Hi Keto Friends! Fairly new to the Keto world, started making changes in January and have been stopping in here to learn as I go. So far things have been going fairly well even though I haven’t had much weight loss. I’m pretty reasonable though and not expecting to be one of the lucky ones with big results right away, I wouldn’t complain about that though!
I haven’t made big announcements to my friends and family about Keto. Honestly I don’t want my kids to associate diets or calories or restrictions with weight or health. They are 8 and 10 and healthy, active and quite honestly eat a healthy variety, will try most things, especially if its on my plate. My challenge comes us during the Holidays, Birthdays and events like Muffins with Mom. Typically my strategy is not focus on the food and I’ll have a couple of bites during the event. I’m not going to pull my own little keto surprise out of my bag. Also if I am going to go off plan I would like it to be something I really want and make it worth it! Anybody else find practical ways to get through events?
My other struggle is my work hours. I typically work 8pm-6am. I go to work with a small arsenal of food. I don’t often get to sit down and eat uninterrupted so I snack and graze for most of my shift. I find that at work what I really want is crunchy items and salt. I always have either celery sticks or cucumber slices and dip in a buffalo chicken salad or ranch dip. I also take in a jar of pickles and eat them just about every shift. I keep macadamia nuts and cashew butter at work. Not usually a shortage of food, haha, however I can some great friends and family and if they notice my vehicle in the work parking lot they will often swing by and drop me off and ice coffee or a Moe’s Burrito. I have no resistance power to either of these items especially if I’m well into my shift. I live on coffee, I drink hot coffee on my into work and then Iced coffee the rest of my shift! If I had to give up coffee I’m not sure I would survive! I love the fact that people will stop by and bring me a treat. In reality I would like my work world and Keto world to get along and cohabitate! Is this even possible? During a typical week I probably get coffee dropped off 1 maybe twice a week. Food is less often and typically only if I’m picking up an extra shift with different hours.
Please share with me your strategies for getting through family and extra curricular events and surviving work on a regular basis!
Tough Work Schedule and Life Happenings
That made me laugh. I pull nuts out of my purse sometimes. I keep olive oil in my desk at work for salads in case I have to grab one from the cafeteria.
I find my mood changes, I don’t get hung up unless it affects my blood sugar/progress. I was at a Mexican place recently, not at all interested in chips. The time before that we had guacamole on the table, I really wanted it, but not from a spoon, so I heaped it on a couple chips. I have a wedding to attend next month and there will be cake. I’m curious how I will react. I find the longer I do this, the less interested in sweets I am and when I am interested, I find the BEST of whatever that sweet is and then enjoy the hell out of it, but couldn’t tell you the last time I did that. Candy dishes at work don’t affect me anymore and no one is pushing food on me luckily. But I’m not sure I could stand in a Crispy Cream store and just stare at them, so I don’t enter Crispy Cream stores.
Once I had built my fasting muscle, I had to remove the food from my desk, except olive oil. It was too easy to snack. Instead I eat bigger meals. It depends on your goals. Keeping insulin levels down is critical and if you are snacking, you are spiking insulin.
I would have to set boundaries if co-workers were dropping food at my desk. I rely heavily on my regular schedule of feasting/fasting. You don’t have to give up coffee! Maybe tell your co-workers you only want black coffee or black coffee w/cream.
I find really dark chocolate a must. I always keep it in the house and if I want a square I have a square, again no impact to my morning blood sugars.
I noticed my movie theater now has low carb cheese crisps, they were $6 for a little bag, but I did feel good to have a crunchy I didn’t have to sneak in and pull out of my purse!
Hope this helps!!
Yes, thank you, very helpful! I agree having certain food items on hand is key. This is why I have certain items that I keep at work. I don’t really have many cravings and when I do its usually related to actually being tired and probably not enough water. Usually I eat a few nuts or hard boiled egg and chug some water and then keep myself busy and see if I’m actually hungry in a half hour or so.
My coffee is typically a cold brew with cream so I thinks that’s fairly safe. Once in awhile they throw a flavor like pistachio or butter pecan and oh, its so yummy but Im sure not sugar free! Coffee weakness for sure!
I’m curious if you incorporate fasting into a work schedule? While working? Days off? I know if I leave work and haven’t had much of a chance to eat i’m famished by the time I get home. Which isn’t good because I make breakfast for the kids and pack lunches for the day. This is when I find myself finishing off a few bites of an English muffin or a couple bites of mini wheats.
How so?
I’ve done fairly good at eating the foods I actually bring. I avoid the bowl of Hershey miniatures, don’t touch fresh donuts or bagels when they are brought.
I do fast for reversing type 2. I am targeting 36- 42 hours on M, W, F. Then I do two meals a day on the remaining days. Some days I hit 42, sometimes 24, it just depends and I don’t sweat it. Work makes it easier for me because I’m busy. When I work from home, I find myself wandering into the kitchen. Actually today was supposed to be a feast day, but I ran out of the house and got half way to work before I remembered I didn’t bring food. The food they serve in our cafeteria is gross, cheap quality, so I’m just planning to continue my fast till dinner. The last time I ate was Tuesday night! I’m not hungry. I did add some cream to my coffee this morning.
The cooking for kids gets easier, especially teenagers, I only cook dinner :)
I cook low carb dinners and add carb sides for the kids sometimes, but I tend to cook the stuff I don’t eat and the kids love on those nights I’m not eating. I go through my normal routine and sit at table with bubbly water. I made some kick a$$ meatballs last night, that was tough. LOL
The thing with fasting is that you have to build it like a muscle, the more you do it the easier it gets. My need for snacking has decreased a ton. Sometimes on the weekends I find myself grabbing nuts when I’m not hungry. I can eat some olives too! You just have to push through the mental part of it, use the so called “crutches” as long as you need to, eventually coffee/tea/water fasts are pretty easy. I drank lots of bone broth early on, fat in my coffee and eventually didn’t need it. My battle as T2D is the hydration/electrolyte balancing because my body is just dumping water. I use salt liberally.
I don’t know your health, but what worked for me was I kept telling myself “you have T2D and it WILL kill you”. I look at fasting like a therapy (which is what Megan at IDM says). If you had cancer, you would suffer through chemo. I have T2D, so I was willing to suffer through fasting. But I’m not suffering anymore :)
Every time you eat, it raises your insulin levels. Elevated insulin makes it harder to burn fat for energy. If insulin is inhibiting you from accessing your stored fat, you will feel lethargic (literally low energy), and then you feel hungry for a snack. Eating the snack will increase your insulin. It’s a vicious cycle. The more often you eat, the harder it will be to lose weight. The best book I’ve ever read on the subject was Dr. Fung’s “The Obesity Code”. It’s the last book on fat loss you’ll ever need to buy.
Try 3 big meals with no snacks for a month. If that doesn’t move the needle, try 2 big meals and no snacks for a month. If that still isn’t working try one meal a day with no snacks. Stay religiously under 20g carbs.
Alternatively, if you’re not in a particularly big rush to lose fat, which is perfectly healthy attitude BTW, continue to snack, and keep the carbs under 20g. Fat loss will be significantly slower, but it’ll probably still happen in it’s own due time.
We all know carby junk food is bad so I will leave that out of this. Snacking with “good foods” is still snacking (looking at the macadamia nut stash in my office). The longer you can make the non-feeding window and the shorter the feeding window the faster weight should come off. I use to think grazing was the way we should eat because I was hungry every two hours. I now eat three good sized meals a day and do my best to avoid snacking. I usually succumb to a handful of nuts at about 10:00 am but I hope that doesn’t get my insulin to far up.
I will certainly check into the Obesity Code. Love learning as I go. Reading in general is tough, if I sit down to read for a half hour I typically doze off in about 10 mins. Same thing with movies!
In general I don’t really eat 3 meals a day. I have a zones in the day that I eat. Often between 3-5 in the afternoon. I usually get up about this time eat a little something, half an avocado or handful of nuts. Then I start dinner, my kids usually eat about 430 in the afternoon and I eat with them. That allows time for them to get to evening sports/activities. On my way to work at 730ish I drink hot coffee with either coconut oil or Kerry Gold butter. Not sure if this counts as a meal with blood sugar and insulin levels? I eat again between 1-4am. Not really a scheduled break time to actually sit and eat. I grab a pickle and continue with my shift. I eat celery or cucumbers dipped in my buffalo chicken salad or something similar, typically finishing this about 4am. I don’t eat on my way home. I’ve eliminated munching when I get home in the morning. Typically I will have some hot tea while getting the kids out the door for school. Then I’m typically in bed till 3ish. Scheduled days off are a bit different, typically a larger dinner meal with the family.
I appreciate the extra tips, quite the learning curve for sure! It would be great to see the scale moving down on a more regular basis! I’ll certainly try to narrow down my eating or grazing window. The term grazing makes me laugh!