the afternoon, I decided to make some deviled eggs. I used the typical family recipe I’ve always used – added a little mayo, mustard, and onions to the yolks – and they were yummy….and legal keto!
I made a nice boring arugula salad topped with Caesar dressing. Then mixed a tbsp of peanut butter into some Greek yogurt for a refreshing end to the somewhat sparse meal. I guess the biggest problem with eating keto while sick is trying to get enough calories and fat for the day.
I didn’t get a chance to try to use coconut oil in a dish. We’ll leave that for later today. Unfortunately, my dad has gotten whatever we all have, but at 88, I need to get him to the doctor pronto. Not sure how regimented this day will be. Let’s see if I can stick to the keto plan on the run.
Day 7: One week and I’m not dead yet
Weight loss: 2 Total: 7
Whew! Rick felt better yesterday and went out to forage for produce. Well, okay, he went to Randazzo’s. I’m loaded up on veggies: cauliflower (one for pizza, one for “mashed potatoes”), romaine lettuce, spinach, avocado, squash, mushrooms, and spaghetti squash.
Rick also went to Kroger to pick up the other staples needed to work this keto plan: meats, 2 cartons of eggs, cheese, bacon, heavy cream, and…something I’m not too sure about… the Better Made BBQ pork rinds that my son insists taste like spicy BBQ chips, but have zero carbs. We’ll see. I already had a bag of regular pork rinds to use as a bread crumb substitute in recipes, but YECK, I wasn’t planning to eat them as a nosh.
I ordered virgin coconut oil from Amazon Monday. Should be delivered today. I understand a couple of teaspoons a day are essential for keeping “regular.” Enough about that.
I am blessed to have such a supportive husband. He’s always been a hard worker, and now that he’s retired, he is working on our website business, doing home improvement chores, helping with my father, and generally taking care of all the little details around the house. Best of all, he’s the chef at the Palmerosa, and he now has more time to prepare some great meals…and he also LIKES grocery shopping. Am I lucky, or what?
Back to the plan. I had the usual eggs, cheese, sausage breakfast with Taco Bell sauce. Reheating really improved the flavor (I’d been eating it about an hour after Rick made it, at room temp).
Still being without groceries in the A.M., meant Rick dropped by with a BK bacon cheeseburger and salad for late lunch.
My prospects improved at dinner with all the lovely ingredients waiting for me.
I decided to try oopsie rolls, which were a semi-failure because they were way too liquid to set up on the pan, so I made them in my mini-muffin pan and they turned out pretty well.
Rick reminded me that we had a couple of NY strip steaks left in the fridge, so I whipped up the creamy onion sauce again, Rick steamed 1/2 head of cauliflower which we turned into “potatoes,” and we enjoyed a lovely repast complemented by a glass of Flip Flop cabernet. What a life!
Of course, this gourmet meal was followed by chocolate mousse, and I made it through another day of hard-core keto dieting.
See my separate oopsie roll blog soon.
Day 6: Surviving my first trivia league night
Weight loss: +1!!
Total: 5.5
Yow! That was a rude awakening. I’m really not too upset, though, because I know I’m on track. AND I still feel fantastic. I even woke up on time this morning, and I am a notorious over-sleeper. I tend to hit the hay around one a.m. and the 6:30 alarm is pretty irritating. That snooze button is a delight. Today I only hit it twice. And, I made it to work two minutes before my starting time…a miracle for me!
However, I’m still not totally prepared for meals on the keto plan yet, so I keep winging it as best I can with what we have. I made it through yesterday on plan, but I was sadly lacking in greens. That should be remedied by this evening. (And I’m hoping Rick will pick me up a big salad for lunch.)
Yesterday morning it was Monday morning and back to work for me. Rick helped out by cooking up his famous breakfast sandwich without the whole grain muffin. Scrambled egg, 2 sausage patties (instead of the usual 1) and 2 small slices of dubliner cheese. He layered it in a small plastic bowl and dribbled on a packet of Taco Bell border sauce. I ate it with a knife and fork at my desk when I got to work.
Lunch was fly-by-night. I took the leftover pulled pork taco, and grabbed a can of tuna which I mixed with mayo. The funny thing was that I forgot the taco shell was made of hardened cheddar cheese. When I heated it up in the micro, it came out a pile of cheese with taco fixings inside. It still tasted just fine, despite it’s awful appearance.
Monday is trivia night, and our team usually orders a pizza. I read up on advice from keto redditors who said it’s perfectly acceptable to take the cheese and toppings off the crust, so that’s what I did. It was delicious and satisfying. The only difficulty was in not being sure how much cheese to calculate in my food diary. I guessed at one cup, plus onions, and sausage.
As an added bonus, Sassy, our Bluetick Coonhound, enjoyed my dinner biproduct. Pizza crust is her favorite pizza snack. (See the leftovers in the picture). Waste not, want not.
Almost forgot, in between lunch and getting off work for the day, I ate 2 ounces of hard cheese for a snack.
After trivia, I entered the last of my food portions into myfitnesspal.com. I was short 11 carbs! Hmmm. what to do? I grabbed 2 tbsp of peanut butter, and one square of 70% chocolate. I dipped the square in the pb for a scrumptious snack while reading a new novel loaned to me by a coworker. It was delicious, and my carbs were done for the day.
The only problem I see so far, is the lack of vegetables yesterday. Rick was supposed to go to the grocery store, but thought he was coming down with the flu and I gave him the day off (joke). He promises to go to the fruit market tomorrow while I’m at work. Today/tomorrow=more greens.
Day 5: Zero progress
Weight loss: 0
Total: 6 1/2
I was slightly disappointed to see no progress on the scale, but I was expecting it. I assumed that losing a couple of pounds a day was only a fleeting accomplishment due to water weight loss. I didn’t think that I would continue to lose at that rate, but I could always hope!
On the bright side, I have energy to spare. I haven’t felt this good in a long time. And I’m not really hungry at all. I guess lots of fat and protein leads to a satiated appetite.
Yesterday, I had some scrambled eggs and sausage for breakfast; the eggs had onion and cheese in them.
Lunch was pulled pork tacos and some home made cheese-its with a tsp of avocado dip on each. I made 3 tacos, but was full after two.
Dinner was rushed. We took Dad back to my nieces, and by the time we got him settled, I was pretty hungry. I fried 2 Hebrew National Kosher hot dogs in butter, then topped them with Hormel chili/no beans. I was still pretty low on my calories/protein, so I through on some grated cheese and ended up with a satisfying, if gooey mess. I laugh every time I think of the odd combinations of “fattening” foods I’ve been cooking up. It totally goes against my grain to not seek out low-fat cheeses, condiments, and other foodstuffs. This takes some getting used to, but it’s certainly a pleasant way to lose weight.
Rick and I sat down to watch the Golden Globes and I literally whipped us up some dessert: heavy whipping cream with a tsp of cocoa. Yum.
Cheez-its? Taco shells? I’m all set, thanks.
I’ve never been a big bread eater, but chips are another thing. I love nacho chips, not for their own sake, but because they are such a convenient way to transport various dips into my mouth.
I was wondering how I would handle not having snack foods on the keto plan. I’m the type who often orders an appetizer as a dessert. I love cheesy artichoke dip, salsas, guac, and all those yummy good things that can’t just be eaten with a spoon.
Then I remembered trying this idea years ago: drop grated cheese into several small mounds on parchment paper and bake in the oven. Well, I don’t even have the patience for that, so finding this recipe on the “Sin or slim” website helped buoy my spirits. Just nuke the cheese!
Even more exciting was finding that provolone slices can be heated in the microwave (again, on parchment paper) and folded in half after heating makes them the perfect shape to use as taco shells!
Credit should be given to the reddit.com “keto” subgroup: http://www.reddit.com/r/keto/. The redditors are so supportive of fellow keto noobies, that most of my questions were answered just through their comments.
More about pulled pork tacos later.
Day 3: Three more pounds?!
OMG! I lost another 3 pounds. Total so far: 4 1/2 pound weight loss.
And I have ENERGY. Wow, is there such a thing as being allergic to carbs? Because I already feel very very good.
Yesterday’s meals –
Breakfast: 2 fried eggs, 3 pieces of bacon
Lunch: chicken/greens salad with caesar dressing
Dinner: 5 chicken strips, fried, with Frank’s red hot buffalo sauce, dipped in blue cheese sauce
Snack: 2 pcs Lindt 79% chocolate and “cheeze-its” made from microwaved grated cheese
My new food lifestyle: ketogenics
January 12, 2012. That’s the day I started eating “keto.”
My son and his fiance had been considering going keto, and once they started, they began seeing immediate weight loss.
The idea intrigued me. During the past several years, I have tried dieting several times, but saw few results. I adhered to strict high-fiber, low-fat regimens, and rode 12 miles a day on my stationary bike, but was always disappointed by the results: NONE. The scale wouldn’t move, despite weeks of healthy eating and regular exercise.
I read some of the recipes and the idea behind how a ketogenic diet works, and thought I’d give it a shot.
Day one has been surprisingly easy. The most difficult part of this regimen is getting it through my head that I can eat high-fat food. Bacon? mayo? beef? cheese? If eating like this results in weight loss, I can get used to eliminating the high starch and breadstuffs from my life.