Keto Vegetarian: Week 3
Week 3 –
Weight lost: 2.4 pounds (Total: 12.0 pounds)
Inches lost (waist): 0.75″ (Total: 1.75″)
Inches lost (neck): 0.50″ (Total: 0.75″)
Sleep quality: 96%
It’s Keto Week 3! No cheats yet – I’ve stayed in ketosis the entire 3 weeks. It wasn’t a huge loss on the scale, but look at those inches gone! In one week! My clothes are already fitting MUCH better and I’ve had to pull up another belt loop in my pants. This was also my birthday week (hello, 43!), so I went over my 1500-ish calories on a few days. But I think I should actually do that more often, because I’m far more frequently not eating enough calories on keto. I’m full and I just can’t eat any more! I do my best not to fall below 1,200 calories but sometimes I’m eating cheese sticks before bed just to make sure I’m not below 1k. It’s so much the opposite of a low fat diet, where I feel like I have to eat 12 times a day and I’m still starving. I’m still doing the intermittent fasting 16:8, eating 2 meals per day. I love it. It works for my schedule and my body.
I’m feeling great. I think the most striking difference is the feeling of being on an even keel, all day long. I have no spikes or dips in energy or motivation – just ready to go at all times. Maybe this is what they mean by “mental clarity,” but I feel like I have an easier time coming to conclusions and making decisions and feeling confident in them. I’m a pretty rational person to begin with, but my brain feels like it is firing on all cylinders, all day long.
My sleep is excellent. This week’s sleep quality average was 96%, and the 2 days that were below were above 85%. That’s way better than my pre-keto average of 72%. It’s amazing to sleep so well. I discovered on Whole30 that sugar seems to have the most dramatic impact on my sleep. Keto is proving that to be true.
Here are some of the things I ate this week:
Headbanger’s Kitchen Keto Peanut Butter Waffles
This is such a winner of a waffle recipe! I’ve made it a bunch of times already. It’s the peanut butter waffle from Headbanger’s Kitchen. I’m having it slathered in Kerrygold butter (I miss Ireland so much!), LightLife Smart Bacon (veggie), and sugar free maple syrup. The ingredient purists would avoid the sugar free maple syrup, but I’m not an ingredient purist. It fits my macros, doesn’t mess up my ketosis, and doesn’t make me feel bad. So I eat it. Yum.
Keto Connect Chocolate Gelato Style Ice Cream
Happy birthday to me! I’ve wanted an ice cream maker for a long time, and since I have trouble getting enough calories on keto, I thought – what better reason to add an ice cream dessert to my life?! (I can rationalize anything). I picked up this Cuisinart ice cream maker and made some keto-friendly ice cream! This recipe came from Keto Connect – chocolate gelato-style ice cream – but instead of manually freezing and stirring it, I chilled it then put it into the ice cream maker. It turned out AMAZING, though they call it 4 servings… in my world, it’s more like 2 servings. I’m definitely going to double or triple the recipe next time to keep more in the freezer!
Keto Connect Cauliflower Fried Rice
This was the surprise hit of the week: cauliflower fried rice. I don’t like cauliflower. I love the concept of cauliflower – a neutral-tasting, good-for-you vegetable that can turn into many things, but I’ve tried many of the many things, with mediocre to disgusting results. You name it – cauliflower buffalo wings, fried cauliflower nuggets, etc. I did not have high hopes for this dish, but I’ve also always thought in my head that I must be doing it wrong. So I bought a head of cauliflower and tried it. The recipe is the Keto Connect Cauliflower Fried Rice, and I added in some red peppers.
It is delicious. I’m still working on the leftovers (it makes 4 good-sized servings). I’m shocked, to be honest. If I close my eyes, I can’t even tell that it’s not rice. The flavor is spot-on (even though I didn’t have any sesame oil handy). The texture is only slightly less firm than rice, and that’s probably because I over-processed the cauliflower. I’ll process it in smaller batches next time. It definitely hit the take-out craving.
My other meals were repeats – Keto Connect overnight hemp-oats (the peanut butter version), Keto Connect Chicago-style deep dish pizza (homage to my roots for my birthday!), and tacos with cheese shells (and taco salads with the leftover meat). I need to get a second mini cast iron skillet so I can make 2 pizzas at a time. It’s a super-easy recipe and most of the cook time is down time in the oven, but for that time investment I’d still like to get more than 1 meal out of it.
There’s my week in a nutshell! So far, so good.
