Due to the definition of calories, I must decide what I will do about these creatures and my clothes fitting. I have called in the exterminator to get rid of the tiny creatures. It did not work. My clothes still become a little tighter from head to toe. Since this means that soon they will not fit, I must turn to drastic steps. The reason being is that I refuse to purchase anything new in the next size up. That is simply not an option in my book!
Because this problem just did not happen overnight, I have tried other steps. Portion control and moderation were mainly the steps that I took; alas, this did not help. My calorie intake was only 1200 a day. My body said that was fine and she could live on that. So I maintained, not lost! The only way to lose was to exercise on a frequent basis. With joints recuperating from a side effect to medication, this was not always easy. Not impossible, just having to use patience and take baby steps was not working for me.
Friends were telling me about a YouTube video to watch titled, "Butter Makes Your Pants Fall Off." It is how to eat a low carb/high fat diet and lose weight, whether you exercise or not. Of course, it is healthier for me if I keep moving, so some exercise will continue but I had to decide if I could pull off this way of eating. Forever and ever, being told that lower calories and eating less fat, no fried foods, low calorie everthing...and now change? It was hard for me to wrap my head around it all.
It is difficult to believe that my cholesterol would be lower by eating this way. The low carb/high fat reminded me of the Dr. Atkins famous diet of the 1950's. He has revised and added to what science has proven to his latest edition of the Dr. Atkins program. South Beach was the rage in 2003 and it was similar. With this low carb/high fat diet I was reading about the Keto Diet. They basically all sounded about the same to me.
The more I researched, I was finding that people were using low carb/high fat and Keto programs as interchangeable. It wasn't until I dug deeper that I discovered there were key differences. Now my decision was which one was right for me. It really depended on my goals, my lifestyle and the fact that I am female and of a certain age.
To lose weight on these programs, I learned that I did not need to be ketogenic. There was no need to go out and buy keton strips to see if I was ketogenic. This means that the production of ketones is taking place when the body runs out of sugars (carbs).
Keto and the low carb/high fat guidelines are that you stay in a 20 - 30 net grams of carbs, 75 grams of fat and 25 grams of protein. This is called macronutrients. On keto, I would need to test daily to be sure I remain ketogenic. For most people this means staying closer to the 20 net grams of carbs.
The question is what falls into these categories? Packaging helps me to know how many carbs a product has but as for fresh fruit and vegetables? I needed to look them up and write it down so that I could remember. There are numerous vegetables that are fine to keep the carbs low. The bad news is that there are very few fruits. For me, it was the watermelon that hurt the worst. The fruits that have lower amounts of carbs are blueberries, raspberries and strawberries. The other foods that are off limits if I want my carbs to remain low are rice, potatoes, corn, starchy veggies and...(this was a killer for me)breads and pastas. Agggghhhhhhh! I had to think long and hard on this rule. High fat simply meant that I needed to use real butter in the skillet when I cooked my eggs, sauteed onions or other things. Not a problem!
So basically, it turns out that it was easier than I thought for the most part. There is an app for my phone that was free called CarbManager. All I must do is put in the food that I eat and it sorts it all out for me so that I know where I stand, meal to meal. If I went on the higher end of my carbs for breakfast and lunch, then I just choose something lower for dinner.
What I do have now and then that can be very frustrating are some plateaus in my weight loss. I am in a social media group where we chat about issues we may be having and how others have solved the same problems. It helps to have others who share the same issues and to try some things that have worked for them. Every person is different. The one thing that I MUST do is get rid of the scales as the one indicator that I am losing. It does not work that way.
Trying new recipes have been fun and entertaining, some with good outcomes and others, not so good. Never in a million years did I believe that I would give up my Mamaw's recipe for fried chicken. It was so dang good. Yet I could not use the white flour, so instead of trying it with almond flour (which I was prepared to do) I tried it the way that the YouTube video shared with Bob Briggs. It was fantastic. Almost just as good and that is a mouthful for me to say! I am very picky. There is one thing that I am not even willing to try. it is called Ketocoffee or Bulletproof coffee. No thank you. A cup of coffee is brewed the drip way and in the coffee before you turn it on spoon in a tablespoon of MCT oil. (medium chain triglycerides) The coffee is poured into a blender with a tablespoon of butter to blend. It comes out very foamy on the top layer. Can we say eeewwwwwww? That is not going to happen.
I am not a doctor so I suggest that you run this by your doctor, as I did if you plan on going full speed ahead on any of these plans. As long as there are no major health issues, most doctors agree that cutting out the white flour is a good thing. There are varying opinions on the high fat, although one of my doctors told me that in the latest research he read, that increasing the good fats did not harm people.
For now, this is where I stand and my own mantra to get me through any of the tough times, is to ask myself one question. If I eat that (whatever the culprit may be) will it taste as good as I will feel when weight keeps dropping? The answer has been no and hopefully will remain that way.
Just so you are aware that I know this way of eating is not for life, however, it is a lifestyle change, a mindset of changing how I view food. This is for life. There is a stage of Dr. Atkins book that teaches you the proper way to phase yourself back into the mainstream of eating without such a strict plan to follow. When the time comes, I will be ready. For now? Watch out carbs, you are not going to tempt me!
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