In Search of Health

Guilty! I’m a bit rubbish at this and with having a chronic illness, I should probably pay a bit more attention and look after myself.
For various reasons, I’ve fallen off the keto wagon again. And I can feel it. I’m tired, lethargic, located and my anxiety has rocketed. I’m not making excuses but attempting to do it on my own, having zero willpower and living in chaos are reasons as to why I’ve failed.

Next week I start my new job. I’m in my thirties, a mum of 3, have a myriad of health concerns and will be working a stressful, pretty much full-time, job. And as if all of this isn’t stressing me out, I’m also the most disorganised, I-live-in-chaos kind of girl.

I’ve actually resorted to searching for life hacks on Pinterest:

How to be more organised.

Become a morning person.

Life hacks for working mums.

I’m not going to lie, I’m usually all talk and no trousers. Full of good intentions and blah blah blah. But this time I’m really going to have to become quite regimented or I’m going to lose my head and end up unwell.

So, if you have any hacks/thoughts/ideas, pllleeeeeeaaaaasssseeee send them my way. I shall be creating morning and evening checklists, meal planning and enjoying my last few lie ins.

I have had some lovely food this week, I’m even getting brave at experimenting with recipes. Or, throwing stuff in a bowl then in the oven and hoping for the best. I’ve given avocado brownies and Keto coconut flour mug bread a go and been happy and impressed.

These brownies were nice. Quite dense though, and needed a little more sweetener so I won’t share my ‘recipe’ just yet. I’ll attempt another batch this weekend and see whether it’s an improvement.

This is my avocado and whole nut peanut butter breakfast muffin. I have been making mug bread with almond flour but since I’d ran out, I thought I’d give the coconut flour a go instead. Now I do not like coconut as a general rule but I know how good it is for your health and almost every keto recipe calls for some form of the fruit, so I’m trying to familiarise myself with it. Amazingly, this bread tasted nothing like coconut so I was very happy.

It is so simple to make:

Recipe

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp butter or olive oil

1 tbsp coconut flour

1 egg

Method

Mix all ingredients in a mug (make sure it’s microwaveable – I have made this mistake), microwave for 90 seconds and voila! English muffin like mug bread!

Enjoy!

So I started again and now that I understand keto more, I think I’m more eager to succeed. And with a weekend away approaching for Luke’s 30th, I’ve a goal in sight.

As I’m doing this on my own now, I need to try and keep myself accountable. I’m going to attempt to keep posting on here and social media. If people are watching me, I’ve got to do it, right?

Here was my lunch earlier:

Doesn’t look anything special but it was beaut. Left over roast chicken, halloumi fries, spinach and black olives.

However, what I’m most impressed with today is that I’ve fit in all of my macros. Woo!

When I first started in January, my main goal was just to stick to the net carbs but I now understand the importance of all macros and so have those to aim for too.

First day, take two: done.

So I jumped off the keto wagon. It was last week, Luke had had enough of it and I have no willpower to do anything on my own. I’ve been naughty yet also been good and managed to actually lose two more pounds.

HOWEVER, I’ve been feeling tired and lethargic again so as from tomorrow, I’m back on it. I say tomorrow, this is because Luke is currently in the kitchen cooking one of his epic Sunday roasts so I’ll demolish that first!

I shall be back with more of my random recipes and keto triumphs and tribulations.

Now, how do we think I’ll do without Luke being keto too? 🤔

Hi, I’m Kirsty and I’m useless!

I think I’ll probably post around 3 blogs today to catch up on the last couple of weeks. I have had every intention of writing said blogs but then baby brain has got the best of me, or baby has needed me or the boys have insisted that I analyse their train track with them.

Weigh in week 3 was super disappointing. I lost nothing. Nada. Nil. But apparently this happens 🤷🏻‍♀️ However, I carried on and have everything crossed for tomorrow’s weigh in. I am actually feeling better for keto though. I have more energy and I’m in brighter in spirits.

Boy no. 1 had homework of ‘measures’ this week so we made banana choc chip muffins. Totally not keto. Smelt delicious. Looked amazing. I purposely gave him plain flour to bake with so that even if I did become tempted, I couldn’t eat one anyway due to my coeliac disease.

⬆️ Look at what I resisted!

Luke is still being my in house chef. He’s still pretty awesome. I’m still trying to bake random things too, we have discovered some interesting bakes.

Here is a selection from my very own masterchef.

Okay, I’m hungry now. Off to get some munch 👋

There’s a few sad and upsetting things going on in my inner circle at present. Usually I’m one to allow my mental health engulf me and pull me down. Being keto is seeming to keep me more relaxed and logical. Yes, I am struggling, but, I don’t feel as though I’m stuck or I need to hide away.

I think one of the aspects of the way of eating which is keeping me motivated is just this ⬆️ I’m seeing myself as a project. And because I’m seeing improvements from such a small amount of time, with my weight, energy, mental health… I’m actually enjoying this journey.

I’ve never enjoyed the actual action of dieting or ‘healthy living’. I’ve always enjoyed preparing for it: meal preparation, nutrition research, meal plans, but then I’ve always fallen for that chocolate or that bag of crisps. I don’t feel overly restricted with eating keto, and I’m actually getting full without eating carbs.

It’s still very early days to see as to whether this way of eating is helping my EDS etc. But just feeling brighter in myself should have a positive outcome.

So if you’re undecided as to whether to give it a go, be it for weight loss or health reasons, I’d say just go for it. It’s really not difficult and there’s so much support out there.

Two weeks in and I’ve lost another 4 pounds. That’s 10 pounds in total! I feel better for it and my jeans fit better.

However, I think one of the biggest triumphs is my resting heart rate. I always have a high heart rate, it’s part of EDS, a comorbidity called Dysautomonia. It also comes with the inability to control my temperature, among other issues. My average resting heart rate is usually 100-103 bpm. Now, at two weeks in to the ketogenic diet, it’s as low as 88bpm. So it’s the upper end of normal but it’s actually classed as NORMAL!

I’ve had some really nice food this week, Luke really is quite a chef.

Baked egg in bacon.

Haddock and kale in a cheese sauce with roasted broccoli.

Peanut butter open sandwich with avocado.

Beef burgers, kale cooked in butter and crispy halloumi fries.

There has been more lush meals but I tend to get too excited and eat them before remembering to take a photo 🤦🏻‍♀️.

The weekly weight loss is a big motivation as well as seeing improvements in my health. Having a boyfriend that has culinary imagination and ability also helps!

Today is a bad pain day. I had the urge to drug up, uptake all bad pain coping mechanisms and hide in bed. But I’m a mother, so one must plod on. My day became productive in the acts of laundry, washing up and baking bread instead.

I did the usual scan of google and Pinterest to find a decent recipe, and the ignore them completely and ‘wing it’. This time it paid off. I had read enough to understand that I should separate the eggs so as to create bread fluffiness (technical term) and that I would need hella amounts of eggs.

Here is the recipe:

I know putting sweetener into a load of bread seems daft but it kind of suppresses the egginess (yes, another technical term). The only issue I have found is that the loaf isn’t big enough, although I’m pretty certain that if I had folded the eggs in more carefully, it would have risen more.

Overall, I’m pretty pleased that I’ve managed to create a low carb loaf of bread on a bad day. I think Luke is pretty damn happy that he can have some toast too!

I may not be able to cook but, miraculously, I have always been able to bake.

As I’m still craving the sweet stuff, I decided to have a go at baking some muffins. They’ve turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself, and are approximately 4g of net carbs each.

I had to bake them without eggs because we had ran out and I was too impatient to wait until I had bought some. I wanted muffins NOW.

So firstly, here’s how to make pretend eggs 🤣

1 tbsp of chia seeds + 2 tbsp water = 1 egg.

This recipe calls for 4 eggs so that would mean 4 tablespoons of chia seeds. Once you have mixed the seeds and water together, pop the bowl in the fridge for around 15 minutes or until it becomes a slimy (egg) texture.

Recipe: (also includes a tsp of baking powder. This is a very important element that shouldn’t be forgotten, unlike me when I put this recipe together.)

Method:

Mix the flour, baking powder, vanilla essence, eggs and coconut oil to make a smooth paste.

Add in the double cream and sweetener and mix.

Lastly, add the frozen blueberries to the mixture. You can also mix in the yoghurt at this point if you so wish, or, you can add dollops of yoghurt to each portioned out muffin as I did. It depends whether you want a super creamy muffin or a creamy top to it.

Bake at 170c for 25 minutes.

Send me pics if you give it a go!

(Use silicone muffin cases like mine. Save the planet 🌍 don’t be a monster).

First weigh in after staring on New Year’s Day… And I’m 6 pounds down! Well happy!

This has now given me more motivation. I’m still craving chocolate like crazy but with a sweet tooth as sugary as mine, I think it may take a while.

I had hoped that my joint pain etc would have reduced by now but perhaps that’s another thing that will take its time. But for now, I’m a happy girl and ready to smash this week