About a month ago, I made some dietary changes after noticing that my weight was creeping up a little higher than I thought it should. Hitting 194 lbs was like a warning light for my human engine and some maintenance was needed. For lack of a better term, I adopted a "lazy Keto" approach. Instead of going the full Keto route, which apparently includes militant macro nutrient counting and obsessive label reading, I decided to take the simpler approach of eating more protein, eating almost no carbohydrates, and supplementing extra fats to help keep me fuller, longer. I started this dietary change close to the beginning of September 2018. I stuck with it for a month and now I'll share my experiences.
Scheduling meals:
I live in a house with 3 other people. Changing my diet drastically was going to affect them. I did not want to be a burden or an annoyance to them, so I did what I could when we ate together (dinner). That meant that the other 2 meals of the day was where I would have the most control. If rice or pasta made it to my dinner plate, I could deal with it as long as I kept closer to Keto at breakfast/lunch.
New items:
I was concerned about stocking an alternate pantry to support my diet. Although I did have to buy some new/different items, it was not as many as I expected. Before this dietary change, I was already close to being a vegetarian, so increasing my protein intake was going to take some effort.
I started with eggs. I ate SO many eggs this month. Two eggs every morning in some way, shape, or form. I already enjoyed making omelets for myself, but now that I was doing Lazy Keto, I needed to get a jump on my protein intake and those omelets were a perfect solution. I would mix up the variety with some combination of onions, peppers, spinach, mushrooms, and a collection of cheeses. On occasion, I would also cook up some bacon. By the way, for perfectly cooked bacon put your bacon on a parchment lined cookie sheet and cook put it in the oven for 15 minutes at 380 degrees. Works every time.
Smoked salmon and deli meats turned into my go to proteins when I had a feeling I was not eating enough protein and needed to eat it without much preparation. I bought coleslaw and more cheese to supplement my fat intake in the same non-prep manner.
Desserts had essentially been cut out of my diet due to an effort to reduce/eliminate sugar. However, I needed something to fill that void. I went with mixing chia seeds with coconut milk as my dessert. The chia seeds act like tapioca to create a pudding like consistency. I had previously bought some monkfruit based sweetener that I used in the chia/coconut milk pudding as well. The monkfruit sweetener was not some specialty health food purchase. I found it at my local Harris Teeter. I originally bought this sweetener for my coffee, but since I don't drink that much coffee I figured that traditional sweeteners would not be so terrible when I had a cup. I use real sugar (!) or Splenda.
Meals:
I mentioned home dinners, which did not change that much. However when I was cooking dinner for the family, I would shy away from the rice/pasta/bread. Usually, I would prepare a hunk of meat with a vegetable side and maybe a salad. Rice/pasta/bread would still show up on occasion, but I treated these like "cheat meals". If most of my meals were low carb/Keto, then I believed I would still see the benefits. I never saw my weight or anything else get thrown off by eating a higher carb meal occasionally. I would limit the carbs when I could. Smaller portions or reducing the carbs in some way.
Eating out:
I go out to eat for a majority of my lunches during the work week. This required some creative entree selections at my favorite restaurants. A salad with meat or a burger without bread became my go-to meals. A noodle bowl became a poke bowl. Burritos became taco salads (no shell). Absolutely no fries. Soup is out. And of course, bread was gone too. I stuck with my half sweet/half unsweet tea. I could do a separate post on what to eat at restaurants when on a low carb diet.
Social constraints:
There are temptations to veer away from a low carb/Keto diet around every turn. A box of donuts at work. A food truck. A beer. Yeah, a beer is considered a cheat. When I wanted an alcoholic beverage at home I started drinking spiked seltzer water. A surprisingly delicious and refreshing option during the hot summer nights.
People are generally supportive of alternative dietary restrictions. Any stigma I found was self-induced. I felt like I set myself to allow for some "cheats", but rarely did I feel the need to do it. Carbs are rarely forced on you. Its just a matter whether you want to drop your own guidelines to make yourself feel like everyone else.
Results:
I started the end of August 2018 weighing 194 lbs. Today I weighed in at 184 lbs. While I consider this a success, I believe that this approach is a short term solution for me. That is not to say that I will go back to my carby days of the past. However, I will re-incorporate carbs into my diet with some trepidation. In the future, if I see my weight getting a little higher than I want, I could easily go back to this Lazy Keto approach.
Sunday, September 30, 2018
Monday, September 03, 2018
Dietary Changes
Decided to focus on my diet after I noticed that I was increasing my weekly running mileage, but my weight was creeping higher and higher. I have been in the 190-195 pound range for years, especially since I have given up roller hockey and went to running as my full time exercise outlet. When I see the weight get to 195, that is my alert to check on what I have been eating and possibly make adjustments. Typically, a night of beer and/or barbecue would spike the weight a bit, so I could dismiss it as being too indulgent. As long as I did not eat/drink like that on a steady basis, the weight would stay in my self-defined safe zone. One day I noticed that the weight was not going back down, staying closer to 195 than to 190. I figured some changes were in order.
I had a good friend that had reaped the benefits of going to a Keto diet. I won't get into the specifics, but essentially, its a low/no carb - high fat/protein diet. The science behind Keto and other carb deficient diets is that you get your body to burn fat instead of carbs. You do this by not eating sugar/carbs (carbs get processed as sugar in your body). Then your body has no choice but to burn the fat since there's no carbs/sugars left. Since carbs fill you up, you need to offset the carb reductions with an increase in protein and fat. This could be right up my alley.
I did the research and noticed that there is a high barrier of entry to this diet and what seems like an even higher level of commitment. All new foods to buy (what is monkfruit?). Readily available foods I used to eat any time are now forbidden. This was not going to be easy. Instead of jumping in the deep end, I decided to take a more gradual approach. I created some customized guidelines for myself.
No potatoes - I had already mostly phased out potatoes from my diet, but now it was real. I had been eating fries out of habit, not out of desire.
Less pasta/rice - I'm married to a native Louisianan. Rice is going to show up on my plate from time to time. Smaller rice portions should do the trick. Removing pasta will be a battle.
Much less bread - I was having toast with my omelettes at breakfast. Those were easy to eliminate. Decided to eat half the bread on most sandwiches/burgers. I would either toss the top bun or cut the bread down to smaller pieces.
Beer on weekends - I'm a craft beer drinker. Almost every beer I drink has carbs out the ying yang. No more beer with dinner on week nights. If I need to imbibe, I go to spiked seltzer which has been a refreshing twist during this summer already.
No desserts - I was never much of a dessert guy anyway.
After only a week of using these guidelines, I saw the pounds come off. I weighed in at 191 before deciding to ruin my progress by drinking beer and eating carbs over Labor Day weekend. This 3 day weekend helped highlight some of the obstacles I may encounter using my guidelines
Sweet Tea - A few years back I switched from full on Sweet Tea to Half Sweet/Half Unsweet Tea. I'll admit that I am addicted, since its a staple when I go out for lunches. If I remove tea completely, I would probably offset by increasing my coffee intake. Bought some low glycemic sweetener just in case.
Pasta - Some of my favorite cuisines are based on pasta (Italian, Chinese, assorted southeast Asia fare).
Bread - The wife made some awesome sweet zucchini bread. That was extremely difficult to ignore. Cereal - For most of my life, cereal is all that I would eat for breakfast. Recently went to making eggs in some manner, but cereal is close to 50% of my breakfasts. The carbs are just too high, so cereal has to go. This will be phased out over a longer period of time.
Cheese/Crackers - I make a killer cheese dip. The cheese dip can stay, but its delivery mechanism will need to change. Still working on what that will be. Might be an actual spoon.
Dark Chocolate - If I drink red wine, I love to finish with some dark chocolate. Its more of a habit, I know, but the craving will be a battle to subvert.
Although I had some quick success, it was fleeting since I did not stick with it long enough. Looks like I can focus on my breakfasts and lunches, Monday through Friday. I would hate to force the rest of my family to change their diets just because I decided to change mine, so dinners will remain mostly the same.
I had a good friend that had reaped the benefits of going to a Keto diet. I won't get into the specifics, but essentially, its a low/no carb - high fat/protein diet. The science behind Keto and other carb deficient diets is that you get your body to burn fat instead of carbs. You do this by not eating sugar/carbs (carbs get processed as sugar in your body). Then your body has no choice but to burn the fat since there's no carbs/sugars left. Since carbs fill you up, you need to offset the carb reductions with an increase in protein and fat. This could be right up my alley.
I did the research and noticed that there is a high barrier of entry to this diet and what seems like an even higher level of commitment. All new foods to buy (what is monkfruit?). Readily available foods I used to eat any time are now forbidden. This was not going to be easy. Instead of jumping in the deep end, I decided to take a more gradual approach. I created some customized guidelines for myself.
No potatoes - I had already mostly phased out potatoes from my diet, but now it was real. I had been eating fries out of habit, not out of desire.
Less pasta/rice - I'm married to a native Louisianan. Rice is going to show up on my plate from time to time. Smaller rice portions should do the trick. Removing pasta will be a battle.
Much less bread - I was having toast with my omelettes at breakfast. Those were easy to eliminate. Decided to eat half the bread on most sandwiches/burgers. I would either toss the top bun or cut the bread down to smaller pieces.
Beer on weekends - I'm a craft beer drinker. Almost every beer I drink has carbs out the ying yang. No more beer with dinner on week nights. If I need to imbibe, I go to spiked seltzer which has been a refreshing twist during this summer already.
No desserts - I was never much of a dessert guy anyway.
After only a week of using these guidelines, I saw the pounds come off. I weighed in at 191 before deciding to ruin my progress by drinking beer and eating carbs over Labor Day weekend. This 3 day weekend helped highlight some of the obstacles I may encounter using my guidelines
Sweet Tea - A few years back I switched from full on Sweet Tea to Half Sweet/Half Unsweet Tea. I'll admit that I am addicted, since its a staple when I go out for lunches. If I remove tea completely, I would probably offset by increasing my coffee intake. Bought some low glycemic sweetener just in case.
Pasta - Some of my favorite cuisines are based on pasta (Italian, Chinese, assorted southeast Asia fare).
Bread - The wife made some awesome sweet zucchini bread. That was extremely difficult to ignore. Cereal - For most of my life, cereal is all that I would eat for breakfast. Recently went to making eggs in some manner, but cereal is close to 50% of my breakfasts. The carbs are just too high, so cereal has to go. This will be phased out over a longer period of time.
Cheese/Crackers - I make a killer cheese dip. The cheese dip can stay, but its delivery mechanism will need to change. Still working on what that will be. Might be an actual spoon.
Dark Chocolate - If I drink red wine, I love to finish with some dark chocolate. Its more of a habit, I know, but the craving will be a battle to subvert.
Although I had some quick success, it was fleeting since I did not stick with it long enough. Looks like I can focus on my breakfasts and lunches, Monday through Friday. I would hate to force the rest of my family to change their diets just because I decided to change mine, so dinners will remain mostly the same.
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