Keto-whaaaa?

I found the cutest Mason jar frog lid (fancy thing for keeping your flower stems in place) on Amazon.com the other day that you can use on regular-sized mouth jars.  It makes me happy.  You don't need a lot of flowers to make it look pretty, either...and it's on Prime.  Score!

Enough about that.  Hey 80's & 90's, I'm sending your diet back, it made everyone fat sucks.  Remember the fads of high carbs, lowfat stuff (enter Snackwell's brand and commercials)?  Well, they're awful.  No one was meant to eat 100g of carbs in a sitting.  Ever.  Maaaaaybe if you're a huge bodybuilder and have a specific reason to.  Josh Thomas, if you're reading this, disregard.  I'm speaking to the rest of you.  Carb comas are far too prevalent in our society.  Mix that with the abundance of sugar and caffeine and you've got a righteous concoction for disaster.

I like love fat.  I don't necessarily love dairy, but I do love whole milk cheeses in extreme moderation.  Avocado and coconut oil are on the top of my fave fat list.  Eggs and I don't really agree, but whip up a spaghetti squash crust quiche and I'm all over it! Maybe even top it with some avocado...  See a trend here?  Fats.  Not all saturated.  The good stuff.  Real stuff.  I buy only the grass-fed butter from Costco and I am the proud owner of a red Fiestaware butter dish.  It's pretty AND functional.  Totally justified purchase.

When I was on my comp plan, I had limited fats.  That was part of what caused my irritability.  My brain wasn't ever truly satisfied.  Remember me saying how I curbed sweet cravings by popping extra fish oils?  Ya know what those are?  Fats.  Mmmhmmm.  This leads me to talk a bit about the title of this little diddy.  Keto, ketosis, ketogenic diet, familiar?  If not, lemme break it down right quick.  *horrible grammar was intentional*

Ketogenic diets are those that are high fat, moderate protein, and low carb.  The diet forces the body to use fat as fuel instead of carbohydrates.  It was originally used to help children with epilepsy become seizure free.  Amazing what our bodies respond to!  Be warned that if you decided to research and try the keto plan, you may become really carb sensitive.  I offically started it today and plan to cycle it so that my body doesn't explode when I take A bite of bread/rice/starch.  I played around with numbers, because I geek out like that, so that I can continue to build muscle while I shed fat.  In theory, it should work!  I'll report back in a few weeks pending me staying on it...ha!

My typical day will look like this:

Breakfast - lean meat (remember me and eggs don't mix), 2-3 strips of bacon, a slice of ezekiel sprouted bread with a smear of butter, 1/2 c or so of berries, coffee with coconut milk creamer.

Snack - scoop of protein powder, handful of almonds or spoon of almond butter

Lunch - turkey burger on a salad, mustard on top or turkey burger with 1c steamed broccoli, either choice plus one slice of ezekiel sprouted bread or 3 oz of sweet potato.

Snack - scoop of protein powder mixed with unsweetened almond milk

Dinner - tonight is flat iron steak on salad with cheese and ranch!  yummmm

I'm aiming to stay around 1800 calories and no meal to have more than 30g of carbs.  This isn't far from what my prep diet was like, I just wasn't given fats as an option.  I'm excited to see how my body responds to it.  The best part is cardio won't be a requirement to drop body fat!  Yes...that's what I said!  I'm still going to take a class here and there because that's what I like, but you won't find me on the treadmill.  My lifting crazy-heavy will be all that I need to get my heart pumping.