Category Archives: Keto secrets
Good info about ketogenic diet with food list, menus, and advice
Found an inspiring blog with some solid keto diet advice. I especially agree with this:
One of the most effective tricks during a diet is routine. Eat the same meals over and over or plan your meals ahead for the whole week. I’ve found it effective to pre-make dishes on Sunday and have them ready for the week. That makes it incredibly easy to stick to the diet because I avoid thinking which means I avoid creativity and creativity requires decision making which leads to hard choices. Just avoid the hard choices and have it all planned and some of it ready to grab and go.
The Basic Keto Diet, a page on Mike Maunder’s blog, has about everything you need to understand the ketogenic diet principle, plus a list of foods and menu plans. It’s thorough and inspiring.
Day 285: Yummy steak with onion blue cheese sauce
Total weight loss: 41 pounds [I like typing that]
Saturday morning breakfast at the diner – cheese/onion omelet with a side of bacon
We worked on emptying and readying the house we [finally] sold. We packed and cleaned for a few hours. This stuff seems to multiply. Afterwards, we went to Del Taco. I had the usual macho beef burrito and opened up and ditched the tortilla.
My 2 pounds weight loss yesterday morning buoyed my spirits. I’m sometimes tempted to “reward myself” with some kind of cheat meal, but realized it would be better to save that for when I’m not losing, to perhaps shock my body into responding to the diet. So, I didn’t have a cheat meal, but my compromise was eating 1 1/2 cinnamon churros. I have to admit they were good. Now I will look at the carb count…..egad – 21 carbs per churro. So much for being in ketosis. Sigh. So, I had approximately 32 extra grams of carbs yesterday. Not good.
Oh, another tip: carry a “real” fork with you. I carry one in my purse and it comes in handy when I order things like this burrito, or a burger with no bun. I HATE using a plastic fork, and some of those burgers actually break them.
Dinner was legal and delish. Rick grilled steaks. I made the accompanying blue cheese onion cream sauce and some cauliflower mashed potatoes. Before dinner, I cleaned the house, put the tv/pc back in order (the old hard drive had failed), and generally spruced up the place. While cleaning out the sold house earlier in the day, I had grabbed Brandon and Lindsey’s lamp set, which they aren’t currently using, and I put one on each side of our Ansel Adams print next to the table. It looked warm and elegant, so we ate our gourmet dinner using cloth napkins and each had a glass of cabernet. I had one more glass out on the deck [oh, what the heck? I already ate 30+ carbs of churro earlier – bad attitude, I know].
Dessert was the usual choco/peanut butter low carb treat.
Day 284: Two more pounds (yay!); working towards 50
This week’s weight loss: 2 pounds
Total weight loss: 41 pounds
Wow. I finally hit above the 40 pound mark. Nine more pounds to 50! Keto works.
Yesterday’s food journal:
I was happy it was Friday. We’ve been really busy this week, and I looked forward to the weekend. We went out to breakfast again. I know, it’s pretty extravagant to eat breakfast out each morning, but it’s also a nice, relaxing start to our day. I enjoy my NYT puzzle and Rick reads the paper. I get some “me time” before heading off to work. We also eat pretty cheaply.
Breakfast was the usual: cheese and grilled onion omelet with a side of bacon and topped with sour cream.
Lunch: I sort of skipped lunch. These breakfasts keep me full for a long time. I was working on a deadline project. It needed to be done by 2 pm, so the boss could take it with him on a trip. I had a snack around one o’clock – some chili lime almonds and some small pieces of cheese. By the time I left work at 6, I was famished.
That was something I forgot to blog about – I bought some individually wrapped cheddar cheese portions in a large bag at Costco. I put the whole bag in the fridge at work and always have a low carb snack on hand.
On the way home from work, I decided I’d like to have another of those buffalo grilled chicken salads like I had the day before. Here’s where I found out that I had eaten more carbs on Thursday than I originally thought. Rick wasn’t hungry, so I ordered the salad as a carryout from Big Boy. I ordered the “Buffalo grilled chicken salad” with blue cheese. The server asked, “do you want the grilled chicken or chicken tenders?” Hmm. I did say GRILLED, which is what I had ordered the day before for lunch. I did point out to Rick that the chicken looked like it had some kind of coating, but the menu said it was grilled, so oh well.
Turns out I must have been eating chicken with coating which would have had more carbs. Sigh. I think it would bother me more if I didn’t see the 2 pound weight loss.
Rick built a fire in the yard, and I joined him with a drink made of 3 shots of vodka and some raspberry Sparkling Ice. It was a nice end to a long work week. I also had 2 squares of 70% chocolate with peanut butter.
Day 4: Yum, stuffed mushrooms and a crazy day
Today’s weight loss: 2 pounds
Total weight loss since 1/12/2012: 6 1/2 pounds
Yesterday, I got a very late start on breakfast.
My husband Rick and I have my 88-year old dad stay with us every Friday thru Sunday. He suffers from Alzheimer’s and can’t live alone. By the time I got him up, fed, showered, and settled in his room with some fresh clothes, I didn’t get breakfast until 1:30 p.m. There were some major difficulties during shower time…he was unable to get out of the tub and landed on the floor. He wasn’t hurt; he just sort of slowly slipped down to a sitting position. Nonetheless, my husband and I had quite a time trying to maneuver and lift him.
Once that trauma was over, Rick went off to get some groceries to aide in my new keto diet. He’s a very supportive husband and has tried each of the new recipes with me. He is also the grocery shopper and cook in the marriage, so with him on board, my chances of being successfully carb-free are great! As the “not-cook,” I am surprised to find I’m enjoying playing around with some of these wonderful recipes I’ve found online. Maybe this cooking thing isn’t so bad, after all.
So, at 1:30, I experimented with my nuked cheese crackers and enjoyed a relaxing brunch.
Because I ate breakfast so late, I never really had a true lunch. Dinner was stuffed mushroom appetizers, then 2 pulled pork tacos. (See a picture in my last post.)
Rick altered his classic mushroom recipe by using crumbled pork rinds instead of bread crumbs. He also left the sweet spicy hot sauce off (8 carbs a tbsp!), and I dipped mine in a small bowl to get a bit of the flavor without all the carbs.
My energy level is fantastic. I never feel like cleaning the kitchen after dinner, but I spent an hour and a half tidying up last night. It sparkles! I can’t seem to stop moving. So far, I’m a big fan of the keto eating plan!
Yesterday’s meals –
Breakfast: 6 “cheese-its” with avocado/spinach/parmesan dip
Lunch: 4 stuffed mushrooms with 2/3 tbsp of sweet/hot sauce
Dinner: 2 tacos made from Costco pulled pork, provolone cheese shells, grated cheese/onions/Taco Bell hot sauce
Snack: 2 pcs Lindt 79% chocolate and one glass of cabernet
Splurge: 1 diet coke