Ketogenic diet.
It's a diet formed with high fat, high protein and low carbs. The goal is to transition our body from using carbs as a source of energy to using fats for main energy.
You are to fill your daily nutrition with High fat, High protein, but no more than 20g of net carbs. This means no buns on your burger, no ketchup, pickles, fries.
I can't get into details of anatomy (because science), but you can read more about it in the link below.
https://www.tasteaholics.com/the-complete-keto-diet-guide-for-beginners/
There are motives for every and any actions, right?
My motivation was quite simple: weight gain, and massive amount of sugar I have been consuming for the past 18 years.
All of my family members love rice, and all sorts of sweets. I was aware that my sugar intake was quite more than others in general, but did not realize how serious it was. Age of 26, perfectly healthy (at least I thought). I traveled to Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. Couple countries which preserve best street foods in Asia.
Little did I know, I was able to compare the food intake with my travel mate. Splurging on street was definitely AMAZING, but the consequences were not sweet. Compared to my travel mate who ate given portion for individual, and little bites of sweet and savory street food (probably I would assume no more than 60~100g of sugar just from desserts alone), my daily sugar intake besides carbs from rice/noodles seemed to be easily over 500-600g.
How did I know? I love remembering amazing food. That's how I know.
So realizing that I was in somewhat a trouble with my body, I decided to take up the ketogenic diet challenge.
Main goal was simple.
1. Lose weight
2. Cut carbs
Now, cutting carbs for Korean is sort of impossible. Every Korean person around me smirked at my stupidity for choosing ketogenic diet out of all the other things I could have tried.
However, the best thing about keto, is that you can eat high fat grass-fed source.
This means unlimited ghee, butter, steak, burger patties, avocado, coconot oil, cheese, etc.
I'm 5ft 9 inch tall, and weighed about 149lbs before going to the Asia trip.
When I came back after three weeks, I was 155lbs (WALLAHHHHHHH)
3 weeks into ketogenic, I went down to 147lbs, and even went down to 145 lbs a week after, but stopped losing from there.
This was mainly because Saturday was my cheat day, and my tummy had unhealthy carb fiestas.
cookies instead of rice, boba milk tea instead of grains, etc.
I also only started working out one 10 days ago, so I may have gained a bit of muscle.
Currently I'm at 147 lbs, but not focusing on the numbers on scales.
Attached is my almost-daily homemade brunch!
consists of 1-2 burger patties Safeway brand, swiss or pepperjack cheese, and egg!
"Now that's the easy-cheesy-burger girl"
If you prefer protein bars, I would say Quest bars would be the best go-to because it has 4-6g of net carbs. Definitely keto friendly!
The hardest part of Keto diet, is going out to eat. Technically you can ask the waitstaff to make any plate keto friendly, but I personally dislike being the person who orders an entree with no this, no that, and no million other things. However, it does force myself to make more healthier menu choices. (salads!)
It's definitely a huge commitment to stop your hands from reaching out for sugar, so if you want to begin keto, give a serious thought to see if this is what you want to proceed with :]