It’s Been 4 Months

The four-month mark has come and gone and I’m still going strong on Keto. I find I don’t update and talk about it as much anymore because it has switched from something that is different to simply my way of life.

I forget to measure myself unlike before where I would measure as often as I could and pray for the tiniest changes. The scale held such a high place in my life I was weighing CONSTANTLY. I could tell you what time of day I weighed the most and what clothes I had that were the heaviest.

Then I switched to my lazy keto and everything relaxed a little. I check every few days to see if my ketones register on the breath tester. They always do. I know that I have been in ketosis the whole time because I simply don’t eat enough carbs to kick myself out of ketosis.

I have shared information and recipe with friends and I try to take pictures a bit more so that I can share them when people ask. I am finally below 200 lbs again ALL THE TIME. For a while, I dipped below the 200 mark and then danced above it before bedtime. I would track the slightest change and became obsessed with the number that told me nothing really.

My weight could hint at the fact that I wasn’t as healthy as I should be but it didn’t tell me about my actual health. It didn’t tell me if I was sick or something wasn’t functioning right inside of me. It was a symptom of bigger problems that cutting out the processed sugar and carbs has effectively corrected.

A lot of people ask me to keep updating, and I will do my best. But this isn’t a fad diet or a passing trend for me. I am so happy that I made the switch to this way of life and don’t see myself going back to my old way of eating anytime soon.

The Problem With Telling People

I’m well into my 4th month of doing Keto. I have people asking me how I’m losing the weight. They ask me how I can live without bread and sweets. I get a lot of questions and I love them all. I love them because they tell me that what I’m doing it working!

The problem with telling people what I’m doing is that it holds me accountable. It’s really easy to start a new way of eating and lose a couple pounds but then get bored and go back to your old ways. Its easy to hit the gym for a few weeks and then get burnt out and just stop going. What isn’t easy is telling people you’re doing something different and then not following through.

So, the problem with telling people is it forces the follow through. I don’t want to tell people I’m doing this amazing new thing and then all of a sudden I’m back to my old ways. I don’t want to not just let myself down but let others down as well.

It’s really easy to justify giving up to yourself when you’re bored or tired. But its a whole different thing trying to justify it to people who are looking at you and expecting the change.

Yes, it can be a problem telling people, but a good problem. Telling people is a way to say, don’t let me quit, don’t let me fail. It’s asking for encouragement during times you aren’t sure you can keep going. It’s saying to your friends not to tempt you with things you’re trying to stay away from. And they should want to help you succeed and push you to be the best that you can.

Every single day I wake up excited to see what the day has for me. I’m happy in this journey. But others around you are on journeys too! If you have a friend who confides in you that they’re trying to do something to improve themselves or their life don’t take that confidence lightly. It’s not easy opening up to someone when there is a possibility of failure, so be part of their success!

3 Months Keto

As the three month mark for Keto comes up I have made a realization. With every month that passes I talk about how many inches I’ve lost and how many pounds. Now that is absolutely amazing and I’m still losing and that makes me super happy. But I didn’t start keto to lose weight. I started keto because my hormones were out of whack and I wanted to fix the damage I had done to my body.

So as I look back on this last month, and all three months for that matter, I won’t be listing arbitrary numbers. I won’t list my inches and pounds lost because while that still makes me smile every day its the things I’ve gained, not lost, that make me the most excited.

After losing three babies to miscarriages I knew I couldn’t ignore what my body was telling me any longer. Something was wrong. My dr and I ran all the tests we could and the results came back. I had a blood clotting disorder.

Now that might seem like no big deal, but it was a big deal. Because this wasn’t something I’ve had my whole life. I have had three perfectly healthy and normal pregnancies before this, so this was new. This was something that was going wrong and I immediately knew why.

You don’t get as big as I did without abusing your body. I fell into a pattern of drinking soda and grabbing junk to eat because it was easy and I was tired. Three kids are super fun, but they’re super tiring too. And after each kid, I wasn’t losing the baby weight. I started my first pregnancy around 130 lbs, my 2nd at 185 and my 3rd at 212! And then I gained even more with each miscarriage.

I was basically mainlining sugar on a daily basis. My meals consisted entirely of candy and soda and that was it. I prepared healthier meals for my kids but I didn’t usually eat what I made them, and even if I did healthier than a candy bar and soda doesn’t actually mean it was healthy!

So, after I got the results from the tests I was crushed but determined to fix the damage. The easiest thing to point the finger at was my weight. The weight wasn’t the cause of the problem though, it was merely another symptom. I did a TON of research and the ketogenic lifestyle was what seemed to be the best fit for me.

I started slow and I was surprised at how easy the transition for me really was. Within days I was free from the fever that I had for months. For almost 3 months before I started I had a constant fever of over 100 degrees and I wasn’t sick. The fact that I could take my temp and it was reading a normal temp was amazing to me!

As the first month passed I realized I could wear jeans again. You see, when my size 18 jeans became too tight I refused to buy bigger ones. I wore stretchy pants all the time and  tried to ignore the fact that I was too big for real clothes. No matter what my scale reads in the morning I can wake up and button a pair of jeans and feel good as I leave the house for the day.

I don’t want to stay in bed and sleep all day any more. I love planning fun activities with my girls and taking them to the park, or even just playing outside with them. We spend entire days riding our bikes in front of the house, where before I would plop down on the couch and tell them to play in the back yard because I didn’t feel good enough to go out with them.

Another HUGE thing keto has given me is freedom from food. I eat when I’m hungry but it’s not like it was before. I don’t wake up starving, I don’t have to prep snacks when I’m leaving the house and I don’t feel compelled to stop at fast food restaurants every time I leave the house. I was stopping every single day to get a snack if I had to run errands.

When I started keto I made sure I had a healthy snack in my car when I left because I wasn’t used to the idea of not being hungry. I keep a thing of almonds in the car but I rarely dip into it. I can get my kids snacks or quick meals and not want to eat everything in sight. I don’t constantly think about food anymore which allows me to think about other things that really matter.

Possibly the most amazing thing keto has done isn’t so much for me as it is for my husband. He HATES veggies and yet when I try new recipes he’s super supportive and he tries things. He actually has found a few veggies he actually likes and even told me he has lost a few pounds because I don’t keep as much junk in the house for him to snack on.

It has also helped my marriage because I cook bacon a whole lot more. I’m laughing as I type this but apparently this is my husbands favorite part of me eating keto. And I don’t just cook any bacon but the most amazing bacon because if I’m going to eat it all the time it’s got to be the best!

There are a million little things that just make me so much happier each and every day but these are the things that come to mind immediately when I think of all I’ve gained with keto. Heading into month four I’m excited to see what other happy changes are on their way!

Why Am I Not Thin Yet?

So, I started this whole keto way of eating almost a full three months ago… why am I not a supermodel already?!

I am a person who wants that instant gratification. I would rather pay a few dollars more and walk out of the store with something I want rather than paying less and waiting a few days for it to come in the mail. I will buy multiple of the same item so I don’t have to wait while I’m washing it, just incase I want to use it at that exact moment.

So its hard to realize that I’m not just going to wake up thin tomorrow.

I will wake up healthier than I did today though. I will wake up one day closer to where I want to be and that makes me happy.

I think a lot of us get so caught up with instant gratification that it’s hard to stick to a healthier way of eating. We try for a few days and then when we look in the mirror we aren’t 40 pounds lighter and get discouraged. We realize that this way of eating, that we wanted to instantly correct years of bad eating, is a lifestyle change and not major surgery to remove our excess fat. It is hard.

It’s hard to wake up knowing that I’ve got so much further to go before I am my pre-baby weight. But at the same time it’s encouraging to know that I’m getting closer each and every day.

Don’t let a slow journey keep you from the destination. Maybe it will take a year to get where you want to be, but in a year wouldn’t you want to be there rather than wishing you hadn’t quit when it got hard?

For years I’ve wanted to lose the weight. To get back to where I was before I had my kids and fit into the clothes that I used to love. I would half-heartedly attempt to lose the weight. I would cut my calories and work out until I was exhausted and each and every time it became too hard to continue long term.

I was jealous of my brother who had lost his weight, and kept it off. I was jealous of anyone who had the will-power to keep going despite slow process. I would drink my soda and eat my candy while wishing I could just wake up thin again.

Now I know that keto isn’t a magic pill that fixes everything overnight but sticking to it is giving me results that I am so excited about.

Almost 3 months in and I’ve lost more pounds than I’ve ever lost on any diet. Even more exciting is the inches that seem to keep melting away. In almost 3 months I’ve lost more than 10% of my body weight. THAT IS AMAZING!

Don’t get discouraged if its taking a long time because next year you can look back and see how far you’ve come as long as you stick with it today!

Month 2 Keto Update

So I was planning on waiting until the actual end of the month but I’ve had so many people asking me for updates I figured a few days wouldn’t really make any difference.

This past month wasn’t as phenomenal as January when it comes to the scale but my progress definitely hasn’t stopped. Around week six I noticed a gain on the scale. This was no due to any changes in my eating, I was still tracking macros and carbs and I was doing excellent. It was simply hormonal, which is something that is just part of life.

I am so lucky that my brother has gone on this journey before me and warned me of common pitfalls such as the weight gain and the the stall on the scale so I wasn’t discouraged. I went down another pants size and many clothes that had been buried and forgotten since they didn’t fit have made a reappearance. Since we live in Florida I’ve even ventured out in shorts on most days, and not just any shorts but shorts I haven’t worn since before my last daughter was born!

I was going to give an actual update on how many pounds I’ve lost exactly but my scale’s batteries were dead this morning so I don’t have todays weight. That said I am down 30 lbs since the start of keto. I am about ten pounds away from my first big goal but I know I will be there soon.

For the first month I tracked absolutely everything I ate and I tested multiple times a day to make sure I was in ketosis. Since I started I have never once gone out of ketosis and I realized pretty early on that its not a complicated way of eating.

In the middle of this past month I realized that tracking was something that I was struggling with. It was taking up so much time to log everything and add recipes to my tracker. I was obsessing over my macros and it was frustrating some days to find that I wasn’t where I wanted to be with my macros.

It was during this time that I eased up a little and started doing what many term “lazy keto”. I still pay attention to how many carbs I’m eating during the day, I do high fat and low carb. I have tested every single day since I started doing my lazy keto and I still have not once been out of ketosis.

From the time I measured last month I have lost 4 inches overall. That means that since I started keto I have lost 16 inches overall! That is CRAZY to me!

By choosing to do lazy keto over the strict keto it means that I will lose slower than I was. That was something I had to really think about but at the end of the day the only way this is going to really work for me is if I stick to it. I feel like by easing up a little I can easily keep doing this indefinitely. I am loving keto and now that I’m not obsessing over every number I can relax and enjoy it!

Brown Butter Cube Steak With Jalapeño Cheese Sauce

I have a lot of fun finding amazing recipes on Pinterest and other social media sites where people love to share what they’re eating. To me though there is nothing more fun than going in the kitchen and just whipping something up with what I’ve already got in the house. And let me tell you, its a good thing I like doing that because it helps keep me on budget when I don’t waste anything in my kitchen!

I didn’t do what they recommend you do when starting Keto. I didn’t throw out all my pasta and rice and snacks. Why not? Because I’m on a budget and I’ve got three kids and a husband who aren’t all crazy about giving up all their carbs. That means that I have to make sure I’m determined to do this. Every single day when I look in my fridge, freezer or cabinets I am bombarded with choices that aren’t the best for me.

I am slowly transitioning my kids to healthier snacks but I have enough self-control to not need to empty my house of essentially everything to stick to a healthier eating plan. I know it sounds like it would be harder for eating right, and for some it might seem impossible. However, for those who actually know me you know just how stubborn I can be. I started on New Year’s Eve and I haven’t cheated once, nor do I miss my old way of eating.

So anyway… last night I was looking in my fridge and not sure what I was going to eat for dinner. The girls wanted waffles (hey, they love them!) and I knew that I was going to use up some other things so I gladly made them their waffles and started browning some butter on the stove.

As the girls devoured their waffles (with monk fruit sweetened syrup) I made a delicious brown butter cubed steak. I knew I wanted something else with it but I wasn’t sure I had the motivation to make anything substantial so I threw a bunch of different cheeses in a sauce pan with a diced jalapeño.

This was so delicious I ate two cube steaks! Luckily no one in my family loves jalapeño so I didn’t have to share!

To make this I just browned some butter in a skillet, when it was a beautiful caramel color I added my cube steaks and browned them. While they were cooking I took all different cheeses (mozzarella, cheddar, swiss, cream cheese and heavy cream) and melted them in a sauce pan. As they melted together I diced a fresh jalapeño and added that. I just topped my cube steak with the cheese sauce and enjoyed it!

I’m Melting!

So this past months has had a lot of ups and downs but none of the ups have been on my scale! I can’t believe the progress I am making. Not only am I making progress but I’m loving every minute of it. I never feel deprived or hungry. I don’t crave junk all the time and I don’t feel like I’m missing out on all the foods I used to love.

I was pushing my luck when I tried to button my size 18 pants before because I’m fairly confident I should have gone up a size in order to have them fit me. Now I have to wear a belt with my size 16 jeans because they are falling off of me!

I have no doubt that keto is working for me and I’m excited to give my body a chance to heal itself from all the damage I’ve done to it over the years.

Now I have not veered from the keto lifestyle once, nor have I wanted to, but my results have been phenomenal, even compared to others who are eating exactly the same as I have. I truly credit this to the Trim Tea that I drink every day. 

There are so many added health benefits besides weight loss which is why I love this so much! I love that I am only one month in and reaping so many amazing benefits!

I was so sure before that I could keep doing what I had always done and outwork my bad eating. Obviously that isn’t the case and I’m glad I took the steps I needed to take to change my life!

One Month In…

So I’m a few days shy of being on Keto for a full month. Rather than wait the three more days to do my little first month summary I decided to take advantage of my kids playing happily in the yard to measure and share my progress.

I was so sure this was going to be a difficult way of eating since I have been so into my baking and cookies and bread. There are so many things that were simply part of my life that were really bad for me. When I was having a hard day I’d whip up a batch of cinnamon rolls where each roll had about 1,000 calories in it and 122 grams of carbs per roll! That is literally 6 days worth of carbs with how I eat now!

Still, I knew that I needed to do something to turn my life around and I was determined to give this a shot. It’s scary changing the way you’ve done things your whole life, but sometimes when you’re only digging yourself an early grave maybe change isn’t the scariest thing.

I didn’t even wait for the New Year, I started the day before knowing an arbitrary day wouldn’t change the outcome and putting things off even one day for me can be the difference between starting and giving up. So I made a feast for my mom and family for New Year’s Eve and I ate none of the potatoes and none of the bread. I didn’t know exactly what I was doing but I just knew carbs were a no-no.

Well, New Year’s Day I decided to weigh and measure myself. I couldn’t believe it when my scale settled on my all time high of 230! And then I took my measurements… I was mortified (especially because I had to have my husband measure me)!

The first week was a huge learning curve for me. I bought books and scoured the web for information. I reached out to mom’s in my mom’s group who were doing keto themselves and I took full advantage of all the resources I could find.

I didn’t go down to under 20 carbs the first week, or the second for that matter. I spent the first week cutting out the obvious carb laden foods and kept my carbs under 100 grams a day (technically eating low carb the first week). The second week I adjusted more and kept them under 50 grams the first few days and finally got into a good groove where I was keeping my carbs below 20 net grams a day.

I don’t know if this is why I didn’t get the “keto flu” or if it was the vitamins I take along with the water I was chugging all day long. Either way I never got sick from cutting out my carbs. I did get pretty tired the first week though as my body adjusted.

The second week came with not only a huge drop in my weight but a huge influx of energy. I was loving everything I ate and having the energy to take care of my kids without just sitting and watching them play. I was running around with them and enjoying them more than I had in a lone while.

The third week my weight loss stopped. I jumped around the same number on the scale and wondered if I could get below this number. Even when I was working out like crazy and limiting my food to the point where I felt like I was starving every day I never got below this number.

Luckily my brother had warned me this would happen and I just sucked it up and kept going. I didn’t cheat I just made more delicious food and played with my kids and did what I needed to do. Then all of a sudden my scaled dropped 2 pounds! I had beaten that horrible number that had taunted me for so long.

So now as I look back at the month and realize I don’t miss any of the things I gave up I now that this is something I can keep up long term. I am down 17 pounds (in one month!!) and I’ve lost 13 inches overall!

That is epic for me!

I have not worked out, I haven’t gone to bed hungry! I am so happy and so inspired by all the great changes I’m experiencing!

Keto with Kids

Unlike diets I am making Keto my lifestyle. It is the way I’m choosing to eat for the rest of my life. That means that my family will have meals made that are keto friendly.

At first I was worried that my kids might be resistant to the changes and unhappy with the food choices they would be given. However, this is such an amazing time to be doing keto eating because there are so many resources right at my fingertips. Recipes for anything I can imagine are just a few keystrokes away. I am thankful for the people who went ahead and had to make recipes by trial and error.

That said, I haven’t found a meal that my kids haven’t loved yet. There are literally recipes for everything you can imagine. I can make “cheese its” by simply baking cheese and then my girls aren’t eating the processed junk that I used to buy. And they taste EXACTLY the same! I can make pizza crust with cheese and coconut flour and it has the same texture as a normal pizza crust and the kids beg for seconds.

I did think it would be hard to get my family on board but my husband likes to try the new veggie recipes I try and so far we haven’t found one he doesn’t like. The girls love to eat the bacon as soon as I’m done cooking it and hard boiled eggs are a go-to snack in our house. Taco bowls have replaced the shells and as long as they get extra cheese and olives they’re happy.

As a parent sometimes we hesitate to do things we want to do because of out kids. We don’t have unlimited amounts of money to buy groceries to make multiple meals a day to appease our kids picky appetites. I get it. I am a mean mom though, I make a meal and that’s what we eat. If they don’t like it, after trying it, then I don’t make it again. I love that they have LOVED every new recipe I’ve tried so far.

As a parent its our job to teach our kids to have a healthy relationship with food. Its so easy to go into the store and grab a bag of chips or a candy bar when the kids are whiny and hungry but what are we teaching them? We’re teaching them that these fake foods can make things better when in the end its wreaking havoc on their little bodies.

Especially as a mom to girls, I want my kids to know what real food is. I want them to know how to cook it and how to eat to live and not live to eat. I don’t want them to use food as a crutch for anything I want them to use it to fuel their dreams. As I shift our way of eating to a healthier way I know we’re all going to reap the benefits.

Don’t be afraid to take a healthier path for your family, even if there is a little resistance in the beginning the benefits are far greater than the struggle!

My Keto Journey Starting Out

2017 was a hard year for me! It beat me up and I struggled with depression as I tried to overcome the obstacles that came in my way. After Christmas I reached an all-time low and came to the conclusion that things needed to change.

For those who have read previous posts, you know I’ve had a miscarriage and it is devastating, I have had more since then and it has been difficult to deal with. For the most part that’s why I haven’t been as active on social media or in my real life for that matter. I have holed myself up in my house and eaten my feelings.

After Christmas I started to research new ways of eating because for me I have been unhealthy and eating poorly. Since I have three girls I can’t afford to eat myself to death, and that’s what I felt like I was doing. I bought books on the ketogenic diet after hearing so many great things about it. I prepared my mind and my kitchen for some major changes.

On New Years Eve I knew I couldn’t wait until the next day to make a change, because there is always another tomorrow to start but I needed to change today. I went into the New Year at my heaviest weight ever (230) and I was determined to never be that weight again.

I eased into this new WOE (way of eating) but just cutting out grains and sugars. I was sure it was going to be a struggle, but I found the whole process freeing. It didn’t take long for me to start reaching my macros and get into ketosis.

Not even a month in and I am down to 213 and I have lost over 7 inches over all. I was telling my husband last night that this is the easiest thing I have ever done to lose weight and I feel so amazing each and every day.

I have a long way to go and I know that not having those crazy cravings right from the start is a huge blessing (its not this easy for many people). But I have never felt so full and not wanted to munch on everything in the house all day. I have had a blast exploring new recipes and finding healthier snacks for my girls.

I plan on updating about once a month with my progress to share with everyone because I find it encouraging to see other people doing well and hope that my story can help to inspire others wanting to make a change too!

The first picture is Christmas Day and the second is Jan 14th and I can already see the puffiness going down in my face!