I started this morning off with another shrimp and cream cheese omelette. So far this is my favorite breakfast, but one I save for weekend brunches.
I created a new recipe today, Lamb Paprikash, which is really very easy. I browned two pounds of lamb, then melted 2 T. of butter in the drippings and sauteed 1/2 of an onion and 1/2 of a sweet red pepper. When the vegetables were soft, I added 1 T. of tomato paste, and 2 T. of paprika (1 each smoked and regular). Then, I added the meat back in with about 1/2 cup water, mixed it up and let it simmer for a few hours (the longer it simmers, the better it tastes). This would be really excellent served over mashed cauliflower, but I just had a bowl of it plain as a snack to tide me over until dinner.
Dinner was roast chicken, and a sliced avocado.
And in order to reach my goals for today I needed some extra protein, fat and carbs, so I had a dessert of 1.5 ounces of nuts and half an ounce of dark chocolate.
Today I started upping my carbs by 5 grams, so my menu today is 20 grams--(the past two weeks I have been around 15 grams). So, still using the recommendations from Lyle McDonald's book, The Ketogenic Diet, my ratios for the next week will be:
2400 calories
150 grams protein
190 grams fat
20 grams carbs.
My weight has not gone down very much in the past two weeks (only about two pounds), so my calorie level should remain about the same, my protein can go down a little, my carbs are going up a little, and the fat is remaining the same.
I am going to start cutting back on the dairy fat in my diet. There are lots of pure paleo options for fat that can be substituted for dairy fat, and now that I can add a few more carbs to my diet, I thought I would add avocado to my daily menus. I will be cutting out the cheese and butter, and keeping the pastured heavy cream for now.
Observations during this past week:
I have not lost very much weight, which was initially disappointing, but I chose to do this the week before and the week of my period. Weight loss is a serious bitch when you are having massive hormonal fluctuations and water retention, and I honestly feel pretty good that I even stuck to it in the midst of all of the crap that comes with TOM...I have had several days where I felt very nauseated, and two days where I felt very dizzy--one night, I was so dizzy I thought I was going to pass out. I have also had headaches and general tiredness pretty much most of this week. Now all of this could be the "low carb flu" that some people experience, but up until now, I have never experienced this when cutting carbs. I find this interesting, and wonder how long it will last. By all indications I am in ketosis--however, I have read that it takes up to three weeks to become keto-adapted. Perhaps this next week will be more telling.
One other observation that I have had is that drinking alcohol on a ketogenic diet is painful. I had a large rum and diet cola and am still suffering the consequences--last week, I had a couple of glasses of wine, and felt pretty awful the next day as well. So my advice is to be cautious when consuming alcohol. If you make low carb choices, it probably won't kick you out of ketosis, but it will pause your weight loss, since your body will burn alcohol before ketones--and it may end up hitting you harder than you expect. I definitely was much more inebriated than I expected after the one drink...another thing that I have read about but never experienced.
Changes for the coming week:
I will start eating meat more for breakfast this week, and begin to cut back on the eggs. My meals will consist primarily of beef and lamb with chicken a couple of times this week.
UPDATE: Upon reflection, and multiple test menus, I have decided against sticking so closely to beef and lamb at the exclusion of some of the higher Omega6 meats. In the long run this is definitely what I want to do with my diet, but looking over my data for the past two weeks, and trying to use lamb and beef more in my test menus, I find that it is WAY easier to use pork shoulder and chicken legs with butter and avocado as added fats. Since this is an experiment, I want to stick as close to my ratios as possible, if this means eating pork, chicken and eggs more for the first few weeks, so be it.
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