Week 1, Day 4, Minor Scale Victory

I was going to wait until Sunday to weigh, giving the new #keto regimen time to do its work.

I couldn't resist, though, and weighed this morning.

I started at 292 lbs on Monday.

This morning I was 281 lbs.

It's water weight, but it's weight I was carrying around with me, making me feel like a balloon ready to pop. I can already feel the difference.

Keto On.

Week 1, Day 2, Research Mode

Day 2 - research mode.

I've been looking at various keto recipe websites. I've been reading the FAQ on the Reddit r/keto. I've used the macro calculator to get an idea of where I should be.

1902 kcal Daily Calorie Intake
25 g Carbs (5%, 100 kcal)
125 g Protein (26%, 500 kcal)
145 g Fat (69%, 1302 kcal)

That's not sustainable for me yet. I'm still trying to figure out where the carbs are hidden in my daily routine - like in my non-dairy sugar-free creamer, and in Splenda that I used to sweeten my tea - and root it out.

Surprising to me, hamburger seems to be high in carbs. At least that's what MyFitnessPal says.

Onwards and hopefully downwards ( in weight ).

Sugar Is More Addictive Than Cocaine

That's what all the headlines are saying these days. Some are reporting a statistic of "8 times more addictive than cocaine".

What I've found is that a lot of these articles are quoting a study that was poorly done, and lacks much credibility. But, that doesn't mean it's not at least partly true. I think that sugar becomes a habit, more than an addiction, but it's a habit that extremely hard to break because of the rewards your brain experiences - sugar fuels every cell in your brain.

This year, I tried to stop eating added sugar and what I call sugar vehicles: candy, desserts, etc. I did really well for 4 months, but then I decided that I could have cake on my birthday, which became my birthday weekend, which became my birthday week, which rolled into my son's birthday week, and I couldn't be rude and not have some of the cake my wife made for him...and the snowball grew until I was back into full swing sugar mode again. I "fell off the wagon" as it were.

I've managed to taper off this week, but I still find myself grabbing something small. Wint-o-green Lifesavers are my kryptonite, and my office stocks a 3 lb bag of them in the break room. It's all to easy to succumb to that smell, and grab a handful on my way to one of the conference rooms, or back to my desk after getting a drink. We also have some granola bars, they're the lower sugar variety compared to some others, but still have 12g of sugar each.

This reminds me that I also started logging food, but I can't keep that up. It's just too annoying to either write down and research, or scan each food's bar code into an app (and if you have fresh food without a bar code, then you're back on the research mode). I do it for a week or two, and then find myself skipping meals, then skipping days, then just uninstalling the app. The accountability is good for me, as well as the educational habit of reading labels, but it's just not a sustainable activity for me in its current form.

W2: D4 a Revision

I decided that the 2000 calories that my LoseIt app are giving me seems too high. When I tried MyFitnessPal, it only gave me 1700 calories. So, in the LoseIt app, it allows you to adjust the calorie budget up or down as you see fit. I adjusted it down by 400 calories.

I also got the Accupedo app to start tracking how many steps I take around the house chasing the toddlers, so I get to actually add in exercise calories burned.

Calories
Budget: 1681
Food: 1646
Exercise: -130
Net: -165