Hey everyone, now that I’ve given you my life story, it’s time to talk about what’s currently going on. Over the last 10 months (since the new year) I’ve been in the learning and adapting phase of what I am currently doing for my diet and exercise. I’ve adapted the Keto Diet, for reasons I will explain shortly. It was slow going at first, as this was the early phases, learning everything there was to possibly know about what was going on with my body.
Leading up to 2017, I was maintaining a weight between 205-210 lbs. I worked out regularly, and I ate often. I was craving food! I had to eat something every 2 hours or I would become a Snickers commercial. My kids know the term “hangry” very well. Because of my rigorous workouts and my goal to keep building muscle mass, I gave my body food every time it craved it. I was maintaining this routine and diet for several years when I hit a wall in late 2016. Leading into the holidays, I allowed myself to indulge in the things I normally avoided (sweets), and I took a break from the vigorous workouts.
As the months went on, I noticed my energy getting lower, my motivation wasn’t there anymore, I was feeling tired all the time. Mostly, I was feeling sick. After every meal came discomfort, a trip to the bathroom, heartburn, tiredness. It became very disheartening as I would put the effort forth to workout, only to be interrupted by how poor I felt. Eventually, my early morning workouts turned into getting an extra hour of sleep, and then laying in bed for another 30 minutes trying to find the motivation to get up. It didn’t take long for my weight to jump up to 238. Something was wrong, I was doing everything well for so long, then everything just seemed to change overnight! I decided it was time to talk to my doctor.
After speaking to my doctor, I was referred to a gastroenterologist. He began with wanting to do the fun stuff…..probing! I’ll spare you all the fun details, but what was discovered was inflammation in my stomach and esophagus. Acid reflux was the main cause of this. A number of other tests were performed to rule out any disease, all came back negative. Which is good! So what’s causing all these problems I’m having. The answer was simple. Diet.
While we had narrowed down diet, it wasn’t yet specified as to exactly what in my diet was the issue, until one fateful day when I was visiting some friends in Seattle. It was at their gathering that I was speaking to someone who was very familiar with food allergies. As I was describing all that was going on with me, she asked if I had a lectin intolerance. “I have no idea. What’s that?” She sent me a link to “The Ultimate Health Podcast: Episode 202 with Dr. Steven Gundry”. I listened to entire podcast on my drive back home, and it was hitting the nail right on the head! I immediately began to pay attention to the foods I was putting in my body from that day forth.
What are lectins? Lectins are a protein in many foods such as wheat, grain, corn, nightshades, legumes, brown rice, nuts, seeds, and some vegetables just to name a few. The list goes on. There are ways to kill or eliminate lectins in some of these foods. These include long periods of soaking to strip the lectins away (8 hours or more), using a pressure cooker to kill the lectins, or they can be cut away by removing the outer layer and the seeds inside that contain the lectins. This can seem like a lot of work! And it is, for some dishes it’s worth the extra work, but more often than not it’s much simpler to just avoid eating these foods altogether.
“So what can you eat?” I get asked this one a lot. Enter Keto, the diet that saved me! While on that same visit in Seattle visiting friends where I learned about lectins, I coincidentally was also informed about keto by someone who was already doing it. What peaked my interest in it was that the diet itself avoids a lot of those lectin containing foods. I was given another podcast to listen to. This one was from “Ben Greenfield Fitness: Episode 924 The Keto Reset Diet with Mark Sisson”. This podcast was extremely informative and I bought the audiobook right away for the “21 Day Keto Reset Diet: Reboot Your Metabolism in 21 Days and Burn Fat Forever” by Mark Sisson. This book was a perfect jumping off point for me. I was already going in with an open mind, knowing that my body needed a change. The book really helped me understand the science of our bodies, the science of a ketogenic diet, and how the two work together to create a better outcome. Before ever learning about how I should eat, I made time to really know “why” I should be doing this. The biggest mistake people can make is diving head first into something they barely know anything about. I’ve seen that with this diet, and I’ve seen the crash.
The first 21 days of going keto is crucial. Taking your normal diet and turning it completely upside down can have some adverse effects. One of the first things that someone might experience is something called the Keto Flu. Flu like symptoms come over you as your body is making this rapid adjustment from being carb and glucose dependent to no longer having it, and in its place is a heavy amount of fat. Ultimately, this is what your goal is, but one never allowed for a transition period. Think of it like someone who has smoked for most of their life, and all of a sudden goes cold turkey. Can some people do it without problems? Sure, they’re out there. But for a lot of individuals this can cause them to get sick. Stripping something that your body craves and has always been given will NOT always go over well. How do most people quit smoking? The ease of transition. Giving their bodies time to adjust to having less, until they can reach a point when it no longer needs it. This diet (or any diet for that matter) is no different. The “21 Day Keto Reset Diet” book states in right in its title. This isn’t a 21 day diet, the “reset” is 21 days. Only after giving yourself 3 weeks to make adjustments in your diet, read signals from your body, and adjust some more should one go strict keto. It’ll be much easier, and your body will thank you for it.
Back to my earlier question, what can I eat? Lot’s of things! I was never big on legumes, and bread made me feel terrible so cutting it out was easy. But I like bread, so I make my own now and it’s every bit as good as what I was eating before! (Coming soon, a recipes section) I eat a lot of the same dishes I did before, but with some tweaks. Almost anything that I’ve cut from my diet can be replicated in some way. I’ll admit, not everything is as good as the original. However, there’s plenty of things that I’m enjoying even more! I never feel like I’m without. I can always find something to eat, anywhere I go. Most of my diet consists of fat. Fat is in so many things, so this one is quite easy. I eat a lot of avocados, certain nuts (mostly macadamia nuts), meats, and dairy. A lot of people avoid dairy while on keto. I’m not one of those people. I LOVE cheese, and I use it quite often in my replacement meals. Same with cream cheese and heavy creamer. Not all fats are ok here though. One of the things I watch out for is the oils my food is cooked in. I stay far far away from vegetable oil, corn oil, corn syrup, palm oil, and canola oil. I instead use olive oil for low temp cooking, avocado oil, coconut oil, or straight up animal fat.
Next, is proteins. While I still eat mostly things like chicken and eggs, I’ve given fattier foods a second chance after a lifetime of being told I should only go lean. Lean meats are good, like chicken and fish, don’t get me wrong! But I incorporate things like bacon, or 80% grass fed/grass finished beef more into what I eat now than what I used to. And lets just be honest here, bacon wrapped anything is awesome!!! There is still a lot of debate on red meat though. From the research that I’ve done, unless instructed differently by your doctor, having some occasionally is perfectly fine. Just don’t make it a daily occurance. That can certainly be said for a lot of other things too…..which brings me to the next topic.
Last is the carbs and sugar. These are the 2 big ones I watch out for most. As part of a keto diet, you want to keep your carbs in the range of 5% to 10% of your total daily caloric intake. For me, this equates to keeping at 50g of carbs a day, or less, based on my 3000 calorie a day diet. Everyone is going to be different when it comes figuring out what your macro ratio, and your caloric intake will be. I’ll touch on this in a later blog.
So what kind of carbs are ok? Vegetables. Vegetables do tend to be higher in carbs when you look at their nutritional content, but you have to keep in mind that they are also high in fiber. Fiber helps to counteract how your body processes the carbs you ingest, so rather than turning it into straight glucose, it helps send it straight to your digestive system to absorb its other nutrients. A staple in my household is broccoli and cauliflower. What’s great about cauliflower is that it can be used as a substitute to many dishes that you may be now avoiding, such as rice, potatoes, or a pizza crust. One thing that is important to note, is that it is always best to eat your vegetables cooked. It’s harder for your digestive system to break down vegetables raw, and a lot of the nutrients in them don’t even activate until cooked. Plus, they just taste better that way too!
What about sugars? More so than carbs, I really watch my sugar intake. This can be extremely difficult being that I have a bad sweet tooth. If at all possible, I do not eat pure sugar or anything that it’s in. Rather, I’ll use a natural sweetener like stevia, monk fruit extract, or erythritol. I do my best to limit these as well as it has been proven that any sweetener will cause an insulin spike, some just have lesser effects on that. If losing fat is your goal, then avoiding all sweeteners is the best course of action. If you’re like me, that can be difficult. Dark chocolate, 70% Cocoa or more, is a great way to get that sweet craving out of the way. Or, I like to indulge into some fat bombs that I’ve made (recipes to come).
For me, these are the best food choices I can make to best suit my body and mind. I’m feeling better for it, and there is no foreseeable point in time in which I’ll change this. Not that I won’t, I’ll just have to wait and see what my body is telling me I need to. That’s point of all this. Our needs can differ greatly than our wants. I want to eat anything I want, any time I want! But the reality of that is, I just can’t do that and expect to feel good afterward. So which is more important? Short term satisfaction of having the food in my mouth? Or, feeling more energetic and not having cramps, bloating, heartburn, or GI issues? That’s an easy choice. A choice made much easier when I chose my body over food. I only get one shot at this, and I’d like to get it right.
Cheers!