October 2022 Maintenance


(KCKO, KCFO) #1

Sorry this is late. Been busy with ill family members and friends.

Good news I do have is I am within my 3 lb. goal range finally. Not sure if the added stress or the timed eating window has made that possible. I’ll take it either way.

How are you all doing so for this month? The feasting season is starting, so stay on point.


Sept. 2022 Maintenance
(Eric) #2

Still chugging along in what I guess is maintenance mode. I did finally break through the most recent low weight of 202.8lbs and have been 201.4lbs the last 2 weeks on my Saturday check-in.

The biggest challenge seems to be an increase in hunger resulting in more calories per day (anywhere from 2800-4000/day). Happy with my net carbs and did a couple spot check on my keto-mojo and still show ketones which was expected I guess. I don’t really test much but I do have strips to use up for the device.

I have had some wine here and there and I am sure that this is a factor but I am OK with it for now. Not really sure what my goal weight is or would/should be. When I was 20-21 and in the Army I weighed 190-195lbs and my lowest adult weight from basic training was 185 and that was extreme conditions so to speak lol. Under 200 would be nice but beyond that, I don’t have a set number in mind. Otherwise I will just KCKO


#3

I had some off days and no idea about my weight now but I hope it goes back to the new 73kg :wink:

I feast whenever I want anyway and I am asocial so I don’t worry about feasty holidays but this month has none anyway. I probably will make something very slightly carby for Halloween (that isn’t really a holiday here, it arrived lately but most people dislike it, we have no traditions. I don’t care, all year is Halloween to me, it has too many things I love. I mean the skulls and spiders and similar things) but try not to. I saw some pretty meat based stuff (or not but it could be meat inside too), it’s good for some creepy arm and black olives aren’t a problem for me…

The next feasty time will be Christmas here but that’s easy and doesn’t matter anyway, I traditionally open my winter carnivore time on the 25th (or maybe on the 26th if I happen to have something carby to eat on the 25th) and I still go off keto regularly, I don’t need holidays for that. Hopefully one day my carnivore times will change me enough for me to be pleased with whatever I get. Probably.

Right now I try to stay as close to carnivore as I comfortably can, with somewhat more relaxed but not crazy weekends. My definition of “crazy” significantly changed since carnivore-ish is my default chosen woe…


(KCKO, KCFO) #4

Only two lbs. to go to be back at my goal weight. I was sure I wouldn’t make this since the stress has really gotten to me lately. I do tell myself easting something doesn’t solve or resolve anything. But sometimes I cave. Luckily, I keep really dark chocolate and nuts around for those times.

The Eating Holidays are coming right up and except for one cheese fondue, I am not planning anything out of our ordinary meal rotations. We both love it and with keto breads, green veggies for dipping, and ham cubes, it is a keto meal, so I can enjoy it without guilt.

What are your favorite holiday keto treat meals?


#5

I always eat my favs now, I only had special stuff on high-carb.
Who cares if it’s holiday, I still eat pork roast and eggy sponge cakes as they are my favs (among many others, well not so many now, carnivore really changed my interest in things). I eat them every day this week too.
We only get some fancier meat for Christmas - but we do that occasionally anyway, no holiday is needed for it.

So I don’t think I have keto treats. Oh maybe the thing that is based on a recipe that called marshmallow. It had whipped egg whites and I (being me) obviously added a yolk to it (I do that everything and it always worked this far except with seitan. it actually got a bit WORSE with a yolk. wow. but lard is a must for my seitan, inside and I fry it in it too :smiley: well that could be a keto treat but nope, I don’t want to eat much gluten, no matter how exciting and super satiating seitan is. and I seem to have zero problem with gluten too. as far as my gluten-free years could show).
And the yolk is a must in that thing. I prefer it with anise but I need to experiment with savory versions, to keep it carnivore! The anise one has a little sweetener and chocolate on top. I wonder what I could use instead… Cheese? Sausage spice or not just the spice? No idea yet. I rarely go on the unsweetened dessert route with sweet spices (I mean, spices for sweets, not that they themselves are sweet) but sometimes that works too… Mascarpone and instant coffee powder with vanilla is good without sweetening, for example. For me, now. That is the filling of my one and only carnivore dessert pancake. My lovely pancake dough is carnivore - and then I often ruin it with the filling… But my big pancake days are in the past, I just avoid it as I try to stay to close carnivore and my pancake eating ends up being sweet in the end… But that could be a treat too, pancakes are lovely :slight_smile: But again, I eat pancake whenever I want. I had times in the past when I ate pancakes every day. It’s an easy little food, good macros except a bit too much fat but if I pair it up with the leanest meat I can use, it may be okay…

Guilt isn’t something I am familiar with if it’s food. I just never have it :slight_smile: Regret is rare too but guilt is completely impossible, it’s against my personality I think.

But maybe later I will remember some keto treats from my distant past. Carnivore made so many old recipes forgotten, I tend to do that with recipes anyway as I made so, so very many in the last years…
But none has anything to do with specific holidays.


(KCKO, KCFO) #6

Had more hospital adventures with DH. I haven’t had a lot of computer time the last two weeks. Hoping we won’t be back to hospital until the other stint will be put in as an out patient.

I am staying within my 3 lb. goal range, so that is a good thing. The timed eating window is working and I can even be an hour off one way or the other and things work out.

I have had to give up on cleaning up the side yard this fall. Just gonna let it die off and do a rip out and clean up in the spring. I can not risk any type of injury with my DH’s heart issues hanging over my head currently.

@Shinita, I do have a waffle or pancake, keto flours etc. as a treat. I use real maple syrup, but I only use a tiny amount that I melt in with the butter, so a big bang of flavor for very little carb.

I tried doing carnivore but my body didn’t like it so I keep carbs as garnish for my meals, keeps them low and my body functions better.


#7

I had maple syrup once in my life, don’t understand the hype :smiley: My fav pancake is walnut :slight_smile: And I struggled with my pancake recipe until I realized I don’t need any flour… But these are our crepes-like thin pancakes, filled and rolled, I couldn’t make thick ones without some flour… Unless I would whip the whites, sometimes I fry my leftover sponge cake dough (no flour, again as it’s me and carnivore flours may exist but they never worked well for me) but that is some fluffy omelet, not a pancake though the borders start to blur there… Still, it only has eggs (and the oil) so it’s not a pancake to me. My pancake always has dairy too. Not nearly as much as eggs but it’s important.

I never use butter either on my pancakes, that’s not a thing here either. Not a bad idea, nice taste but my pancake brings way too much fat into my life already and I can’t fry it in butter as it burns too easily. Or maybe I can but don’t risk it. I would manage to burn it, probably. It’s very eggy anyway so as taste as it can be :wink: And I have my filling too…

My body LOVES carnivore. My other parts love carbier things too so it’s interesting to be me sometimes… But I can afford some carbs, I just tend to overdo it in fruit seasons… And fruit seasons are strong and overlapping now, November will be better. Though as I ate fruits since June (not all the time as I had close to carnivore days galore too), I actually had more than enough already in July… So it’s theoretically not so hard to resist them. Only theoretically. Fruits are way too tempting.

I won’t measure myself until I don’t eat very well for some time… I go for the leanest meats now and try not to eat much else (just some eggs, obviously. no way I can skip a day in the foreseeable future!).


(Robin) #8

Take care of you and yours. Glad you checked in for an update. Yes, let the season take care of those chores for you. Nature and time are your friends. Hang in there.


#9

72kg this morning… As I barely ate yesterday, I don’t consider it my new weight but it’s sure that my 73kg wasn’t a super temporal thing, I didn’t go back immediately to 75 despite eating so much in the last days except yesterday… Good. I would be super content with a slow fat-loss after my several stalling years (and stress gain. I want my 69kg back, it’s the lowest weight I could easily reach and stay there for ages).


(Pete A) #10

It’s curious how a certain number in our (my) minds is acceptable. Like your 69kg.

My 143 haha

But I have learned a couple of pounds up, then down is how it works for me.


#11

I couldn’t care less about my number itself, actually. I would be HAPPY to have 80 kg if it means I get slim and muscular :smiley: But that’s not realistic.
69kg (with my actual muscle mass) isn’t acceptable for me at all. My belly is almost the same as it was over 80kg… It’s merely the weight I actually could keep in the past, I knew that… Next stop is 62kg, my lowest weight, still belly rolls galore (only 2 but big ones)… Unless I gained more than minimal muscles in the last years (I did lift but with breaks and lazily), I can imagine how I look like there so it’s nothing new. And THEN comes the new territory, I may finally see some changes in my belly any time! (It did got smaller between ~84kg, I didn’t own a scale back then and 62kg but I didn’t see it.) So that will be exciting.
And then I want to gain, of course. Considering how fat I was at 62kg and how low weight that already is… Nope, I want way more muscles. As much as possible naturally except my thighs, they are too easy to make muscular and I don’t want that, just normally strong, muscular legs. But it doesn’t matter. They will get as muscular as they can get without leg exercises (they can probably reach their full potential without it, I see it on my SO who cycles and runs).
I just hope I gain muscles until I slim down but I probably won’t get near the maximum possible (that is very, very tiny for a middle aged woman. I would love big biceps :smiley: not super big but well, a bit below what a normal man naturally can reach? :D). So I will gain later, no problem.

My weight is pretty stable so I don’t see ups and downs. Maybe if I still manage an epically overeating carby day, I think I saw +1kg after such ones. I rarely weigh myself so I am not sure just eating high-carb could raise my weight, probably not. It varies, my 2kg water weight change diminished, disappeared, seemed to come back, disappeared again… I try to remember weighing myself when I will have a high(er?)-carb day again.


(KCKO, KCFO) #12

Only one more lb. to go and I am back at goal. I do have a range but since I had gone well over that during this pandamit stuff, so I decided to get back down to goal. I had lost lots earlier in my life and by not drawing a line in the sand, always regained I don’t have time for that, so I went to work and did use the scale as a measure as all my clothes still fit okay.

I am very happy that all my stress has not resulted in a real disaster for my weight, it has happened plenty of times in the past.

Happy to see the activity on here, wishing everyone continuing success.


#13

Yay!
I am so glad I never gain fat when I am stressed, it would have been horrible… I only had that one 5kg stress gain but it was a really big shock.
I am no comfort eater either or not much.
And I train myself well, just slowly… I can’t just eat much carbs (my old low-carb is much to me now) on days end anymore and I don’t want to do it either. My train is important. I can’t focus on doing things vaguely right all the time, I get distracted, become careless, I-don’t-care times happen and so on… And it’s good if I automatically keep going into the right direction, more or less because what else would I do? :slight_smile: I changed so, so much but need more and will do more.


#14

Yikes, meant to come back earlier in the month but got busy. (guitar/band jamming, travel for fun, learned to make a braided rug of my oversized t-shirts, and helping a friend train a new puppy.) I’m honestly not thinking a whole lot about keto/food/size. Even grocery shopping is on automatic.

I do continue to slowly drop size. I was on video this past week for a big event I went to, and I glanced at myself in it and thought “I look a perfectly normal sized person.” That was good to see (what we see in the mirror is so often not reality, so it’s good to have something like a video or still to look at). What wasn’t good on that trip was there was free food I was counting on there, and it was 99% carbs. I had brought along some boiled eggs, which I ate on day 2, but I was hungry for two days, which I don’t like getting. Eight hours of travel–I didn’t eat then. Then I was so wiped the day I got home, I only ate one meal that day. Yikes, not my goal at all. I’m back to my preferred three meals per day, with an occasional skipped supper when I’m just not hungry.

Only thing I don’t love about my body right now is my belly. Excess skin from this last gain/lose cycle. I haven’t caught sight of my bum in a double mirror, but no doubt it’s less than gorgeous too. If it’s how I am forever, no big deal. I’ll take the slimmer me with lower blood pressure and no junk food obsessions, over the tighter skin. I don’t weigh, and I don’t want to weigh. Body fat % interests me far more than BMI, which doesn’t say anything at all, imo. And I don’t want body fat too low at my age. Under 24 means you’re less likely to survive heart attack, cancer, or stroke, according to most studies, so I want to stay higher than I was in my 40s, when I first low-carbed and settled in at 21% body fat.

Big holidays, to answer that question, (only 3 a year), I allow myself a serving of scalloped or mashed potatoes. No to any grain product and to desserts. I’d put a spoonful of cooked carrots on my plate, or a couple cubes of roasted sweet potato, but the potlucks I go to, such things are swimming in sugar. I have 2 desserts I make myself with sweetener, and I like having that option at home, but I don’t need it every night or on holidays (nor would people want it if I brought it. I make my own sugar-free gellatin, and it’s colorless, and so doesn’t look appealing to anyone but me! :smiley: )

Hurt myself doing yoga (possibly running didn’t help at my age) and see a knee specialist in 2 days. It may just be i have to accept that running, or even walking a long distance, or full-on yoga, isn’t wise for my age. I can stationary bike, do seated aerobics (found some truly active routines!), or water walk at the local pool instead. All good.

I like how back-burner low carbing is for me–the thinking part. The doing part, still marching on. I have brought back into my diet whole milk but otherwise am eating mostly meat, cheese, and eggs, with a bit of veg here and there. I wouldn’t mind a soup with a can of crushed tomatoes in it (and here, it’s getting to be soup weather), or a large chef salad twice a week, mind you. I just don’t go to those foods first. I basically allow myself up to 30 g of carbs now, and I seldom get halfway there.But the allowance feels freeing–it’s psychologically good for me.

That’s it. I’ll drop by in November, partly to keep myself accountable for US Thanksgiving. Take care, all.


(KCKO, KCFO) #15

New month, here is the new thread. Please post there now.