#ketokrate

Volleyball last night didn’t suck!!  HALLELUJAH!  We lost all but one game, but I didn’t hate the experience and didn’t feel like crying once.  SCORE.  And Kevin came, too!  Having his support and presence was really comforting.  Plus, he was the perfect gopher to grab us all beers mid-game!  :)  I didn’t drink until the fifth game then downed a beer right before the sixth and final game and it was a great decision.  By that point I had totally loosened up and had no cares other than just enjoying the experience as we were being horribly beaten.  

Love how I spent my last post bragging about Kevin making dinners then I ended up making dinner for myself last night :) I told him that Tumblr would be so disappointed that he fell down on the job but he stated that since I love wraps for dinner that he was actually helping me.  He isn’t wrong and I was extremely happy to have brussels sprouts and my cucumber cream cheese wrap for dinner.  

March’s Keto Krate arrived yesterday and I’ve already eaten so many items from it!  

Pork King Good White Cheddar Pork Rinds:  AMAZING Per serving (4 per bag):  90 calories, 5g fat, 8g protein, 0 net carbs

Who can stop at 1/4 of this tiny bag?  Yes, I ate the entire bag in one delicious sitting.  

The Nutty Gourmet Walnuts:  YES PLEASE Per serving (1 per bag): 370 calories, 37g fat, 9g protein, 4g net carbs

I actually stopped myself at half a bag but these sea salt flavored walnuts totally hit the spot.  I’m really glad they didn’t send me some wacky flavor because I’m all about just salt.  

Smartcakes Cinnamon:  Good, not great Per serving (1 cake, 2 per bag):  38 calories, 2.5g fat, 4g protein, 0 net carbs

They were a tasty little treat as I was shoving food into my face after volleyball but they were mighty dry and I wanted them smothered in icing with a tall glass of milk.   NuGo Slim Brownie Crunch Bar:  Nope, nada, no thank you Per serving (1 bar): 190 calories, 6g fat, 16g protein, 5g net carbs

Tasted like chemically chocolate.  Wasn’t so bad that I threw it out but I seriously considered it.  

Apparently it's a subscription service that sends you a few Keto-friendly snacks/foods. I'm excited to try them out! The website says that they ship out on the 7th of each month, but since today is the 7th AND a Saturday, I'm going to go ahead and assume I'll get my box in August.

I'm sorry I don't post as much as I used to. I picked up a temporary second job, and have been on the go from 8am to 12am six days a week for the past three weeks. As a result, I've simply been too tired to do anything but exist! But my last week is this week, so I should be able to post more often.

Some updates:

🍃 Hubby met his goal weight and is off Keto! I'm so proud of him. It's a little hard now, as he brings home not-so-keto-friendly foods and drinks, but I'm strong and keep my focus! Haha

🍃 Speaking of my hubby, he got promoted a few weeks ago!! He's now an assistant meat manager at the Publix (local grocer) he works at!! ~And~ his store is like 8 minutes from the one I work at, so lunch dates are now possible! :)

🍃 Last weekend, my brother and his girlfriend traveled to compete in a Strongman contest. Basically they were competing against other weightlifters, and they both did great! My brother came in 4th in the men's heavyweight division out of 8 guys, and she placed first in the novice women's division! We were so proud of the both of them! I ended up getting a terrible sunburn on my shoulders and back, because we were in the sun for five hours, lol. Didn't think to bring sunscreen 🤦‍♀️. I didn't eat Keto the weekend of his competition, just out of convenience. I didn't want to be the one everyone had to work around, so I put a hold on it. Over the course of 4 days, I pigged out, and honestly felt very guilty about it. But, after the comp was over, I jumped right back on board. I think I gained six pounds (mostly water weight, but still) so I've been trying to get rid of that again. As of this morning, I'm only one pound heavier than the last time posted, so I'm still a happy camper.

🍃 My August Keto Krate came in a few weeks ago. I really liked this month's box!

My August Keto Krate contained: Apple cider vinegar single serve drink powders, olives, Nush Brand blueberry cake bar, pumpkin seeds, garlic parmesan walnuts, sunflower seeds, seaweed crisps, and pizza jerky.

The Nush cake bar was DELISH. I even had my hubby (who met his goal weight and is no longer doing Keto) if it was good, or if I was just deprived and desperate (LOL), and even he said it was good. After eating it, I actually went on their website and promptly bought a variety pack of all of their other flavors.

I felt positively famished yesterday.  It was probably just because I was bored but I decided to feed into the temptation with keto foods rather than by eating all the carbs like I actually wanted.  Yes, I should have resisted entirely but some days that’s just not realistic.  Yesterday was one of those days.  

Dinner was hot dogs with the biggest most delicious salad ever which I basically ate all of.  By the end of dinner I exclaimed in surprise that I was actually full!  I had been waiting all day to be full and thankfully I finally no longer felt the pull to keep eating.  

Thank goodness I decided to go for a walk last night, I almost didn’t go.  I felt extra comfy on my couch and just wanted to escape into TV but since it was another beautiful day outside I would kick myself if it was the last nice day for awhile. So, I talked myself into the walk and low and behold it was delightful let alone very necessary given my food intake.  

Check out my great blue heron friend in the grass picture!  I see these guys alllll the time and every time they seem so out of place since they’re so big and they’re just walking around like every other bird.  They also seem to be loners which I respect.  

Keto Krate Item Review - Keto Watt: Peanut Butter

This is by far THE BEST protein/keto bar I’ve ever eaten.  While the flavor is peanut buttery it also had a really nice chocolate taste which makes my heart happy.  The texture is fantastic, the taste is superb, it’s dense but quite moist and is overall extremely satisfying.  Doesn’t taste diet at all.  I would definitely recommend these!

July Walking Mileage: 35.48 miles walked Goal of 103 miles 34.4% completed

Drumroll please.... I weighed in under what I needed at the doctor’s office!  YAYAYAYAY!  I officially weighed in at 225 which gives me a BMI of 36.3, 0.7 points down from the 37 I needed to qualify for the trial.  SCORE!  

Unfortunately, the doctor I saw didn’t know anything about the trial (pissed) so hopefully all my efforts weren’t for naught.  I was planning on eating a super carby delicious brunch after my appointment but when I realized I will be going into the doctor’s office again on Monday (today) and might have to weigh-in again I didn’t want to ruin all my hard work so I grumpily got an omelette.  

As you can see from my food choices and logs I eased up a bit on my calorie restriction but kept up with my daily walking efforts.  

On Sunday I mowed the lawn and then went for a five mile walk so I basically felt like the fittest person on the planet.  

Per @meishafindingbalance‘s request, please see the dresses I wore last week!  The blue dress is what I wore to work on Friday and the polka dots were worn on Saturday because it was the lightest material and outfit I could find to help assist a low weigh-in number.  Later that day I paired the polka dots with some extremely bright brick red lipstick that made me feel I belonged in a retro pop-art comic.  (I’m out of room for photos in this post so I’ll share that documentation soon).  

It’s bizarre to me that I now weigh the weight I started my first weight-loss blog effort back in November 2010.  I feel so much smaller now than I did back then but I’m sure it’s just mental.  Even though I’m now a year into this current effort, being at my starting weight eight years ago doesn’t mean I’m starting over.  I’m now 35 pounds down from where I was last year, I have good habits in place, my dedication is paying off slowly but surely and I’m ahead of track with my weight loss goals.  

Keto Krate Box #2 - Item Review #3!  Just The Cheese - Wisconsin Cheddar Minis 95 calories, 8g Fat, 1g Carb, 5g Protein

From the first crispy bite into these tiny cheese crunchies I was in love.  I audibly moaned when I ate this (I know, annoying co-worker here, this is why I have my own office).  I had to slow myself down eating them because I wanted to savor the cheesy crunchy goodness.  The only thing preventing me from buying these in bucketfuls is because I don’t have unlimited money AND I can make them at home as I have before.  Not nearly this tiny and portion controlled but if I ever decide to stop being lazy I could make these for my happy consumption. 

Most tragic news first - my phone was dying on my walk last night didn’t log my walk accurately *sob*

I went out the door with a 33% phone battery and about half-way through my walk it yelled at me that I only had 15% remaining so I turned on my battery saver.  I didn’t realize that by doing this it would shut off the live GPS aspect of Runkeeper until I noticed that while it was updating my total time it had the mileage and pace completely wrong.  Thankfully, my Pandora still worked so I was able to stay entertained although it did play “Tootsee Roll” twice within an hour and a half so something was screwy on that end too.  

My phone died literally as soon as I stepped up to my front door #timing.  I was working towards a record breaking walking streak this week on Runkeeper so we’ll see if I’m able to still achieve that even without last night’s 4.5 mile walk (estimated, sadly).  

Before all of this went down, Kevin and I went to Fellini’s for our giant salads with double chicken which always makes me happy.  

In other news, my second Keto Krate box arrived yesterday!!!  Crazy exciting!  Love having new snacks in my life.  Obviously, we had to try the cookie first.  

Keto Krate Review Item #1 - Fat Snax | Chocolate Chip Cookie Macros per cookie:  Calories - 90; Total Fat - 8g; Net Carbs - 2g; Protein - 2g

First off, there are TWO cookies in the packaging!  Score!  I split one cookie with Kevin and saved the second one for later.  Our initial reaction was that it tasted really good!  Then I remembered what real cookies tasted like and it paled in comparison.  BUT, for a keto cookie with 2g of carbs I can’t complain.  If I had a stockpile of these in my house I’d for sure eat them every day.  

Also!!  Heeeeey there 227!  Nice to see you again :)

Trigger Warning:  Carbs were consumed with great fervor.  

After my doctors appointment yesterday (which went WAY better than Saturday despite my amazing weigh-in!) where I did NOT have to weigh-in again (YES) I decided that the smartest thing to do for my life and sanity would be to eat massive amounts of carbs for dinner.  

Since I wasn’t able to eat without worry for the last month due to the weigh-in and the next possible time I’d be at the doctors wouldn’t be until July 5th that meant that if I wanted to eat a meal of carbs it should be sooner rather than later (so I had time to lose any gained weight) which meant I had some last night for dinner!

I fought Kevin hard against getting ramen, don’t get me wrong - I love ramen but we’ve had ramen two or three times since the last time I had shawarma.  And if I was going to consume carbs it wasn’t going to be noodles in a bowl of broth it was going to be big fluffy pita bread, hummus and falafel, dammit.  

And fuuuuuck, it was incredible.  It was so much food that I brought half the wrap home and ate it an hour later while watching a movie.  HEAVEN!

Rewind.  Before eating carbs for dinner, earlier that day I was just plain hungry in general.  You know how on keto there are some days where you’re starving and others where you really don’t have to eat?  Yesterday was a munchy day so I tried out the Protes chips.  

Keto Krate Box #2, Item Review # 4 - Protes Chips | Zesty Nacho 120 Calories, 4g Fat, 4g Net Carbs, 15g Protein

Ew.  Taste like heavily seasoned cardboard.  Yes, they crunch like chips but they taste like I’m eating the flavor of an Amazon shipping box.  The flavor they sent me is Zesty Nacho and while I taste some zest I taste no nacho.  Makes me wonder how the other flavors fare.  I can see me eating these if they were 0g or 1g of carbs but for 4g??  Nope.  I mean, other than this bag which I’ll eat because it’s in my face and I enjoy chewing.  

Obviously, I had to weigh-in the day after my carb fest and I was pleasantly surprised to see only a two pound gain this morning!  We’ll see how my loss/gain goes from here.  I’m just really proud of myself for allowing one meal of glorious carbs then right back on the keto track today.  Yes!  

Today, I was surprisingly not hungry at all so I only ate the bacon*, 4oz of chicken salad and a few almonds.  Looking forward to dinner even though I have no idea what I’m making!  Maybe pizza?!

*Keto Krate Box #2, Item Review # 5 - Pederson’s Natural Farm Bacon 50 Calories, 3.5g Fat, 0g Carbs, 4g Protein

Tasted like bacon!  It was neat to be able to have it in my lunch and not have to cook it.  I doubt I’ll buy it purely based on convenience but it was a tasty lunch today!