keto

Don’t Panic! I’m Here.

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I know, I know. I didn’t post on Sunday or Monday.

Don’t worry: I didn’t quit. I didn’t fall off the wagon. I didn’t binge eat tacos until my blood turned into queso.

Can I confess the silly, embarrassing, and downright amateur reason I didn’t post this weekend?

I forgot my laptop charger at work.

And, since my house is currently a state of chaos, I couldn’t find ANY of my spare chargers to save my life.

It was a really good weekend. Friday morning I ran with my girlfriends (roughly 6 miles), and then hit the gym for an extended sweat-sesh after work. Burned a ridiculous 1,900 calories Friday as a result.

Saturday was a good workout (over 1,400 calories burned!), but I did eat a bit heavy – went to a soccer game and had chicken tenders and fries. I probably rounded up the calories a bit much, but figured it’s better to overestimate versus under-estimate and see it on the scale a few days later.

Sunday I ran errands, ate Greek food, and skipped the gym, giving myself a well-deserved night off to relax.

Monday, the holiday, I opted out of BBQ and opted to spend an entire day in the kitchen, prep-cooking and making meals for the week.

The Planned Work-Week Menu:

  • Keto Blueberry Muffins
  • Keto Italian Herb & Cheese Muffins
  • Miracle Noodles Chicken Alfredo
  • Spinach, Egg, Turkey Bacon Frittata
  • Greek Cucumber Salad

I’ll share some of the recipes this week, but now …it’s time to head to the gym!

Have a great night everyone!

– Tori

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Seeking Balance: Can Keto Work for Me?

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I know I’ve talked for years (and years and years) on this blog about striving to find balance with my diet.

As someone recovering from an eating disorder (specifically: bulimia), I have to be very careful when it comes to creating concrete rules around food. The more rules I set, the more likely I am to become obsessive, to binge, to feel guilt, and then to purge. Not a healthy cycle.

On Instagram, I try to follow people who motivate and inspire me. I follow several fitness gurus, weight loss winners, and motivational pages to keep myself in a positive mindset. As of late, ALL I see on Instagram is a nearly incessant push toward the Ketogenic lifestyle.

Here’s my issue: I want to do it, but DAMNNNN it’s hard to cut out sugar. Yes, there are billions of low carb substitutes for everything now, but as someone who loves to run and do steady-state cardio, carbohydrates are really hard to wean yourself off of.

Every time I start my morning, it’s with the intent of attempting a low carb/ high fat diet. I prep breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks and start my day with great intentions to stick to it. However, somewhere around 3-4pm, when the impact of my morning run (or the looming knowledge of my evening workout surfaces) kicks in and I start SERIOUSLY jonesing for something sweet.

My struggle is that I can’t stop with one bite of something sweet. It must be because I’ve set a “rule” that I have to avoid carbs in my mind, because once I cave in and have that bite of something sweet, I’m like a shark with blood in the water. I can’t stop. No matter how full I am, no matter how many healthy snacks I’ve packed, I’m full-blown sugar binge mode. And, of course, this wreaks havoc on my self-esteem and body, since the headache following a sugar binge is nearly paralyzing to someone who normally minimizes carbs.

Does this mean I can’t attempt Keto? Is it too restrictive? Does a diet that truly inhibits carbohydrate consumption not work for someone recovering from an eating disorder?

I see so many success stories and have so many friends for whom the Keto diet has been a god-send, but I just can’t seem to make it more than a day or two no matter how much I mentally and physically prepare. Does anyone else have this problem?

Trying Something New

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Well, as much as I was ENJOYING the Dine N Ditch meal plan service, they unfortunately closed up shop just a few weeks in. Not a permanent close (I hope), but they needed to relocate their kitchen, hire new staff, and take a step back from the service for a few weeks to restructure the entire business model.

I was doing exceptionally well on the meal plans, dropping almost 10 lbs in my first four weeks, but after the deliveries ended and I was left to my own devices …well, you can imagine what happened.

Today’s weight: back up to 141.2.

Yikes. It’s hard to believe that just two years ago I hit my all-time low of 123.4, and now I can barely get (and stay) in the 130s anymore.

I know it has been a combination of factors: stress, overeating, and, shockingly, overexercising.

For those of you who have followed the blog a long time, you know I’m a cardio-junkie and, as my weight started to slowly climb at the beginning of 2015, I started to seriously step up my cardio, hitting more than 3 or 4 hours on some days.

Well, as I’ve learned, you not only can’t out-exercise a bad diet (or, in my case, a healthy diet, but in MASS quantities), over-exercising can actually sabotage weight loss by making your body freak out and think you’re fighting for your life on a daily basis. Hence my weight creeping up and up, even when my diet was in check. Yeaaaaaah, that fucking sucks, if you don’t mind me being frank. Ugh.

So, with less than 5 weeks until my 32nd birthday, I am trying to switch things up and break out of my rut.

For the next 34 (well, basically 33, since it’s 11:35 pm EST as I write this) days, I am going to drastically reduce my cardio (think 10-30 minutes per day, versus my usual 90+) and look to integrate substantially more strength training, yoga, and stretching. My body has been in a perpetual state of stress for over a year as I pummeled it with intense bouts of cardio, so now I’m going to try to give those slow-twitch muscles a bit of a break and focus on building lean muscle mass.

In addition, I’m attempting to modify my diet slightly, increasing my fat in take and leaning more toward a Ketogenic plan. Not full Keto – which involves like 70% of your calories from fat – but definitely hoping that incorporating more healthy fats, like avocado and coconut oil, will help with satiety and appetite control.

Yesterday was a rough start, only because I have absolutely no will power when it comes to nuts, so my “single handful” of almonds before bed turned into half of a can, but today’s been better:

Calories: 1,611
Carbs (total, not net): 72g (about 17% of my daily calories)
Protein: 136g (about 33% of my daily calories)
Fat: 93g (about 50% of my daily calories)

I prepped all of my food for the next two days (salmon and green beans, chicken and broccoli, shrimp and sauteed cauliflower, etc), so hoping that having quick, easy to grab meals will help me stay on track. I’m aiming for 1,350 calories per day, but happy as long as I stay under 1,700, as I am exercising pretty consistently.

Fingers crossed I can reset my system and get back into the 130s before I hit 32. I feel like it’s only getting harder with age, so I need to really get control of my weight now before it becomes an impossibility, you know?

Any advice, suggestions, or feedback is always welcome.

Bon appetite, my friends!

~ Tori

P.S. The photo is totally my dinner tomorrow night: shrimp sauteed with basil, garlic, coconut oil over a bed of chopped cauliflower and orange pepper. Much noms. Many yums. So delicious.