Planning to go to Reunion

(Denise) #1

…and hoping for feedback on what to eat. We are meeting at a Mexican Restaurant for dinner, and this is not happening until June 13. I still only eat a few carbs, very few, just lost a taste for them.

I noticed the last time I od’d on popcorn and my bg shot up higher than ever, but it came down within 2-3 hours. I do have T2D, so I think I just get scared than even a high spike is going to kill me:wink:

I’m looking at their quesadillas, and the worst will be the shell, which I already know now, I don’t want to eat differently so I’ll eat a shell. I just want to basically be incognito in front of old friends, just for this one get together as we are all getting up there in age. I’m 73, and old friends are the same.

Anyway, I’ll toss this out and see if anyone has some feed-back, whether or not they are T2D or not, thanks much, denise

(Brian) #2

Concentrate on getting meat / protein. That at least puts the carbs you consume in a different context than your popcorn which wouldn’t have much of a protein element in it. Also, a lot of Mexican places have choices that do not include rice n beans so look at those. It’ll depend a bit on exactly what’s on the menu. If you can find something that doesn’t even have the tortilla, that’s great, or if some of them have the tortillas on the side, that can be easier.

Actually, just ate at a Mexican restaurant a couple of nights ago. I did eat the tortilla but it had quite a lot of ground beef in it, a little cheese (not as much as expected), and their version of “salad” which is not much more than a small pile of lettuce with a cherry tomato’s worth of finely diced tomato beside, and a TBSP or two of sour cream. No rice or beans. I had water with lemon. It wasn’t so bad. Some carbs, yeah, but it could have been a LOT worse.

(Denise) #3

Thanks Brian, just knowing someone else comes up against this is comforting. I will post a pic of the menu item I’m thinking on. I know I can eat Avocados with not effect at all on my BG, and I’m choosing the chicken over beef, as I don’t care for shredded beef.

I can have a side of sliced Avocado, if I’m afraid of what’s in the Guacamoli, and there’s no beans or rice in this. I love cheese, sour cream I’m not into though. I think tomatos “might” be ok, but the flour shells are high in carbs already. But the cheese, guac, and tomatos can be on the side

Here’s the one I’m looking at:
Carlos%20menu

(Brian) #4

Other than the shell, it looks decent. Guacamole isn’t usually a problem… it typically contains avocado, lime juice, salt, onion, tomato, cilantro, garlic, and chili or jalapeno so not likely much for carbs in there for the amounts you’re likely to eat.

If you don’t eat the tortilla, you’ll basically be eating the stuffing and leaving the shell behind. Possible, but I would have a hard time with willpower on that one. With a fajita, they’d probably bring you a small fryin’ pan lookin’ thing with steak or chicken, peppers, onions, garlic, that kind of thing, but usually have the tortillas / shells on the side to either stuff yourself or eat on the side. I’d find that easier to resist but it kinda depends on what sounds tasty to you. If what’s in the quesadilla is really good, the temptation might be worth it.

The chips and salsa ahead of time, those can be tricky, and tempting. I will confess, I typically do eat just a few, like 2 or 3, maybe, but do NOT sit there and eat the whole pile of them and ask for more. NO! Not having great mastication equipment, I don’t tend to want to work that hard. :confused: might be something I’ll be able to get fixed one of these days…

Anyway, don’t wanna muddy the waters, just sharing the things that come to mind. Good luck!

(Bean) #5

The quesadilla might be hard to separate. I second The fajita idea. Dodge the chips and request no tortilla. I’ve asked for a to-go container be brought with my meal so I can pack up what I won’t eat for hubby so that I’m not tempted to pick at it. Or see if you can sub the quac, which should be safe.

The last Mexican restaurant I ate at had a steak on the menu. It was a large, thin, marinated one as I reacall.

(Denise) #6

I will probably eat just a small amount of chips now that you mention them, used to love them! I’ll keep the Fajita’s in mind for a second, maybe first choice. I do like the sound of an actual Quesadilla though, with a little, of the mildest sauce :wink:

I really appreciate your input, Denise :+1:

(Denise) #7

I think I’m safe enough since this is a meal I haven’t had in years. I’m so strict but it’s easy now as I prefer my low carb way of eating, with lots of fats and protein. This is just because I haven’t seen these folks for a long time, and don’t want to have to answer a lot of questions on my 7 years of Keto. If they ask, I’ll talk a little but rather not, Denise :+1:

(Brian) #8

I hear you on that!

It’s funny how that works. When people want to argue, the questions are different. When they really want to learn, it’s not the same.

(Cathy) #9

Eat before you go.

(Denise) #10

That crossed my mind, at first, but no, I want to eat with others. This is a one-time meal, I don’t think there will be any repercussions, thank you anyway though.

I have my plan now for what I’ll eat, Brian’s of the same mind I am so I’ll go with his thoughts. Now all I have to do is stay as healthy as possible, for something I am really looking forward to, Denise :wink::+1:

(Jane) #11

If you don’t want to eat differently than others, then go enjoy yourself w/o going crazy and just take the hit. You will be back into ketosis within 24 hours if you are strict when you come home… and it sounds like you will be.

(Denise) #12

That’s exactly how I feel about it, thanks @Janie:+1:

(BuckRimfire) #13

If it’s a slightly fancier type of Mexican restaurant, they might have a steak platter, but a fajita plate will probably be about the same, just sliced up before serving, and with more peppers and onions typically. You could also ask them to leave the rice off the plate without making too much of a show of being keto.

A bowl of pozole/posole eaten to avoid most of the hominy would be pretty low carb, I think. I looked up three recipes for posole and none of them included any sugar, so maybe a restaurant would not throw it in. I suppose some starch would extract from the hominy, but hopefully not a huge amount. I could be wrong about that!

If it’s a basic place and doesn’t have those options, you could get a tostada or two and just eat off the top until you get to the beans, leaving the tortilla and most of the beans uneaten. It would seem easier to separate than a typical quesadilla. I’m not sure if tostadas are typically topped with a sauce that might be hiding sugar, though.

Street-style soft tacos typically just have some meat, maybe a pinch of cheese and a small amount of veg (onion and cilantro) on unfried little corn tortillas, so getting an order of those (often sold as two or three tacos per order) with a fork and leaving the tortillas uneaten might have the lowest ratio of uneaten to eaten ingredients and be the easiest to separate.

Carrying some sort of fat bomb to eat on the sly shortly before dinner might be a good idea if you’re concerned about being too hungry to resist the parts of the meal you meant to leave behind. I routinely eat chunks of cotija cheese the way normal people eat snack bars, so that would fit the Mexican theme! It’s a little crumbly so might not survive intact if you have to carry it around all day in a ziplock bag, though.

(Denise) #14

It’s a well-liked, large areas for groups, restaurant and the our Reunion organizers do what the can in my small home-town. Lots of tourists come through there so I’d call it good. I think I ate there once, some years ago. I will keep it simple, as I will try not to think of how many carbs are in those flour shells. As I mentioned, I eat more chicken, Pork and Salmon these days because I don’t find any red meat I can get that doesn’t end up tough.

I make just chuck roasts, maybe twice a month, and slow cook them, love those :wink:

(Brian) #15

I have typically been afraid to order a steak out at a restaurant. I already make stuff at home that I’m told is top shelf, the kind of meat expected at restaurants where dinner for one is often well past $100. I don’t usually eat in those places, but a few of our guests do on occasion. We buy our beef local from someone who is very fussy about how they raise the cows and have it butchered locally as well. Way good quality. And after all of that, my expectations for a steak would be so high that I doubt most places would actually offer me much I’d be interested in. I tend to lean on “just a hamburger” and have a pretty good idea of what to expect. (Or hamburger steak, kinda depends on the place and the menu.)

Unfortunately, chicken tends to not set well with me, not exactly sure why. The local stuff from the soy-free corn-free panda-massaged chicken, I do fine with but I don’t get that in restaurants. Pork is kinda similar, I feel queasy with the cheap and/or ultra greasy stuff and the lean is usually like chewing on a shoe. LOVE a good piece of salmon, too, but despise the farm raised stuff that’s so common.

Never really thought of myself as a “picky eater” but I guess getting old and grouchy has turned me into one. LOL!!

You’ll be fine at the Mexican restaurant. Non-event. Enjoy! :slight_smile:

(Denise) #16

I’m definitely in my “old and grouchy” stage of life :crazy_face:

I am picky and like my own cooking. It’s not going to be so easy, this reunion, I just hope my class-mates are as old as I am, :+1:

#17

Eat what you want to eat and enjoy yourself. If you actually don’t want to eat something don’t, but if you do…do. Enjoy your reunion. Have a glucose disposal agent like Dihydroberberine, maybe some digestive enzymes which are always helpful regardless.

Keto is a WOE, not a religion. There’s also the point where it can become unhealthy, like when months in advance you’re stressing about a meal, that’s when you know your relationship with food is just as unhealthy as when we were all carb junkies, just in the other direction.

You eat keto all the time, you’re more or less glycogen depleted, or at least running on a very small supply. One meal isn’t going to totally reload your liver glycogen, muscle glycogen, and start spilling over. So your blood sugar will be high for a few hours, so? It’ll come back down.

Allowing yourself to become Orthorexic doesn’t lead to enjoying yourself. Regardless of WOE, everybody eats a crappy meal sometimes, whatever their WOE, it’s a crappy mean for them. You eat, enjoy, and move on. Doesn’t mean binge or be crazy. But don’t stress about food either.

Then there’s also the math, even if still insulin resistant, Mexican is typically higher in carbs, which will cause more of an insulin spike than normal, which in that context is a good thing, because it’ll drive it back down faster than a small or moderate amount would.

Don’t forget, physiological insulin resistance is real in a keto’r. We deal with larger amounts of carbs better than we do smaller ones because of that. The difference is we just can keep doing that over and over, that hyper reaction in that case is a positive one, not a negative. Plus, your next workout will be awesome!

(Denise) #18

Such a good read, thank you @lfod14. I’m not as strict as I may sound, but I did get in a routine of eating foods that are low carb. I like them and I don’t have worrisome thoughts day to day. I think I’m more nervous about just seeing old friends that I know have changed just as I have.

I learned a couple of new words and phrases from your reply as well. Glad to say I’m not orthorexic but I do like feeling I am doing things that “can” help me avoid severe illness.

I do like hearing from others on how they handle different get-togethers, I’m excited about it as it’s been a rough Winter, and did catch a flu bug, after 3 weeks, just a cough left now. It was still a mild flu compared to what others are having, and hadn’t had a flu shot in years.

I didn’t know all the info on the glycogen or how the Insulin Resistance/larger amounts of carbs are handled better. My next walk up the hill with my weighted-vest will be awesome?? Love to hear more on that, maybe I should have this sort of meal more often :smile: just not od on them??

thank you again, Denise:nerd_face::partying_face: PS I’m looking up the glucose disposal agent, like Dihydroberberine!!

(Denise) #19

This would be smart, after reading about these supplements!! Hadn’t even heard about them, not lately anyway. There’s tons of brands of course, I usually buy the Nutri-cost and Life Extension brands, or NOW. I am only taking my supps occasionally these days, not every day, but I was thinking about starting them again.

I did do Vit. C, a side of Zinc, and Echinacea, B12, D3, and back on my biotin during this flu thing, but I’m not big on every day. Maybe I should be. But I’m going to try some of the Dihydroberberine as I have heard of Berberine forever, just never started on any. My last A1c was 6.5 and here in US they flag that amount. I can’t figure out how mine is that high, instead of hoping for a 5. something once in awhile.

I the A1C’s are truly a 3 months average, when I eat so very little carbs it makes me wonder:thinking:

(Doug) #20

Even if we’re eating ‘perfectly,’ it can be frustrating that our blood sugar still stays higher than what we might like.

6 or 7 years ago, I fasted for 5.5 days, then checked my blood sugar. 90 mg/dL or 5.0 mmol/L.

I was pretty bummed-out…