Low Carb - the First Three Days

Let me just say that I am dating a genius.

I have a close friend that has done a ketogenic, or low-carb, diet before and was very successful with it.  When I talked about the daily allowance of carbohydrates, he had said that you looked at total carbs.  As it turns out, my girlfriend was right all along.  It's Net Carbs, which means you subtract the dietary fiber from the total carbohydrates.  So 20 Net Carbs a day is much, much easier to follow than 20 Carbs a day.

For example: Breakfast on Day One was four eggs and a cup of frozen mixed veggies in a tbsp of butter.  The brand of veggies I use has 6g of carbs in a cup, which starts me out over a quarter of the way into my daily allotment.  However, the veggies also have 3g of fiber, which makes it all come out as 3g of net carbs - so there's 17 left!  I'm very excited, as I was wondering how on earth I was going to meet my fiber requirements on the diet.  The good news is I found a fiber supplement that is 3g carbs and 3g fiber - so 0 net carbs - that I can use to supplement what I don't get.  My goal is to get at least 15g of fiber during the induction phase, which is usually done for 2 weeks, but I may take it a little longer because I definitely need some fat loss pretty quick.

One of the biggest challenges on the diet is to keep my fat where it needs to be, which is above my protein.  According to the diet, you should have more fat than protein in your diet.  To that end, eating food with more fat than protein has been surprisingly difficult - which is just another reason to love bacon!

After three days on the diet, I'm not really groggy or tired, I have been able to work out without problems, and I'm not really hungry.  I do miss mindless snacking that I had fallen back on while I was on a business trip (where I put on 20 pounds in just under 2 months!), and a lot of what I feel is just me wanting to snack, which I'm avoiding.  The 'carb crash' is supposed to hit me sometime within the next few days, but it soon passes.  Here's hoping I weather it well.

There are times that I really love the diet - breakfast more than any other.  Breakfast today?  4 eggs and a cup of mixed veggies with garlic powder, crushed red pepper, basil, and cracked black pepper with six (SIX!!!!) slices of bacon.  Did I mention the 1/4 cup of cheddar cheese on the eggs, or that I sauteed the veggies in bacon fat?  It was GLORIOUS.  The meal was 744 calories, which I don't worry about anymore - it was only 3 net carbs.

I'll report in on Monday to speak up on how much weight, if any, has been lost.  Keep your fingers crossed!