I'd like to start my first post with a little background and what I would like to do with this blog. I am a chef and have struggled with weight my whole life, getting up to almost 300 pounds at one point. I have decided to journal my journey with Keto-adaptation coupled with my career as a chef. I did Atkins about 11 years ago and had great success, coming out of culinary school, and during my couple years after, I had gotten up to 297 pounds and was prompted by my mother to lose 100 pounds and I would receive $500 for my accomplishment. I went to town, went to the gym 6-7 days a week, even ran(which you wouldn't ever catch me doing) I discovered racquetball and would play for 3 hours without even thinking about it. Needless to say I accomplished my goal in about 8 months, got down to 184 pounds and was feeling great. I religiously followed the Atkins diet despite the judgments from others, but weight loss is weight loss, so I ignored all of them. Unfortunately the science wasn't as readily available back then and a low fat diet was still quite readily accepted as the dogma to lose weight. So many people would make the heart attack comment that many of us know so well. But I was fitting into a size 34 jeans again, and probably not since middle school!
Then I got lazy with my diet and the pounds came back on, I'll skip the details, but I recently got back up to 275 October of 2013. Sure I had halfheartedly tried to get back on the low carb bandwagon throughout that time period but my heart wasn't really into it. The carb addiction was just too strong for me to stick with it. I will most likely get into this later, but I do truly believe that carb addiction is what has fueled my weight struggles.
So in comes October 2013, I say I'm going to do it and my mind is made up. I know the Atkins routine and just before Halloween I embark on my weight loss journey once again. About a week after I start induction I came across a great app for my phone called MyFitnessPal and begin to journal my food intake on November 1, 2013. The program is great because you input your height, weight and goal weight and it will automatically setup your calorie goal, and nutrient goals, which are totally adjustable. So I began to log, mostly to keep my self accountable, and to avoid the carb creep that can invariably plagues us all. I did good and lost 10 pounds a month for the first couple months. As I did this I did not exercise, I didn't do anything different from my daily routine of going to work and coming home. I was happily burning fat and semi watching what I was eating, typically around 2200 calories a day with at least 70% of that being fat, and only 5-10% being carbohydrate. I typically stick to around 30 grams of carbohydrate per day.
I did have an issue with weight loss during the past 3 months and struggled to figure out what it was, I was losing but not as rapidly as I may have liked... kind of discouraging, but I have stayed the course. I often do research online which is a tool that I was not as readily afforded 11 years ago. And realized that perhaps that "Eat as much as you like" doesn't necessarily hold true. I have had much better success with keeping my calorie count around 1800 per day with the above mentioned ratios of 70% fat, 20% protein, 10% carbohydrate. I also believe that logging my food intake has helped me immensely to hold myself accountable and really ask the question if I'm actually hungry or not. I find that it is hard to get above 70% fat in my diet while still eating to enjoy eating, if that makes sense...? With a calorie count of only 1800 per day, often times closer to 1600, it's hard to eat for enjoyment as I often find myself doing instead of eating for sustenance. Don't get me wrong, I love what I eat, but it's different... I most generally don't eat more than 800 calories in a sitting, and that's stuffing myself, so someone who has in the past eaten to "feel" full or with emotions and just eating because I'm bored. It's a quite different experience and it's still taking some time to get used to.
As I mentioned earlier I am a Chef by trade and have been in the foodservice industry for 15 years. My job is pretty physically demanding and typically am on my feet for at least 9 hours a day, sometimes 12 or more. During dinner service, there is much walking, bending, spinning, turning, reaching and hunching over, nevermind the often times 120 degree heat of the hot line... Through my experience and knowledge I plan to share many of my recipes and techniques that I use quite often and find that many people may not know or have and would like to have access to. Look for me to share many of my favorites in upcoming posts.
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