Weeks 6-8: Keto Vegetarian

Weeks 6-8 –
Weight lost: 0.2 pounds (Total: -17.4 pounds)
% Body weight lost: 0.8% (Total: -6.74%)
Inches lost (waist): 0.75″ (Total: -3.50″)
Inches lost (neck): 0.0″ (Total: -0.75″)
Sleep quality: 90% (+3% from last week)

And just like that, 3 weeks has gone by! I traveled for a couple weeks over Thanksgiving, and am happy to report that I did not cheat on keto – not even once. I went over my 1,525 calories a few days, but never went above 30g net carbs.

I hadn’t been updating here because my weight was not changing… literally. To the tenth of a pound. The same. After not weighing myself while traveling and knowing how well I stuck to the plan, I expected a loss when I got home – and… my weight was still the same! But here’s where it gets strange: I lost 3/4″ from my waist in those 3 weeks. My body fat dropped 3.9% and muscle gained 3.0%. I fit into jeans I haven’t worn in 5 years – jeans that are 3 sizes smaller than when I started eating keto. Clearly, something is happening. Clearly, the scale is not the be-all, end-all measure of success.

There’s a phenomenon that I’ve experienced countless times during the many years of dieting for weight loss that I’ve done, but I never knew that it had a name or what was actually happening. Nutritionist Lyle McDonald dubbed the terms “whoosh” and “squishy fat” in describing this phenomenon, and I think it’s what’s happening to me now. Without getting into TMI territory, I’ve noticed lately that I’m in squishy fat territory – where, well, my fat just feels more squishy and less dense. I am probably due to see a fat whoosh soon.

What’s a fat whoosh? It’s when you lose a few pounds, seemingly overnight, when there’s no day-to-day caloric explanation for it (i.e. losing 3 pounds overnight without having a 10k calorie deficit the day before). The explanation goes something like this: your fat cells store triglyceride. When you burn that triglyceride (fat) for energy, the fat cells don’t shrink immediately. The cells fill with water instead, maintaining nearly the same size/shape as when they were filled with fat. Your fat feels squishy because your fat cells are full of water instead of fat. The body is holding out with the expectation that the fat cells be refilled with fat soon. When it finally gives up, the body releases all of that water and you have a whoosh (and pee a lot… and drop a few pounds!)

It seems that there is no tried-and-true way to hurry along a whoosh (or prevent them, for that matter). Really, they’re good things; they mean you’re burning fat. There are some anecdotal theories that a carb-up can trigger a whoosh if your fat cells are holding on to water, or that alcohol can trigger one (as a mild diuretic). I haven’t done any sort of carb re-feeds but I did have alcohol Thanksgiving weekend, and no whoosh yet. So I wouldn’t bank on that as a whoosh-busting strategy!

I’m going to hang in there and hold on to hope that the scale will soon confirm the positive changes I see happening in my measurements.

On to food! I was pretty limited in what I could cook over Thanksgiving because I was staying at my mom’s and her kitchen is neither stocked nor equipped like mine. (I had to go out and buy a food processor and silicone baking trays at Target, and I brought my little egg maker with me, because there are some things I just can’t live without!) I did try out a few new recipes for our holiday dinner that turned out great!

Keto Connect 3 minute biscuit breakfast sandwich

I had a lot of breakfast sandwiches on my trip! This is a Morningstar Farms veggie sausage patty with a scrambled egg (with heavy whipping cream) and a 3-minute low carb biscuit from Keto Connect.

Walnut spiced butter cookies from Keto Connect

I made these for our family’s Thanksgiving feast – another Keto Connect recipe: Buttery Nutmeg Spiced Walnut Cookies. Holy cow. With 11g fat, 1g net carbs, and 100 calories each, these might just have to be a regular dessert around here – a less severe fat bomb, if you will! They’re so good.

Isn’t fathead dough glorious?

Isn’t fathead dough beautiful?

Bagels – Keto Connect

This is my 2nd time making Keto Connect bagels, but this time I got a bigger donut tray. I overfilled these a bit (the recipe should make 6, but I think with this mold I’d get 5 out of it if I didn’t over-fill). I like the size, though, because it works much better for sandwiches. The texture on these is a little bit crumbly, but they taste so good that I ain’t mad at ’em.

Fathead pizza

I’m re-obsessed with the plain ‘ol fathead pizza. This one has 2 tbsp hemp hearts added to the dough (garlic and pink salt as the dough seasoning), Rao’s tomato basil sauce (serious obsession with this stuff in progress), and mozzarella and Kerrygold Dubliner cheese on top.

Fathead dough and veggie meatballs with Rao tomato basil saunce

Another miracle made from fathead dough – a meatball sub! The meatballs are Gardien veggie meatballs, with Rao’s sauce inside. I just made the dough, split it into 2 portions, spread some Rao’s in the middle, add 3 meatballs, and wrap it all up and bake. A sandwich this big is a pretty huge meal; I made this a couple times and ended up cutting it in half most days. I think next time I might try portioning the dough into 4 and wrapping 2 meatballs in each one.

Easy no bake cheesecake from Keto Connect

Yes, another Keto Connect recipe – easy no-bake cheesecake with chocolate ganache. I used an extra large silicone cupcake mold and it made 6 cheesecakes – perfect for a celebratory-sized dessert, though I will make them half the size for regular everyday consumption. The only thing I did differently was sweeten the ganache a bit. I used Swerve confectioners sweetener. This photo was taken when the cheesecake was frozen. It’s a little hard to eat when frozen. I like to store them in the freezer, but pull one out a day to thaw in the fridge and eat it from thawed.