diet

Keto Update

Posted by Lisa Eirene

I think I’ve been back to keto for about two full weeks now? Maybe three. I weighed in last weekend and I was happy to see that I was exactly the same weight I was right before my surgery. So taking two weeks off and eating all the carbs didn’t do a ton of damage, thankfully! I weighed in this week and am down another pound, so moving in the right direction.

I’ve doing ok back on the keto diet. I’m still struggling to get to 20 net carbs a day. No matter what I do, I am still averaging around 25-30 net carbs each day. I looked at my diet and I guess I should probably drop my plain Greek yogurt. I mean, it’s not a ton of carbs because I eat a half a serving, but I add berries to it, and those are the carbs. I thought I was being smart by adding a spoonful of ground flaxseed (fiber) and chia seeds to it to try and offset it but I am still getting carbs with the berries. So I think next week I will try and go back to trying nuts, bone broth and maybe cheese sticks for snacks at work and see what happens.

I found a keto recipe website I like a lot. I’ve only tried a few of the recipe so far but so far I like it and the website/instagram is really visually pretty, so there’s that, too. 🙂

PERUVIAN CHICKEN WITH TANGY GREEN SAUCE

INGREDIENTS:

  • 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1 tablespoon ground cumin
  • 2 tablespoon avocado oil
  • 1 tablespoon paprika
  • 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
  • 1 lemon, zested and juiced
  • 4 lbs bone-in, skin-on chicken

Salsa Criolla (Lime Pickled Onions + Tomatoes)

  • 1 red onion, thinly sliced
  • 2 roma tomatoes, quartered
  • Juice of 2 limes
  • 1 teaspoon salt

Tangy Green Sauce:

  • 1 large bunch cilantro, stems and all
  • 10 large mint leaves
  • 1 jalapeño
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
  • 2 tablespoons lime juice
  • 2 tablespoons avocado oil
  • Salt, to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Preheat oven to 400° F.
  2. Mix together the cumin, avocado oil, paprika, salt, pepper, oregano, and lemon zest in a small bowl. Brush the chicken with the lemon juice then rub with spice mixture. Place the chicken in a large cast iron skillet and transfer to the oven.
  3. Roast the chicken for about 60 minutes until the internal temperature reads 165° F.
  4. While the chicken is roasting make the salsa criolla by placing all of the ingredients into a jar and shaking well, refrigerate until ready to use. *They get better as they sit so feel free to make ahead
  5. To make the cilantro green sauce simply blend together all of the ingredients.
  6. Serve the chicken with the green sauce, salsa criolla, and additional lime if desired. 

Calories: 824 Net Carbs: 4.3 Protein: 58.2

I used chicken thighs instead of a whole chicken. So I think the calories are a little off for the recipe. Chicken thighs are generally around 250-300 calories each, depending on the size (we had small ones). The sauce was made with real mayo, so there was definitely calories there. But overall, I don’t think the dinner was 800 calories worth. I’d put it more around 500.

I cooked the chicken thighs for about 45 minutes in the oven.

The dinner was absolutely divine! One of my favorite new recipes I’ve tried! I loved the tangy sauce. I love the “salsa” with the chicken. All the flavors worked great together.

This would be a great recipe to make for a dinner party if you want to impress your friends!

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.