Meatsuit Re-Root: I’m a Loser! (Of Weight)
Hi everyone!
It’s been a minute since we’ve had a Meatsuit Re-Root on this here blog-space, and there’s no time like the present.
In the spirit of playful fun we embrace here at The Quill, I’m going to say this next part loud and proud:
Hi, my name is Justin Wallace, and I’m a loser.
To date in the Year of our Lord 2019 I have lost 25 pounds (11.3398 Kilograms). For those keeping track at home, that’s a lot. For most, that is their entire weight loss goal.
It hasn’t been an easy journey to this reach this point, which for my weight loss plan is the one fourth mark. I’ve bounced around from diet to diet and have lacked the necessary motivation to stick with anything for long. I felt defeated in 2018. I lost so much that year, bounced around from job to job for so long, that the thought of sticking with a diet was laughable at best. My weight and health suffered for it. I fell all the way down into the 260’s when I was working in a fulfillment warehouse walking 20 miles a night. I fluctuated pretty hard after that: Lose a little, gain a little more, lose a little, gain a lot more. In the end, I climbed back up to 300 lbs when the dust finally settled.
No amount of cutting out fast food, or adding in exercise, or forcing myself to get a job which required frequent physical labor made a lasting difference. My body had made a decision, and that decision was to stay in the 290’s no matter what.
Then 2019 happened. I landed my current job. They began treating me (and paying me) like I was a person worth rewarding. So I found myself with more money that I’ve become accustomed to, with less time than I’d like for working out, but one heck of a great opportunity to use the stability of weekly pay to make something of myself.
So I researched. Wife in tow, we dug deep into the world of dietary restrictions. I’ve lost weight before, but it’s never stuck because I’d never fixed my eating habits. Whenever the fad or the exercise faded, the weight reappeared. This time around, we knew the enemy, and the enemy was me.
The wife attacked my daily intake. Neither of us even suggested changing how much I was eating. We both recognized that I would need a diet which would allow me to glut myself without ruining my weight loss. I’m just too set in my ways at this late remove (I turn 35 this year), and asking me to quit overeating cold-turkey without lap-band surgery didn’t even merit discussion.
So we settled on a Green-Keto diet. Ketosis is not new, as far as diets go. Atkin’s is a word many are familiar with, but ketosis has undergone a significant transformation since the early aughts. Eating Atkin’s long term is fraught with peril: you can miss essential nutrients, and the diet itself is horribly monotonous. You consume vast amounts of calories as well, so when you cheat (and you will), you kick yourself out of ketosis and pack all that weight you’ve lost back on before you can even right the ship.
That’s where Green-Keto comes in. On this diet, you consume VAST amounts of vegetables. Seriously, you turn whomever provides you with fresh produce into The Godfather. You bend the knee, you kiss the ring, and you pay whatever they ask. They make no offers you can refuse. My wife sees the dollar signs in the eyes of our local farmers market owners whenever she arrives. They know. They know.
Just eating any old vegetable isn’t enough though. To maintain ketosis with frequent and repetitive consumption of vegetables, you have to curate what you eat. Potatoes? They’re right out. Carrots? Fugit’ about em’. Sweet potatoes? DANGER WILL ROBINSON! Not all is lost and there are some lifelines you can cling to.
Remember Spinach? That delicious dietary hero of a thousand dishes? Go. Nuts. Stuff as much of it in your face-hole as your face-hole can accommodate. Mushrooms? One of the tastiest things on the planet which goes well with any meal and is butters BFF? You can eat them whenever you want, in whatever keto-fashion you choose. I eat them religiously. I pray at the fungal alter. I offer up my buttery oblations upon the golden skillet of their divinity.
Cabbage, Broccoli, Avocado, Asparagus, Zucchini, Green Beans. Seriously. How many meals could you make with all these choices? It’s…
*furious mathing*
*calculator begins smoking*
*dive for cover as calculator explodes*
… yeah, many. The number was many. Let us not speak of it further, lest we lose more calculators.
In all honesty, what green keto (or green low-carb if you’ve no intention of staying below 20g of carbs) offers is the flexibility that other keto-based diets do not. Armed with all the usual suspects (nut milks, nuts themselves, cheeses, meats, and eggs), your meal options explode until you cannot even believe that you’re eating every single meal on diet.
My lunch today is steamed chicken, green beans cooked with bacon and butter, and carrots. It will taste DELICIOUS. I know this because I’ve had this same meal yesterday. The reason it’s being duplicated is because we cooked a huge amount of it, but I could have eaten any number of other things. One of my favorite ‘cheat’ meals is to go to my local McAlister’s and order a grilled chicken salad with avocado. Axe the tomatoes and crutons, and you’ve a keto lunch to be proud of. Dinner last night was eggs, bacon, and a slice of 7.5 net carbs bread with butter on it.
I stayed under 40g of carbs yesterday AND I ATE WHENEVER I WANTED. Hungry? Rolled up some lunch meat with some shredded cheese. Still hungry? Snacked on some spinach with ranch and cheese. I think they call that a salad or something, I dunno. I’m not hip with all the newfangled words kids use.
Every day I wake up more energetic than the last. Every time I step on the scale, I do so without fear. I don’t have to worry about my weight going down, because I am assured that will happen. I know for a fact that if I stay on died, I’ll lose another two to three pounds this week.
Eating green keto has freed me from the shackles of my hunger. I eat in a way which prevents the majority of my health concerns. More important still, I get to eat in a way which doesn’t feel like I’m dieting. It doesn’t feel restrictive. It just feels different. And…
Different feels great.
Ketofully,
The Unsheathed Quill
