I Smell Cakes and Candy

A little background about me and food, I love to create. It’s experimental for me.  Scientific.  Especially sugar.  A very universal and divine creation by God that has a wide range of capabilities including but not limited to making your thighs magically grow. Now listen this isn’t a sugar bashing blog post, I mean after all I am an amateur baker, so don’t get it twisted, I respect sugar and it’s place in the kitchen.  However; I have taken it out of my day-to-day life, and use it as intended, as a treat, and on occasion only.  Now that sounds easy, yeah maybe if you aren’t from the south – where the preferred drinks are sweet tea, and sugary milk coffee.  Now I make some of the best sweet tea in Pasco County.  My Nannie had them sweet southern cooking skills, we know how to make a 2 cup sugar strong sweet tea that is the only thing that saves you from the hot Florida sun on a summer day when you’re doing yard work.  Yea I know about that life.

Now like I said in my last blog post I was going to go into what I did differently.  Well one of my friends was doing the Atkins diet and I kept hearing rumors about the keto diet.  Well, really they are about the same diet.  When first considering it – I was like ugh this diet won’t work – lots of grease, lots of heavy protein – and with my gastroparesis – I just didn’t think the diet would be for me.  Well still thinking about doing some of the things from the diet – I started really considering the giving up the sugar.  I was reading so many reports about sugar and what it does chemically to the body.  So I figured what the hell – what do I have to lose?  It is the one thing that I hadn’t taken out of my diet, the sugar in my drinks.

So in November I started trading out my coffee with stevia.  Wasn’t bad – and I also liked the flavor ideas with the heavy whipping cream – although I never did the butter thing in the coffee – I just couldn’t.  I mean it’s supposed to be wonderful – it’s just I can’t get past the idea of drinking butter, although I love the stuff.  Anyways.  I was noticing that by not waking up and injecting my body with cane sugar – but with stevia, some of my cravings had died off.  I wasn’t craving the candy bowl at work as much – and was more so craving water over tea.  I also noticed something else – the first week I dropped 4 pounds – and all I did was give up sugar in my coffee.

Well come January 1rst – and clearly having a midlife crisis since I now have an empty nest – I really started kicking the research into over drive.  I researched how keto was utilized in so many different treatments and how people were feeling.  So I decided to give full keto a try.  I kind of still don’t eat a lot of red meats – because they are heavy on my gut – but I do eat a ton of chicken.  The biggest struggle – my dam sweet tea.  I was a gallon solo a day drinker during the summer.  Don’t set there and judge me unless you dined at my table and had some cause you don’t know – better ask some body hahaha. Here’s the thing though – the definition of chaos is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting  different result.  I analyzed my habits.  Tracked my food intake on myfitness pal cause it’s free – and if you aren’t tracking – and trying to lose weight – you are at a complete disadvantage and you’re probably making it harder than it needs to be – and most of the time some minor adjustments to your diet could yield major changes and results.  Every body is different – therefore every diet should be catered for you and your lifestyle.  I recommend a nutritionist if you can afford one – but if you can’t that is the best place to start.  And why do a crash diet?  Like make trade offs one by one?  Why torture yourself? I monitored my food intake, started just trading off things. I am on a low carb high fat diet, but did it gradually, and still continue to modify because routines get modified, so your diet needs to be adjusted.  For the first few months on keto – I did no physical exercise what so ever – at all.  It really is a great diet, single-handed.  After you get past the first two month are so, you really get into the swing of things – you just have to stick with it and trust the process, and remember to not let one day ruin your attempt – just jump back on.  You also really need to listen to your body.  Notice the way you feel and remember that if you are doing the keto diet – you really need to research it, cause I hear a lot of y’all talking about you stayed at 20 carbs a day – for like 3 months – that is NOT the meal plan and you should be cycling  – but I mean you live your best life hahaha.  Do what you want.  When I start feeling worn down – I know a higher carb day is in order.  Just remember that this shouldn’t be done until you gain control over the diet – again, for me that was around the end of month two.  The diet must be followed on point in order for it to be the most effective.  Research, buy a book, and really give the process a chance if that is the route you are going.  For some reason keto just had this effect  over me.  I know how I feel when I stick to it, and I know how I feel when I don’t and really it’s a huge difference.  Keto, more than any other diet helped me balance my plate a little better.  I still eat breads, but like 1 week a month, and generally some type of Arnold Bread – because I find they taste the best – and also have fewer carbs than the rest of the breads.

If you get into the habit of saying meats, cheeses, healthy fats, vegetables, you will remember the things that you can eat.

There is a lot that I have learned along the way – like did you know the harder the cheese – the lower the carbs?  In example, extra sharp white cheddar is a little better for you than a softer cheese like a colby?  See little tradeoffs to lower the amount of your daily carbs goes a long way.

That is where I began.

In the next episode I’ll talk about how I got off my fat ass and got to working out and how I have managed to clock in over 200 KM the last two months, but also how that freaked up my diet for a minute.

P.S.

For those of you that like videos you should check out my youtube channel