When your mom calls you an hour earlier than normal and says that she’s looking forward to reading about Week 1 on the keto diet, you set up your piece-of-shit laptop  (which will hopefully not crash while I am writing this entry and also will be replaced by the end of the week) and hope for the best.

Week 1: “Lazy” Keto

Adam got tired of me driving myself nuts trying to create perfect meal plans. It mattered far more to him that we get started. So, on 6/4, we decided to jump in with both feet and give it a shot, even though we didn’t have much of a plan.

We’re lucky enough to live in easy walking distance to 4 grocery stores. (No joke: Walmart, Aldi, Jewel-Osco, and Al Nour Supermarket are all less than a half mile.) So, unlike the majority of people on the ketogenic diet, going day-by-day was actually doable and helpful.  It gave me a chance to get out of the house, change our dinner plans as necessary, and pick up ingredients for new recipes that we wanted to try.

For the first week, I went based off of this keto calculator.

1481 kcal Daily Calorie Intake
25 g Carbs (7%, 100 kcal)
80 g Protein (22%, 320 kcal)
118 g Fat (71%, 1061 kcal)

But, when I went to set my percentage goals in MyFitnessPal, I only had options by 5’s, so I ended up with this.

Calories 1490
Carbohydrates 19 g (5 %)
Fat 116 g (70 %)
Protein 93 g (25 %)

I’ve made my food diary on MyFitnessPal public because it’s easier to link you to the information than it is for me to take screenshots — or worse — to type it all out by hand.

Here is how I ate last week.  I did not food journal on Saturday, but I stayed to foods I knew were okay.

• Monday June 4th
• Tuesday, June 5th
• Wednesday, June 6th
• Thursday, June 7th
• Friday, June 8th

Based on my personal data, it said the keto calculator said I should stay above 79g of protein because I am mostly sedentary. I could go as high as 131g — but the best idea is the middle ground of about 105g. When I put my percentages into MFP, it gave me 93, which seemed reasonable.

When I switched to Cronometer, yesterday, however, and chose the Ketogenic diet, my goals appeared very different.

Calories 1640
Carbohydrates 20 g (net: total minus fiber)
Fat 156 g  (Much higher than the original calculator recommends)
Protein 39 g (Much lower than the original calculator recommends)

I’m not really sure which calculator to trust… but I do know that following week 1’s recommendations was doable.  I feel good about my ability to follow that diet.  And, it had a ton of benefits.

• Reduced seizure activity (thought seizures were still very present towards the end of the week, when I was due for my period)
• OBVIOUS CHANGE IN BODY SHAPE (My pants are literally falling off me today.)
• Cognitive fog: lifted
• TONS more energy

There was, of course, the other side of the coin — Keto Flu, which is bizarre. I needed a ton more sodium and potassium, but twice, chicken stock (bone broth) made all the difference in the world.  The supplement helped too, but I’m not sure how much good 99mg is when you’re supposed to aim for 3500mg

If you’re on Cronometer, and you want access to my food diary, send me a request. My email is rachael.renee at the gmailz.

Recipes That Are Totally Worth It

So, one of the things that happened this week was a lot of experimental cooking and recipe synthesis.  There will obviously be more next week, but here’s some of the recipes that got me through this week.

• Almond Butter Fat Bombs
• Spinach, Bacon, Mushroom Crust-less Quiche
• Rae’s Keto Italian Sub Roll Ups #1 (pictured)
• No-Carb Cheese “Crackers”

I also tried my hand at making cookies with almond flour, coconut flour, Swerve, and cacao nibs.  They were pretty rough, so the  recipe doesn’t deserve to get shared.  I’m going to try again, this time with Lily’s chips.  If it works out well, I’ll post the recipe.

I’m sure there was other stuff I was going to write about, but I have too much other crap to deal with today.  I’ll try real hard to get back on before next week’s update and write more.  ❤