FoodBlog Facts: Fad Diets. Going Keto for a Day 🧈
Finding ways to lead a healthier lifestyle is what we do. We all love those burgers, pizzas and wings, but sometimes, we wake up with a drive to slay the day with optimum #foodgoals, of the healthier persuasion. You might be curious about many fad diets hitting up your Instagram feed, but we’re here to test them out and let you know if they’re worth a try or not! 🤔
First up on our list, the Keto Diet, you must have heard lots of people talking about their keto-ways, but what exactly does this diet entail? What makes it a lifestyle that so many people follow and could it be a choice for you? Let’s take a better look! ➡️
What keto is?
The ketogenic diet is an extremely popular form of low-carbohydrate dieting which many have found successful for weight loss. On this diet, the majority of your calories must come from fat, along with a moderate intake of protein and very limited intake of carbohydrates. The idea of this diet is that by limiting your cells’ access to glucose your body is forced to enter a state of ketosis, in which it becomes more efficient at running on fat as fuel. 🏃♀️
Keto has been reported to have many benefits including reducing blood sugar levels and risk of diseases such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s. Increased ketones in the liver have also proven to be beneficial for brain functioning. In terms of weight loss, the reason why so many have found keto successful is the fact that fat is extremely filling, and so it is far easier to maintain a caloric deficit (eating less calories than you burn) on this type of diet. 🥩
For ketosis to occur, the following macronutrient distribution should be adhered to: 70-75% of your calories should come from fat, 20-25% from protein and only 5-10% from carbohydrates.
Recommended foods for keto include vegetables that grow above the ground, meat and oily fish, butter, avocados, eggs, nuts and seeds, Greek yogurt, cheese, plant oils and low-carb fruits like berries. 🥚
Let’s jump in
I was going to calculate my own macros but I then decided to sign up for a Keto tracking app to track my day, since I needed a calorie tracking app anyway. It calculated caloric and macronutrient goals for me and all I had to do was log what I ate. My goals for this day were to consume approximately 2000 calories, 125g protein, 155g fat and no more than 25g of carbohydrates. Other than tracking the foods I ate, I also documented how I felt and anything else that I thought would be interesting information. 🧮
Breakfast
I woke up in my usual state: needing coffee and craving carbs. I opted for a black coffee with sugar-free sweetener and some unsweetened almond milk to replace my usual sugar and milk. Not quite the same but did the job of waking me up. For breakfast I cooked up two scrambled eggs, 3 bacon rashers, 2 vegetarian sausages and a few mushrooms all in a tablespoon of butter. It looked amazing but unsettling to me, because it’s not what I’m used to eating in the morning at all. Afterwards I was super full, but left craving something sweet. I was also extremely tired and wanting to go back to bed - usually after breakfast I feel focused and ready to work, but this just wasn’t it. 🥓
At least I could still have my usual mugs of English breakfast tea throughout the day, seeing as I do not add sugar and only a dash of milk. 🥛
Lunch
In the afternoon I decided to try some baking, in an attempt to trick my brain into thinking I was consuming carbs. I had a bag of ground almonds that needed use and looked up some recipes for keto bread. Due to many negative reviews and comments on all the recipes I checked out, I had very low expectations on my ability to pull this off seeing as I’m not the best baker. 😢
Bread without carbs - quite an unorthodox way of blessing my brand new loaf tin I would say. The bread was, well… it wasn’t bad; if anything I was quite pleasantly surprised at the flavour and texture. But I only enjoyed it smothered in a generous serving of almond butter. Would I eat it on a regular day? Probably not. As a second part to lunch I really wanted to try cutting my sweet cravings with a protein pancake and sugar-free syrup. The sweetness was oh so satisfying, but just left me wanting more. 🥞
Dinner
For dinner I wanted to make cheesy cauliflower as it’s quite a keto classic, and because I have many memories of it being stuffed down my throat as a child in an attempt to force-feed me vegetables, and lastly I was certain that I could do it way better (I’m sorry, granny. I genuinely don’t enjoy vegetables drowning in bechamel). I did in fact make the most glorious serving of cauliflower cheese which was really almost as delicious as a plate of mac ‘n’ cheese, only way more filling and for half the calories. I ate it alongside one more slice of my keto bread and was absolutely stuffed by the end of it. 🧀
Had I done a bit more homework, I could have easily enjoyed a Keto meal for the gods at La Cuccagna. They’ve got a few select items available on the menu plus they also make pre-packaged baked stuff for take away. I’ll save this for ‘next’ time. 😇
The Aftermath
I totally understood the ease of calorie deficit, as the food was insanely filling, there was very little variety I could actually eat to stay on track and I was feeling quite uncomfortable gastrointestinally. By dinner time I was not even remotely hungry and didn’t even feel like eating - I just wanted to go to sleep and let the day end. I went to bed at 10pm so exhausted that you would’ve thought I ran a marathon that day, when ironically it was my rest day. 😫
I saw many side effects to my lack of carbohydrate consumption, despite it only lasting one day. My mood was suffering tremendously and I was acting irritable and snappy. This may sound like an exaggeration, but I urge you to try this out if you don’t believe me. I was also feeling extremely thirsty, especially the morning after - I drank a liter of water in my first hour of being awake, and I stepped on the scale to find that I had lost a considerable amount of water weight. This thirst and water loss is due to the fact that high insulin levels caused by a diet high in sugar cause you to retain water and sodium in your kidneys. Thus when doing keto, one needs to remain well hydrated and supplemented with electrolytes.🚰
What was pleasantly surprising is how quickly I fell asleep for 8 hours straight, and woke up the next morning feeling... great! As I usually eat nothing before the gym in the morning, I did my workout fueled on fats from the day before, and it was quite a good one. The minute I got home however, I had never been more excited to cook up a bowl of oatmeal in my life. I probably would manage a few more days on this diet, but I could hardly imagine what it would be like to live without carbs as so many people do. 👎
Are you team low carb or team #carbsforlife? What diet would you like to learn more about next? Let us know in the comments below! ✌️
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