This is the first update for my keto diet journal. I’ll be posting in the journal every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from now until Christmas Day 2017.
That’s three months of strict ketogenic dieting, record-keeping, and reporting. I’ll also include updates in some episodes of my podcast, The Low Carb Nugget, but won’t be as systematic in reporting there. See, for example, my last episode for Saturday, September 23. In that episode, I laid out the daily macro-nutrient intake targets for the first phase (the first three weeks) of my Keto Diet Reboot.
To recap, here are my daily targets:
Fat: 160+ grams
Net Carbs: 25 grams
Protein: 65 82 grams [Update]
After three weeks, I’ll see how I’m doing and consider adjustments.
Eventually, I plan to add intermittent fasts. To start out, I plan to eat three or four times a day, but with a 12-hour gap between my last bite one day and my first bite the next.
I’m not planning to add any regular exercise during Phase One.
My main pledge to myself and my audience is to record what I eat, and to report regularly on my progress (or struggle, if it turns out to be that).
This morning, I weighed in and measured my waist circumference. Those numbers are 227.5 pounds and 41 inches. No big surprises there. The last time I recorded my weight was in May when I weighed 225 pounds. My current weight is about 25 pounds heavier than the lowest weight I achieved on my LCFH diet, but about 35 pounds lighter than I weighed before I started eating LCHF. So, I’ve gained back roughly 40% of my initial weight loss.
But I’m more concerned about my waist-line. As I’ve discussed on the podcast, it’s vital for your general health to have a waist circumference that’s less than half your height. In other words, if you divide your waist in inches by your height in inches, you want the result to be under 0.5. Currently, the result for me is 0.55 (41 / 74). Not good. True, it’s much better than my pre-LCHF days when I wore waist-size 46 pants (with stretchy elastic waist-bands at that). But at my thinnest since starting to eat LCHF, my waist circumference was a little under 38 inches.
My main goal for this Keto Diet Reboot is to get my waist-size down to 36 inches. That would be amazing!
So, why have I gained back pounds and inches while generally continuing to eat low-carb, high-fat. Well, the answer is contained in that word, “generally.” I’ve generally eaten LCHF in the last few years, but not consistently.
The only way I know to be strict and consistent on a diet is to keep a record of what I eat, and to review that record frequently. That gets to be work after a while. For that reason, I am limiting my pledge to three months. After that, I will continue to eat LCHF, but without the record-keeping. Won’t I just lapse again, and put on more pounds and inches?
Yes, almost certainly, but I plan to keep weighing in and measuring my waist. If I watch my weight, in the literal sense, then I’ll know when I’m straying too much and need to get back on course. That was a mistake I made in the past. When I stopped recording my eating in a diet log, I stopped all systematic observation, measurement, and recording of the results, too. So I had no early warning of the problem.
Maybe eventually I’ll internalize all my dietary goals and rules, and will always know when I’ve hit my dietary targets. I’ll never eat too many grams of carbs or protein in a day, nor too few grams of fat. Habit alone will keep me slim and healthy. No need for scales, tape measure, or diet log.
But probably not. I’m fighting many decades of bad eating habits. I need help, and record-keeping is the right kind of help for me.
Look for my next update on Wednesday!
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