Ketogenic Diet (KETO): What inspired me to try it

by Carol Ranas
22 minutes read
Losing weight has been my biggest struggle ever since I entered puberty. As much as I love food, I have a sedentary lifestyle. It did not become better when I went to adulthood. My weight was a yoyo, I was losing weight (if I am disciplined) and gaining more weight (when I am a mush of a lazy ass). As I grow older and older, I can feel my body aging as fast as I am eating. It is not a pleasant wake-up call.

I need to take charge of my body and health. I need to make sure I’m in good shape especially that I have a son now. I want to be able to catch up with his energy and endurance while growing up. I am aware that it is never too late for me to start. What I do know is that when I put my heart and mind (and soul) into a goal, I usually have a high rate of success. I have tried to lose weight a lot of times and succeeded. This year, I am putting my health as a goal that I MUST SUCCEED!

Ketogenic Diet is a fast-rising diet that everyone was raving about. There are a lot of restrictions, but the results were amazing. To motivate myself to lose my post-pregnancy weight, I am going on a diet again. I wrapped my head around the Ketogenic Diet and started doing my research. I researched all the things I need to know to succeed.

Here is my primer on going head-on with the Ketogenic Diet:

I weigh 130 lbs or a bit more, with a below 10% muscle mass (meaning I’m all fat inside!). My goal is to stick with Keto for 3 months. I’m going to limit my carbs and calorie average intake. I will customize the macros as I go further into three months. There is also Intermittent Fasting that I wanted to try within the 3-month trial. I will try to ease into 12-12 fasting at first, adjusting to 16:8 fasting. TMAD and OMAD are also on some things I want to dip my toes as well. I also want to go back doing exercises (home exercises and using bodyweight first) to tone my body. Getting old is a bitch, and you can feel it in your bones, joints and every inch of your body. I want to have strength and endurance.

My goals are a bit broad (everyone has the same goal one way or another) and ambitious. But I’m sticking with Keto and checking if it is a good fit for me and my mommy lifestyle.

MACRONUTRIENTS

In the Ketogenic Diet, it is all about the macros. You have to be aware of your macros and make sure you hit them. For my goal, I went to the site: Ruled Me, and calculated what macros I need to lose weight.

I restricted myself with daily 1200 cal intake which is 12-15g carbs, 90g fat and 45-50g protein. While I was doing all my meal planning, the hardest part for me was the carb count. In my normal eating habit, 12-15g of carbs are consumed by one meal (or even snack!). In this diet, I will eat breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner spread out with 2-3 hours interval. If I get hungry, I’ll gulp down water or hot lemon tea.

MEAL PLAN

I went full-on OC on meal planning to make sure I stick with meeting my carbs. On what I have researched, restricting carbs will result in losing weight fast. My main concern is restricting carbs while making sure my fat allocation is also met. I can’t be restricting carbs and eating high fat. I need to use my abundant fat reserves as my fuel so I could say bye-bye to my flabs.

I won’t go into the things you can or cannot eat in detail. There are a plethora of useful sites or that explains all it in detail. What I will share is my meal plan and how I will succeed in this Ketogenic Diet journey.

Below is my sample Week 1 Meal plan:

Breakfast
Lunch
Snack 
Dinner
Monday
Cream Cheese Pancakes with Bacon and Coffee
Ham and Cheese rolled in Cream Cheese Pancakes with mayonnaise and spinach
Pepperoni with soft cheese
Beef Salpicao with Egg and Shirataake Rice
Tuesday
2 Sunny Side eggs, Tomato, Bacon and Coffee
Tuna Salad wrapped in Romaine leaf 
1/2 cup Pork Rinds, 2 Boiled Eggs
Cabbage and Pork Stir Fry
Wednesday
2 egg Omelette with Bacon and spinach
Egg Salad with Bacon and Lettuce
12 raw almonds, 50g Gouda cheese blocks
Ground Beef Stroganoff with Side Salad
Thursday
Cream Cheese Pancakes with Bacon and Coffee
Ham and Cheese rolled in Cream Cheese Pancakes with mayonnaise and spinach
Pepperoni with soft cheese
Beef Salpicao with Shirataake Rice
Friday
2 Sunny Side eggs, Tomato, Bacon and Coffee
Tuna Salad wrapped in Romaine leaf
1/2 cup Pork Rinds, 2 Boiled Eggs
Cabbage and Pork Stir Fry
Saturday
2 egg Omelette with Bacon and spinach
Egg Salad with Bacon and Lettuce
12 raw almonds, 50g Gouda cheese blocks
Ground Beef Stroganoff with Side Salad
Sunday
Cheddar Omelette with knackworst and tomatoes
Cheeseburger with Romaine bun
Cheesecake Cup
Keto Beef Ramen with Shirataake Noodles

I made sure that my breakfast and dinner meals are dishes that my husband and child can eat as well. Preparing separate dishes takes too much time and effort, so I need to adjust my Keto meals. The only sad thing is they can have all the carbs they want (rice, bread, etc..), while I eat my carb-restricted meals.

My son has a dairy, egg and chicken allergy, but since he weaned off my breast now, I can eat all the dairy I want. I let him try some dairy if he likes it, while monitoring the effects on him. So far, he seems to adjust well, except for the eczema flare-ups.

I am building my meal database and tweaking the recipes to my liking. Hopefully, I have tried them out, I can share which recipes are good. I can also customize my favorite meals so they’ll become keto-friendly as well.

I wanted to be consistent in sticking to the Ketogenic Diet. I may post my journey on social media for accountability.

ARE YOU ALSO TRYING OUT KETO? 
Share me your tips and tricks in the comments below!


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