So I thought I’d update on my “diet” since it’s been a really long time. I’ve been reticent to talk about it too much in “real life” because I don’t want to inadvertently say something that might be triggering to someone or to sound like I’m body-shaming people. So just take this as something I wanted to do for myself any only applicable to me and my life.
Several months ago I realized I was eating an awful lot of candy and junk, constantly, all day at work. I was depressed for a very long time for reasons that I won’t go into, and it was manifesting itself through overeating on sugar and soda and all that stuff that your dentist doesn’t want you having. I decided in May or June that I wanted to stop doing that, and so I cut out candy and soda without a whole lot of trouble. I was never really craving it, I was just eating it out of habit and not thinking about it. It’s amazing some of the things that we do when we put our brains on auto pilot.
Somewhere in that time frame a friend of mine also recommended Gary Taubes’ book “Why We Get Fat (and What to Do About It)” which essentially talks about our human physiology and why a lot of official dietary recommendations for our health are based on shaky science and don’t match up with how our bodies process food and convert it to energy (the biggest revelation for me was that consuming dietary fat does not mean your digestive system converts it into fat on your body, which goes against a lot of what we’re taught). I recommend checking it out if you’re interested in that sort of thing. In any case, that helped me consciously and purposefully start making some other dietary changes.
Another thing that helped was discovering the /r/keto subreddit. Reddit is mostly a shit hole and /r/keto can definitely be a huge circlejerk too on occasion but it was there I got a lot of solid advice on the benefits of cutting out other carbohydrates and how doing so doesn’t F your brain up like so many people wrongly believe. Since about July-ish my goal has been to keep to about 20 grams of carbohydrates a day (or less) in order for my body to start burning fat (dietary fat and its own fat stores) instead of seeking out the “easy” energy that carbs provide. Mostly I stick to this, occasionally I go over, but now that my body is “fat adapted” I find that going over a little doesn’t really have any negative effects. According to the subreddit, this diet is apparently good for both Type 2 diabetics or pre-diabetics, and women with PCOS, and was originally developed to treat children with epilepsy.
There were a couple of weeks in there that sucked royally at first. I didn’t go about implementing the lifestyle in a systematic way and wasn’t getting enough salt or other electrolytes (one thing about keto is that your body stops holding onto water, so you’re peeing all day all the time and the salt that your body needs gets flushed right out with it). Once I figured out what was going on, I started feeling a lot better and didn’t feel like I was literally going to fall asleep all day long.
The biggest benefits I’ve noticed have actually been the clarity of mind I have and improvements in my mood. I actually wake up in the morning and feel ready to go, have an easier time thinking through things and making decisions, and find it a lot easier to write which is always something I wanted to work on but I could never find the magic way to fix my cloudy brain. I dealt with pretty significant anxiety for a long time and I’ve found that I have fewer bad moments. Now something that would normally have been really triggering to my anxiety or depression feels more minor (the problem is still there and I still go to professional therapy every couple of weeks, but things are a lot better and I worry about myself a lot less. I’m also not in a place where I feel like I need to take medicine to help with symptoms, which is a road a personally don’t want to go down).
One other major benefit is appetite suppression. My body has basically stopped riding the never-ending insulin roller coaster, so my appetite isn’t falsely triggered all day. I stopped eating breakfast in the morning (and no, it’s not “the most important meal of the day,”). Prior to this breakfast had always made me feel nauseated, but I ate it out of obligation. Now I know better. I do a 16/8 intermittent fast (eating your day’s calories within an 8 hour period and fasting the remaining time) and actually today I didn’t eat anything until about 4pm because I just forgot to (then I ate a double helping of dinner, haha). Eating more fat helps with satiety, so this happens to a lot of people and it’s okay.
Some obstacles I’ve encountered mainly revolve around eating with others. I’m a good cook and make most of my own food (I’m very lucky to have the funds and access to fresh meat and veggies, as well as the time available to cook them in creative and appetizing ways). When out with others, though, I sometimes feel obligated to indulge somewhat, primarily because I don’t want people to start asking questions or thinking that I’ve suddenly become a super picky eater or am faking a food allergy. I feel bad if someone has made something when I’m over – I will usually eat a little even though now food with a lot of carbs tends to give me a headache and screw up my sleep schedule. I’m bad about asking for things at restaurants – a bun-less burger is always a good option on keto, but I’m afraid of offending people so that’s something I really need to work on. It’s hard when food gets ordered in at work for special events, too – I generally can’t eat it (pizza, chinese, italian are big favorites there). It can be kind of a bummer since food defines so many of our social situations and I sometimes feel like these restrictions I’ve imposed on myself aren’t considered legit enough.
So what do I eat? I think people don’t realize that cutting carbs still leaves you with a ton of options. Fatty meats, cheese, and veggies comprise the majority of my diet. These were always my faves anyway (luckily I was never big on dessert to begin with!). I don’t eat most fruit (I know, some of your are like DAI SHOKKU but the fruits that we’ve bred are basically sugar bombs and you can get those vitamins elsewhere). Anyway, here are a few things that I like to eat:
Meats: Chicken (mostly legs and wings, I’ve never like breasts), steak, bacon, pork chops (bone-in and tenderloin), ground meat, sausage, fish (any kind, basically, including canned sardines and tuna as well as fresh fish), eggs (this is a big one – I love eggs a lot and you can cook them so many ways!), preserved meats (prosciutto, salami, etc.)
Dairy: Cheese of almost any kind (I’m a cheese fiend), butter (Kerrygold is my favorite), heavy cream (at the outset I would have coffee with heavy cream in the morning, now I don’t need/want it anymore), sour cream, creme fraiche (I can’t say that without hearing Randy Marsh, lol), occasionally full-fat plain yogurt (what we call “yogurt” is generally sugared-up big time so I don’t normally eat it)
Vegetables: Cruciferous veggies (brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli, etc.), cauliflower, asparagus, avocado (technically a fruit but I consider it a culinary vegetable), zucchini, peppers (hot or mild), onions (sparingly, they actually contain some sugar even though you wouldn’t immediately think that), fennel, root veggies (also somewhat sparingly as they are rather starchy), spinach or other greens, green beans
Fruits: Mostly berries (strawberries, raspberries, blackberries) – they are lowest on the carb scale. Coconut (very fibrous and fatty and delicious)
Snacks: Pork chicharrones (pork rinds) – I know it sounds gross but these are basically made of meat gelatin and serve as a great sub for potato chips, jerky (EPIC uncured bacon bar is my favorite – zero carbs!), Quest protein bars (occasionally if I haven’t prepped enough food for the week I’ll have one of these), Almonds (delicious and full of fiber, vitamins and potassium) and some other nuts, very dark chocolate (85% cacao – Trader Joe’s is my favorite one) or chocolate sweetened with stevia/erythritol, chia seed pudding (made with chia seeds, coconut milk, unsweeted cocoa or matcha)
Beverages: Water, iced tea, sparkling essence water (La Croix), Coke Zero (occasionally, I try to not develop a taste for soda but sometimes I just want some caffeine and I’m not near a coffee supply), coffee (plain or with some almond milk or heavy cream), protein shakes, almond milk, coconut milk
Condiments: Mustard (dijon or the really grainy kind are my favorites), mayonnaise (have always loved it), soy sauce, ranch or blue cheese dressing (full fat), Sriracha or other hot sauces (I like spicy food), vinegar, olive oil, coconut oil. I know Heinz makes a low sugar ketchup but I haven’t tried it yet since I’m not that big on ketchup in the first place.
What don’t I eat? I know most people are more concerned about restrictions, and I think many people would feel too restricted on this type of lifestyle. So here are some things that I don’t really eat anymore:
Flour products, like bread and cake: I will occasionally make exceptions, but it has to be really high quality bread/cake/pastry/whatever. Life’s too short for crappy cake! Some of my exceptions have been chocolate mousse cake on my birthday (my boyfriend and I shared it at a fancy restaurant) and some good fresh bread at a fancy steak house for my friend’s birthday. I’ve made some keto-compliant substitutes that are good, like keto cheddar biscuits made with coconut flour. I don’t make a habit of bread or pastries, though. And I don’t eat pizza. I’ll eat the toppings off of the pizza, but not the dough. They do sell a sprouted wheat bread at Trader Joe’s sometimes that’s okay, I keep a loaf in the freezer in case I need a replacement hot dog bun or something.
Fruit: people really give me the side-eye on this one! Now that my taste buds have adjusted, I just find most fruit to be way too sweet. And like I said, our fruit has been bred to be really sweet and there are other ways to get those vitamins. I do still eat berries, and technically avocado and tomato are fruits, and I’ll eat those. Juices are right out also, since they’re like having fruit without the minor benefit of fiber.
Certain Vegetables: Carrots (although I’m flexible on this), root veggies (also flexible), corn (not flexible, it’s all sugar basically). I’ve started to come around on some vegetables since I feel like the carbohydrates in most of them aren’t doing me a lot of harm since there’s a lot of fiber and I haven’t noticed vegetables interfering with the benefits of my way of eating.
Legumes: legumes are full of starch and they really give me stomach issues now. Hummus is a no-go but baba ghanoush is okay. I’ll occasionally have peanuts but not often.
Sweeteners: Sugar, maple syrup, honey, agave syrup are all out (although on occasion I’ll use a little honey when making some Korean food in the flavoring paste, but it’s like a teaspoon for a whole pan of stuff). I do use liquid stevia and erythritol, which do not cause an insulin spike for me (erythritol is considered the best for this).
Candy: Obviously. I don’t even eat sugar free candy because some people get a major case of the ass blasts from it and I’m not going to even give it a chance. What kind of sucks about not eating is that many people give candy as gifts, especially around the holidays; I got a very nice gift bag from my job and it was almost entirely candy, so I ended up giving it away.
Alcohol: Technically certain alcohols (like hard liquors) aren’t a big deal for keto, but I’m not a big drinker anyway and I prefer beer and wine which are carb-filled (the good ones, anyway). I have had maybe two beers since starting, and a couple glasses of wine and a little liquor over the past 6 months, but nothing dramatic.
Really, there aren’t that many restrictions, but the ones there are are big ones for a lot of people, so it can be kind of daunting to start off.
Some other things I wanted to add are that I tried tracking my calories and stuff for about a week using the My Fitness Pal app on my phone. It actually started giving me anxiety problems, so I stopped and have technically been doing “lazy keto” for the majority of the time. It hasn’t been a hindrance though I know correctly estimating portion sizes and calories can be an issue for some.
I’ve spent all this time justifying my lifestyle, so I’m finally going to talk about one of the other benefits – easy weight loss. One of the other reasons I started looking to change my eating habits is because I’m into lolita fashion and I was starting to not fit into some of the really expensive Japanese clothes I had bought. This was really getting me down and I didn’t want to have to sell all the pretty things in my closet. This problem has happily been addressed at this point. Here are some of my stats:
Starting weight: 183(?) lbs/83kg – I didn’t take an official starting weight, so I’m estimating. My first weigh-in had me at 18olbs/81.6kg exactly.
Current weight: ~145lbs/65.77kg (I weighed in at 143 this morning but that was before I ate/drank anything)
Goal weight: Not sure? I’ve always told myself I’d re-assess when I reached 14olbs and see how I feel. Other than that I don’t have a goal weight.
Starting BMI: ~29.5
Current BMI: ~23.5
I don’t believe in BMI as an accurate measure of anything, really, but I wanted to get into the “Normal” range from “overweight” so my doctor would stop bugging me about it. I don’t think weight is a strong indicator of health for the most part, and doctors tend to attribute any medical problem a fat person has to their weight, which is a total load of bullshit.
Beginning bust measurement: 38inches/96cm
Current bust measurement: 35.5inches/90cm
Beginning waist measurement: 30.7inches/78cm
Current waist measurement: 27.6inches/70cm
I don’t have other measurements because they don’t matter as far as lolita fashion goes for the most part. Needless to say, the items I bought when I was pushing the top of the measurements (96cm bust is basically not fitting right in the Innocent World dresses I have and I’m sure I was a bit higher than those measurements at my largest) fit really well now. I can zip them all up without fighting with them! I’m very happy about that. The downside is that most of my normal clothes don’t fit me anymore, and I’ve run out of notches on my belt.
I also wanted to mention that I don’t exercise. I work in a very sedentary position in my office and I don’t go out of my way fit in extra activity. This goes against a lot of advice that’s given – my thought is that exercise just makes me hungry and when I’m hungry I eat more. Exercise also doesn’t burn many calories at all, and I don’t have an hour every day to spend on the treadmill for little benefit. I do occasionally do some bodyweight resistance training, but not on a consistent basis.
Again, I want to stress that weight does not equal value in a person and I believe all bodies are beautiful and worthy. It’s been difficult for me to reconcile that opinion with ones I have toward myself; they’ve not always been very positive and that’s definitely something I’ve had to work on. I wanted to lose the weight, change my eating habits, and most importantly just feel better and have more energy and drive, because for me this signaled taking control away from my anxiety and depression and nourishing myself in a healthy way. This is the way I’ve been able to do that for myself.