Misconceptions

I was thinking of all the diets that I tried in the past and how often I failed at them because it was really hard to stay consistent. I even remember one diet where I was told to not overeat, but just eat till you’re content. I tried that for awhile and it was not enough food, though I didn’t fill myself up, I ended up eating the same amount of food that I would eat regularly, just spread throughout the day. That diet did nothing but prolong the inevitable, 

which was me getting back to my bad eating habits. 

I’ve tried quite a few diets.....

like the juicing diet, all out salad diet, lean foods diet, the GM diet, and so on.

I even tried to add exercise......

It didn’t help. 

I even convinced myself that since I was working out I could eat more.

I always ended up leaving the relationship of the diet and running back to my first love. 

Unhealthy foods.

Eating unhealthy comes natural to me, yes I could easily spot a place that would be deemed terribly bad for you, it’s like a radar I have. I guess you could say that I have a knack for these sort of stuff. 

I was telling Jason the other day that if I were to be the person to try and convince people to start eating meats and high fat foods with low to no carbs, that they would look at me and laugh. I wouldn’t be able to convince a single person even if my life depended on it. I mean like, how would I even start to tell them? So I thought about it and came up with the misconceptions that people have about changing the way you eat and think about this diet/lifestyle of eating.

What people often think the diet is

Baked Salmon with veggies,

Baked Chicken......with veggies!

But it's not like that at all. What it really is, is meat and fat. 

What I mean is that you don't have to fear the fried foods, because you need the fat. Fat is energy! So that means that you could eat these wonderful creations that are all wrapped up in little bundles of goodness that God made. You could eat stuff like:

Fried Fish

Fried Chicken (it looks like it's calling you)

Steak 

And of course we can't forget a Filipino favorite.....

Crispy Pata

You mean I could eat Crispy Pata and not feel guilty about it?!?!?! 

That’s like a dream come true!!!!! It can’t be real, but it has been confirmed by Jason that fats are good for us as long as our carbs are lower than 60 grams a day (in general). 

Now, it doesn’t have to be fried foods. But you definitely need to keep in mind your fat intake, that is that it needs to be high intake. So as a rule, (and I’m totally making this up) a stick of butter a day keeps the Dr. away. 

Here’s what’s on the menu:

BREAKFAST

Juicing 15g

LUNCH

Ground Beef , Bacon, zucchini squash, onions, mushroom, tomato, eggplant, garlic

Total of 30 grams

Snacks

Oranges, Cheese

Total of 10 grams 

DINNER

Deep fried beef steak meat (0g)

Week one is about to wrap up for me, and I feel pretty confident for the weeks to come. Things are beginning to look a little brighter.

Ketogenic: New or Old?

The first thing people ask me when I tell them I'm living a ketogenic lifestyle... 

Insecure Husky person: "huh?"

Me: Well... I'm reducing my carbs...

Insecure Husky person : You're not fat!

Me: I'm doing it because it's healthy

Insecure Husky person: Isn't it just like Atkins or Paleo diet? Isn't that just a gimmick?

Me: Well.. I'm glad you asked. It's actually not new it's been around since after the flood. I believe God intended us to eat mostly meat and some vegetables. It was actually common knowledge back in the 1800's that carbs were bad for you but lost it's value when scientist began isolating the effect and not seeing the body as a whole unit.

Insecure Husky person: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZ

A French physician  and retired military surgeon name Jean-Francois Dancel made an astounding observation with the animal kingdom. He noted that carnivorous animals are never fat. and that only the herbivores were "so uncouth in form from its immense amount of fat, feeds wholly upon vegetable matter- rice millet, sugarcane,..."

Think about that... have you seen a obese tiger or jaguar? Yet we do see the hippopotamus, pandas, elephants...etc

A British doctor William Harvey, in 1856, said this 

“Knowing too that a saccharine [sweet] and farinaceous [starchy] diet is used to fatten certain animals and that in diabetes the whole of the fat of the body rapidly disappears, it occurred to me that excessive obesity might be allied to diabetes as to its cause, although widely diverse in its development; and that if a purely animal diet were useful in the latter disease, a combination of animal food with such vegetable diet as contained neither sugar nor starch, might serve to arrest the undue formation of fat.”

The research is overwhelming and to think I was eating unhealthy this whole time. I hope this gives people some insight on the authentic way of eating healthy.

Here are a couple quotations from my research to those interested.

In 1907, James French, in A Text-book of the Practice of Medicine says, “The overappropriation of nourishment seen in obesity is derived in part from the fat ingested with the food, but more particularly from the carbohydrates.”

In 1925, H. Gardiner-Hill of London’s St. Thomas’s Hospital Medical School describes his carbohydrate-restricted diet in The Lancet: “All forms of bread contain a large proportion of carbohydrate, varying from 45– 65 percent, and the percentage in toast may be as high as 60. It should thus be condemned.”

“Weight loss, fat loss, and percent weight loss as fat appeared to be inversely related to the level of carbohydrate in the diets,” Young reported. In other words, the fewer carbohydrates these men ate and the more fat, the more weight they lost and the more body fat they lost— exactly what Adiposity 101 would have predicted. What’s more, all of these carbohydrate-restricted diets, Young said, “gave excellent clinical results as measured by freedom from hunger, allaying of excessive fatigue, satisfactory weight loss, suitability for long term weight reduction and subsequent weight control.”

Books that I read:

Knife, Fork Muscle Book I - Brooks D. Kubik

Knife, Fork Muscle Book II

Knife, Fork Muscle Book III

Why we get fat and what to do about it - Gary Taubes

The art and science of low carbohydrate living - Jeff Volek & Stephen Phinney

Cooking Mama

I decided to post again because I am probably going to be MIA next week. My week will be consisting of striving to pass the Emergency Nurse Pediatric Course and spending time with family for Thanksgiving. So... Happy Thanksgiving, in advance! :) I'm so excited for Thanksgiving, guys. My motivation to not eat anything bad for me the past three weeks is because I'm saving my "cheat snack" for a nice generous slice of pumpkin pie. With a big ol' glob of whipped cream on top. I'M SO EXCITED.

Thanks, Boromir. I'll try to control myself.

It is near the end of week 3 of this ridiculous diet and I already lost 8 lbs. Hooray! Progress. I've been stepping up my cooking game the past three weeks which makes my meal prepping so fun and something to really look forward to. Here's just a few new things that I've tried since my last post. 

Some days I just go for something simple like Babybel cheese for a snack. For simple meals, I've taken to liking...

{ Cream of chicken soup }

{ Jalapeno salmon lettuce wraps }

{ Uh, self-explanatory. It's right there, guys. Lol.}

& if I have time, I get to make more complicated meals. My favorite so far being...

{ Chicken enchilada stuffed spaghetti squash  w/ avocado }

I also had the pleasure of making a low-carb dessert for Ann's birthday yesterday!

{ Low Carb Brownie Cheesecake }

This one was surprisingly delicious and was so fun to make. I've discovered some (weird) new ingredients that replaces normal carb-containing baking components. Like almond flour. And "Swerve". What in the world. Hahahah. It's awesome! I'm so excited to try new recipes. Especially with my fellow diet bloggers! Keep finding recipes, guys. Most likely, I'll try it out :)

Cravings

It’s been only four days and so far so good. As for me I can resist all things, except temptation. I have been offered candy from my co-workers and what I find interesting about that is I am not really a sweets type of person. I am totally big on main dish meals, not so much the dessert. I am usually able to resist sweets. 

But now I find myself wanting and craving it, the funny thing is I only want it now because I can’t have it. It’s like sin, if you tell me I can’t do something, I’ll prove you wrong. I’m like, “wait, woah, woah, woah….. take it easy Jeremy, you can do this. Remember, you don’t like sweets that much.” Thank God I was able to say no thank you to my co-worker, since it’s only my first week, but it is funny to sense the temptation so early on this diet.

The struggle is real and will increase as the days progress. 

So in my last blog I forgot to mention why I am joining this group in changing the way I eat. For one, it’s for health reasons. I went to the Dr.s office and got a check up. The Dr. said that my blood and all that other stuff were normal, but it was near the high mark. Basically I was inches away from being considered unhealthy. Another reason is that more importantly, I wanted to implement discipline into my physical health and daily routine. I’ve been considering cutting down my intake for awhile now and also want to shed some poundage. I remember last week at breakfast while scarfing down a waffle at Original house of pancakes when we as a group (the new group consisting of Fred, Vince and I) decided to start the diet/lifestyle. I was sitting there eating my waffle when the guys said, “Come on, let’s all do it together!”...... I paused for a moment and thought to myself what I would be giving up. Things I’ll miss; rice, desserts, pastas, hamburger buns, tacos, burritos, mac and cheese (looks like it's just going to be cheese and cheese from now on), factory made products like twinkies (they just made a come back too, oh well), lasagna, starbucks, having coffee with my cream and sugar, sugar, and the list goes on. 

However I started to think about the things that I won’t miss; shortness of breath when going upstairs, struggles trying to macgyver tying my shoes (that’s a real struggle, those who know feel my pain), pants ripping when bending over (yes, it has happened to me), belt buckle jabbing my stomach when I sit down, sitting down for rest because I’m too tired to stand, aching joints in my knees and cankles (yes I put cankles, because……. yeah), cankles, being tired after a long day of work, salads 

and the list goes on. After that I thought to myself, “well, you wanted to lose weight, here’s your chance” and I responded to the guys, “Well, I guess it’d be nice to see my jawline again.” With that we made an agreement to start the lifestyle change.

Report:

It’s only been four days and I am already experiencing weight loss. As of today I went from 235 lbs to 230.8 lbs. Praise the Lord! That’s a total of 4.2 lbs, that's almost a pound a day. I didn’t expect to lose any weight already but I am definitely not complaining. I always weigh myself in the morning, because my body should be empty of all foods.

Here is what is on the menu today

Salmon, Broccoli, and Cauliflower 

Total of 15 grams of carbs

SNACKS

Oranges and Cheese

Total of 20 grams of carbs

New Kids on the Blog!!!

Soooo... I'm one of the three new converts that Jason convinced to make this change in my eating habits. Actually that's a lie..... I'm actually not a new convert, call me a re-dedicated member. That's because I have done this diet/lifestyle of eating before, in fact that was like 10 years ago. I was doing it for about 2-3 years of my life and saw dramatic changes within 4 months. Before I started the diet back then, I was probably 205lbs and dropped down to 175lbs. Waist size was a 36, and then I went down to a 28. I was really excited back then. Now you may be thinking, "why did you stop?" Long story short, I feel in love with carbs again and watched the pounds add on. 

So now, I am rededicating my lifestyle of eating to eat healthier. I know this diet works and the best part is that I am doing it with my Church family. Hearing our founder (Jason) speak about it to me last weekend and telling me about the science behind it was like hearing the gospel clearly for the first time. I knew it worked because I did it back then, but I never knew why it worked, because I never understood the science behind it. 

But now because everything has been clarified, I fully understand why it worked and what I must do now to continue on this path that I once started a decade ago. 

Currently I am 235lbs (yes I know, shocking, especially since I don't like sharing this type of info to ANYONE. But I think it's time that I do, to help track my progress.) So here's my breakdown. 

Waist: 50"

Hips: 42"

Thighs: 28" (Yikes, That use to be my waist!!)

Neck: 17"

This is day three for me and so far this is what I have been eating.

Steak and Eggs 2 grams

Steak, Bell Pepper, Onions, and Tomatoes with Olive oil, salt and pepper. 

Total Carbs: 21 grams

Steak and Eggs, with Onions, garlic and mushrooms. 

Total Carbs: 17 grams

These are my dinners that I ate the past three days. 

As for snacks, I had cheese strips (1.1grams), and oranges (11 grams)

I do juicing, but I've guestimated the carbs around 15-20 grams. Overall I keep under the 60 grams of carbs a day. I find myself getting hungrier because of the fact that I have cut so much carb intake. But I know that in the end it will benefit me. 

What I like most about being a part of this group is the encouragement from each other to stay on track. As Christians we are to build one another up (spiritually), and I do see this as a secondary means of building up in using encouragment to help us physically as we can all benefit from it for having healthier lives. I can already count how many times we'll go to eat Korean BBQ together. :)

Goodbye winter body!

Ketogenic Diet - Day 2

Hello-

I'm joining this blog as a contributor to chronicle my journey on this diet.  From what Jason tells me, this low carb diet is like magic!  It entails limiting oneself to a 60g daily intake of carbohydrates, which means limiting the sugar and starches (goodbye, Sour Patch and Belts!).  Replacing these carbs is an increase in meats and fats.  Supposedly the body will adapt to this change by converting the fats into energy, and thus burning the body weight/fat over time, instead of storing it, a result of carbohydrate consumption.

I started this diet yesterday, November 16, and obviously I haven't seen much of a change.  As of this post I weigh 204.6 lbs with a waist size of 38 inches.  I don't have a set timeline for how long I plan to do this but hopefully I'll see results in time.  I want to start this diet for health reasons (obviously!), specifically to lose weight and slim down.  I'm off to a good start so let's keep this ball rolling!

Here's my lunch for the next three days (I had chicken and salmon yesterday for lunch and dinner; and chicken and steak today for lunch and dinner):

Ketogenic Diet? Why?

I'm not much of a blogger, but I thought it would be a great way for me to document my progress.

I'm not trying to lose weight. I'm not trying to look good.

I'm doing it for two reasons:

1. It's healthy
2. To get stronger

I'm already starting my third week and to be honest.... it's not that hard.

Steak every day yo!

No More Juicing For Me!

With that being said, you would think I would be eating normal now, but somehow I ended up joining the low-amylose diet LOL.  All thanks to Jason reading a book called Why You're Fat and What To Do About It, we decided to start eating low-carb and high-fat (protein).  That means no more rice (which is so hard when you're asian and had rice all your life), no more bread, and no more sweets (bye bye sugar filled Starbucks!).  But that also means I can eat as much bacon as I want! PTL! I'm seeing the light in this diet. lol. I was looking up into this diet and it's called Ketogenics.  This info graph will show the whole background of it:

 

(https://www.pinterest.com/pin/66709638208154965/)

So this is why we're doing this diet.  I should've even call it a diet.  It'll be our lifestyle now.  

Btw, I added a few more guys to this blog because they'll be joining us on this journey.  Jason converted guys haha. 

Carbs. Everywhere.

Dear Blogspot,

It's been 3 weeks since I've started the low-amylose diet.

I am still alive.

Praise the Lord. 

Lol. I know I seem a bit dramatic about it. But seriously, praise the Lord for sustaining me through, what I call, physical and mental torment. This change in lifestyle has opened my eyes to how often I unknowingly eat things that are bad for me. Especially at work.

ESPECIALLY.

AT.

WORK.

All it takes is a simple act-of-kindness by a co-worker to buy bagels or donuts for the whole department. "Just have one!" "They're fresh!" "It's still warm!" "We deserve it after the night we had." And boom. Before I knew it, I accidentally had a bite of a donut because I really did have a hard night and I lost all memory that I was on a diet.

It was so good! That was the best bite of a sugar donut I ever had!

However, a couple minutes after that bite, I actually did feel kind of odd. I don't know if it was I haven't had carbs in a while or if it was just because of guilt... but my stomach felt all weird. I felt a bit nauseous. In general, I felt kind of lousy.

So I tried to remember how I felt after eating that, and it became somewhat easier to stick to the diet. Cooking has become a real pleasure. I'm enjoying looking through Pinterest for recipe ideas and I'm so excited to try one out. Lately, I've just been winging it, nothing special.

{ Al pastor, scrambled eggs, homemade salsa }

{ Pot roast, grilled brussel sprouts }

These dishes actually filled me up AND they were good for me. Not too shabby.

I miss a lot of foods. Boba, cookies, macarons, french fries, baked potatoes, hash browns, sandwiches, nutella, honey nut cheerios, fruity pebbles, ramen, pie, chips, lavender syrup, apple juice, Oreos, fried rice, rice.... The list goes on. But I'm starting to think about them less. (Cake.) And starting to focus more on foods (Pretzels.) that I could actually eat that are so much better for me. (Cheesecake.) I mean, I already lost about 7lbs. (Waffles.) Seeing results on the scale has definitely added some encouragement to continue. (French toast.) Maybe even for another month. (Twix.)

We'll see what happens! The struggle is still very real. But I'm enjoying it with Ann & LeighAnn :)

When there's a will, there's a way.

It's been 10 days since we started this diet. And man, it is really a test of my will. I almost gave in when my mom visited me the other day. My gigantic dog broke our gate, escaped the backyard and gave me a hard time coming back home. I ran outside in my pajamas and had a neighbor help me bring him back. It was so stressful. When I came back inside, my mom's Starbucks vanilla latte was staring at me and whispering promises of fulfillment into my ears. I literally stared at it for a few minutes, debating whether or not to take a sip. But I thought of Jainah and Ann and walked away. At church, I didn't even look at the food (they had CAKE!) and when I go grocery shopping it's so hard to pass by all the desserts. I was at Sprouts with Jainah and she sighed, “Oh man, I've never even had a chocolate covered almond before, but that looks so good...” LOL and of course, I just stared at the ice cream longingly. It's been so long, mi amor!

Last night I went to the gym for the first time in a long time. Needless to say, I am SO sore and embarrassed by how weak I am. On a brighter note, I am really excited to get back to doing zumba. I love dancing! But I need to implement some strength training in there to gain muscle and not just cardio. I've committed myself to working out at least 3 times a week at the gym. I really admire Ann and Jason for their commitment to eating healthy, being strong and disciplined in working out. Ahh...why can't they live closer?! Thankfully our gym is less than 10 minutes away. When we lived in Lakewood it was literally across the street. So when I go work out I won't be gone for more than 1 hour and I'm happy about that. This past year it's been very difficult for me to leave Kevin and Evangeline in the evening because Evangeline had a super late bedtime, had so many medications, and Kevin was always tired. I wanted him to come home and rest, not babysit and do medication rounds while mommy was gone. Since she's getting older, I have less guilt knowing that she's just going to be put to bed and while I'm gone. Plus, instead of sleeping at midnight bc of medications, she's gonna be sleeping like a normal baby at around 8-9 pm bc she only has one medication left! Hooray!

I actually just got my body fat percentage done by the gym and I have 37% body fat! HOW GROSS! Ugh! I hate thinking that almost half my body is fat! And I definitely don't want Evangeline to be like that when she grows up, so eating healthy and working out is much more of a priority than before. The person said I have to lose 30 lbs in order for me to be within a healthy BMI. I'm down with that! I can do it! Just gotta have accountability, and that's what Jainah and Ann are for! SISTERHOOD OF THE SHRINKING PANTS, GIRLS! Losing that weight, day by day....

Green Street

I was supposed to make an entry yesterday, but I forgot (oops).  So I'm making one today :)

This week is almost over and so far it's not too bad.  Maybe because I'm just replacing one of my meals with juice and still eating for the other two meals lol.  But I've been making healthy choices and it's super hard to not order a mac and cheese or stuff like that lol.

I thought I'd share what I drink:

 

This is a drink called "Greet Street" from this juicing place in Los Alamitos called Simply O and it consists of:

• Spinach
• Kale
• Cucumber
• Celery
• Apple
• Parsley
• Lemon
• Ginger

When I first made this at home I thought it was alright, but the more I drink it the more I'm actually liking it.  AND I drink up so many vegetables from this drink so it's good!  The only bad thing is I get really hungry still lol.  So that was my meal for lunch and for dinner I just had a salad and soup.  I thought it was the best thing ever.  It could've been because I was super hungry though haha.

WHY.

Hello!

My name is Jainah, & I have never went on a diet. Lol. 

I am currently a co-sufferer of the low-amylose/PCOS diet with LeighAnn. The only difference is... my goal is not pregnancy. Hahaha. I just want to see if it's even possible for me to change my eating habits and try to get healthier. Why this one? Because LeighAnn. Lol. We both have similar health issues, and I figured this would be the one to try out to see if it makes a difference in my own health condition. Plus, my MD said to just try to see if it makes any difference. (Okay, doc.)

So, I started the low-amylose diet on Nov. 1st, and on Nov. 1st I already had a source of carbs. LOL. 

What was it? Communion.

Lol, just kidding. That obviously doesn't count. No diet is gonna get in the way of partaking in the Lord's Supper with my local church! 

We were celebrating a friend's birthday during fellowship hour. One thing led to another, and I found myself with a piece of cake in my mouth. Womp womp. So I ended up feeding the rest to my one-year-old godson. (Sorry, Ann. LOL.) We went out for dinner later. Pho. Ate all the meat, no noodles. (Sorry, pho-making people.) Afterwards we went to ShareTea. Nope. Can't have anything. I felt guilty just smelling the sweetness of the place. (I miss you, oolong milk tea.)

Sigh. Ever since, it's been so exhausting putting in so much effort in trying to figure out what to eat. I had no idea how often I eat foods that are so bad for me. I won't be surprised if I go through a day not eating just because I've lost the will to eat. Hahah.

It's starting to get better, though. I'm making a list of recipes that I could make so that I can plan out my trip to the grocery store. In the meantime, I'm just enjoying my turkey burgers, romaine lettuce, and eggs. 

Seriously, that's all I've been eating here. 

HOW SAD IS THAT. IT'S EVEN MAKING A SAD FACE.

Lol. The struggle is too real, guys. 

Anyway, I think that's it for my first entry. I still can't believe this blog exists hahah. 

To be continued... 

PS: I suck at blogging. I take a terrible amount of time putting words together. This whole blog took maybe... 40 minutes. LOL. But I will try my best to update as much as the other girls! If I don't pull through, they'll probably text me and tell me to post something.

PPS: I'm hungry.