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| Are you sick and tired of being fat? Why not try Keto! |
Are you sick and tired of being fat?
Have you tried and tried to ditch the pounds, but they just won't budge?
I spent what felt like a lifetime searching for a weight-loss diet that worked better than Keto, but I never found one.
In all honesty, I did discover a few tricks to make low-calorie diets work as well as low-carb diets do, but to pull it off, I had to lower my carbs.
Surprised?
This year, Weight Watchers is tweaking their Smart Points program. The zero-point list for the Weight Watchers Freestyle Plan now includes some low-carb foods, like:
- real eggs
- all types of fish
- chicken and turkey breast
- plain non-fat yogurt (including greek-style)
In fact, due to the way the new plan is constructed, you can even eat low carb and stay within the points structure.
Just focus on zero-point foods like:
- chicken breast
- fish
- and vegetables
Weight Watchers is still fighting the dietary fat issue, of course. This is why poultry breast and fish are used as the foundation of their new plan.
Saturated fats still come with a high-point value, which means that butter and cheese are limited and red meat isn't zero points like white-meat poultry is.
These types of misunderstandings aren't going to stop until the U.S. government chooses to change their dietary guidelines for the better of humanity, but at least Weight Watchers is making it easier for people to lower their carbs and get real results now.
The good news is that you don't have to pay for a Weight Watchers membership to reverse your current condition.
You can take personal responsibility for what you weigh right now and do that for yourself, so in this post, I'm going to introduce you to a Keto Experiment that can literally change your life.
All you have to do is let go of your outdated notions about dietary fat and carbohydrates and be willing to put low carb to the test.
Ready?
Okay. Let's do this together!
Are You READY to Go Low Carb?
Lots of people put low-carb diets to the test, with good results. You don't have to actually be in a certain mindset for a keto diet to work.
However, the benefits of living the low-carb lifestyle will only be temporary if you are not ready and willing to change your life.
Yep. I'm going to hit you over the head with that same old tired cliche:
- Low Carb is Not a Diet.
- Keto is a Lifestyle
There is nothing wrong with chasing happiness.
It's human nature to want a life filled with:
- attention
- acceptance
- approval
- and a sense of importance
Today will always be filled with suffering.
Needless suffering.
So are you honestly ready to do something different?
That is the ultimate question that you have to ask yourself right now. Do you clearly understand that what you're doing right now isn't working for you? And are you ready to do something else?
Be someone different?
If so, then come along and I'll show you how to put Keto to the test.
This is a Personal Experiment
Taking personal responsibility isn't easy.
It requires you to put out a little effort by trying various ideas to see if any of them are useful to you, or not.
This is what going on a weight-loss diet is actually about.
You're testing a diet-author's ideas.
If they work for you, and you're happy eating and living that way, then you have the opportunity to choose whether to make one or more of that author's ideas a permanent part of your life.
A permanent part of YOU.
For this challenge, I'll be drawing on my own past experience with low-carb diets to incorporate into the challenge what worked for me.
I'll also save you a lot of time by leaving out what didn't.
So there is no authorship involved. But the following test will give you the data you need to choose whether low carb is right for you.
Until you make that choice, what you're doing is only an experiment. It's not really a way of life yet because you haven't made that commitment.
You haven't decided with strong feelings that low carb is useful for you and what you honestly want to do. So please go into the following experiment with that understanding:
- This isn't a weight-loss diet.
- This is a personal experiment.
- This is a challenge.
- It will get you into ketosis very fast.
It will introduce you to some of the benefits you can receive by changing how you eat.
It will ask you to consider if your prior ideas about weight loss and yourself are true, or not.
And it will ask you to consider if everything you thought you knew about being fat and losing weight is right or wrong.
This is an Invitation to Experience the Low-Carb Phenomenon
The introductory stage of a low-carb diet doesn't come with any commitments attached. This is a personal experiment only and should be perceived and experienced in that way.
More particularly, this is an invitation to experiment with and experience an opposite dietary perspective than the one you have been subjected to up until now.
Most people believe that to lose weight you need to eat a low-fat high-carb diet and that eating lots of fat will cause you to gain weight. These ideas have been shoved at us for decades, but that doesn't make them true. The majority is not always right.
You have to make up your own mind.
Today, we are going to take personal responsibility for our beliefs and put them to the test to discover what we can find out about them.
Shall we?
For this particular experiment -- which will last just two weeks -- you're going to do the complete opposite of what you've been told.
Instead of eating low-fat high-carb, you're going to eat a high-fat, low-carb diet. This means no breads and cereals, no fresh fruit, no milk, and no yogurt.
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| The Keto Diet is backwards to traditional dieting advice. |
We are doing things backward for this challenge. Remember?
Some of the above foods can be returned to your diet later on. I'm just not including them in this experiment because they will prevent you from going into the state of dietary ketosis.
Dietary ketosis is extremely important to the overall effectiveness of a low-carb diet. Ketosis drastically reduces your hunger level and is what triggers your body to start burning fats for fuel, instead of glucose.
Ketosis isn't something you have to be concerned with for this experiment because if you keep your carbs low enough, you will automatically go into that state.
The idea behind the following test is to make the metabolic switch as comfortable as possible for you, so this diet will be extremely limited in food choices.
Keep in mind that the limitation is only temporary.
Once you decide if low carb is right for you, or not, then you can investigate all of the low-carb options that are available to you.
I realize that eating lots of fat, such as regular ground beef and avocados, can be frightening if you're coming to the low-carb table from a low-fat mindset, but this is why the following experiment is set for only two weeks.
Within two to four weeks after starting a low-carb diet, you'll know if this is what you want to do for the rest of your life.
For Two Weeks Eat Nothing But the Following:
I'm going to keep this test extremely simple. That way, if you decide that low carb is not the right choice for you, the investment in time and effort will be small. Simple also makes success easier because you're less likely to make a mistake starting out.
For the next two weeks, this is what I want you to eat:
Protein Foods
The protein foods to focus on include:- whole eggs
- fish, chicken, pork, beef
- hard cheese like cheddar or jack
The same goes for hot dogs or polish sausages.
These carbs can add up fast, and it's best to save the carbs for salads and vegetables.
Since fresh meats are virtually carbohydrate free, there is no limit on the type of protein foods you eat or the quantity.
Poultry skin is fine if you like it.
However, a lot of people are gluten intolerant, and don't know it. If you happen to fall into that category, dairy foods like cheese might be problematic and cause unnecessary inflammation if you eat too much.
For that reason, it's best to keep your cheese consumption as low as possible during this two-week experiment. You don't want anything interfering with the results.
Dietary Fats
Pure fats are carb free. They are not limited. You can enjoy:- real butter
- assorted oils
- coconut oil
- mayonnaise
- shortening
Some fats have a small amount of carbohydrate, so these need to be eaten with care:
- sour cream
- cream cheese
- heavy cream
- full-fat salad dressings
Not being afraid of fat doesn't give you a license to gorge. Small amounts of carbs can add up over the course of a day.
On the other hand, using that non-fat zero-carb zero-calorie salad dressing spray is going to the opposite extreme.
You need a little bit of fat in your salad dressing to keep your low-carb salad tasty, but salad dressing is like cheese or heavy cream. It's easy to go overboard fast.
The calories you take in over the course of a day have to be accounted for and used by the body, and preferably, a bit short, so your body will turn to its fat stores to make up the difference.
If you eat all of the fat your body needs to function during the day, the body will have no reason to withdraw from your fat stores.
While this experiment isn't a weight-loss diet, we don't want you to gain weight or you won't be able to make a viable choice for you at the end of the test.
The way you set the rate of fat loss on a low-carb diet is to raise or lower your fats.
So go ahead and fry your eggs in real butter. Use heavy cream in your coffee. And saute your chicken and vegetables in olive oil. Just be mindful of how much fat you're using.
Low-carb foods still contain calories that matter.
Salads and Vegetables
Salad and vegetables is where the bulk of your carbs come from on this experimental low-carb diet. What has worked best for me in the past is to eat the following per day:- 2 cups of salad
- 1 cup steamed vegetables
OR
- 3 cups of salad
OR
- 2 cups of steamed vegetables
If you keep to the above recommended daily amounts, you won't have to count your carbs for this two-week experiment. The carb count is automatically built in.
Appropriate vegetables must be low in carbs to make the non-counting trick work, so you won't find some things you might be used to eating on the following list.
These vegetables are the ones that worked best for me at 20 carbs a day:
asparagus
avocado (one-half maximum)
broccoli
cabbage
cauliflower
celery
cucumber
green beans
lettuce
mushrooms
onions (including green)
peppers
radishes
sauerkraut
snow peas
spinach
summer squash
tomatoes
zucchini
Some people find tomatoes and onions troublesome, but I'm not sure if that's a Nightshade problem, or not.
At one point, I gave up eating tomatoes, but it didn't have any effect on the inflammation I was experiencing, nor my weight loss. The inflammation for me turned out to be celiac disease and was coming from consuming gluten.
If you do have Nightshade sensitivity, you'll want to check out our post on that. The list of nightshades is quite extensive and they can be found in places you might not be aware of like spices and mayo.
You might also want to read our article on why low carb diets are not automatically gluten free.
Herbs and Spices
For this challenge, you can just use herbs and spices as desired.The carb count is very small.
However, keep in mind that onion powder and garlic powder are actually dried onions and garlic, rather than an herb, so they can be problematic if you use too much.
Dried onions, for example, are quite high in carbs.
Try to stick to simple herbs like:
- basil
- cilantro
- dill weed
- minced fresh ginger
- oregano
- black or red pepper
- rosemary
- sage
- Italian spices
- Mrs. Dash Herb and Garlic Seasoning Blend
- seasoned pepper
- lemon pepper
Most label serving sizes are unrealistic when making a recipe (the data won't be right), but they are accurate enough for a per-serving analysis.
Low-Carb Condiments
The least amount of condiments you use, the lower in carbs your daily total will be, so go very easy here. Stick to small amounts of:- sugar substitutes
- mustard
- vinegar
- soy sauce
- lemon or lime juices
- sugar-reduced ketchup
Keep it super simple for right now.
Beverages
I've never tried to diet without some type of diet soda around.Never.
Even when Dr. Atkins said to not use aspartame. I had to have something to drink besides just water.
While drinking enough water is super important on a low-carb diet, you want this experiment to be as pleasant as possible, so don't try to go cold turkey if you're used to drinking sodas. Switch to diet soda instead.
Other choices include:
- salty chicken or beef broth
- club soda
- coffee and teas
- unsweetened flavored seltzer water
- mineral water
- Crystal Light
- diet cranberry juice
And make sure that you get the "diet" variety, as the light version contains quite a bit more carbohydrate.
Use your common sense here.
Three Additional Tips
Tip # 1: Do not get onto the bathroom scale.
This is a challenge to see if low carb is right for you. It is not a weight-loss diet.What you're looking for is an increase in well-being, drastically reduced hunger, and less bloating and indigestion than you had before.
In two weeks, that's about all you can expect to get. An increase in energy takes more time for most people.
Tip #2: Don't avoid salt.
A low-carb diet is very dehydrating, which is why you need to drink a lot of water. Your kidneys will flush out sodium along with all of that water, so don't avoid salt.While most Americans do eat too much salt in the form of convenience foods, you won't be eating many of those.
Combined with the power of low-carb to get rid of water retention, you can end up with severe leg cramps and feel exhausted if your electrolytes get out of balance.
Tip #3: Eat if you're hungry. Never go hungry.
Switching from a glucose-burning metabolism to a fat-burning metabolism is a major body event. When you run out of glucose, your mind will start screaming for sugar. If eating a snack doesn't do it for you:Put a quarter of a cup of mayo into a 6 ounce can of tuna and eat it.
I don't know why this works, other than it's super high-protein high-fat, but it does work. It's the best way to kill cravings. Don't let yourself get hungry, especially during the first week.
This is not a weight loss diet. This is a low-carb challenge. I cannot say that often enough.
Feed the beast, and it will eventually switch into burning all of the fat you're eating -- plus more.
After the Experiment -- It's Time to Choose
Once you've given low carb two to four weeks to do its thing, it's time to decide if you want to commit to a low-carb diet.
However, eating Keto doesn't mean you have to eat at 20 net carbs a day, or less, for the rest of your life.
I certainly don't.
Today, I eat between 60 and 120 carbs a day, which is more than enough to keep me satisfied and feeling normal, but at that level, I do have to watch my calorie intake.
The idea is that what everyone else in your environment is doing might not be the best way to keep YOU fit and trim. You have to make that choice for yourself, and this low-carb experiment is a great tool to help you make that decision.
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