Keto Diary: Week 2

Day 8: May 17
Last night, Nuri read my week 1 keto diary and he was very happy and excited with my progress and the fact that I'm liking this diet! This afternoon we did some grocery shopping and I was impressed with how the heaviest bag was filled with cauliflower, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, whereas before our bags would be bulky because of chips and yoghurt! For lunch, as usual, I made myself some salad. I also found a few pieces of mushrooms in the fridge, and I didn't want it to go bad, so I stuffed them some of last night's salsa a la Nuri and cheese and placed them on a pan, covered it and cooked it on low fire. I was craving some kind of meat this afternoon, but couldn't decide what to bring out of the freezer, so I decided to try some canned tuna in oil with my salad:

My lunch at 2pm: stuffed mushrooms with salad and tuna

I also had a small bowl of chia seed pudding right after my meal. I sent Nuri a photo of my lunch and he now wants to start a food diary too! I was very happy with this meal - I poured lots of lemon on the tuna bits, and the mushrooms were juicy and delicious.

We had an early dinner last night because we had an online class to attend to at 7pm, so I thought of something quick to prepare. All this took only 30 minutes to prepare and cook! I made Nuri's favourite food in the whole world - we learnt it from one of my Ugandan friends here. You saute some onions, toss in some tomatoes until a little juicy, then in the last 5 minutes drop some sliced kale and cover so it can steam cook. Nuri loves kale, so he was excited when he learnt this dish, and we began to call it the "Alex dish". But because Nuri would make it every single week (no kidding), sometimes with his twists, I told him we might as well change it to Nuri's dish. Anyways, we've been calling it the "kale dish" these days. I made that for dinner, but right before adding the tomatoes, I added some shrimps. Oh and on top of the tomatoes, I added about a spoonfull of last night's salsa a la Nuri, for some extra taste.  While that was happening, I made some cauliflower rice. In case I didn't describe the process last week - you saute some onions, add garlic if you like, and black pepper then add the cauliflower. Don't cook too long - 5 minutes should be enough or else the cauliflower will get mushy. And there you go - another quick and filling meal FULL of nutritious vegetables!

Dinner at 6pm 

Day 9: May 18
Remember last week when I said I'll let you know when a certain miracle happens? Well, it happened today! I was up and out of bed very early in the morning for a walk! Nuri has been regular with his morning runs and workout. Today, we found ourselves awake at 5am, and he thought the weather was nice, so I decided to give it a try. We just walked - up and downhill, then I came home and he did his run. I'm blogging this at 6:30 because I'm wide awake and full of energy!

I've been thinking about what this week's keto diary is looking like so far. Yesterday, I just shared what I ate. Last week I had a lot of reflections and that's because it was new, I was learning a lot and wanted to share. But now that I have a hang of it, I don't know what more I have to say! But maybe  I'll use this little space to clear out one misunderstanding I had. Last week, we learnt about keto snacks. But then I realized that between lunch and dinner, I never felt hungry! There was never a moment I craved something to eat. And that's because the high-fat food in our keto diet keeps us feeling full much longer. So Nuri recommended eating the fatbombs, for example, with the meal -  right after lunch/dinner like a dessert and that's what we've been doing. Each time we snack, our insulin level spikes - even the more so when we snack on carbs/sugar. So this has been one of the many plus sides to keto, especially since I'm just home all day - previously there was often the tendency to munch on chips or have cookies or a slice of cake with my afternoon tea but gone are those days! And with no effort at all! I didn't have to control/resist the urge - this keto diet simply just took those habits away.

Lunch at 1:30pm: scrambled eggs, hotdogs and tomatoes

At around 1pm, I felt I wasn't hungry and thought I'd skip lunch and just have an early dinner but then I realized I needed to eat so I could take my medicine. The quickest thing I could pull together was three hotdogs, two eggs (scrambled with cheese, mayonnaise, black and red pepper), and one tomato. I'll make up for the salad/nutrients this dinner - I'm planning to make something exciting!








At 5:30pm I started preparing some rice-less sushi! I learnt that you can make cauliflour mushy and substitute for sushi rice, but because we had cauliflower rice two days in a row, I decided to leave it out of the rolls. This is pretty much salad rolled in seaweed paper. I learnt that seaweed paper is very nutritious - it's rich in calcium (10x more calcium than milk!), copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, zinc, and vitamins A, B, C, D, E and K, among others. And ten sheets of seaweed paper is only 9 calories! This is amazing! I made ten rolls for us, and cut them in half and we dipped them in soysauce but while eating, I realized I should have sliced them smaller (typical sushi-bite size) because it was a little difficult to tear through the paper.

Dinner: rice-less sushi!

In case you're interested in the recipe, here's what I did: on each sheet, I first put a piece of lettuce, and spread cream cheese on it, then placed a thin slice of smoked salmon. Then I added a slice of cucumber, carrot, bell pepper and some avocadoes. With each roll, I press it inwards to keep it firm, and at the end, I dapped water lightly on the edge of the roll - this helps it stick.

Maybe an hour after dinner, we went out for a little walk - this was my first time taking an evening walk (well in the last two months, at least). This was refreshing, and helped digest this fun, filling and healthy salad!

Day 10: May 19
Similar to yesterday, I really didn't want to eat lunch but because of the medicine, I had to consume something. I sliced some lettuce and had some balsamic pork and carrots which we did not prepare.

Lunch: balsamic pork and carrots, and some lettuce

Dinner was fun! I made some zucchini pasta, pretty much like last Sunday but this time with meatballs. In case you're interested, here's the recipe:

1. The meatballs were ground beef, mixed with some salt, pepper, thyme and some grounded almonds. Mushed all together then rolled into little balls. I didn't oil the baking sheet; instead; I placed a few bacon pieces around the pan and it cooked in the natural oil of the bacon! They came out very soft and juicy!

2. Pasta - we spiralized six zucchinis. You need to cut them short before cooking, because they don't break as easily as pasta. We cooked it in the tomato sauce for maybe 20 minutes - until the zucchini softened a bit. So, the zucchini doesn't taste like your typical spaghetti. It doesn't become as soft. It's a little bit crunchy - I'm not sure if it will become softer if I boil it longer. That's something you can try!

3. Tomato sauce - I sauted some onion, with garlic, black pepper, turmeric powder, some jalapenos and mashed tomatoes. Very simple.

4. The zucchini pasta cooked in the sauce, and when the meatballs were cooked, I mixed them into the pasta/sauce so that it could soak in some of those juices.

5. Topped with parmessan cheese:

Day 11: May 20
Today's the last day to take meds! Nuri stayed home today - he prepared the salad, and then we also had some kuku sabzi (Persian omelet made with a lot of green, and topped with some walnuts) which, again, we did not prepare (it was just heaven-sent!).

And for dinner, I heated up some zucchini pasta leftovers from yesterday. I noticed that the zucchini was softer than yesterday - I think it's because it had more time to rest in the sauce. Left-overs in general always taste better because everything had time to soak in the flavours!

I've been thinking about how long this will go for - my keto diet, I mean. To be honest, I'm very comfortable and used to this already. It's been such a joy learning new keto recipes and trying them out with Nuri. These days because he's back in the office, I've been the one preparing dinner, and we laughed at how the tables have turned! He used to be the one sharing recipes and cooking up dinner, but now I'm the one surprising him with new dishes and taking the initiative to learn more. I really feel a difference - my energy is always up these days. Before, when I'd have a rice or pasta meal for lunch, I'd sometimes feel tired or sleepy afterwards...and I'd often crave maybe a sweet coffee later in the afternoon. Now, with salad or just protein for lunch, I no longer feel sloppy/lazy; I just feel really good inside - my digestive system feels healthy! I no longer feel guilty about anything I eat.

Day 12: May 21
Since I'm done with my meds, I didn't have to eat breakfast or lunch, so I decided to go without eating for as long as I could, and see if I can get a hang of the intermittent fasting part of the keto diet.

Lunch at 2:30pm keto burger

I've got to say this - of ALL the keto meals I've prepared/had in the last two weeks, and months prior, THIS IS MY FAVOURITE! I made a beef patty (similar mixture to the meatballs the other night), and grilled it. Then I got some cabbage - I spread cream cheese on the insides of the lettuce, then my burger was cabbage, beef, hummus, tomatoes, cheese, topped with another cabbage. It was so good!!! Generally I'm not a fan of burgers and it's usually because the bun is very thick, so I prefer smaller/slimmer burgers, so having cabbage to substitute the buns was perfect for me! Of course I couldn't hold this burger in my hands because the cabbage was slippery so I ended up slicing my bites with a knife but that was fine! It's pretty much like a salad but with a beef patty. The meat was juicy, the hummus was a refreshing extra; the whole meal felt light. I don't know if this happens to a lot of people, but I'm the kind of person who often wants a soda after I eat things like burgers and pizza - I guess it's because of the stuffy feeling afterwards, but this one didn't make me crave that. I look forward to experimenting with other greens to serve as the buns, or maybe next time we succeed at making keto cloud breads!

Nuri made dinner - he made cauliflower rice, and a chicken dish (shredded chicken breasts cooked with onions, garlic, some kale and tomatoes) and we poured a little soysauce over our plates before eating:

Day 13: May 22

Fridays is half-day work. When Nuri returned home at 12:30pm, after our hellos, the first thing he said was "I'm going to make ice cream". Keto ice cream?! I got very excited. Here's how he made it: first he whipped up around 600ml of whipping cream. Then he blended 3 avocadoes with half a cup of coconut oil. Then in the end, he mixed the avocado into the whipped cream with a baking spatula. We poured it into a tub, kept it in the freezer and we went out for a 3-and-a-half hour walk! This was our first real walk in over two months! The sun was out, but it was also breezy - it felt very good! We walked down to a beach, we just sat on a bench breathing in the fresh, sea air, soaking in some vitamin D, watching some people kite surfing. Going and coming - we walked a total of 8kilometers. When we returned home, unfotunately our icecream wasn't completely ready because we had to give it a turn so that everything freezes completely. Luckily, two days ago I filled some icecube molds with coffee, so I blended those and we had ourselves a very refreshing coffee shake!

Avocado ice cream topped with cinnamon powder

 Later, we tried the ice cream and I LOVED IT! The blend was light. It's SO amazing, how you can enjoy your favourite treats but in a healthy way - sugarless ice cream! We have stevia (this is a sugar substitute derived from plants, and is keto friendly, but neither of us like the taste, so we didn't use it but you can!) Of course, it's not your typical ice cream because it's sugarless, but the cream and avocadoes naturally taste really good. On our way back home, we stopped by a shop and found a 90% cocoa dark chocolate bar. We bought it (I mentioned last week, chocolate over 85% is keto approved), and we just loved it! I was very surprised with myself because I've never really liked dark chocolate, but I thought to give this a try and I was surprised that I didn't find it bitter like I normally would find dark chocolate. Does it taste better, the higher the cocoa percent? Or have my taste buds adjusted because I haven't had sugar in two weeks? Nuri told me that people who don't like dark chocolate don't actually like chocolate - because dark chocolate is pure/real chocolate (the higher it goes). If you like milk/white chocolate, it's because you like the sugar (those have less of the actual cacao). This made perfect sense! I can officially say I love chocolate!

Dinner at 7pm: shrimp sinigang

Apart from the iced coffee and few scoops of avocado ice cream, the only other thing we both consumed that day was our dinner at 7pm. I made sinigang soup (similiar to last Saturday's soup), but with shrimps. We also made some cauliflower rice to go with this.

Day 14: May 23
I didn't take photos of our meals today - lunch was salad, and dinner was pork and cauliflower rice.

And this wraps up two weeks of the keto diet. For now, I plan to strictly do another two weeks, but I will not blog the next two weeks. Instead, I'll blog recipes every now and then. Maybe at the end of my first month, I'll share some reflections.