My wife will start keto on Sunday, July 23rd

(KetoCowboy) #1

Hey all, my wife has been very supportive of my ketogenic eating plan since I started in February.

She even met me halfway by adopting a low-carb, one-meal-a-day approach to eating.

But now she’s ready to stop burning sugar and start burning fat. She plans to follow the menu from Andreas Eenfeldt (dietdoctor.com) starting on Sunday evening.

I’m off to buy the groceries on Eenfeldt’s list; I’m excited about the week ahead.

I look forward to hearing from anyone who has any tips about bringing a spouse on board the keto train or tweaks to the dietdoctor.com menu-based approach. (And if anyone on these forums happens to be starting the dietdoctor.com menu on Sunday, please get in touch so we can swap notes.)

(John) #2

My wife came on later, my only advice, and it relates to all new keto people, is to find something simple to prepare that you ALWAYS have on hand so there is never even the hint of an excuse to cheat.
For a long time eggs and some frozen sausage were mine, takes almost no effort to make and is very fatty, and now I always have pepperoni and cheese on hand. I like the pepperoni better because that even handles days where you just don’t want to cook.

Good luck!

Edit to add one of the big problems I see with Keto: everyone is different, don’t compare your results to others.

(Hungry Julie) #3

My husband ate what I cooked for a long time, stubbornly keeping to his bagel sandwiches habit until he started losing weight and cut out the bagels entirely. Lost more weight than I, bastard!

#4

I tried to bring my spouse on board but he was always trying to bring in foods that weren’t part of the program. I realised after a few weeks that he was not ready for a change and it was pushing me off track. Would like to be on the same super highway but it is what it is. Good luck to you both :slight_smile:

(KetoCowboy) #5

Great feedback, John. Her commitment to OMAD has me worried about the hunger you mention. But she has promised to have half an avocado with salt as necessary outside her feeding window.

And I’ve already told her to shush me when I start to tell her how to keto based on my own experience.

I’m following her lead by joining her on the dietdoctor.com menu, which she picked out. (The hope is that since it will be new to both of us, I’ll have less reason to say, “When I was getting into ketosis, I _______.”)

(KetoCowboy) #6

J. Saltsea - I hear ya. She helped me go OMAD after I started keto, but she’s still dropping weight on OMAD even though I stalled (weight-wise, not tape measure-wise) over a month ago.

Jsap - Ha!–that’s a possibility I have to remain alert for. I won’t believe she can leave sugar out of her coffee until she actually does it. I’m looking forward to Sunday; she’s dreading it–so we’ll have to see how it goes and gauge her commitment from there.

#7

And let her know we are all rooting for her!!

(Nick) #8

Especially in the early days, she needs to treat hunger as a criminal offense. She must stuff herself with protein and fat until the thought of eating anything else makes her ill. And the moment she has a glint of hunger again, she should gorge herself. Eventually, this will regulate itself, but until then, she should have all the keto-friendly, luxurious high-fat foods that she wants. Pre-grill 5lb of bacon. Get out the gallons of cream cheese and guacamole. Carpet your kitchen table with fatty ribeye…

Firstly, her body needs to learn how to burn fat efficiently, and there’s nothing like throwing a lot of the stuff at it to make it happen.

Secondly, women in particular have been shamed for decades at eating fat and protein. It’s not “ladylike”, except when it’s a sliver of chicken breast on some olive-oiled leaves. So you need to help to turn this on its head.

Finally, be liberal with the salt shaker! Another “guilty vice” that needs to be turned upside down as the insulin plummets and the kidneys let go of all the sodium.

(KetoCowboy) #9

Great advice, Nick. Thanks–I’ll be sure she reads this.

#10

So…are you to still in Keto heaven together? :):smile:

(KetoCowboy) #11

Thanks for asking. I wish I could give a clear answer, but I’m not sure how things will go from here.

Here are the particulars in case you’re interested:

  1. In late July, Marnia agreed to try keto for the two and a half weeks prior to her trip to El Paso.
  2. She intended to go off-plan in El Paso (yummy gorditas) and to use her food vacation as an opportunity to assess her commitment to keto.
  3. She stuck mostly to OMAD (there was an exception one morning for pan dulce), and returned from El Paso 1 pound lighter than when she left.
  4. Whether she does keto or not, she continues to lose weight on OMAD. (And she doesn’t get the cravings from carbs that I do, so she can have a tortilla with a non-keto meal without flying off the rails. I can’t.)
  5. She enjoyed almost all of the dietdoctor.com keto recipes we had prior to her El Paso trip. She looks forward to working many of those meals into our menu whether she remains committed to keto or not.
  6. She generally buys the health benefits associated with keto (reduced inflammation/risk of chronic conditions from T2D to heart disease and Alzheimer’s), but she’s not 100% convinced that life is worth living if she can’t have a tortilla heated up on the gas range from time to time.
  7. So she’s kinda sorta flirting with keto at the moment. She’ll need to tell me how committed she is to keto before I make my grocery run on Monday. I guess I’ll know more then.

That’s way more info than you probably wanted–and it’s all from my perspective. If you want to hear her own assessment of where she is, she posted a video chronicling what I can only call her indecision–because I’ve watched it twice without being clear on how she intends to proceed from here:

#12

Well I was just thinking about this… after trying for months to find a good corn tortilla substitute, it occurred to me (just last night) that I could actually have one of the real thing now and then and it wouldn’t throw my carbs off. The extra-thin ones (Mission brand, I think?) are only like 6 net carbs each, so why was I going crazy trying all these recipes that just didn’t do it?

However, I am also one of those people who really can eat just one or two and stop there. I could never have said that a year ago, but keto did that for me.

(KetoCowboy) #13

Good point Gatita. I’ll show her this post. Thanks.

#14

Sorry it’s taken me so long to reply I got all side tracked with life and time just slipped away.
I think your post was very interesting and yes I can relate to the life’s not worth living without an occasional treat.
I just keto until I decide I need to eat all the things I want to and then once I’ve done that, usually over one weekend ever 3 months or so, I begin again.
I still like me best when I’m riding high in keto :slight_smile: