Not doing so well...

Well, this week has not been very successful in regards to keto... at least not the past two nights. Last night we ordered pizza (and cheese rolls and chocolate chip pizza) and last night we ordered Chinese (and of course I got breaded sesame chicken).

I feel like I have no control lately. My weight has been hovering between 166-170 for the past two months because I keep cycling between doing low carb for a few days and then cheating the next few. I think right now it's an issue of meal planning and grocery shopping. We have a lot of meat that I've pre-portioned in the freezer but not a lot of stuff to make with it.

I'm trying to think of ways to fix this. :( I don't want to cheat, I really do want to get back into keto -- especially to the part where it was so habitual that I wasn't tempted to cheat. I think I'm going to have to go back to strictly planning out our meals for the week, and making sure that there is enough variety that I don't get bored or disgusted by it quickly and then buying the things I need for those foods only.

I think part of the problem is I've been having some kind of weird aversion to meat lately, especially meat that I have cooked and prepared.

Let's end this post on a positive note!

I did make a delicious keto dinner on Tuesday night. Cheesy Bacon Covered Chicken and a power greens salad (and a baked potato for the hubby).

To make this ridiculously easy chicken, you need:
2 chicken breasts
salt & pepper
garlic powder
olive oil
1/4 - 2/3 cup colby jack cheese
6 slices of cooked bacon

First, I trimmed any fat off the chicken and put it in a bowl with about a tablespoon of olive oil, some salt, pepper and garlic powder. Make sure the chicken is fully coated with the oil.

Heat a cast iron skillet on medium-high heat. Turn on your oven to 375 (mine was already on and heated from cooking DH's baked potato). Brown chicken on each side for a few minutes, then put the skillet into the oven to finish cooking. I'm extremely suspicious about chicken, so I probably overcooked it. A reasonable cooking time is 20-25 minutes at this point, or when the chicken temp reads done.

Once the chicken is done cooking, take out of the oven and arrange bacon and cheese on top of the chicken. Put back in the oven until cheese has reached desired meltiness. Enjoy!

Ham and Cheese "Cornbread"

Ham and Cheese Cornbread!!!
This recipe is an altered version of this Green Onion Cornbread.

I basically added about a half a cup of shredded colby jack cheese and also a half a cup of diced ham steak to the recipe to get this. I did sprinkle a little bit more cheese and some sesame seeds on top for prettiness. Also, please excuse my dirty stove! I was in full out cooking mode. I also cooked it for about 3-5 minutes more than the original recipe called for to make sure the cheese on top was browned to my liking.


I decided to make this for my husband to take to work for breakfast this week after he ate up all the leftover Green Onion Cornbread I made to go with the Jalapeno Popper Soup I made last Monday, which by the way, was delicious!

Here's a picture of our bowls of delicious jalapeno soup:

That soup was even better reheated a day or two later. That might have been because I just got to nuke it and did none of the work.

Keto Reboot

Hello everyone! *crickets* Or maybe no one, but that's okay. This blog is for me and if it helps anyone else, then I feel it has already been more successful than I could have ever hoped.

My name is Amber and I eat low carb. Or I try to... most days. It's been harder lately since falling off the keto wagon in April. I started a diet that helps you lose weight through nutritional ketosis back at the beginning of August 2012. This was after ballooning up to 210lbs, my highest weight ever (and on a 5'2 frame...that is a lot of weight). I was miserable. My stomach was always hurting me. I was having to go number 2 at work multiple times a day and it was embarrassing. I felt bloated and uncomfortable ALL THE TIME. I knew it needed to stop, I just didn't know how.

I happen to, also, be a redditor. This means that one day, I stumbled across the /r/keto subreddit. I'd always heard of low carb dieting, and was pretty skeptical of it but at this point I was willing to try anything. I'd already tried the paleo diet earlier that year and had practically ripped sandwich bread out of my then-boyfriend's mouth I was going through carb-detox so badly! Needless to say, I wasn't happy and I didn't make it very far eating paleo -- I say I stuck with it MAYBE for a week before I couldn't handle it anymore. I felt like I wasn't getting to eat anything and I was miserable.

I know now that I was going through what ketoers have affectionately dubbed "keto flu". It's basically where you feel like a sack of poo for a couple days until your body realizes it's not getting anymore crack...err... I mean carbs. You feel fuzzy-headed, hungry, and generally all kinds of messed up -- but you have to get through this period to get to the magicalness that is your body in ketosis. I think the reason I failed when I tried going paleo was due to not having done enough research (I didn't even know I would go through a flu like period) and the absence of dairy. I don't know about you guys but some dairy in my life is what makes me happy -- and that's because FAT makes you happy. Not having any cheese or butter while doing strict paleo did not make me motivated to stick to it.

Okay! Back to keto. Why did it work for me? First of all, I spent a lot more time researching keto before starting it. I read everything I could, knew what my target macros should be, looked a lot of recipes and progress pictures and got myself super pumped and motivated. Then, when I was armed with all the information, knew that I would experience keto flu and prepared for it (with lots of Powerade Zero) I started -- and guys, it was glorious.

Being a woman, we lose weight slower than men anyways -- our bodies wants to hold on to it to feed and grown our babies! But between August 2012 and March 2013, I lost 40lbs. That's a pretty big accomplishment, especially considering that loss is from ONLY dieting. I have not been working out or adding any more physical activity to my life. I know I should, and I will! I just have to work myself up to that too.

Anyway, what happened in March? Well, the impending doom of my wedding, just kidding, I was super excited but SUPER stressed -- and we all know what happens to most people when they get stressed -- they eat. For me, that was eating carbs. I was down to my lowest weight, my wedding dress had at least 5lbs of room in it and that was pretty much a get-out-of-jail-free card for my carb eating. There was lots of going out to eat and lots of carbs -- my (now) husband and I got out of our routine of cooking a healthy keto dinner ever night and got back into the routine of eating out and ordering in all the time -- which is exactly what got me so fat in the first place.

Now I'm trying desperately to get back to that place of Zen Keto, where I was so far into ketosis and so far out of my carb addiction that I could easily say no to the things I shouldn't eat. Now my willpower is pretty much nonexistent. This is evidenced by the (pretty much)whole serving of chips and queso I ate yesterday while watching Iron Man 3...washed down with some chocolate covered pretzels, marshmallows and strawberries. FOR SHAME AMBER!

Why am I doing this to myself? I want to be healthy! I want to feel good about myself! I'm going to start blogging about my trials and tribulations of staying keto in hopes that it will help me get back, and stay on, the keto wagon. Maybe getting to vent through the blog will get me through to being able to say no again. Eating low carb is definitely a lifestyle choice and I need to recommit myself to it. I have never felt better than when I am fully in ketosis and in a constant state of losing weight and I really want to be there again.

Wish me luck!