GET YOUR KETO ON
HOW I AM STRIVING TO BE A KETO GIRL IN A CARBIE WORLD
Lock down for me has been like a 7 month “lock in” at The Savoy … I have not felt the need to do much other than laze around, eat rich calorific food and indulge in super sweet cocktails. And it shows! I have piled on the pounds, burst out of my waistbands but have, however, read an awful lot of good books! So its time for drastic action and what can be more drastic than going Keto? Here is the diary of my first week
Day 1: So what do I think is Keto
Having made the decision to do the Keto diet (though everything I’ve read calls it a lifestyle change rather than a diet) based on nothing more than a rough idea of what it consists of, I took to the internet, that one stop font of all knowledge. There is a massive amount of, often conflicting, information out there. I found an amazing visual guide on The Diet Doctor (which incidentally is such a good site I have subscribed) which broke down various foods into high and low carbs. Thats it, I thought, easy! Although different sites advised different amounts of carbs a day, I decided to limit my intake to 20g per day. I took a very simplistic reading from the plethora of advice out there: carbs bad, protein and fat good (NB. I now know this is not strictly true) . I was totally shocked to find there were 32g of carbs in a glass of orange juice but thrilled to find a glass of red wine has only 2g. I was going to lose bread and mashed potato, risotto and Negronis but I was allowed to eat as much bacon as I wanted (not true) , cut out the exercise (equally not true) and still have a glass of wine in the evening. Diet (sorry, lifestyle) sorted!
Day 2: Gone fishing
So I woke up excited on Day 2 of my journey. I weighed myself, measured my waist and wrote my shopping list: Fish, meat, above ground veg, dairy. Simple! Not so simple when you get to the supermarket. For a start I forgot my reading glasses and the nutritional information on some of the products is so small it could have been written for Alice after she drank from the ‘Drink Me’ bottle. I was shocked to find a large amount of carbs in all the breaded fish and chicken (duh!) and not a single pot pudding that didn’t eat up half of my daily carbs goal. I stocked up on bacon, French cheese and charcuterie, threw in some veg, berries and low carb (I thought) dips and some carb free fizzy grapefruit (the jury’s still out on that one) and went home. I was panicking so much about carbs that I really didn’t eat much at all, in fact my calories barely topped 400 (I use the Lose it! app to track my calories and nutrition) . Big mistake!
Day 3: Hit by a high speed train
Waking up today I expected to feel energised, slim and full of expectation. In fact I woke up feeling like I’d been run over by a steam roller. My husband was away so I knew it fell to me to feed the animals (we have goats and poultry as well as the usual domestic animals) but I seriously didn’t think I could walk up to the paddock without passing out. I had the shakes, felt very confused as if I was surrounded by thick fog, felt sick and dizzy and I had such bad heart palpitations I googled ‘symptoms of a heart attack’. I managed to sort the animals then collapsed on the sofa, with a very large glass of grapefruit juice and a hunk of cheddar. This was really scaring me. I was ready to quit 2 days in. By mid afternoon and some sensible eating later I felt a bit less wobbly. The dogs were demanding to be walked and the barn needed mucking out but I genuinely didn’t dare leave the house in case I collapsed. Back to google. Keto Flu (who knew there was even such a thing), but yep I had all the symptoms. Healthline.com gave a simple explanation of the symptoms and gave me advice on how to combat it. I clearly wasn’t eating enough at all, especially fats, which we have been programmed to avoid but which are vital to the Keto lifestyle. I ate slightly more than the 20g carb I had as my target, a lot more protein than I should (though I didn’t know it at the time as I hadn’t cottoned on to the carb/fat/protein balance at this point) but importantly got my calories back to a sensible amount. I was back on track, I hoped, and not quite ready to throw-in the towel.
Day 4: Was I in ketosis?
On day 4 I woke up feeling more clear headed. I had much more energy than the previous day and, although my muscles felt weak, managed a walk with the dogs. I was still fixating on the idea of proteins as the go to food, so as a result was snacking quite regularly. (I now know a good dollop of fat would have sated me for much longer). But did think I was in ketosis, that magical point where your body produces ketones as fuel when your blood sugar is in short supply. This would mean, put very simply, my body was burning fat! Yippee! But how could I know for sure. Ruled me , another Keto site listed some of the symptoms of being in ketosis as dry mouth and thirst (tick), bad breath and metallic taste in mouth (tick), increased need to pee (tick), fatigue and muscle weakness (tick) and reduced hunger (tick). I was pleased to read these symptoms would eventually go away! I assumed I was in ketosis but realised I needed to know for sure. I ordered some pee strips and hoped for the best.
Days 5, 6 and 7: Wow, just wow!
I suddenly on day 5 found myself bursting with energy, clear headed and feeling totally detoxed. I was still having the odd glass of wine, though had cut my alcohol intake a lot, and I was starting to get to grips with the new way of eating. I was definitely losing belly fat and had lost 4lbs, though I suspect much of that was water retention loss. My new pee strips showed I was in medium level ketosis. Yay! Every day has brought new discoveries, questions, answers that lead to more questions and so on an so forth. By day 6 I was back into my exercise regime and by day 7 had found I wasn’t really interested in breakfast. Keto encourages you to not eat when hungry and to fast (16:8) if you are able and don’t feel hungry. I have always missed supper as, for me, eating in the evening just makes me feel bloated, so the idea of fasting and missing meals appeals.