Food Keto Diet

I had a long conversation with a close friend of mine, who happens to be an extreme Fitness and Wing Chun enthusiast.

Went over my fitness regimen, eating habits and ideal goals with him. He recommended two things:
1. Start a Keto Diet
2. Include intake of Casein with the Keto diet

So now I have started a Keto diet, where I aim to keep daily carbs to around or less than 20g; through 4 items: 2 main dishes, 1 dessert and 1 snack.

Included in the overall regimen is a minimum 1 hour of physical exercise every day.

I've ordered a 3lbs pack of MusclePharm Casein, and will be taking a 35g portion every night shortly before going to sleep. The Casein is intended to help my muscles recover faster from the daily training, and allow faster muscle growth.


1. Pan-fried chicken breast with roasted bell peppers


2. Grilled chicken, roasted bell pepper and paprika-infused mayonnaise


3. Low-carb Chocolate fudge


4. Dry-roasted, salted cashew nuts


I plan on consuming one main dish (grilled chicken or breast) throughout a day, and possibly include individual fudge or cashew servings to maintain the hunger without going over 2000 kcals.



What do you think of the Keto diet?

Have you tried it? How was your experience?

What tips and tricks do you have for filling your stomach up?

Any favorite no-/low-carb recipes?

How do you stop your sweettooth cravings?

Any drink tips other than water and diet sodas?
--- merged: Oct 18, 2013 at 3:00 AM ---
This thing doesn't like tables... will try to fix it when I come back.


EDIT File attached!

 

I've been strongly considering Keto (and it's cousin, Paleo) for a long time now. My main obstacle is that I'm living off of a very small amount of money with which to purchase food, and to be blunt, carbs are cheap and easy to get ahold of. I know it's really not a good excuse, but it's the one that I've been using.

Maybe I should give it a more serious consideration, after having heard all of the good things about it all over again.

 

Thanks a lot for the input!

I'm still trying to figure out how to put a Word or Excel table into my post, but it's not really working out. cynthetiq would you know if it's possible? I think I'll try to attach a Word file to my original post for now.

Either way, onto the points that have been made.

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snowy

- I've always been a heavy consumer of water. I drink between 3 and 5 liters a day, depending on how much exercise/sweating I do.

- Cutting out diet sodas would be a bit difficult for me. I'm already experiencing huge issues in dealing with the fatty aftertaste of a grease-drenched meal, and water/sparkling water doesn't do anything for me in that regard. I will try to follow your advice as much as possible, and try to keep it to 1 can diet soda (usually Diet 7UP) per day.

- Great tip on the cashew nuts. I love cashews, but the carb content is considerable. I'llleave the 1kg cashews in storage for now and try to mix it up between almonds and Lindy 's suggestion of walnuts.

- Hitting the 2000 kcal mark will not be hard for me at all. I'm the kinda guy who rocks up at a Teppanyaki place with his buddy and together orders 3kg of beef meat for a single sitting, and with a portion of fried rice to go. I'll keep your supersmoothie in reserve though for days where I may not be able to get my daily fix of chicken. Thanks for mentioning Peanut Butter. I hadn't thought of it at all.

- Thanks for the tip regarding sweeteners. I thought I had found the perfect solution, but apparently not. I'll stay away from the fudge in my fridge for at least two weeks, and then consume them as little as possible.

- I've never been much of a fan of avocados. They go well in some sandwiches, or dips for burgers, but otherwise I stay away from them.

- No worries on the greens. I usually include a good serving of pure fiber in my mayo dip or cheese sauce.

- Eggs are a no-go for me. I love eggs, but since I started this fat binge, the smell of cooked eggs makes me unwell.

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Lindy

- I'll try to flush the fatty taste with more sparkling water and less with diet soda. The aftertaste is just so very nauseating.

- No worries on the lipophobia front. I can binge on fatty foods without any problems. Sugar has always been something I couldn't deal with in high amounts.

- SO suggested I try cooked broccoli with a sprinkle of sea salt. Will give that a go. Mushrooms are my friend.

- My go-to sauces are American Garden US mayonnaise (couldn't find Thomy) and Kraft Yellow mustard. At least until I can find tastier stuff without compromising on carbs.

- I hope I don't lose my sweet cravings. While I dislike too much sugar, sugary desserts in moderate amounts are heaven to me. I hope to find some sort of compromise on this before I cave in one day and raid SO's sizeable stash of ice cream.

- The Casein I will consume is mainly intended to help muscle growth. My goal is to put on roughly 20-25kg muscle mass on top of what I already have.

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Many, many thanks to the both of you for the extensive insight! Really appreciate the advice.

I have two main questions as a result of this:

1. By far my biggest challenge is to stay below 20g of carbs. Pretty much everything I look at has some form of carbs in it. Any tips on this? How much wiggle room is there around the 20g mark (as in, when do I start risking a stop to the ketosis)?

2. What good no-/low-carb sauces do you recommend? I'm happy to try most things as long as they don't go above Tabasco-level spiciness. Yeah,I'm a total wuss in this regard.

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Lastly, this is the recipe I selected for today: Keto Buffalo Double Down (1carb) OC : ketorecipes

Any thoughts on how to improve it?



EDIT: File attached!

 

I went keto for a month+ and didn't lose any significant weight, though I did obviously lose water weight after a few days in ketosis. I found that bell peppers are far too carby for keto - I stuck with greens (cabbage, kale, spinach) for my vegetable intake, generally. Zucchini and eggplant were great, too, and mushrooms were a staple to add to dishes for flavor. I found it VERY easy to get into ketosis for myself - just a day or two of eating in keto, then do a long run (6+ miles), and BAM! instant ketosis! It made my boyfriend jealous, as he'd take a week+ to get back in if he got kicked out.

For "dessert," cocoa roasted almonds are fantastic. For lunches, I usually ate salad with either boiled eggs or chicken with a nice fatty salad dressing, and a cheese stick. Doesn't sound like much, but it kept me full. Breakfast is almost always two patties of breakfast sausage stir fried with kale (one of my favorite breakfasts I learned about when going paleo, and I still love it), and dinner would vary from keto lasagne (thin-sliced eggplant or zucchini instead of noodles) to burgers and salad to pork loin and cabbage. My boyfriend and I really didn't have much trouble sticking with keto, except when my popcorn cravings would drive me crazy.

Also, when you've been in keto for a while.. you will get carb high when you have a large serving of carbs. We went to a move after two weeks in keto and I had a big bag of popcorn.. my heart was racing, I was sweating, and I was wide awake until 3-4 am. It was NUTS. Sometimes I'd use that to my advantage before my long run every week, having some carbs (yogurt, chocolate, some other random thing I'd been craving) for a little extra boost, but my run was always long enough to burn that up plus all the glycogen in my muscles. Spending the rest of the week carb-deprived sucks, though, especially when you have to climb stairs every day.

 

i love carbs. Aint nobody going to deny me of my carbs. I do go keto every year in ramadan for about half a day every day for a month. Then it's out the door for another day

if you plan on doing 1hr + exercise per day every day, you're going to need carbs, otherwise you're going to wither away significanly. Keto works no doubt, but difficult to maintain because you'll get the calling from those carbs.

that said, if you want to deny yourself those sweet tooth cravings, do your grocery shopping on a full stomach and dont bring sweets into your house.

 

PonyPotato thanks for the tips. I've added mushrooms into my diet already and will see what I can do about almonds as desserts. Eggs are a no-go, because since I started keto the smell of egg has become extremely nauseating.

Lish shut up, bro I'll help the muscle growth with tons of protein and intake of casein supplement. We'll see how it goes during this trial month. If I'm not happy with the result, I may take up hiking.


Other than burgers and hot dogs, American-style foods have never been a part of my food intake. Now with the keto diet, I've considered today some outlandish heartstopping stuff.

And came up with all the cliches I could put into a meal:

Oven-baked Frankfurter wraps (wrapped with cheddar cheese and smoked bacon), with full-fat mayonnaise on the side

(PDF of the nutritional info attached)

 

I've been wondering about that.

Do I fully count dietary fibers as part of my carb intake, partially, or not at all?

So far I have been doing the 20g/day thing by including dietary fibers completely. And because my daily Casein shake occupies 3-4g,I usually end up having 15g or less per day.

 

I notice that I didn't mention that I'm doing Keto on a cyclical basis. Because I'm training almost daily and incrementally increase both duration and difficulty per session, so I recharge on glycogens by doing Keto 10-12 days, then 1 day of high-carb consumption (Burgers-only, so far).


Also, lately I've been really into Eggs & Bacon. Very nice snack to have.


SO came up with an alternate way of making Chicken Katsu (breaded chicken cutlet).

She used Pork Rind instead of Panko bread crumbs, and after "breading" the filets she rolled each around a stick of mozzarella before pan-frying them. It's pretty bloody good with a small amount of Tonkatsu sauce on the side.

The full ingredients were:

- Chicken breast (cut into thin slices)
- Pork Rind (thrown into the blender to make them crumb-esque)
- Egg (for the batter)
- Mozzarella
- Salt
- Pepper


Hella delicious and very little carbs.

 

@Lindy the parmesan suggestion worked really well. Thanks.

Also found that lightly seasoned, baked beef ribs are the bomb for Keto people like me. So much delicious goodness. Doesn't need any sauces or anything like that if you can keep the meat moist enough and serve it with its own gravy.


On another note, is my breath supposed to smell like nail polish/artificial stuff? SO has been complaining about it since a week into Keto, and increased brushing of teeth as well as use of mouthwash has only a limited amount of success.

It kinda sucks, especially since I'll be very self-conscious about this in meetings.

Will probably have to keep having a minty chewing gum every half an hour. At least my brain will be working better, I guess.

 

Probably my favorite way to make chicken is to spread mayo on top of the chicken breast and then sprinkle with salt, pepper, garlic powder and Parmesan cheese. Bake in the oven until golden brown. So so good.

Sometimes I'd also bake a spaghetti squash and top with some no sugar added tomato sauce and olive oil.

Ok, now I'm hungry.

 

That smell is caused by ketones. It's a sure sign that you're in ketosis, and not something you can easily eliminate or cover up.

 

Ah okay. Thanks for the clarification.

On a slightly different note: I'm currently on my 5th keto cycle. This time, I have been having an extreme thirst for fluids. No matter how much water I drink, my bastard mouth gets dry again within 45-60 minutes and I get this immense craving for more fluids. Happening as I write this.

Is this a normal symptom?

 

Thanks. Will do and see how it turns out.