Sooooo, I had decided a few months back that I was going to give Keto a trial run.Ā Iād bought a few books, Iād done my homework, I picked a meal-plan that included a 3 week āketo-ish adjustment periodā followed by a 3 week full blown keto meal plan with some intermittent fasting.Ā I did it for one week and for one reason or another, it just didnāt take.
Actually, I know exactly why it didnāt take.Ā I wasnāt all in.Ā Making a drastic change to your life-style and diet requires a mental commitment and if my head isnāt in the game 100%, I tend to go off-book after 8 ā 11 days, and it just goes downhill from there.
I decided to give keto another try after I got back my from last vacation, that also corresponded with the beginning of my marathon training. However, I decided to wait until I was two weeks in to blog about it.Ā Once I get past the 8 to 11 day hump, I know Iām good and committed.
Before I start talking about how things are going, I think I should start with what a ketogenic diet is and why I decided to try it.Ā Iām not going to get into a big explanation on what it is ā Google works just fine if youāre interested in the details.Ā Basically, you eat a diet of approximately 70 ā 80% fat, 15 ā 25% protein, and 5% carbs and after a few days, your body will go in ketosis.Ā This means that your body realizes that there arenāt enough carbs to burn as energy, so it starts burning stored fat to product ketones, which your body then uses for energy.
So, why Keto?Ā Well, I had two goals I wanted to achieve that were diet related.Ā I wanted to lose some weight and reduce my body fat.Ā I also really wanted to move away from using sugar carbs for fueling.Ā I had tried that briefly last season but ended up going back to Tailwind and Chia Gels.Ā Ā A ketogenic diet seemed to work for both of those goals (at least according to what I read and researched.) . Plus, I really prefer a fattier diet.Ā I love pork and beef (and bacon.)Ā I love grass-fed butter.Ā I love sauces and dressings on food.Ā A high fat diet goes right along with how I like to eat.Ā Fun fact, I tried to do a raw, vegan cleanse once.Ā It lasted exactly 12 hours.Ā Eating that way just does NOT work for me.
The two books Iād purchased were the Keto Reset DietĀ from Mark Sisson and the 30 Day Ketogenic CleanseĀ from Maria Emmerich.
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Iād picked the Keto Reset because Iād read the Primal Blueprint and I also read Markās Daily Apple blog from time to time.Ā Heās an athlete that follows a paleo/primal diet and was familiar to me.Ā I think Iād bought the Maria Emmerich book based on recommendations from bloggers I follow, although I canāt honestly remember.Ā In both cases, I liked the idea of having a meal plan to follow.Ā I donāt mind counting macros, but since keto is so dependent on getting them right, I kind of wanted my meals laid out for me in the beginning.Ā Meal planning takes some time and thought and adding in macros definitely makes it more involved.Ā I figured I should try and make it easy on myself.
I ended up going with the 30 Day Ketogenic Cleanse, primarily because the initial plan had no dairy (I wanted to keep it paleo) and because the meal plans were built closer to my daily caloric intake of 1,400 calories.Ā The Keto Reset Dietās meal plans had a much higher daily caloric amount and also included dairy.Ā I didnāt want to have to worry about making adjustments to offset that.Ā Iāll be blogging soon on my thoughts/opinions about the 30 Day Ketogenic Cleanse book, probably after Iām done with my initial 30 days.
It was important to me to stay Paleo while going Keto.Ā I buy organic when I can and always do for the dirty dozen, I take pains to buy pasture and grass-fed meat and dairy, I stay away from processed foods, artificial sugar and try to eat as much real food as possible.Ā I want to eat healthy and make sure Iām getting all the nutrients I need and not eating a bunch of crap.Ā Iāve seen some post of peopleās keto meals that are certainly high fat, low carb but they make me want to throw up in my mouth a little bit because they have no nutritional value and are all made from processed, crappy food.Ā This post I read awhile back from from Dr. Anthony GustinĀ really sums it up well.Ā I wanted to keep the base of my paleo diet, just increase the amount of healthy fats I was consuming to replace some of my carb and protein content.
OK ā so Iāve talked about WHAT keto is, WHY I wanted to do it, WHICH book I picked and HOW I wanted to approach it in terms of staying paleo.Ā I think Iām ready to talk about how things went.
The meal plan on the 30 Day Cleanse is comprised of two meals and a snack.Ā The intention is that you fast from after dinner for 12 ā 18 hours and the have a ābreak the fastā meal.Ā You then have the snack and second meal as dinner.Ā I will get into intermittent fasting another time, but it was something that I was willing to try.
The one thing I didnāt love about Mariaās book was that there was an overwhelming number of things she suggested that you try that was beyond just food consumption and intermittent fasting.Ā You canāt eat less than three hours before bed, you canāt drink water a half hour before or after eating, you should try eating ice at night to cool your mitochondria, activate brown fat, start oil pullingā¦.it actually put me off to the book initially because it was way too many rules to follow.Ā Debra doesnāt do so well with too many rules and feels strongly enough about it to talk in the third person when she encounters it.
I decided I would try the intermittent fasting, with an eating window of 12 PM ā 7 PM.Ā Iād get through the morning with coffee, collagen or MCT oil.Ā That was just going to have to be good enough.Ā Iām not keto-adapted (my body isnāt trained to use stored fat for energy yet) and with the amount of working out I do in the mornings at times, I knew Iād likely need something to get me through until noon.Ā I also decided to try to wait the three hours before going to bed after eating.Ā The rest of the suggested rules, I opted out.Ā Iām making enough changes for myself.Ā Plus the fact I have to give up wine for a month ā I feel Iām giving PLENTY.
Day 1 was great!Ā I fasted until noonish ā no problem.Ā The lunch meal was DELICIOUS. I did an Orangetheory workout in the afternoon and kicked ass.Ā I had two chicken wings and a burger topped with bone marrow, onions and mushrooms for dinner.Ā Just YUM.Ā How great is this keto stuff, right?Ā I did a book/real life comparison pic of my burger just for fun because it was sooo not even close.
On Day 2, my system had a minor revolt.Ā I donāt know exactly what it was, but I started a diarrheathon that was pretty unpleasant.Ā Maybe my body was reacting to the drastic fat content change?Ā I had read that this could be one of the side-effects and thankfully things calmed down after a day or so.
I was using SmackFatĀ Keto test strips (you pee on them) to test for ketones.Ā While the test strips are known to sometimes be inaccurate, I wasnāt willing to spent a lot of money for the more reliable ones at this point that require you to stick your finger.Ā I was planning on following a plan to the letter, so I should go into ketosis without much issue.Ā On day three, I started to register ketones (small amounts) they increased gradually over the week and then plateaued at a moderate level.
The next few days were tough.Ā I would get headaches periodically and definitely felt run down.Ā I found that I was able to get through morning workouts (both runs and Orangetheory) while fasting but I felt like I was dragging.Ā That I couldnāt possibly run any faster, or dig deeper to put in more effort.
The meals on this plan are incredibly good, although the portions are smaller than Iām used to.Ā I guess it makes sense that since Iām eating higher fat, I donāt need to eat as much and I found this to be true a lot of the time.Ā But not all.Ā There were times that I would fast until after 12:00 after a hard workout and be absolutely fine.Ā Then there were times Iād skip fasting and eat in the morning and be hungry an hour after eating a meal of 3 eggs with roasted bone marrow (donāt even get me started on how good that is.) A few nights, I wasnāt hungry after my pre-dinner snack, so I skipped the second meal altogether.Ā Overall, I donāt really seem to have fallen into a predictable hunger/eating pattern yet over this first two weeks.
Iām dealing with it by listening to my body.Ā If Iām hungry and not to my eating window, I try to keep myself with coffee and MCT oil.Ā If it persists, I eat ā regardless of the time.Ā If Iām not hungry, I donāt eat.Ā I take contingency snacks with me when Iām going to be out, when I go to work, or on longer runs.Ā I try to drink lots of water and Iām drinking herbal tea every damn night.
Iām starting to hate that damn tea.Ā I wish it was wine.
By the end of the first week, the physical symptoms had subsided.Ā The second week, I went a little of plan due to some personal preferences and a ruined Ropa Vieja that was supposed to be three of the meals.Ā I still kept with recipes from the detox cookbook, though.Ā Ā Since I had to do some meal planning adjustments, I found that the easiest way was to enter in all my planned meals for the week ahead of time to see where my macros were ā then I could add beverages, MCT oil, collagen powder, additional snacks as needed.
Week 2 was better.Ā While I still hit some low energy points, I did feel better and stronger during my workouts and the fasting was a little easier to take.Ā As I mentioned, I still wasnāt necessarily consistent as to when I would or wouldnāt get hungry.Ā I think itās just going to take some time for my body to adjust, especially given my activity level right now.Ā My biggest encouragement was on Tuesday when I stepped on the scale.Ā To see everything going in the right direction was a HUGE boost for me.
By the end of Week 2, I was feeling more normal ā but better ānormalā than Iāve felt in awhile.Ā Iām feeling strong and healthy ā better than I have in a long time.Ā Granted, Iām also exhausted from my workout schedule but Iām still able to roll with it as it gets tougher.
So, two weeks in and Iām feeling pretty positive about my decision to do this cleanse.Ā It definitely was a little jarring to up my fat consumption to 75%, but so far it seems to be working well in terms of how Iām feeling physically and reducing my overall mass.Ā And I got to be honest, the food on this plan has been AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME.
Iāve already droned on too long, so Iāll just leave you with some of my food pics.Ā Iāll be checking in next week and talk in more about exactly what I ate.Ā Iāve started to venture more and more off the food plan.
This was one of my absolute favorites.Ā I made in twice in two weeks.
Dinner: Chicken Avgolemono topped with fried chicken skins. Itās like this creamy (but no dairy) chicken, lemon goodness in a bowl. It was on the plan last week and I liked it so much I made it again. Served with asparagus topped with a not-so-soft-boiled egg and keto bread that I toasted in a pan with olive oil. YUM.
A post shared by Debra (@medalsandbacon) on Mar 1, 2018 at 4:28pm PST
One of my off book snacks ā instead of lemon pepper wings, I just went for old fashioned buffalo wings.
Pre-dinner snack (amuse-bouche?) I used @tessemaes hot buffalo wing sauce which is hands down, one of the best wings you can buy (in my humble opinion.) I then drizzled a little @primalkitchenfoods Ranch on top and it was š!
A post shared by Debra (@medalsandbacon) on Mar 4, 2018 at 4:08pm PST
One of the fancier breakfasts, although I learned that making hollandaise without butter isnāt very good.
The hollandaise sauce I made was not very yummy, so I improvised on my Eggs Florentine with a dollop of guacamole instead. Honestly, this wasnāt my favorite breakfast off the plan this week, but in all fairness I donāt think Iāve ever ordered Eggs Florentine in my life. Itās not really my thing. Breakfast really needs bacon. Always. Still, it was pretty yummy ā and did like the keto English muffin on the bottom.
A post shared by Debra (@medalsandbacon) on Feb 24, 2018 at 9:24am PST
Spicy Kimchi and Eggs ā YUM!! (kimchi recipe was not in the Cleanse book)
So, Iād made some kimchi a few days ago and now it was time to try it out. In truth, I was a tad nervous to try it. I wasnāt sure if it would be good and I havenāt ever eaten plain kimchi before. I donāt know what it should taste like! š So, I brought it over to @littlexln ās house and we had kimchi and eggs for breakfast. The verdict ā DELISH!! And she told me itās the best kimchi sheās ever had. Just call me the #kimchiqueen š
A post shared by Debra (@medalsandbacon) on Feb 23, 2018 at 9:59am PST
And my very, very, very favorite ā Bacon and Eggs Ramen:
Bacon and egg ramen! This was kind of a pain in the butt to make, but it was goooood and spicy! Need to brown the pork belly a little more next time but itās my first time making it. š¤·āāļø You donāt even want to see what a disaster my kitchen in right now, though.
A post shared by Debra (@medalsandbacon) on Feb 20, 2018 at 9:43am PST
Ā Ā My Ketogenic Cleanse ā Two WeeksĀ In Sooooo, I had decided a few months back that I was going to give Keto a trial run.Ā
