How I Drink Craft Beer and Still Lose Weight - Part 3

             While intermittent fasting alone (see Part #2) produced amazing results, I wanted to increase my success. The “Keto” diet and low-carb lifestyle allowed to increase those results dramatically. The ketogenic or keto diet in its purest form is very strict and hard to follow mainly because it involves adopting a diet that is 90-95% fat. This will be incredibly hard to live up to, actually impossible if you are a beer drinker. I like to think of ketogenics of an ideal to strive towards, rather than a strict system which must be followed. The general idea remains similar, you want to get your body transitioned from using carbohydrates as its main fuel source to fat. When you deprive your body of carbohydrates, it will enter a state of ketosis, where your body will be converting your fat into usable energy. This may take an initial transition period of a few days. Making the bulk of your diet filled with more fatty foods like meat, eggs, nuts, and oils got me to ketosis. Our bodies will simply use what they are given, and consuming more fatty foods as opposed to sugary and starchy foods will make your body designate the majority as its main fuel. Ketogenic and low-carb diets vary in carbohydrate restrictions but also vary in results. Low-carb diets can allow up to 100-120 grams of carbohydrates a day to start experiencing results. This simply means cutting out most sugar out of your diet. A candy bar or stack of pancakes alone will bring you up close to this limit, and it’s wiser to spend this allowance on the carbohydrates you will pick up from the vegetables and nuts you will consume to get plenty of fat and nutrients. 

          Same way with the intermittent fasting , I moved towards a balanced goal incrementally. Starting at 100 grams of carbohydrate  each day, I eventually lowered it each week until I happiest with the results while still not being deprived. Consuming 20 grams or lower of carbohydrates each day yielded the best results, but staying with it often left me feeling deprived with few meal choices. It involves mostly consuming coconut oil, avocado, MCT oil, and super fatty foods to stay around the 90-95% fat intake level. While I experimented at this level for some time, I found that staying somewhere between 20-50 grams of carbohydrates much more livable, especially so I can enjoy a beer once in awhile. I feel more liberal to increase this limit recently after I got close to my goal weight. In order to stay feeling healthy, I found that I really favored incorporating peanut butter and green leafy vegetables, both of which can get you to 20 grams a day alone.

             A lot of people think that the keto/low-carb lifestyle is all bacon, eggs, sausage, and steaks. That’s a great way to start out, but keep lots of veggies in there is just as important. The nutrients, vitamins, and fiber you get from green leafy veggies is a must if one is sto stay with it long-term. I often call this lifestyle, the “salad life” because in order to stay feeling healthy but still have results requires a lot of salad-based meals. A bed of leafy greens, topped with some more colorful veggies, seasoning, protein of choice, all covered with some fatty dressing. At first, I gravitated towards a creamy dressing like Caesar or Ranch, but nowadays I just use a healthy dollop of olive oil and vinegar do the trick for me.

            I even experimented with Keto-vegetarian for some time so I could see how my results would change with less meat intake. I focused more on nuts, avocados, and oils and cut out the meat. To have no sugar or meat can be a bit much, but it is possible. After some time though, I switched back because i felt deprived. I like to have a lot of food choices and found it hard to get a sufficient calorie intake.

             The low-carb lifestyle does involve a lot of ingenuity in trying to defeat what our ideals are of what a meal should I be. What are the most popular parts of an American meal? A sandwich and a side. With low-carb I don't have the luxury of a bun or two pieces of bread as a vehicle for your meal. And the side will most likely be a green vegetable. Doesn’t sound as fun, right? But I did find ways to recreate this standardized “sandwich” type of meal we all grew up on. I started with lettuce wraps which can be effective but lack the durability of bread. There are also bread substitutes low in carbohydrates which can help suffice but they often stagnated my results after consuming them. One of the best options for the sandwich was to make a “blender” bread from cashew butter and eggs (ask me for the recipe!). I have also made “buns” by frying eggs in a round mold, taco shells by frying cheese, and pizza crusts from ground sausage and chicken. All amazing options and it is fun using my imagination. I am always looking for new and ingenious ways to make my food more exciting. I am in this for a long haul. This is not a diet, but a lifestyle. It’s not a sprint, but a marathon. I don't have another cliche to use right now, but that’s the idea. You want to incrementally impose change while still being excited about eating. I love beer and love to eat as well, and I found a life-long method to do both while losing weight. Combined with intermittent fasting, my body turned into a fat-burning machine. If you can get your diet to be getting most of your carbs from veggies, nuts, and the occasional beer which means cutting out most other sugar, flour, grain-based foods, I feel like it will create a balance that is effective for weight management. There are still more useful tools I added to get me even more optimal results. Stay tuned!