Today's post is slightly off the teaching subject, in a way. I guess I will still be teaching, but just about another one of my favorite things....FOOD!
The hubs and I have recently (5 weeks ago) started eating Ketogenic-ly. I am not an expert so if you'd like to read more "information" about it please visit
this site. Today's goal is to share a bit about our journey and how we maintained it while traveling recently.
Disclaimer: I have not done a ton of research on all of this and I am not a certified nutritionist so I am only speaking from what I have seen in passing, what my hubby tells me, and what has seemed to work for us.
A few weeks before starting Keto I had decided to get off dairy too cold turkey. I had been having some crazy bloating and stomach issues for a few months. Which was weird because I have eaten dairy my whole life and never had any issues, but just goes to show you how things can change. So I started just doing lactose free milk and it didn't get much better, so then I just stopped. No milk, no cheese, no dairy, only almond milk. You guys, the bloating stopped, my stomach felt soooo much better and my face cleared up! I have been going to the dermatologist since middle school and now I literally don't think I have to be on meds anymore! It was that good of a turn around!
So back to keto. We looked up keto recipes, made lists, went to the store, and spent the whole Sunday meal prepping for the week. Now I am not a chef or a baker by any means, in fact, I'd rather not, but it was actually fun to methodically think through what we were going to eat and how healthy it all was. Now some say Keto is not something you can maintain forever, some opinions differ. I am not getting into all of that. Our goal was to mainly try it for 6 weeks and see what the results were. I mean it wasn't night and day from how we were eating, it just made us more mindful of what we bought (like chips,bread for toast, eating out, etc).
We stocked up on eggs (no shocker there for us), bacon (uncured-no nitrates/nitrites), spinach (just be careful how much you can get kidney stones), broccoli, salmon, meat, pork rinds, etc. Here is a graphic for the types of foods they suggest.
Once the first week was over it was not so hard. I didn't lock myself in the room in the dark and rock back and forth screaming for cakes and bread, I only had one carb dream ;) haha jk. It really just ended up becoming a habit for us. I was able to learn new recipes, especially some sweets to cure the sweet tooth cravings. Now depending on who you talk to as well as with any eating regime it can be taken extreme or you can fall off the wagon day 1...we are more of the sitting in the wagon type of people. We are going to take it seriously and try to meet our goals but not dissect every little tiny thing. When we would eat out we did take our time to decide where it would be and if they had anything we could turn into Keto friendly food. For the most part it was rather easy. Which brings me to the whole point for today's post. How to be on the go with Keto. Again, I am not going in depth about the origins of Keto, or research, etc. This is mainly for anyone who has started and needs to travel and how you can possibly still stay true to the course even while traveling, where your diet could be sacrificed. Also, these are just ideas, they may not work for you. That's okay! Just merely suggestions.
We were traveling to Colorado. So our first leg of the trip would be about 8 hours. The second day about 5 hours. We had a large cooler and bought ice for the first half of the trip. We made sure our first hotel room had a fridge and microwave in it as well.
The night before we spent time preparing. We prepared: egg salad, Mcgriddle, and cookies.
Grab the egg salad recipe
here
Grab the Mcgriddle recipe
here (we used bacon instead of sausage)
Grab the cookie recipe
here (we left out the chocolate chips)
For snacks between meals we packed: almonds, protein bars (keto friendly), sunflower seeds, almond butter spread, pork rinds, and beef jerky.
We mainly snacked on the road and ate some of the cookies (mainly b/c I accidentally used salted butter for the cookies and it actually came out like little corn bread cookies haha-keto friendly of course)
We did stop at Mcdonalds for a quick lunch and had the burger without the bun, no ketchup, and add mayo.
Once we arrived at the first hotel we had the egg salad to snack on and we were able to eat the Mcgriddle that morning since the hotel had a microwave.
Once we arrived in CO, we were staying with his gma so making food was much easier! We still had leftover egg salad to munch on as well! For meals throughout the week we stayed the course!
Breakfast: eggs and bacon
Lunch: egg salad, rotisserie, burger no bun
Dinner: pot roast, raw broccoli and ranch, avocado, salad, radishes (this lasted two days or so from leftovers)
We snacked throughout the day on some of the items we had brought with us from above!
On the way home we didn't have the ability to home make as we did on the way to CO. We still had leftover snacks but we did have to stop and get fast-food once on our first leg on the way back. We just did what we had before-hamburger but no bun!
When we got to the hotel for the way home we were able to eat a fresh salad with veggies and hamburger meat with bacon and a fried egg on top!
We were fortunate to be able to stay with his gma and us be able to cook with her. However, we were so happy we decided to cook items before we left for the trip to be able to really watch our intake on the road, especially when it can be very tempting to not pay much attention to your eating.
Now I will divulge on our way home we stopped at Ihop for eggs and bacon, but once we got there we saw the new cupcake pancakes and decided to go for it. At first I was hesitant because, I mean we went to all this work all week to stick to our plan and now the last few hours of the trip we were going to ruin it?! But, no, it was not ruining it for us it was a moment of "live your life". We had made it 5 weeks AND a major road trip on our plan! We limited ourselves to 2 and we went right back to keto for the rest of the day/week! We just have developed the habits of choosing our food so the pancakes were not something that threw us over the edge like a wild animal that gets a taste of fresh meat.
Oh and yes they were worth it for a little cheat meal,no calories wasted there! :)
I am still not completely sold on high fat the true way Keto calls for it for long periods of time, but I also need to do more reading on it. Like I said above we aren't driving the Keto bus but merely just some passengers enjoying a new way of eating and if anything it is teaching us to think more clearly about our choices and when it is okay to indulge.
I will say I have enjoyed my face clearing up and I have also noticed I have had much more energy naturally and not so zombie like after eating!
Even if you aren't doing Keto, maybe you found some new recipes to try out and enjoy something different!
Have a BLESSED week!
