Bacon is Bliss

 

Ahhhhhhh Keto diet….how I love to hate you.  On one hand, you gave me the mechanism to lose those fifteen (twenty) (OK fine….30) pounds that I’ve put on in the last couple of years.  And with the ease and speed of no other diet I’ve ever tried.  And, you gave me the permission to eat some of my favorite foods…..

Bacon?  Yes.

Nuts by the handful? Absolutely! 

Cheese in abundance?  You bet your sweet ass.

But, on the other hand, there’s the obvious “NO” foods that come with a low-carbohydrate diet.

Bread?  Nope.

Sugar?  Duh.

Pasta?  Don’t even think about it.

Bye, bye carbs my old friend.  Hello fat…my other friend.  Wait….what?!  Surely, Keto is a joke.  You’re telling me I can eat LARGE amounts of the foods I’ve rationed my whole life and I will lose weight?  All I have to do is give up bread?  If only it were that simple.  Sadly, most fruits and vegetables are also carb-laden.  The idea behind the diet in a nutshell, is that in the absence of carbs, your body turns to fat for fuel, a state called Ketosis (It’s so much more in-depth than that, but for the purpose of my story, that will suffice).  Right….fat for fuel….I was going to be a pro at this.

Let me back up a bit and explain exactly how I got to the point where I’d try something so ridiculous-sounding, instead of the tried and true “eat less and move more” diet.  Even though I have anniversaries of my 29th birthday every year, the truth of the matter is that I am officially in my mid-40s.  (SIDE NOTE:  God, that is so OLD!!!  I think back to when my mom turned 40 and remember thinking that she was ancient.  Sorry Mom.)  Apparently, the days of just thinking about a diet and losing 10 pounds are long over.  Turns out, weight loss in your mid-40s is like a Unicorn.

I am not one of those people who quit eating when I am stressed or busy.  Nope.  I think it’s documented on the “Meet Julie” sidebar of this blog that I am always thinking about what I am going to eat next.  Always.  I go to bed thinking about breakfast and dream of snacks while I’m putting my lunch dishes in the dishwasher.  Times of stress do not deter me from this.  When I am over-scheduled, I make sure I budget 5 minutes into my day for lunch.  If I only have a few minutes and have the choice to pick up the dry cleaning or run into Mad Greens for a salad….well, John wears dirty shirts.  That’s why they make Febreeze people.  Unfortunately, I am also not the person who has a few cocktails and foregoes eating dinner.  I do both.

So, it’s no surprise that with moving my household to another city (the stress and busy) and a summer and holiday season (the cocktails) I found myself a little “puffy” at the beginning of 2018.  If I’m being completely transparent, puffy is an understatement.  We’re talking postpartum Jackson fat….like right after I had him weight.  The number on the scale had creeped up to a point higher than when I was NINE MONTHS PREGNANT with either of my girls.  YIKES!!  Truthfully, I didn’t know exactly how high it was because I refused to weigh myself.  And, when I went in for my annual physical last November, I turned around on the scale, refused to look at the printout from the doctor, and threw the documents in the garbage on the way out of the office.  Denial is strong.

I think a few pictures from the holiday season were the straw that broke that poor camel’s back.  That, and wearing some of my pants unbuttoned.  I started my quest by doing the same things I’d done in the past….counting calories and hitting the gym.  Thankfully, I love fruits and vegetables and eat pretty good most of the time.  What I ate wasn’t the problem, it was the amount of it.  I could go toe-to-toe with my 230 lb. husband at the dinner table.  That is not a good recipe for well-fitting clothes.  Next up in my plan of attack, I joined Orange Theory Fitness, thinking that some intense cardio would melt the pounds off.

Well…..4 months into this regimen and I hadn’t lost more than a couple of pounds.  WTAF?  How is that possible?  Eat less, move more had always worked.  Now what?  Give up and buy bigger clothes?

So, back to the Keto….a conversation with the aforementioned doctor was the beginning.  She looked at a printout of my hormone levels and said:

“You’re very estrogen dominant.”    NO SHIT.

“I’ll bet in your 40’s you’ve had a hard time losing weight.”    AMEN, SISTER.

“I’d like you to try the Keto diet for 6 weeks.  I think it will really work for you to give up carbs.”  ARE YOU SERIOUS CLARK?

I hadn’t heard much about the Ketogenic diet, other than just scrolling past the thousands of recipes on Pinterest.  I am pretty typically against any “fad” or “gimmick” diet but at this point, I had nothing (or everything) to lose.  I decided to give it a try.

So, like with everything else, I did an enormous amount of research on the Internet, bought a few books, and set my sights on the following Monday morning.  On Saturday and Sunday, I ate every single carbohydrate within a 50 mile radius, and washed them down with a bottle of wine.  Go out in a blaze of glory, right?

Monday morning, I substituted my Coffee Mate with coconut oil and heavy whipping cream.  Delicious!! 

An hour later, I made myself 3(!) eggs fried in butter and a side of bacon.  I can do this, no problem!! 

Lunch was a salad with cheese, avocado, and high fat dressing.  These were foods that I had never let myself eat too much of because they were “fattening.”  A hard-boiled egg was a treat, which meant that an egg salad sandwich was off-limits.  But, I followed the plan and I ate the fat.  And, surprisingly, I was full enough that I didn’t covet the Cheez-Its.

This post is becoming more of an annoying Keto diary than I intended…so I will start to wrap it up by saying that at the end of the 6 weeks I had promised my doctor, I was down 15 pounds.  And, I felt like a million dollars.  All of the things that had been dangled like a carrot….the mental clarity, the weight loss, the abundance of energy….they were all there.  DAMN IT!!  I didn’t want to like this, because as much as I love bacon and cheese, doing Keto for the long term was not appealing.  Variety is the spice of my life.  But, I decided to give it another 8 weeks to see if the trend would continue.  In hindsight, I do NOT recommend doing Keto in the summer.  Margaritas at the pool were a no-no.  Watermelon that I cut up for my kids every afternoon could go nowhere near my lips.  Who wants to eat a hamburger without the bun?  Gross.

At the end of the 14 total weeks, it was the beginning of August.  I was down a total of 26 lbs. and could wear shorts that I thought would never come out of the “skinny box” again.  Plus, I had timed the end of my experiment to allow myself a month to eat ALL THE PRODUCE before summer ended.  I think that first week I ate 11 watermelons and corn on the cob with every meal.  Would it last?  If I went back to eating the way I always had, would the pounds creep back on?

It’s now almost 4 months later and with the help of some intermittent fasting, I can say that I haven’t gained a pound.  BUT, a lifetime of yo-yo weight has taught me that without constant vigilance, the weight will creep back on over time.  My hope is to keep it within a manageable level and not have to consider maternity pants again.  The holidays are coming up, and I am a strong believer in YOLO….I want to enjoy baking those cookies with my kids and drinking that bottle of wine with my husband while we watch Christmas Vacation for the 700th time.  Thankfully, I have a good Keto experience under my belt and know that come January 1, I can pull that bacon out of my back pocket and get to work.  Rumor has it, John is jumping on the butter train too…..stay tuned for that.

DISCLAIMER:  Ketogenic diet is not for everyone.  For as many advocates that sing its praises, there are just as many people who will advise against it.  This is just my lighthearted story about how it worked for me.