Week One and 5lbs Lighter

 Sorry for the delay in posts! Week one is over and so far I am feeling good. Of course every now and then I get a craving. Like on the way home from boyfriends mum's house I really wanted to stop for a flamin' wrap from KFC, and on the way home from an interview earlier the smell of a subway sandwich had me drooling! But so far so good.

Week one has taught us a lot, First and most important is eggs can be really sickly. Having bacon and fried eggs is OK but when using it in the cheese topping for a cheeseburger pie it was so sickly both me and boyfriend had to pick the top part off! It can really put you off the diet so I have decided that eggs will be reserved for breakfast! And so far that has worked!

Keto Breakfast Hash - Recipe from Ketodietapp.com

The second thing it has taught me is we are such piggies!!! Now that we are getting into the diet we are hardly ever hungry, just eating meals when we get hungry and sometimes just eating because we know we have not eaten enough. Which makes the amount of food we were shovelling into our mouths every day crazy!

And third, I need to drink more water. I have started having bladder pains making me think I have an infection but I do remember this last time and after some research it seems quiet common. I just need to remember to drink much more water!!

We have decided to only weight ourselves once a week because last time we went mad weighing ourselves multiple times a day, and the first time I put on weight in the first week so we decided once is a much better idea! And it really was, because finding out I have lost 5lbs and Boyfriend has lost 8lbs was amazing! It really gives you an extra boost and all of those little cravings feel like nothing!

Halfway through the first week we could already see the changes, my belly has shrunk quite a bit and Boyfriend has lost a few chins. (His words not mine)

I know the next challenge will be when the weight loss slows down or even stops. This really knocked us off track last time but I'm doing everything I can to prepare so I know the things we can do to get back on track!

I thought I would include a few photos from our meals for the week, and there may even be some posts on a few of them later on.

Orange Creamsicle - Just as good as the Strawberry!

Creamsicle Dreams

So far on this diet I'm finding my sweet treat cravings a problem. The Fat bombs and Chocolate mouse I made just aren’t my cup of tea, so I began searching the internet for sugar free treats. Sugar free jelly was the winner, and the Keto community even suggested something else. Using cream!

I am so glad I found this treat, so far it's been the only thing I have found that feels like I'm eating a normal sugary pudding. But you don't want to listen to me rambling on, you want to know where the cream comes in. I found a few posts all about using cream to make jelly and they all call the finished product the same thing, 'Creamsicle'.

I bought some sugar free strawberry jelly sachets. The recipe calls for half a pint of boiling water, and then half a pint of cold water. In this case I used half a pint of boiling water and then a quarter pint cold water and another quarter pint of double cream. Mix it all up and leave it to set in a container. When the jelly sets it separates a bit and the top half is the dreamiest mouse/jelly/heaven kind of texture. It's super simple, you don’t need much to satisfy the craving. 

The Dreaded Day One

There's always so much enthusiasm on the first day of a diet. I woke up really late but still felt positive, so I went straight to making lunch. Bacon and eggs was on the menu and it left me feeling full and happy. I was ready to wait until dinner to eat, however on a normal day I eat an awful lot. A biscuit here a packet of crisps there, and don’t forget we completely skipped breakfast, but it was not a time for snacking. Boyfriend started moaning that he was hungry as well and luckily we both held up until dinner. I decided I would make a roast chicken so I could use the carcass to make bone broth (More on that in another post.) I was so excited to try a recipe I found for 'Parmesan garlic broccoli fritters' (don't forget to sway the yoghurt for sour cream and the flour for almond four) Sadly my fritters weren't quite fritters. My batter didn’t hold together so I just fried it up as a bass of green mush. It may not have looked very nice but it tasted good, and the dip you make with it was great.

After dinner we had some Keto chocolate mouse (mine was quite sickly but boyfriend enjoyed it) and then it was no more food for us until morning….We failed at that and I ended up making some Kale chips which helped us be good until the next day!

A big problem I have is I’m not much of a fan of hot drinks or water. I'm juice or fizzy pop all the way. I usually drink sugar free juice but I still get worried the sweeteners with effect going into ketosis. I didn’t have a problem with it last time as it isn't like I'm drinking gallons of the stuff. So far I've gone with putting lemon in water and that’s not too bad but I would kill for some Pepsi right now!

Fat Bombs

The day before we began our diet I decided I would prepare some fat bombs. I wanted to really be prepared this time so if we had a sugar craving I wouldn't have to find a recipe and spend time making it. I decided on making some Coconut fat bombs and Strawberry Cheesecakefat bombs. (I have linked the recipes I used.)

I have to say I'm not to sure what I think of them yet. Fat bomb really is the right way to describe them, its hard to explain but the texture when you're eating them felt a bit gross, but I did like the taste!

I was worried I had burned the coconut when making the coconut ones but everything was fine in the end. I'm not to keen on these ones but my boyfriend thought they were lovely. I had wrote down to keep these refrigerated but I found they felt a bit melty and decided to keep them in the freezer. I really need to find some kind of recipe so I can include these in a packed lunch and have them hold up with an ice pack.

The strawberry cheesecake fat bombs were a lot more to my taste. They did just taste like strawberry cheesecake although the butter gave it that slimy feeling in my mouth that I wasn't sure about. I can get over that though and I'm sure as I start to experiment with recipes of my own I will find other flavours that work for me, so fussy I know!

Both recipes were really quick and easy to make. I ordered some silicone moulds off of ebay. They were smaller than I expected but they did the job and now we have a bunch to live off of so I don’t have to find the time to keep preparing snacks. 

Our Keto Adventure

A little over a year ago, my boyfriend and I decided to go on the Ketogenic diet. I had never heard of it until doing some research on diabetes while on a work placement. I can get quite caught up on my ideas and after a bit of research we started our Keto adventure. Unfortunately it lasted about a month. I lost about half a stone and my boyfriend lost a stone. I’m not much of a sweet treat eater but once you’re not allowed any it gets hard. Cutting out carbs was so difficult at first but I did end up enjoying the diet. I think it went bad due to being so unprepared and not living in our own flat at the time made me feel uncomfortable making so much mess in the kitchen!!

THIS TIME, I have spent real time planning. I have found so much more information than I did last time, and have found so many more recipes that should make my life easier. I thought it might be helpful to write a little blog on our Keto journey. So to get things started I thought I would let you in on some of the preparations I have made this time that I never had last time.

1 MAGNESIUM

I expected Keto flu but when I woke up in the night with the worst aces I ever felt I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t like the normal aches and pains you get when you've been working out, it felt like my bones were aching. I discovered that I may be losing magnesium so I quickly bought a supplement and the pains went away in a few days. This time I am ready prepared with my supplements and have also done some research and plan on making bone broth to drink to help replace some of the vitamins we lose!

2 SWEET FOOD

As I said before sweet food isn’t exactly something I crave. Going into this diet the first time I wasn’t worried at all about the sweet food, it was the carbs that I was worried about. However knowing I wasn't allowed anything with sugar in made me want sugar. I looked up some keto deserts and using the wrong kind of sweetener is where it all began to go wrong. The weight-loss stopped and we both lost our drive. This time I have discovered fat bombs and have bought a natural sweetener that hopefully we will not use very much. One of my boyfriends biggest problems is he loves sweet food, especially chocolate, so like a good girlfriend I have found a great chocolate mouse recipe that should hopefully help his cravings!

3 VARIETY

When we first started Keto I had all of these recipes to try and it was great. However not all were easy and we ended up eating the same simple meat and veg every day. I have found so many sources this time that I have no idea where I was looking last time!! I've bought a black board for planning meals a week ahead so I know everything I will need.

4. PACKED LUNCHES!!

This was a big problem last time. More for my boyfriend than me. He works 12 hour shifts and gets very hungry in the day, a simple salad is just not enough. This time I’ve looked for specific lunch recipes, cauliflower 'cous cous' is one of them. Having a few recipes I can cook in advance and just put in a box when I need to will help with that. Having a variety will help a lot as It's so hard to be good when you’re stuck with a boring salad every day!

I'm sure there are many things that happened last time that I don't remember, but I’ll fill you in if I think of any! Boyfriend is just back off a trip so we are diving straight in. The cupboards have been sectioned so we can only get to what we are allowed to eat and the fridge full of everything good. No temptations! …. apart from the leftover ice cream in the freezer eek!