body changes

Keto & Mindful Eating

Posted by Lisa Eirene

Quick Progress Update

The diet is going well so far. I am losing weight, slow and steady. I am averaging a loss of about .8-1.2 pounds a week and while it’s not a huge loss each week like a lot of the keto websites and bloggers promise (I feel like they promise big losses to sell their meal plans maybe?) I am still losing and I am happy with that. I knew going in that it would probably be a slow process. When I lost weight the first time, it was a pretty slow process.

Thoughts on Weight Loss

Before I started Keto, I was struggling. After having Logan my body was out of whack. Pregnancy, breastfeeding, age, metabolism, lack of sleep, all of it…it all contributed to no weight loss. Add in medications that caused some weight gain and I was right back to where I started when I had Logan. I was feeling very disappointed and depressed. I was stressed out and frustrated that NOTHING worked. No matter what I did I didn’t see much of a change on the scale. I kept gaining and losing the same 3 or so pounds.

I was definitely getting into some unhealthy behaviors and unhealthy mental loops. I was getting VERY restrictive with my calories. I was already pretty low–1400 calories a day–and that was with working out. I was seeing food as the enemy. I was looking at meals as a negative equation: How could I cut more calories? Why wasn’t I losing any weight as I cut more and more?

It wasn’t a healthy place to be. And it sucked because back in the day when I was trying to lose over 100 pounds, I was never in that obsessive, negative, eating-disorder mindset.

If nothing else, doing the keto diet has shifted my mindset into a different realm. I’m no longer focusing on calories–which is a HUGE shift for me considering calories were what I focused on for the last 15 years.

Instead, I am focusing on macros and net carbs/fat. The calories are at the bottom of my priority list. I am still trying to stay within a range but I no longer feel anxiety if I am seeing in the MyFitnessPal app that I am over my calories for the day. It is no longer the focus.

I feel less stress and anxiety about all of that, so that’s a relief. Sometimes if I go over the net carbs for the day I do feel disappointed in myself but I try not beat myself up about it. It’s just one day and I usually don’t go that far over my goal.

When I am planning my meals and food for the day I focus on the macros and when I look at nutrients on food labels, I look at carb count first, and sometimes I don’t even look at the calorie count! SO weird! Especially for me!

I will be doing another weigh-in post and update in about two weeks.

Reflections on Losing Weight

Posted by Lisa Eirene

Recently a reader asked why I wasn’t trying to lose weight this time like I did the first time. I wanted to address that.

When I lost weight the first time, it was definitely “easier” (weight loss isn’t really easy, but looking back, it was definitely easier then than now). I was younger, I was living alone and in complete control of my diet. I cut out trigger foods entirely–no pizza or ice cream. I counted my calories and was somewhere between 1600-1800 calories during the duration of my weight loss journey.

I ate the same things every day. I had a fake egg McMuffin for breakfast (an English muffin, egg beaters microwaved and a slice of cheese) or oatmeal for breakfast. Lunch was a turkey and cheese sandwich on low calorie bread with a serving of Wheat Thins. A snack was an apple. Dinner was a Lean Cuisine with a salad. And dessert was sometimes a rice krispie treat (90 calories) or a chocolate Fiber bar (150 calories) and a glass of milk.

I didn’t drink my calories. I drank a lot of diet soda. Then eventually I cut out diet soda and switched to sparkling flavored water.

That was pretty much my diet for 16-ish months. Small variations here and there. Sometimes for dinner I’d cook a chicken breast on my George Forman grill and have a salad and some cooked vegetables. Sometimes I’d splurge and have a cheat meal in a restaurant.

Once I reached my goal weight and maintained it for a little while, I changed my diet. Eating so much processed food was not great. Yes it helped me lose weight because I could accurately count my calories and I had built-in portion control, but really it wasn’t something that was a lifelong thing. Eating processed foods like that helped teach me portion control and realize how I should  be eating.

When I moved in with Michael (a million years ago), I started eating REAL FOOD. I’d have Lean Cuisines at work for lunch because they were easy and portion controlled. But other than that, I wasn’t eating a lot of processed foods. And that has pretty much been my life for the last 8 years–eating real food.

I maintained my weight loss for 10 years–give or take a 5-10 pounds.

Then I got pregnant.

I did really well when I was pregnant. I didn’t go nuts and say “I’m pregnant! I can eat anything!” I wasn’t “eating for two”. I gained 33 pounds while pregnant. I lost about 18 of that right away, I’m sure part of that was just baby. LOL

But then I struggled. Breastfeeding became my focus and my goal and whenever I tried to lose weight my supply would tank. So I decided to just wait until I was done breastfeeding to actively try and lose the weight.

Fast forward to today. I’ve been trying a few different things in order to lose those last 15 pounds. The reason I haven’t done “what I did before” is because I don’t really want to do a highly processed food diet in order to lose the weight. Sure it worked last time, but I don’t necessarily feel like it would be the healthiest option for me now. I am not sure what to do or why what I’m currently doing isn’t working.

Part of me wants to just be ok with being 15 pounds overweight. I want to be one of those people that loves my body no matter what size. But I really struggle with that. It’s weird to feel like I did when I was 250+ pounds. I KNOW I am not back to where I was, but psychologically I feel stuck in a weird place in my head where I am overly critical of my body, I hate that none of my clothes really fit properly — even though I’m not really in a much bigger size — and I hate having my photo taken.

Then I think, is this the message I want to pass on to Logan? Do I want him to grow up and be critical of his body, self-conscious, or have food issues like I always had? No. I don’t. I don’t want to look at certain foods and thing “these are bad” and I don’t want Logan to feel that way.

I realized recently that my brain had changed into that “Bad food, Good food” frame of mind. Doing this diet recently that’s limiting carbs–I am now looking at foods that are high in carbs and thinking “I can’t eat that, there’s too many carbs in it.” It’s very weird–especially since 6 months ago I would have eaten that rice or English muffin and not even thought twice about it.

I’ve seen it creep into my brain in regards to everything. “Bad Food.” Logan is exploring eating “real food” and I’m trying different things. I caught myself the other day when I was making him breakfast of a frozen whole wheat waffle with peanut butter on it (one of his favorites) and I thought “carbs are bad.” Um, he’s 16 months! He doesn’t need to limit his carbs. Absolutely ridiculous. But that’s where my brain is these days–being critical of “Bad Food.” I don’t like it.

Since March I was doing the lower carb diet thing and lost about 7/8 pounds (gaining and losing the same 2 pounds since the initial loss) and lately I’ve kind of stopped for a few reasons. First, I stopped losing. Second, I was tired all the time. Third, I was feeling frustrated that I was restricting and not seeing results. Lastly, I didn’t like how much I was focusing on “Bad Foods.”

I’m not going crazy eating carbs now, but I am eating more of them on occasion. I’m still trying to keep it to a minimum but I’m not being super restrictive. I’m staying the same in weight. Several of my pants are loose and baggy, but I’m not seeing results on the scale.

I emailed my doctor and spelled out exactly what I eat in a day and what my exercise looks like in a week. I was honest and told her exactly what I was doing and said it wasn’t working. Her response? “Wow, you’re already doing everything I would suggest.” GREAT. 🙁 Except she said eat whole foods, drink more water, and reduce my calories to 1400 a day (instead of the 1500-1600 I was eating). Okey dokey! Reducing my calories it is.

So that is where I am at currently. I’m considering tracking my macros on Cronometer instead of tracking calories (a friend suggested tracking macros instead of calories because it is working well for her). I am also considering turning off the calories I burn exercising in MyFitnessPal so that I am not eating back those calories I burn. I will keep you posted on what I decide.