Category Archives: Chinese buffet

Six months on Keto: thoughts and resolutions

Total weight loss: 35 pounds

For anything to be successful, one needs to look back over the successes and failures to plan for a better future.

Things I’ve learned:

Plan meals in advance

Always have keto-friendly snacks on hand

Always have keto-friendly cooking ingredients on hand

Remember which cheat meals didn’t satisfy

Keep a list of fast food keto-friendly foods in mind

Look at bread, rice, buns, tortillas, pasta, cakes, cookies, donuts, and other high carb food and think negative thoughts: “how pasty looking that is,” “it looks good, but it’ll make me feel lethargic and half-dead after I eat it,” “that rice under Chinese or Indian food, will make me gain, and really doesn’t have much flavor; cauliflower rice tastes just as good”

Even if you eat twice the amount of almonds you’ve planned, it’s still better than potato chips

Cheat meals/days must be thought out VERY carefully. Pick something that will really satisfy you and allow you to keep on the keto plan longer

Drink lots and lots and lots of water

Drinking no-carb alcohol may be okay, but keep it in limits. Over indulging makes me gain water weight and being drunk makes me really tempted to binge on whatever high carb party food is on the table.

There is ALMOST ALWAYS SOMETHING YOU CAN EAT in a fast food place or restaurant. For example, what about chicken marsala in an Italian place?

And there is usually some salad option anywhere you are. Burger joints, just remove the bun.

Mexican and Chinese restaurants give me the most difficulty, because any low carb option is not the reason I would go to the restaurant in the first place.

If you MUST go to a Chinese buffet (I attended a funeral dinner at one), you can find options, but they probably aren’t going to be your favorite General Tso’s. How about the salad bar choices? eggs? the insides of eggrolls, and I even ate the insides only of crab rangoons. Leaves quite a pile of discarded shells on the plate and look like you really waste food.

That’s all I can think of right now, but these ideas have helped me realize the first real weight loss I’ve achieved in more than 15 years! YAY KETO!

Day 82: Cheat day. Boring.

Total weight loss: 21.5 pounds   Next weigh-in: Saturday, April 7th

After a disappointing experience on the scale with a zero weight loss for the week, I decided to try to shake things up a bit.

I had to work overtime on the book deadline for work, again. A final pdf is supposed to be at the the printer by Monday a.m. and it still needs work. I worked from my home office and skipped breakfast.

For lunch, I took a few minutes to heat my leftover half a quesadilla and topped it with salsa and sour cream.

Rick and I were planning to have date night. I put away work for awhile, and we decided to go to the AUCE Chinese buffet for my cheat day dinner. I was very very disappointed. I tasted “old grease” on my crab rangoons, and the chicken that made up the General Tso’s chicken was all dark meat (which I hate). It felt strange eating rice for the first time in a couple of months, but it was no great shakes.

All in all, I realized that the “fattening” no-carb foods I’ve been eating have mostly been fresh ingredients and very tasty dishes. This meal contained the “forbidden carbs” and they were not as great as I remembered.

THEN, the carb affect set in. I felt like I was drugged! (Not that there’s anything wrong with that. LOL)

I was really lethargic and barely felt like getting up from the table. It was interesting to experience that feeling and gave me some perspective on how great I have been feeling without eating carbs.

We went to see “21 Jump Street,” which was lame, but mildly funny. It was good escapism, and it took my mind off work, our business, home repair deadlines, and my dad’s issues. I decided NOT to get the snow-caps that I was planning to eat during the flick. If I felt this badly after rice and Chinese food sweeteners, how bad would I feel after a box of sugary chocolates? I was guessing pretty bad.

The last cheat day I had, I didn’t really eat too badly. The carbs came from tortillas and cole slaw, not from these really starchy food items. I think that’s why I didn’t feel the effects as much last cheat day.

I took a chance on 4 plain White Castle hamburgers after the movie, split some onion chips with Rick, and we each had their very tiny cheese cake dessert. That’s it! I’m back to low carb living. My walk on the wild side wasn’t all it was expected to be.

Day 37: Chinese buffet tactics

Total weight loss to date: 12 pounds

Next weigh-in Saturday, 2/18

Yesterday was a day of trials and successes. I battled my way through a few difficult meals, but came out successful.

I was very busy at work in the morning, and had no time for breakfast. Rick planned to pick me up around noon to get some lunch before driving to a funeral an hour and a half away. [Yes, another funeral! I have lost 4 friends and/or acquaintances in the past 6 months.]

We drove a bit and I decided I was in the mood for a burger with grilled onions. We stopped at a small diner and I took a quick look at the menu. While I was still mulling over the choices, the waitress advised us that the bbq pulled pork was very good. I ordered that with some deep fried zucchini.

Minutes after the waitress left to put in our order, I looked up the carb content of the pulled pork. What was I thinking? It was over 40 carbs on most entries! I forgot that barbecue sauce is not my friend.

Rick grabbed the waitress and asked if she could put that order to go, and switch to a burger for my meal. She was quite amenable, and I had a 1/2 pound cheeseburger with grilled onions, a slice of tomato, and mayo. I disassembled it and put the bun into the bag with the sandwich to go.

The next trial was the zucchini fries. Of course they were breaded before they were fried! I certainly wasn’t thinking – could be that my brain was addled from lack of food, because by this time it was about 2 pm. I cut each piece in half and pulled the coating off. Good, but not great.

The hamburger, however, was very good tasting and filling.

After the funeral, we were all invited to…..

the Chinese buffet.

I LOVE the Chinese buffet. And I was positive that I couldn’t ever go there again. However, I was determined to find SOME low carb choices, but I knew the the trick would be passing the carb-laden foods that I love: crab rangoons and General Tso’s chicken.

I started by getting some baked crab, then some sauted shrimp. As I was passing the eggrolls, I realized that I could probably scoop the insides out and eat just that portion. So I took 2 eggrolls and 1 spring roll. Hmm. If I can do that, why can’t I eat only the insides of a crab rangoon. After all, crab and cream cheese are legal. For the entire meal, I had 6 of them. Each yielded about a tbsp of crab/cheese after the exterior fried shell was eliminated. For a bit of variety, I put some type of steak and veggie combo and some cheesy broccoli on my plate.

The meal took some work, since I had to slice things open and carve out the innards, but it was pretty tasty, and I was somewhat full when finished. I really have a difficult time figuring out exactly how many grams of carbs were in each item, since most online nutrition details don’t include the carb count for only the insides of eggrolls and rangoons, but I have to think I did okay.

I skipped dessert, of course, and ate some sugar-free jello/cream cheese mousse at home.

I’m going to take some time this weekend to figure out the carb count of various items that I could encounter so I can be better prepared next time I need to make a quick decision. I am pretty encouraged that I could do this long term. I know it will be awhile until I reach my goal, and it’s nice to know that I can go to some of my usual haunts and still find food that fits the plan.