Monday Morning Weigh In

I am now three weeks into my Keto / timed-eating (fasting) diet plan. Each Monday morning I will weigh myself and measure my waistline to track my progress. You don’t get to see my weight, but how many pounds I lose.

With PKD (polycystic kidney disease) the cysts are constantly growing and forming, which expands the waistline and gives us an overall feeling of being “full” all the time. At least that is how I’ve been feeling, until I began to make this change.

As of today – after 3 weeks time – I have lost nine pounds total, and four pounds in the last week. My waistline has only shrunk about 1/2 inch.

My big goal is to see a decrease in my waist. I suspect that as the kidney cysts shrink my midsection will get smaller. I started this diet to help with my disease after reading Dr. Weimbs’ articles on diet, fasting and PKD.

I’m not one for getting on the scales, and haven’t for a long time. Weighing oneself is usually depressing, especially if the overall feeling is that weight is not coming off.

I Like the Fasting Part of This Plan

So far, my new meal planning is working out. The limited eating hours have been easy to follow. I found that it was tough to stop eating by 5:00PM, so I’ve moved that goal up to 6:00PM. Now, I fast longer in the morning to make up for later evening meals. When I wake up and start my day, I don’t eat anything, and drink only black coffee and water, until 11:00AM or Noon.

I can only fit two meals into this space of time, with maybe a small snack in between. Because of this I am eating less.

If I stop eating by 6:00PM, and don’t eat until noon the next day, I have fasted for 6 hours. If I do this every day of the week, I will have fasted 42 hours for the week.

The fasting part of this new eating regimen is quite easy for me.

And don’t fool yourself into believing that all those hours of not eating are really “fasting” hours. The body spends twelve hours dealing with the previous meal, and only after that are you truly “fasting”, or so I’ve read. Read about intermittent fasting at the DietDoctor site.

Changing the Food I Eat

I’m used to watching the amount of sodium in my food, and now I also have to look for carbs. Even some vegetables can contain lots of carbs. On a Keto diet, carbs for the day should not be more than 50 total. Some people go even lower.

I honestly don’t count carbs, just make myself aware if I eat anything high carb. Then I try to do better the rest of the day.

Some food that I ate and drank regularly are off my plate now. No more potatoes. Skip that occasional piece of toast with breakfast (but I found a good replacement bread for that), and don’t drink juice! I had already mostly given up pasta and rice and sandwiches, so that’s not tough for me.

But fruit, like bananas, remain part of my meal plan – occasionally. I could also do with a sweet potato now and then, and maybe oatmeal with an apple for breakfast.

Eating a big variety of good food is always a good idea, but now I am more aware of what all those carbs can do.