We Are What We Eat!!
Boy is this ever the truth! Over the past 35 months I have focused on being healthy, using the best nutritional products I could find but something was missing. That something was me eating responsibly. Yep.....that talk in the mirror proved to be something I needed in a big way. If you are like me you don't like diets. In fact, I don't even like the word "diet". Garfield was right when he said it really means DIE with a T. We can laugh about that, but I believe it's the truth. Why should we try to live sparsely on things that aren't helping our bodies that much? Fat Free Food?! WHAT?!
Seriously.....fat-free scares the heck out of me. I remember being on an eating program around 10 years ago that counted points. I remember eating fake foods to skirt around the issue that what I was eating really wasn't healthy for me, but if it fit into my points then all was good. Right? Wrong! I felt like crap! I left diets behind a long time ago, but I yearned to physically do better.
Enter the Keto Lifestyle into my life. For whatever reason I had an epiphany one day....it just struck me! What the heck am I doing? Like for 40 years I've been banging my head against the same wall expecting different results....now that's crazy! I have heard about Keto for some time, but in all honesty I thought it would be hard to stick to, rigid, hard to do, and boring. Boy was I wrong! But.....I didn't say yes to this right away. Like I said, one day it just hit me. If I didn't change what I was doing how could I ever expect a different result. Don't get me wrong....I feel good, but I thought I could feel better through having better efforts at what I was consuming throughout the day. Luckily Keto was there and I latched on. I googled the subject and found lots of info on it out there. My biggest question - What is Keto exactly?
There you have it....simple enough right? Yes, actually! I found a list of foods by googling Keto friendly foods and went from there. The next thing I did was to look up some recipes by googling Keto recipes. Not hard at all. Next I looked on Amazon for a few books. I found quite a few so I ordered two top rated ones. Next I made a grocery list and went to the store. We have plenty of ranch-raised all natural beef so I was good there. I was delighted to see cheese, butter, eggs, heavy cream, asparagus, cucumbers, lettuce, bacon, etc. I knew I wasn't going to starve and I envisioned myself loving this new lifestyle. A positive mindset is a valuable thing in such a situation and the fact that it was my own idea....even better!
The very next morning (Wednesday, September 27th to be exact) I began my new lifestyle with Keto. I had my Thrive first thing like I always do and then I waited until around brunch time for my "breakfast". I had a yummy meal of eggs, bacon, cheese, etc. I even had a cup of decaf coffee with heavy cream as it was a chilly day. I don't need nor want excess caffeine in my body so I always choose a decaf option when and if I drink coffee. I felt amazing! I couldn't believe how long I went without feeling hungry. I certainly never felt deprived. I had a small snack of hard salami and some colby/jack cheese and then ate supper. We had taco salad. Seriously, I wasn't hungry all day and I had the most amazing sleep that night! I woke up feeling refreshed and surprisingly not hungry.
I won't bore you with my daily eating routine, but I will just tell you that the past two weeks has been incredible. I've been busy with life in general and not once did I feel compelled to go off plan. We even shipped our calves, preg-checked and moved cows two different days horseback....not hungry! While our help ate carbs and such I did not....I made healthier choices. I was loving this new lifestyle!
In my first seven days I dropped 6 pounds! I was ecstatic!! Never before had I ever dropped that much the first week. Week 2 came and went and I was super happy to have dropped another 2 lbs. So, 8 lbs. are gone after 2 weeks! I feel amazing! Lots of energy, I'm warm (not cold like I have been on previous diets), I'm happy (not grouchy like I have been when limited so much on previous diets), awesome sleep, and I am never starving. My body feels differently now when it's truly hungry. I seriously am enjoying this and I'm excited to see where this journey will lead me.
Since we raise beef I am ecstatic that I don't have to limit my consumption there (Eat USA-Raised Beef)! I also like the fact that this is all REAL food. In a book I am reading it says if your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize what you are eating as food DON'T EAT IT!! Talk about good advice! I am far from being a health and wellness guru, but I have learned quite a bit in the last 3 years about myself. I know that eating fake, processed crap isn't good for anyone. I decided to do something about it and I'm so glad I have taken that first step!
The internet has been my salvation in terms of finding material as I have found a few valuable resources already on this adventure. The Ketogenic Cookbook by Jimmy Moore and Maria Emmerich is proving to be a very valuable resource. I've also had a few friends reach out to me that have been doing Keto for some time. They have been most helpful with resources and advice. I am so appreciative to them all for this! I will be blogging frequently about this journey mainly to document for myself, but also to help anyone out there who might be considering this lifestyle for themselves. In my opinion thus far, Keto is absolutely the way to go! And....you don't have to eat the same things all the time or become bored. There are lots of great recipes out there. Here are a few things I've made over the last two weeks. YUM!
Well, that's it for now. I will be sharing some of the recipes that I come across frequently. I have to be realistic with myself on how frequently I will be blogging, but I will seriously try to blog once weekly. Until then....Cheers! ~Cheyenne
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