Do not take short cuts

Thought that I have noticed about people who start KETO but give up early.
Too many people try to "KETOize" all their existing recipes.
I think the best way to go about it is to eliminate all the processed/artificial/substitute stuff.
If you spend the first 2 or 3 weeks just eating "normal" foods (meat, eggs, cheese) and cut out carbs (potatoes, soda, sweets) then you have better success.
I was not a big dessert guy before I started Keto, so I did not miss that part of my daily food intake. But my wife (Debbie Barfield Dreyer) does like a little sweet after dinner. After many failed attempts by me to make a Keto dessert, she has found that 1 little sugar free Reese's peanut butter cup does the trick.
I think that if you feel a potion will get you into Keto faster, then you are doing it for the wrong reasons. I was 290lbs when I started this in the middle of June. I have lost 50lbs FOUR different times before, so I know I can do it, I know it takes time, but I also know that I have to do a diet that I can do for a LONG time.
My 4 other times that I lost the weight all took me about 90 days to lose the weight. (I have the spreadsheets to show the progress), but surprisingly I do not see any of those charts going past day 100. I always seem to "give up" after 13 or so weeks.
When I did the vegetarian diet, I was able to do that for 19 MONTHS, but the last year of it was at a fairly constant weight, and by the end my "diet" was Cheese Pizza, Chocolate Shakes and Doritos!!! Basically all the bad food that "never had a face".
I am at 7 months of KETO today and down 61 lbs. The lowest I had been on ANY diet in the last 20 (yes TWENTY) years was 232. Today I was 228 when I stepped on the scale. I do not feel that I am anywhere close to giving up.
It REALLY helps when you are doing the diet with someone else. Debbie is having great success on this as well and it motivates me to keep BOTH of us on it.

I try not to comment on newbie post about Breakfast Bars, and NET Carb bread. My thought is WEIGHT (yes spelled that way on purpose). There are so many recipes out there that are low in TOTAL carbs, just use those. Get your body OFF the craving for carbs. Think about what the fat in your body is from. It is from that 3rd piece of birthday cake you had at your Nephews 4th birthday party 3 years ago. Your body knows that the food provides energy and you should save that extra for a rainy day. And how does it store it..... FAT..... Keto is teaching your body to remember that it saved Timmy's birthday cake as fuel to be used later. Well let it find that path. The more carbs you put in your mouth, the less your body needs to go find the fat it stored before.

About a month and a half into Keto, I began to realize that I was not out of breath when I walked up stairs.... I was not sleepy at 2pm.... I did not sweat in game 3 of bowling (yes, I was so fat that BOWLING made me sweat). Once your body realizes that it has been carrying YEARS worth of extra fuel with it, you will be amazed at how much you can do without the need to eat "carbs for energy". I have ENERGY to spare!! (and I am 48 1/2 years old)

Ramblings of a very happy KETO guy. Who happens to have influenced 3 people in his office to try it. The number of times I get stopped in the office to have someone say "WOW, you are half the man you used to be" is amazing. People I have worked with for over 15 years, say I look younger than the day they met me.

So realize that this is a LONG journey and if you START by taking short cuts, you will never learn the true way of dealing with REAL obstacles that life throws at you.

Chicken with Cream Sauce

I was being a tad creative today for lunch.
I decided to make chicken with a sauce.

Here is what I did
I took out 2 LARGE chicken breast and defrosted them at least to the point of not being FULLY frozen, they were still fairly solid on the inside.  From frozen it was 16 minute defrost cycle in microwave.  I cut them in half to make 4 thinner pieces.  Salt and pepper on them and put in 2 lightly oiled glass dishes.  Put in a 400 degree oven and waited to prepare sauce.  I have oven thermometers that I use, so I was watching for the temperature to get to about 100 - 110 degrees (about 10 minutes of cooking), before I started the sauce.

Sauce ingredients
2 Tablespoons Butter
2 cloves of minced garlic
some onion powder (I did not measure, but it covered up my garlic)
4 oz cream cheese
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup shredded parmesan cheese
10 cherry tomatoes - quartered 
1 tablespoon basil (I had some in a jar in fridge)
2/3 cup diced ham (that was about how much I am guessing I had, I did not measure)
Salt and Pepper

I put the butter in a sauce pan and set on medium heat. 
When butter melted I added the garlic and onion powder.   Let that sauté about 2 minutes. 
I then broke up the cream cheese and added it in. Wanted to give it time to melt a little. 
I stirred with a whisk to help it along. 
Once it melted a bit I added in the cream and the parmesan, and kept stirring to mix it all together.  After a minute or so I added in the basil, stirred that up then added the ham.  Let that cook a minute.  Then added tomatoes and salt and pepper.
All told the sauce only took about 5 or 6 minutes to make.  I had prepped the ingredients waiting for the chicken to get to the right temperature.

When my thermometer read around 135 (I think this was about 15 minutes of cooking at that point)
I opened the oven and poured the sauce evenly over the 2 dishes.   They cooked for another 5 minutes until temperature was 165.   
Took it out of the oven and let it cool a few minutes.

it was REALLY good, loved the creamy texture and the basil added a nice flavor.

Great results

Finished my colonoscopy and the doctor did not find any polyps.   This means I do not have to go back for 5 years.

Food for today has understandably been light.

I made scrambled eggs with the sausage gravy for Debbie.   I have eaten 2 avocados now that I am home. 

Deb is going to go go out to dinner with her mom, so I will not be feeding her.

Food for Deb today

Completely forgot to take pictures today.

Made a simple lunch for Deb.  Two All Beef Nathan's Hotdogs cut up into little chunks with 2 or 3 ounces of Velveeta cheese cut up.  She was able to just melt in microwave.

Tonight I made her 2 Bacon Wrapped Chicken Tenders with Mozzarella cheese inside.

I think she took some of the pie in to work, don't think it went over any better there.  So DOH, no good dessert from me.

The reason you see no food for me is that today was my prep for a colonoscopy.  If you read the older posts in this blog, I touched on my Mom's battle with Colon Cancer.  It took her life 3 years ago on Valentines day.  Due to her illness I had my first test in October of 2015 (4 months before she passed away).  They found a few pollups, so I am on a 3 year plan.

The prep and process is not bad.  Do not be a hero.  If you have any family history of Colon cancer, PLEASE go get screened.

My mom had issues for many years and I think we as a family did not get her checked in time.

Sausage Gravy and Boston Creme Pie

Tried 2 new recipes today.  1 success, 1 FAILURE

Sausage Gravy was very good.  It made enough for at least 4 servings.
We did it over scrambled eggs.  I think I will make some cheddar biscuits next time to put them over

I tried to make a dessert for Deb.  Her favorite is Boston Creme Pie, so I tried the recipe from the New book I got for Christmas.  I am not a big fan of BCP, so I really did not care.  I was not sure what the stiff peaks of the egg whites should be.  I was not sure what consistency the custard was supposed to be and I was not sure how melted the chocolate should be, Other than that I had complete confidence in my ability to make the pie.

It looked good, but Deb did not like it.  I don't think it set well.  I have blood work in the morning, so was not able to sample it.  I will try it later in the week after it sets in the fridge more this week.

KETO 2019

I am almost 7 months into my Keto journey.  I started at 290 on June 18th.  I currently weigh 230.  I think my goal weight is 215.  To accomplish that I think I have to get down to 200 so that I have some wiggle room to get to a stable weight.

I will be going on a cruise starting the 19th and will be using this site to post my pictures of the ship and the food that I eat, and the tempting foods I pass up.

This journey has been great, because my wife is along the ride with me.  She is down 50 lbs so far. 

If you are new to this blog, you can look back at 1 of my past diet adventures.  Vegetarian for 19 months.  This KETO is slightly (just so slightly) different than that.

Debbie's birthday

I picked up some veggie breakfast sandwiches and tried them.
They were GREAT.  I think I could easily become addicted to them.



Bryan brought in donuts  (THANKS!!!!)


It was raining and ugly looking outside, so we stayed in and I made a salad.

Almost got some green stuff in my salad, I will have to watch that next time.

I surprised Deb tonight by inviting a dozen of her friends and family to dinner at Palm Court.
I started with a whiskey sour.


Had 2 rolls  (can you tell bread is one of my weaknesses??)


More salad  (caesar's this time).  Turned down the offered anchovies.


I ordered the veggie platter with baked potato.  It was so big, that I did not eat all of it.  There was broccoli, spinach on a tomato, mushrooms, asparagus, yellow pepper, red pepper, carrots and zucchini.



We had red velvet cake for dessert (thank you for picking it out Lynda).