Current weight: 284.4 lbs,
Total weight loss: 21.4 lbs.
The Challenges of Being a Guest
This morning, the scale was up 3.4 pounds. Agh…3.4 pounds!!! I know most of that is fluids given what I ate yesterday, but I still hate to see it. On the graph, it looks even more discouraging.
Rather than let it get to me, however, I’m going to proceed with what I’m doing and press ahead. In fact, I thought it may be helpful to review yesterday’s challenges and see what, if anything, I could have done differently.
The Situation
Yesterday, some friends invited me over for a brunch. They were hosting it in their new home – a formal, sit-down affair. Even though I’m a natural introvert, I definitely enjoy some socializing. Of course part of the problem is that socializing almost always involves some kind of food.
Now, since starting this wellness endeavor, I have certainly eaten out with friends and family, but it has always been at a restaurant or an informal house gathering. In both situations, I had much more control and was able to find keto-friendly foods (foods that are good for a ketogenic diet). In fact, one of the nice things about this nutritional approach is that it’s pretty easy to find foods that work in the program. You can almost always find a meat, vegetable and fat to eat.
My friends are excellent cooks and I have never had a restricted diet with them in the past. They know that I generally try to limit my sugar intake, but aren’t aware about my current ketogenic diet. It may have been helpful to tell them ahead of time, but it didn’t occur to me. I also didn’t want to make a big issue of it and figured I’d be able to find some keto-friendly foods.
The Challenge
Well, I was somewhat right. The hard part for me was staying on program without feeling rude about rejecting any part of their home-cooked meal. Here was the menu (all of it so delicious!):
- Prosciutto wrapped melon and cheeses; mimosas; leafy green salad with different cheeses, nuts and dried fruit and an olive-oil vinaigrette; toasted home made bread; a scalloped potato and cheese casserole with crust; and a few home made desserts.
Some of those items obviously wouldn’t work with a ketogenic diet. And while I was able to avoid those foods (the desserts and the toasted bread…man that was hard), I did eat more carbs than I set out to.
- To start: everyone was celebrating with mimosas, and one was poured for me before I could just ask for plain champagne. So I ended up drinking some of that. (Ok, ok….all of it.) And because it was mainly orange juice – it was basically straight sugar! Also, I ate most of the scalloped potato casserole which was served to me. And it was a decent portion.
I found that the mimosa a little too sweet (Wow is that me talking? Maybe my taste buds are changing!! Yay!) but the casserole was delicious. I have to say, having some potatoes – especially mixed with gooey, buttery cheese – was so yummy after all this time. I did feel like I got fuller faster though, which was interesting.
The Results
Overall, I ended up having about 1,856 kcal and 116 grams of carbohydrates yesterday. As far as portion sizes went, I had to do some estimating with the calories. But that is way higher than my goal of 50 grams daily. I was happy that I didn’t completely overdo it though.
In the past, this is what would have happened at that brunch: After going slightly off program at brunch, I would have given up for the entire day. In fact, after those first few sips of mimosa with orange juice, I would have thought — Well, I’ve just messed up. I went off program, so today is basically ruined. I may as well enjoy eating whatever I want before restarting again tomorrow morning. And then I would have gone on an unrestricted eating binge. Not just at brunch, but also afterwards right up until bedtime.
The GREAT news, however, is that I didn’t do that!!
Even though I was a bit off program at brunch, I still was mindful of what I ate. And more importantly, since I ate more than planned and was fuller, I didn’t need to eat as much the rest of the day. And what I did eat was back on program. Since I had more overall carbs, though, I seemed to retain more fluid. Or maybe it was also additional salt. Regardless — I know that the 3.4 pound gain this morning was NOT all real weight gain.
And interestingly, I was still in ketosis this morning (meaning I had positive urine ketones). They were very low, but still positive, which was a pleasant surprise. These means that even though I had a decent number of carbs, it wasn’t so much to kick me out of nutritional ketosis.
And this means that in the future, I may be able to incorporate more of some carbs into my diet. Anyway – today started another fasting day, and I hope to lose some of the extra fluid.
And I also hope I don’t crave those potatoes:)
Day #49:
Current weight: 284.4 lbs
Total weight loss: 21.4 lbs
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