Ketogenic Diet - Powerful Dietary Strategy for Certain Conditions

[mugatea]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Thanks Soluna!

That was a bad day and I kinda knew it but have been coping ok since then.

I bought some Ketostix too today just out of curiosity. I had some bacon and fatty pate for breaky then went out for a big walk with the dogs. Came home and did the test and my results are reading 80mg/dl which I hope is a good figure.

 

[Soluna]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

I suggest you do some research about the safe and/or recommended levels - and follow the instructions with regards to when to read the results =) It says to take the value at exactly 15 seconds after immersion, as the colour changes over time.

Having the visible result that your body is in the correct processes for the diet is very encouraging I find - I hope it helps you with the motivation and determination!

 

[Gawan]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Thanks Soluna!

That was a bad day and I kinda knew it but have been coping ok since then.

I bought some Ketostix too today just out of curiosity. I had some bacon and fatty pate for breaky then went out for a big walk with the dogs. Came home and did the test and my results are reading 80mg/dl which I hope is a good figure.

The 80 mg/dl sounds like a blood sugar test result to me, because some meters can do both: measuring ketones and the blood sugar. As far as I know measuring ketones require different test strips or did you get two results?

 

[Fluffy]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

ok, I'll try to keep it simple but it's all getting to me now and I went a bought some dark choc and have ate a few squares and feeling like I've failed. I'm always hungry, not for food but for sugary things or savory things or things that taste nice and tbh today I'm going a bit crazy and feeling bit lightheaded/anxious. The diet seems so miserable so far and now I'm struggling or having a bad day. I had a meat ball and 1 bit of bacon for breaky and some fat bomb and again for lunch and then some pate and lettuce for dinner (which was ok and a welcome change to bacon), but I'm hungry and I think my body is telling me its starving to get me to go back to my old diet.

Online Keto recipes all contain dairy and stuff. On this forum you have the pig feet aspic which sounds nice. Fed up with bacon, I'm hungry but not for my food.

Can anyone reading this tell me what they ate today so I can try some new tomorrow?

Chili? Verboten. Nightshade. All peppers except black pepper should be eliminated along with other nightshade plants such as tomatoes, potatoes, even goji berries.

I suspected chilli was bad after I after I had put it in and remember reading about chillis, but I needed some flavour just to keep me going. My entry into Keto isnt going as perfect as I wanted it to be. Sugar, milk, gluten are narcotics.

Hi Mugatea!

I thought I'd share my experience so far with you as after a few weeks of paleo I have just transitioned to a Ketogenic diet - I bought my Ketostix urine strips today and they confirm that I am between 15 and 40mg/dL on the colour chart - so I feel a little personal victory!

I can however totally relate to the cravings. Not feeling hungry, but feeling I could consume a whole pizza with no problem! I struggle with willpower, however I think what helps is simply not having things in the house that I can 'cheat' on, and feeling determined that what I am doing is trying to treat my body kindly, not polluting it as much as possible and keeping my mind busy and focused on things that distract me from cravings.

With regards to meals - my husband and I bought a leg of lamb on Saturday. We slow roasted it on Sunday, my husband ate his with vegetables and potato croquettes, and I had mine with butter soaked vegetables. We carved the remaining lamb into 4 days worth of portions, freezing 2 and refrigerating 2 for the next couple of days. I then made bone broth with the bone, adding the juice from the roast as it was not burned and full of flavour.
I then used the broth to make a stew, I added 2 leeks, some chopped onion, cabbage and a few small carrots, after the vegetables had softened over a couple of hours cooking slowly I added 2 of the portions of lamb and some organic bullion for flavour.

Previous to this I also tried the recipe for cream cheese pancakes here at :
_http://www.ibreatheimhungry.com/2012/01/cream-cheese-pancakes.html
Although be careful if the egg whites are bothersome for you.

Perhaps a snack suggestion for you that would curb cravings for 'crunchy' things might be celery sticks with full fat cream cheese as a dip, or mayonnaise or herb butter?

I hope you manage to make it through the tricky transition - you're not the only one and I'm toughing it out with you =)

Hey mugatea,
I want to share my story so you don't feel like such a failure because I'm way worse off than you, I'm struggling horribly and it makes me really depressed that I'm not more in control.
I've been trying for about 3 months to get this right. I live with my partner and 3 kids and none of them are interested in doing keto with me. As the person who does all the cooking and baking I find it really really challenging to not crave sweets especially when I've just baked a very tempting batch of coconut flour choc chip cookies that smell divine and look like heaven.
I don't eat them but I struggle with issues like resentment. Then I find myself making sweets for myself with xylitol and erythritol and feel soooooo guilty after I eat them...

A usual day for me is a meal at around lunch time, this will be something fairly small like a cup of broth I've made or butter rolled up in ham and it's not because I'm hungry it's more because I get tempted to eat other things. The reason I don't eat til so late is because I eat a large dinner at about 6 to try to curb my after dinner sweet cravings and am still very full in the morning, I know this is backward, I've tried eating breakfast and turning it all around, I just end up horribly overeating. I'm pretty sure I have a food addiction, I've never been in such a state about my diet before, I'm pretty down and out. I feel physically good with lots of energy and I'm sleeping better than I have for years but I feel emotionally miserable and don't know how to approach this anymore. I can't go back to my old diet because my head won't let me, I feel like I need to persist and somehow win this battle.
A big problem for me is that once everyone gets home from school/ work they start raiding the cupboard (like vultures) then they eat pretty much til they go to bed (I've tried to flex my muscles about eating habits but no one really wants to hear me) and my will is weak with little family support so I'm sitting around watching them eat things, fruit, cookies, crackers, milkshakes ( they are mostly gluten/ bread free in my immediate family, thank goodness I was able to at least influence that) .....icecream, big plates of veggies, etc etc, they are always feeding their faces, they'd eat poison straight from the jar if it tasted good :( and there's only so much free will I can interfere with before people start to resent me back.

I find this so hard, not every day but a good portion of the time. I have fallen off the wagon about 10 times now and it takes me days to get back on track properly. I fall from eating WAY too much protein and veggies, or over indulging in the sweets I've baked or created with sugar alcohols, coconut, eggs, butter, cocoa and sometimes coconut flour. I'm going to admit that I'm pretty naughty sometimes and use dairy and nuts, and I have a horrible reaction to dairy but I can make the most wicked cheesecakes that are 'keto approved'. I seem to be possessed by some cheesecake making entity that doesn't care about my health.

I eat lots of fat, more than my daily macros for weight maintenance, I usually eat too much protein too. I don't want to put on weight because I just spent the last year trying to lose 15 kg after having a baby. I try to keep carbs at about 25g a day or less and I use ketostix to measure how naughty I've been with the carbs when I lose control - that's often. I haven't been in ketosis since last week when I totally lost the plot and ate coconut pancakes... ALL of them :( :( the whole freaking batch :( ..
I won't give in though, every mistake just makes me more determined to get it right and get past the adaption phase so I don't crave anymore. Oh and did I mention that my family are Italian, they all just love their food and sweets to us is almost more important than dinner... Everything is about food food food.. My family don't live for any other reason but to eat. Even most of the conversations are about food, I nearly died when they were talking about bread and who in town makes the best loaf... How can I sit there and say nothing??? I did though, but it makes me a fair bit disturbed!!!

So mugatea, you are certainly not alone. Have you thought about having a blood test done to make sure you're not lacking anything?? I've got one booked for the end of November, I'm hoping by then I've had a solid few months of keto and on my way to being adapted.
Best wishes to you on this challenging journey xx

 

[hlat]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

As the person who does all the cooking and baking I find it really really challenging to not crave sweets especially when I've just baked a very tempting batch of coconut flour choc chip cookies that smell divine and look like heaven.

What would happen if you only cooked keto foods?

 

[Fluffy]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

As the person who does all the cooking and baking I find it really really challenging to not crave sweets especially when I've just baked a very tempting batch of coconut flour choc chip cookies that smell divine and look like heaven.

What would happen if you only cooked keto foods?

I do mostly cook keto at dinner and bacon is the only thing on the breakfast menu. Otherwise have nothing!!! they are coping okay with that. I've got my son almost totally off gluten unless he is elsewhere where I don't have control of his food consumption and the eczema he's had since a baby has disappeared. He's 11 and cares more about his taste buds than his health, not even the disappearing eczema has helped him see that this is all for his greater good.
It's more my partner than the kids, he has berries, muesli and yoghurt at breakfast and then spends all day looking for more twigs to throw on his fast burning fire. When he is home on the weekend I get really annoyed at all the constant grazing he does.
You're right to suggest I could cook more keto food, I'm slowly implementing this more and more as to not shock everyone. It's the sweets/carbs that's the big problem between meals it can't be about hunger but more about conditioning. They eat pretty good compared to a few years ago.. Baby steps. Tonight is tacos with my spice recipe and no tortilla. The first few times they were confused about how tacos worked without bread or a corn chip shell.. They are slowly coming around, just not quick enough to save me from myself.
I'm also making a sticky date cake upon request.. There's just no way to ketofy that... I just make sure people know what they are getting themselves into. Cakes don't come without lectures, I feel like they ask for it then they shall receive. I'd rather bake and lecture than have people sneaking off to the shops to gorge on lollie and packet food behind my back. What else can I do???

 

[MusicMan]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Hi Fluffy; It's basically about free will.
Your people have the right to choose whatever they want to eat.
Just as you have the right to choose what you want to cook, for yourself to eat.
Perhaps if they would like to eat something different to what you choose to cook, then they might have to cook it for themselves. They might also like to go shopping for themselves.
It's OK to advise them on the keto diet, but ultimately it's their decision to go with it.

 

[SeekinTruth]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Fluffy, I was a world class carb addict myself. I got on the keto diet very early in early 2011. What helped is that I had eliminated grains and dairy and been eating lots of eggs and organ meats for a few of years before going keto. The reason was that I got a nasty recurring prostatitis in 2006 at age 39 after years of eating 300 to 400 grams of carbs daily and a particularly stressful time. I ate tons of sweets, bread and pasta and pizza, condensed milk, you name it (except "soft drinks), I was a model of what NOT to (over)eat all my life. In the early months of 2011, all I had to do was increase the fat while lowering carbs further, so that's probably why I didn't have such a hard time.

Since going keto, I don't have any cravings at all. In fact, I'm never hungry. If I can do it, anyone can. Use whatever tricks to get over the hump. If you can tolerate and buy stevia, use that in the baked sweets. It's very sweet and you can use very little so that carbs are still VERY low (a teaspoon has almost 0 carbs and calories). Any time you do have these foods, make sure to have lots of fat while keeping the carbs as low as possible - try to keep net carbs 20 grams or lower daily. It's not that hard to do. Fat satiates like nothing else and working on the cravings slowly and methodically by only indulging in very low carb "treats" should get you where you want to be.

I hope this helps, as it seems you will not be able to completely remove temptations while you're trying to become fully keto adapted. Just do the best you can while keeping your aim always in mind and don't add guilt trips on yourself to make matters more complicated. Once you're a full-on fat burner, it WILL be easy to not have cravings or overcome them if you do. The only thing that's a problem for me is cashews (which I've loved since I was a small child) - I can't have just a few, so I avoid them completely. You can find ways to avoid anything that makes cravings a real challenge while weaning yourself off other "indulgent" foods slowly. I make homemade chocolate a couple of times a year for special occasions and my daily carbs go from around 2 or 3 grams per day to maybe 5 - 7, but it never really becomes something that derails my keto journey, so you can indulge your cravings in the least damaging way until it's not much of a challenge. Good luck.

 

[Alana]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

As the person who does all the cooking and baking I find it really really challenging to not crave sweets especially when I've just baked a very tempting batch of coconut flour choc chip cookies that smell divine and look like heaven.

What would happen if you only cooked keto foods?

I do mostly cook keto at dinner and bacon is the only thing on the breakfast menu. Otherwise have nothing!!! they are coping okay with that. I've got my son almost totally off gluten unless he is elsewhere where I don't have control of his food consumption and the eczema he's had since a baby has disappeared. He's 11 and cares more about his taste buds than his health, not even the disappearing eczema has helped him see that this is all for his greater good.
It's more my partner than the kids, he has berries, muesli and yoghurt at breakfast and then spends all day looking for more twigs to throw on his fast burning fire. When he is home on the weekend I get really annoyed at all the constant grazing he does.
You're right to suggest I could cook more keto food, I'm slowly implementing this more and more as to not shock everyone. It's the sweets/carbs that's the big problem between meals it can't be about hunger but more about conditioning. They eat pretty good compared to a few years ago.. Baby steps. Tonight is tacos with my spice recipe and no tortilla. The first few times they were confused about how tacos worked without bread or a corn chip shell.. They are slowly coming around, just not quick enough to save me from myself.
I'm also making a sticky date cake upon request.. There's just no way to ketofy that... I just make sure people know what they are getting themselves into. Cakes don't come without lectures, I feel like they ask for it then they shall receive. I'd rather bake and lecture than have people sneaking off to the shops to gorge on lollie and packet food behind my back. What else can I do???

You can become the example. Not by words by with actions. I can imagine that it is hard for you to resist the carbs that are all around you, but if you have fat-bombs around all the time and you have one of that each time you want to indulge, I think it will help. I make a batch that lasts us a week (2 people) and store them into small containers with lids (each container a daily consumption per person). It is so fatty and satiating that I don't feel like eating anything else after that. And it's relatively sweet with chocolate or fruity flavor, so I always feel I had my dessert. Same satiation with bone broth.

And if one of the kids wants dessert you can say, "what about some of this chocolate/strawberry/whatever-flavor moose?" And ditto on cooking more paleo, and if you are the one doing most of the food shopping, just keep healthy stuff in the house. If anybody wants anything else, they can go get it themselves.

And then you can brag about how you lost weight and feel great because of what you are eating at different intervals during the week!

 

[Fluffy]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

As the person who does all the cooking and baking I find it really really challenging to not crave sweets especially when I've just baked a very tempting batch of coconut flour choc chip cookies that smell divine and look like heaven.

What would happen if you only cooked keto foods?

I do mostly cook keto at dinner and bacon is the only thing on the breakfast menu. Otherwise have nothing!!! they are coping okay with that. I've got my son almost totally off gluten unless he is elsewhere where I don't have control of his food consumption and the eczema he's had since a baby has disappeared. He's 11 and cares more about his taste buds than his health, not even the disappearing eczema has helped him see that this is all for his greater good.
It's more my partner than the kids, he has berries, muesli and yoghurt at breakfast and then spends all day looking for more twigs to throw on his fast burning fire. When he is home on the weekend I get really annoyed at all the constant grazing he does.
You're right to suggest I could cook more keto food, I'm slowly implementing this more and more as to not shock everyone. It's the sweets/carbs that's the big problem between meals it can't be about hunger but more about conditioning. They eat pretty good compared to a few years ago.. Baby steps. Tonight is tacos with my spice recipe and no tortilla. The first few times they were confused about how tacos worked without bread or a corn chip shell.. They are slowly coming around, just not quick enough to save me from myself.
I'm also making a sticky date cake upon request.. There's just no way to ketofy that... I just make sure people know what they are getting themselves into. Cakes don't come without lectures, I feel like they ask for it then they shall receive. I'd rather bake and lecture than have people sneaking off to the shops to gorge on lollie and packet food behind my back. What else can I do???

You can become the example. Not by words by with actions. I can imagine that it is hard for you to resist the carbs that are all around you, but if you have fat-bombs around all the time and you have one of that each time you want to indulge, I think it will help. I make a batch that lasts us a week (2 people) and store them into small containers with lids (each container a daily consumption per person). It is so fatty and satiating that I don't feel like eating anything else after that. And it's relatively sweet with chocolate or fruity flavor, so I always feel I had my dessert. Same satiation with bone broth.

And if one of the kids wants dessert you can say, "what about some of this chocolate/strawberry/whatever-flavor moose?" And ditto on cooking more paleo, and if you are the one doing most of the food shopping, just keep healthy stuff in the house. If anybody wants anything else, they can go get it themselves.

And then you can brag about how you lost weight and feel great because of what you are eating at different intervals during the week!

Thanks for your tips Alana. Fat bombs are a great idea, I'm trying to get away from the xylitol and erythritol though because I'm still breast feeding my 14 month old and although I can't really see any negative effects on her I don't know about the long term. Bone broth is a big hit here, I do a few a week, everyone loves it.
I've decided that I won't worry too much about my weight at the moment and just eat more butter on everything, I'm a least doing 125g of it a day on top of other fats from meat and the coconut oil I eat from the jar just coz I love it. I'm so full I feel like a blimp, but I'm not looking for sweets so that's a good thing.
My 14 year old daughter has recently ballooned out because of all my high fat cooking and her late night habits of staying awake late and nibbling. She is about 10 kg heavier than me now, we are the same height. Bragging about losing weight only makes her feel bad about herself. She doesn't want to do keto but doesn't know how to help herself and I'm just her stupid parent, she's pretty belligerent sometimes and trying to explain anything to her just causes problems coz she knows better being 14 and all!!!! I've been trying her on a low calorie diet. That means everyone in the house is on different eating plans/ideas- it's crazy trying to keep up with it all!
Most of the food I buy for everyone is paleo inspired apart from the dairy which no one else wants to quit.
I think I just have to dig really deep and work my will power muscle more and more so it gets nice and strong and I don't cave into the temptations.
As much as I want to I can't force anyone to do what I'm doing so I'm just going to have to be flexible and hope one day they jump ship to where I'm sailing to. The little one is the only person I can influence and she has a lovely strict paleo diet and loves fatty cuts of meat- a keto-er in the making :)

 

[Fluffy]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Hi Fluffy; It's basically about free will.
Your people have the right to choose whatever they want to eat.
Just as you have the right to choose what you want to cook, for yourself to eat.
Perhaps if they would like to eat something different to what you choose to cook, then they might have to cook it for themselves. They might also like to go shopping for themselves.
It's OK to advise them on the keto diet, but ultimately it's their decision to go with it.

I totally agree, that's why I haven't been too forceful. I'm just a guide of sorts and if they want to follow they can.
Letting them choose their own food would probably be disastrous though, I'd end up with with a cupboard full of crappy food like Doritos and Tim tams.
We are all pretty happy with main meal choices and I do get their input and if they want something different to me then they have to tell me and help me make it.
I won't interfere too much, but I do want to make sure if they're going to eat cakes and cookies that I've made them from healthier ingredients other than package stuff from the shop. :)

 

[Fluffy]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Fluffy, I was a world class carb addict myself. I got on the keto diet very early in early 2011. What helped is that I had eliminated grains and dairy and been eating lots of eggs and organ meats for a few of years before going keto. The reason was that I got a nasty recurring prostatitis in 2006 at age 39 after years of eating 300 to 400 grams of carbs daily and a particularly stressful time. I ate tons of sweets, bread and pasta and pizza, condensed milk, you name it (except "soft drinks), I was a model of what NOT to (over)eat all my life. In the early months of 2011, all I had to do was increase the fat while lowering carbs further, so that's probably why I didn't have such a hard time.

Since going keto, I don't have any cravings at all. In fact, I'm never hungry. If I can do it, anyone can. Use whatever tricks to get over the hump. If you can tolerate and buy stevia, use that in the baked sweets. It's very sweet and you can use very little so that carbs are still VERY low (a teaspoon has almost 0 carbs and calories). Any time you do have these foods, make sure to have lots of fat while keeping the carbs as low as possible - try to keep net carbs 20 grams or lower daily. It's not that hard to do. Fat satiates like nothing else and working on the cravings slowly and methodically by only indulging in very low carb "treats" should get you where you want to be.

I hope this helps, as it seems you will not be able to completely remove temptations while you're trying to become fully keto adapted. Just do the best you can while keeping your aim always in mind and don't add guilt trips on yourself to make matters more complicated. Once you're a full-on fat burner, it WILL be easy to not have cravings or overcome them if you do. The only thing that's a problem for me is cashews (which I've loved since I was a small child) - I can't have just a few, so I avoid them completely. You can find ways to avoid anything that makes cravings a real challenge while weaning yourself off other "indulgent" foods slowly. I make homemade chocolate a couple of times a year for special occasions and my daily carbs go from around 2 or 3 grams per day to maybe 5 - 7, but it never really becomes something that derails my keto journey, so you can indulge your cravings in the least damaging way until it's not much of a challenge. Good luck.

Thanks for sharing that, it's inspired me to keep on going without being too hard on myself. The thing that kept me on track for the first 3 weeks without much hiccuping was low carb sweets and coffee with coconut milk, then I stared feeling guilty and pressuring myself to quit those things and that's when I started to lose control.
I bought some instant decaf coffee today and drank 2 cups with butter in it. I was way more satisfied than I have been in weeks and haven't wanted for anything I shouldn't. I suppose I should just do what I need to to get me through the hard yards. I even made my people a sticky date pudding with salted caramel sauce and didn't even want to taste it.. If horrible instant coffee works for now then I'll use it..
Thanks for helping me be less hard on my self. :)

 

[Chad]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

Fluffy, I was a world class carb addict myself. [...]

Fat satiates like nothing else and working on the cravings slowly and methodically by only indulging in very low carb "treats" should get you where you want to be.

I hope this helps, as it seems you will not be able to completely remove temptations while you're trying to become fully keto adapted. Just do the best you can while keeping your aim always in mind and don't add guilt trips on yourself to make matters more complicated. Once you're a full-on fat burner, it WILL be easy to not have cravings or overcome them if you do.

I second this Fluffy. The day i started on the fat bombs, i had 0 cravings for chocolate, but cakes and pastries required conscious but manageable will power (in the beginning). Now i find i can only eat 2 squares of super dark, and if i do it's almost always for emotional reasons - i want the 'lift'. And i was raised with, and am still surrounded by, bin bags of junk food. Crisps (potato chips) were my weakness, as well as milk chocolate and sweet 'treats', and i realise now the reason for my cravings were simple: my body was needing fat, the sweetness just made it more enjoyable to consume. Shame they were made with plastic fats and toxic sugars. And even Keto recipes are essentially trying to fill that need for fat intake OR the effects of carb/protein overloading; osit. Because i have made some shortbread since and whilst i 'treated' myself to some after dinner, i didn't crave it during the making or immediately after, i felt like a responsible adult! ;)

I'm on 150grams of fat - 75g lard, 75g butter - plus 3-4 egg yokes mixed with coffee (double espresso) to start my morning (no more caffeine needed after). This keeps me going till i feel the need for some protein (and i genuinely feel that my body is asking for it) not more than 2 eggs or 2 sausages is needed, and by dinner i'm ready - at 6/7pm, instead of 9/10pm - for what is probably 1/3 smaller portion than my usual. And like you, i looked forward to this as my 'Main meal'.

The reason I don't eat til so late is because I eat a large dinner at about 6 to try to curb my after dinner sweet cravings and am still very full in the morning, I know this is backward, I've tried eating breakfast and turning it all around, I just end up horribly overeating.

This was my problem for the best part of my life, and features amongst the main comments in the forum just as i started transitioning. I think because eating made me feel tired (hence the cravings for sugar after a meal) i would leave eating anything substantial till the end of the day. Now, i actually find the last meal can add a few more hours of 'doing' and i only overeat - to the point of needing to sit - if i'm not being mindful.

So it's possible to do. I won't claim to have been the worst eater in the world, because i have other problems! ;) But i know i was the only one who craved sweet treats in such a way that was habitual and it certainly had a biological slant to it - because it all dissolved once i began the fat bomb. It also negates much worry about drowning food in fat which can be less palatable.

As an aside, i believe that what the fat bomb did, which is simply a massive increase in my fat consumption, was balance out my hormones - i settle for sleep easier, wake up clearer (and i have debilitating insomnia and waking vertigo ); i can easily forgo the constant supply of muffins and cakes and chocolate and crisps and pastries and savouries that so dominate the fridge in our house. Before i would have been distracted ALL night by them. And would have given in, no doubt. As i say, i felt it to be as much biological as will power related. I think i had stressed my body out, to it's limit, in my early 20's; it took less than 4 months to reset my habits. To add: the balance of carbs and protein are also very important, and can enhance cravings if not managed.

I'll confess to a few slithers, no more than a pencil width (!), of cheese (!). There was a huge selection on discount and my mother eats the stuff like we eat fat, so i sampled those cheeses i'd never tried. Other than that, and that was a conscious decision, i've had few/no slips.

I see in your update you are consuming 120g already of fat; if you haven't already checked against the Keto calculators, then perhaps that'd be worthwhile. According to my calcs, 5'9, 9.5stone, male, i need at east 160g on an inactive day. And i know if i don't have the full bomb - 99% of the time i do - i can feel my drained, and all that follows.

And i can only sympathise with your responsibilities for the diet of others, i can't imagine how tricky it must be, because just encouraging my mother to improve hers is divisive enough! ;)

 

[Alana]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

My 14 year old daughter has recently ballooned out because of all my high fat cooking and her late night habits of staying awake late and nibbling. She is about 10 kg heavier than me now, we are the same height. Bragging about losing weight only makes her feel bad about herself. She doesn't want to do keto but doesn't know how to help herself and I'm just her stupid parent, she's pretty belligerent sometimes and trying to explain anything to her just causes problems coz she knows better being 14 and all!!!! I've been trying her on a low calorie diet. That means everyone in the house is on different eating plans/ideas- it's crazy trying to keep up with it all!

I was actually joking with that comment, and a 14 y.o. does not need appearance comments for sure!

But I don't know why you put her on a low calorie diet. I lost so much weight just by getting all grains, sugars and dairy out of my diet and eating mostly bacon/eggs/sausages for breakfast, steak/pork chop/burgers for dinner and butter with all these, with little variety in low carb side dishes like salads and green beans. Just check the post Laura made to Mugatea previously, it's very simple cooking plan for anyone, especially mothers.

Most of the food I buy for everyone is paleo inspired apart from the dairy which no one else wants to quit.
I think I just have to dig really deep and work my will power muscle more and more so it gets nice and strong and I don't cave into the temptations.
As much as I want to I can't force anyone to do what I'm doing so I'm just going to have to be flexible and hope one day they jump ship to where I'm sailing to. The little one is the only person I can influence and she has a lovely strict paleo diet and loves fatty cuts of meat- a keto-er in the making :)

Yes, it must be hard especially if your husband is not on-board and sets the bad example. But don't let this stress you, you will do your best and when your children are ready, they might follow your lead. At least your younger one has started early and she might not develop a sweet tooth and carb-cravings, fingers crossed!

 

[Resistense]

Re: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

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Thanks for sharing that, it's inspired me to keep on going without being too hard on myself. The thing that kept me on track for the first 3 weeks without much hiccuping was low carb sweets and coffee with coconut milk, then I stared feeling guilty and pressuring myself to quit those things and that's when I started to lose control.
I bought some instant decaf coffee today and drank 2 cups with butter in it. I was way more satisfied than I have been in weeks and haven't wanted for anything I shouldn't. I suppose I should just do what I need to to get me through the hard yards. I even made my people a sticky date pudding with salted caramel sauce and didn't even want to taste it.. If horrible instant coffee works for now then I'll use it..
Thanks for helping me be less hard on my self. :)

Just 2 pence of advice: it'd likely be better to use real coffee (decaf or not) over instant, as it's been discussed here (although I can't find where..) and elsewhere that instant coffee may contain gluten (cross-reactivity between gluten antibodies and instant coffee samples being positive; whereas real, whole coffee sources were not). Also I can highly recommend chai or green tea with butter, egg yolks, and a little safe sweetener, or any combinations thereof, as a good alternative to coffee with butter.

I'd like to encourage you to stick with the diet changes. I know for me there have been periods of self-recrimination vis a vis diet, but with time and persistence I think you'll find yourself more able to resist cravings and stick to your guns (or fat bombs?) in the midst of temptations. Try to remember that you are making progress! I can also sympathize with your situation with regards to the family not being entirely on board the keto train with you (despite offering free tickets, informational brochures, and frequent stops..). For me, this was a great example of the lesson that you can't help people who aren't asking. Over time, however, my parents have asked questions and become more and more informed about their dietary choices. They don't ask for servings of fat soup with organ meat just yet but they do consume much more good fat and much less processed food. The old adage is to make haste slowly. I would add to that and say try and really enjoy all the bacon you get to eat along the way :D