When I was officially diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, Ralph my husband, has been finding ways for me to lose weight. You know ever since I got married, my weight-gain has been crazy. Originally, we assumed that I was looking huge because of my humongous-size Myoma at the time, which I eventually had to go under the knife for just to have it removed. I remember getting very excited after the surgery in high hopes of having a smaller tummy as a result of removing the tissue that grew the size of a 7-month old baby inside my womb! But to my dismay, months after the surgery, it seemed I have ballooned even more!
Optifast
To deal with my Diabetes which we found out months prior to my Hysterectomy, my Endocrinologist suggested I take Optifast, a nutritionally complete very low calorie meal replacement proven for weight loss.
The product was very effective. I lost so much weight in the first few weeks of just consuming their choco-flavored shakes and not eating anything else.
Optifast is not available just everywhere. I had to order some online and sometimes I would talk to the pharmacy store managers to ask them to pre-order for me because apparently, where I live, I’m the only one who has ever asked about Optifast.
One box of the choco-flavored Optifast shake costs Php1,200 and it only contains 12 sealed packs. I was doing 3 choco shakes a day so one box only lasts me 4 days. It was kind of pricey, but really worth it.
To be clear, there are other flavors, not just Choco. I have tried Vanilla and Strawberry flavors but in order to stay with the program longer, I needed something that I really like the best and my taste-bud preferred the chocolate flavor.
So I was gaining back my self-esteem because of the praises I’m getting from the people who see me around town, not to mention the fact that I was back to wearing my old clothes that never fit me anymore. I was having the time of my life!
But you know how it is, when you see the rest of your family members chowing down their usual meals with rice and you’re just there sipping your shake, forcefully pushing the thought of how good the smell of their lunch, dinner and snacks are at the back of your mind, eventually, you’re bound to really lose the fight.
The only winning moment that came out of my being on Optifast was that it has successfully lowered my blood sugar. I felt like Optifast was the catalyst to getting my diabetes in the control state.
Working Out
Because I decided to start eating solid food slowly again, I put the weight back on gradually. I did not really stop my Optifast shakes. Instead of consuming three shakes a day, I only take one for breakfast and I was back to eating normal lunch and dinner, of course with in-between snacks! (I know!)
I have always wanted to go to the gym and work out but our work schedule always got in the way. It wasn’t until Ralph’s triglyceride result came back and it wasn’t to his favor that he really suggested we take the time to actually leave our office (it’s just in our room by the way) and go to Jumpbox Fitness Gym.
To date, we have been working out for four months now but my weight loss is so drastically slow. To make matters worse, I even gained some from lifting weights. We really work out religiously except when one of us get really sick that we can’t even leave the bed.
I felt like there was something I wasn’t doing right between the workouts and boxing because the weighing scale wasn’t always very friendly to me.
Keto and Intermittent Fasting International (KIFI) Facebook Group
I have been chatting with my good friend Charisse Fatima on Facebook. Her husband is also diabetic and because I was a living proof that Optifast has worked wonder not just on my physical form but on my blood sugar as well, Charisse wanted to know more about it. But two weeks after we communicated, I found that she has added me to the KIFI group on Facebook.
Initially, I was not really interested. I have heard about Keto but I had no idea how it actually works. All I know was that Jillian Michaels do not recommend this kind of diet to anyone. But I tried browsing the group content every now and then. I was so amazed at the transformation photos uploaded by the members of the group. Curious, I decided to read through the information in their units tab about the allowed food and the restricted ones. I realized that if you simply have time to prepare foods that belong to the allowed group, you won’t feel like you’re even on a diet at all!
At first I thought low carb diet and Keto are synonymous. Apparently, they’re not. Keto is a form of Low Carb. It’s so low carb that the body goes into Ketosis. It’s a process where the body burns off fat to produce ketones for energy. You can be low carb and not Keto, but Keto will always be low carb.
It took me another week before I actually decided ‘what the heck, let me do this!’. I still had one box of Optifast left and I had even announced on my Facebook page that as soon as my Optifast ran out, that I would switch to the Keto diet. Well, I didn’t wait for that because on July 15th Monday, I also jumped on the bandwagon!
Water Weight Off
I was amazed at how fast I lost weight in the first week! Apparently, it’s really normal because people in the group report the same thing. And would you believe that I have not had rice in almost a month now? Uh huh! Yeah, no rice and no pasta!
My shopping list now has a lot of Almond flour, Coconut flour, Cauliflower, Kewpie Mayonnaise, Equal Gold etc. I’m just really lucky that my second cousin who’s staying with us here in the house knows how to prepare my Keto foods. Whatever food we see in the KIFI group, I immediately tag my cousin so she can take down notes on the recipe and instructions on how they are cooked. I’m sorry, but I don’t know how to cook that well.
I also order Keto treats from this wonderful lady who owns the Keto Mom PH page. She makes really delicious Keto pastries.
And to date, I’m now heading on my 4th week on Keto and after the water weight being gone, my weight loss has become slower but It doesn’t really bother me so much because I am more happier on my non scale victory; my old clothes when I was still in Boracay from the year 2007 along with my civil wedding attire can now fit me!
I have also done my first 20:4 intermittent fasting the other day and I realized that it helps me really determine when I am actually hungry from being just in a habit of eating at a particular time of the day.
The only downside to having this diet is that I don’t have enough energy for my high intensity workouts. My trainer now reduces the number of repetitions on my routine which makes me feel a bit left out when I’m with my friends who are so full of energy.
Will I stick with this diet?
Once I have reached my goal weight, I will gradually just switch to a low-carb diet and not really Ketogenic. It’s a relatively simple plan to follow however, carbs are the obvious missing piece of the diet puzzle. It’s a worry that so many food groups are absent from the diet. In Keto there are good fruits that I can’t eat which I know are actually beneficial for my health. In the mean time however, I will patiently comply to the Ketogenic diet rules and will just trust the process.
However, if I wanted to continue going to the gym, doing boxing and high-intensity workouts, I feel a diet like this is not sustainable nor very wise.
