diet

Keto Background

Posted by Lisa Eirene

I wanted to give a little background about what made me decide to give this a try.

Read this post for the explanation about the weight gain. After trying a different medication that made me really really sick (and the doctor told me to stop it immediately), I went back on the prozac at the lowest dose possible. I haven’t gained any weight on the low dose, which is good. But I still had that pesky 10 pounds I gained last year. Oye.

Anyways. I talked to my doctor about a few things. I just have not felt like myself since I had Logan. The weight was hard to lose. I wasn’t a lucky girl who shrank back to my pre-pregnancy body with breastfeeding (NOPE I gained weight breastfeeding). I thought once I quit breastfeeding I’d lose the babyweight, but it was a hard, hard slog. I got close. I got down to 9 pounds left when I gained it all back on the prozac. So I felt particularly angry about that!

I talked to my doctor about how hard it’s been. I actually asked her about a diet drug. I know, I know. I was feeling pretty desperate. But a friend of mine had lost about 40 pounds on Contrave and I asked my doctor about it. She was willing to prescribe it for me, even though it wouldn’t be covered by insurance. I’d have to pay out of pocket (very expensive too) and I actually considered it. And then after further discussion, I decided against it.

Basically, Contrave is a combination medication of Wellbutrin (an antidepressant that I’ve had success on in the past) and some kind of opioid blocker that helps people get off drugs? At least that’s my understanding of it. It basically blocks the part of your brain that makes you crave/obsess about food and overeat. My friend said it made her have no appetite and food just didn’t seem appealing. Except when I talked to my doctor about it, the dosage of Wellbutrin in the Contrave was INSANE. I forget what it is now but it was the max dosage that you can take and way back in the day I took the max dosage of Wellbutrin and had seizures on it.

Needless to say, I decided Contrave was not for me.

It was a moment of weakness, anyways, to consider it, but I’m glad I got more information and I’m glad I made the decision for myself.

When I talked to my doctor about it and told her I wouldn’t take it, she suggested I consider the Keto diet. She said that there were a lot of people in her office doing it for the new year and being successful and happy on it. She had another doctor who was an expert in it call me and tell me more about it. She gave me some tips and ordered some blood work.

Well, last week I did two things. 1) I weighed myself for the first time since before Christmas and 2) I got my fasting glucose tested.

My official starting weight: 177.2

(Pre-prozac I was 166, my pre-pregnancy weight was 157, my goal weight is 150)

I would like to lose 20 pounds. 27 would be AMAZING. Talking to Michael, I tried to figure out what would be a realistic goal for the first month of the Keto diet. Somewhere between 4-6 pounds for the month of February? I really don’t know. I’ve never done such a severe low carb diet before. Even when I did the low-ish carb thing before, I still had a lot of carbs. I didn’t give up my coffee creamer or my fruit or my yogurt….so we’ll see.

As for the fasting blood test. I was honestly pretty surprised at how high it was:

I’m not pre-diabetic but i’m getting there. Could it be because I had the flu and didn’t work out for almost two weeks before the test? Maybe? I have no idea. I’ve made a lot of changes to my diet in the past few months (for the better) but still my fasting sugar levels are high. Too high.

So here’s to hopefully a successful go at Keto!

Keto

Posted by Lisa Eirene

I wanted to give a diet update. Starting February 1st, Michael and I are trying the Keto Diet.

I did a “low-ish carb” diet a few times last year and the year before and lost 10 pounds or so and was 9 pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight. Honestly, I was not a huge fan of the low carb diet. I felt like crap most of the time. While I wasn’t necessarily hungry, I just felt like I had low energy a lot and when I worked out I felt like garbage. I felt it most when I ran. I found that I could only do the low carb diet thing for about 4 weeks or so at a time and then I’d have to take a break because it made me feel so crappy.

Well, I decided to give Keto a try. I’ve been hearing so much about it for a few years now and it seems like MAYBE it’s better than a low carb diet? Maybe?? I don’t know. All I know is that after gaining back all the weight I lost (and a few extra) on the prozac last year, I needed to do something and just doing what I did before to lose weight wasn’t working.

The challenges of Keto were going to be 1) Giving up fruit– I love fruit…  2) Finding the hidden sugars that are IN EVERYTHING and … 3) Giving up my coffee creamer.

I went to the grocery store and looked at the different creamers out there. The Almond milk creamer sounded good but it had sugar cane. The Coconut Creamer, which I’ve tried before and is delicious, also had sugar in it. Then I found this one:

Seemed promising!

As for the food part of the Keto Diet… I did some research and used the Diet Doctor website and their Instagram feed for ideas and recipes and meal plans. I made a list and honestly it wasn’t far off from what we already eat on a regular basis. We just had to stop eatings things like sweet potatoes, beans, etc. We don’t eat rice or pasta on a regular basis, maybe once or twice a month, so giving that up wasn’t a hardship.

What was hard, was processed food — EVERY processed food– has sugar in it. So simple things like salad dressing, even if it’s just a simple vinaigrette, you look at the ingredients and it has sugar. Same with our favorite blue cheese dressing. So aggravating! The good news, my Trader Joe’s Goddess Dressing that I use a lot does not have sugar in it! YAY! So I can use that and then Michael will make a Caesar dressing for us to use (he makes a great one) and I make a pretty good mustard vinaigrette). The downside to homemade dressing is that it doesn’t keep long. Oh well.

Another challenge to the Keto diet will be variety and not getting sick of eating meat and cheese. I’m working on different menus and meal plans for variety. We got this black bean pasta at New Seasons that is supposedly Keto-friendly? (I’m not really sure how since beans aren’t allowed? But maybe because the protein is so high and the fiber count makes the carb count low?? I am still researching…) We plan on having this pasta with pesto not marinara (which is not keto friendly, boo).

And of course, the bone broth:

So this week I am working on eating some of the things around the house that are NOT keto friendly (like the carrots and the tuna salad I have that has sugar in it–WHY IS THERE SUGAR IN IT?!?!–and the homemade sourdough I made). And starting Friday! Keto!

QUESTION: If you are on Keto, any tips?