Food – Rese & Ry

Health: 21 Days of Keto

After seeing so many people trying keto and hyping it up, I decided to give it a try as well. Most people say the first 7-10 days will be when most of the weight changes, so I wanted to try it out for at least 21 days to see what happens after the initial drop. I researched the keto diet and read up on how it affects the body and leads to weight loss. When the body is in ketosis, it uses fat for energy instead of glucose or carbohydrates.

Week 1: During the first week I did have a weight lost of about 4 pounds which I thought was good, but most likely water weight. I found this first week to be the easiest for me. I did not experience the “keto flu” that most people do when their bodies switch over from using carbohydrates to using fats. I think the main reason for this was because was intermittent fasting and eating relatively low carb for about two weeks by this point, so I think my body was able to start ketosis sooner than if I had been eating regularly.

Week 2: I was happy with the weight loss from week one, but things started to get harder this week. I continued to eat foods higher in protein and fat, like eggs, avocados, and leafy greens. Then by the end of the week, there was no weight change from week one.

Week 3: This was definitely the most difficult for me. By this point, I was tired of the foods I was eating and I really missed fruits like apples, mangos, grapes, and oranges. I tried out some different keto snacks from ketoconnect.com which were pretty good, but also required for me to purchase ingredients I don’t normally buy. For example, xantham gum was an ingredient for smoothies.

Final Thoughts:

I don’t think I would be able to live a ketogenic lifestyle. Some of the main reasons being family/social meals and fruit. I cook meals for my family as well, so it was not very easy to incorporate all dietary needs/wants everyday. Since some meals were keto and not everyone was doing keto, the amount of fat and carb combination led to weight gain for some family members. I also never realized how many carbs were in fruits and on the keto diet, I would need to limit myself to mainly berries, which although I do like, are not my favorite fruits. What I did learn was that eating low carb was not as hard as I thought and that I would incorporate it more into my daily life.

One of the claims of the keto diet is “mental clarity” which was an aspect that I was looking forward to along with “sustained energy”. While on the keto diet, I don’t think I felt either of these more than I usually do. I did, however, find myself a little annoyed and tired of having to look up how many carbs were in every food and counting carbs everyday.

The keto diet is also not something that you can do some of the time like intermittent fasting or low carb diets. Once you start to eat more carbs–more than 20g net carbs per day–your body will no longer be in ketosis. This means that your body will revert back to using carbohydrates for energy, so you’d most likely have to start all over again to get back into ketosis.

Have you tried the keto diet? How did it work out for you? Should I try again?

Thanks for reading!!

One Day Juice Cleanse Review

In the effort to make healthier choices, I decided to try out a juice cleanse. I didn’t want to do anything too crazy, so I opted for the one day juice cleanse from Clean Juice.

I was actually at my local Clean Juice getting an açaí bowl last week when I saw the juice cleanse options. In my mind, I always thought that juice cleanses were at least 3-5 days and it just seemed to daunting for me. My interest was definitely piqued when I realized that there was a one day option. The cleanse consisted of 6 juices, in a specific order, over the course of the day. To stay satiated, the juices should be consumed every 2-3 hours. Drinking water in between juices is also recommended. All of the juices made are made from organic produce and ingredients.

In preparation for the one day cleanse, I looked up other people’s experiences. Some say to eat clean the days leading up to the cleanse and to eliminate coffee from my diet. I have been eating pretty clean recently, but my coffee intake has been pretty high, about 2 cups a day. When I looked at the Clean Juice website, they actually don’t encourage eliminating coffee on juice cleanses! Could this juice cleanse get any better?!?!

Yes! It did get better. Not only did I start off my morning with a black iced coffee, but I also had my first juice, Sweet Greens. It was delicious! Sweet Greens is combination of cucumber, apple, kale, spinach, and mint. It really was so refreshing!

About two hours later, I started on my second juice, Orange. This one consisted of carrot, pineapple, orange and turmeric. I was a little worried about liking this one because I’m not the biggest fan of turmeric, but it was just as good as Sweet Greens. There was a very slight spicy feeling at first, but overall very tasty!

Next up was Green. This one was not as tasty as the first two, but not bad either. It tastes like a typical green juice made of cucumber, celery, spinach, kale, ginger, and lemon. Overall, not bad, but not as satisfying as the first two.

A couple of hours later, I had my fourth juice of the day, Yellow. At this point, I was getting a hungry and peckish. Yellow consisted of filtered water, lemon, maple syrup, and cayenne. I did enjoy this one more than Green. It tasted like a slightly watered down spicy lemonade.

Toward the evening time, I had my fifth juice, Red made with apple, beet, carrot and lemon. This one was really good. It definitely had more flavor than the previous two, Green and Yellow. It was pretty satisfying, but after drinking it, i started getting a slight headache–almost like I needed coffee. Since my work day was over and we were headed out, I did decide to get a black cold brew coffee.

Last, but definitely not least was the sixth juice, White. I was really looking forward to trying this one because of the ingredients. I pictured this one being a decadent dessert compared to the other juices of the day. White was made with filtered water, Himalayan pink sea salt, cashews, cinnamon, maple syrup, and vanilla. The first sip tasted like a cinnamon bagel from Panera Bread to a cinnamon bun! Then it started reminding me the milk left over when you eat cinnamon flavored cereal, which then reminded me of the book Stupid and Contagious! (If you haven’t read it, but you like fun rom com books, definitely give it a read!) But overall pretty good and a great way to end off the juice cleanse.

After thoughts:

The juices were pretty good. In my preparation research some people said their juices were not very good and had thick textures. I did not experience this at all. All of the juices had a liquid juice consistency.
I would consider doing a one day juice cleanse again, but probably not any longer than a day.
I felt very hydrated and went to the restroom more than usual. (In addition to the juices, I did have one cup of coffee and water throughout the day.)
Juices in order from most liked to least liked: Orange, Sweet Green, Red, White, Yellow, and Green. (I would say that it was a little difficult to place White and Yellow because they were so different, but I think the two are ranked about the same)

Thank you for reading! Let me know if you’ve survived a juice cleanse or plan to try one:)

Disney Holiday Popcorn

For the winter holiday season, Disney has come out with one of the cutest popcorn containers! Pluto with a holiday scarf:) The Pluto container is $15 with popcorn and $2 for each refill. We also discovered that different areas of EPCOT have different flavors of popcorn too! When we brought Pluto on a second visit, we were able to try the maple popcorn in the Canadian Pavilion and it was delightful! We also saw that the American Pavilion has buffalo flavored popcorn, but we will save that for next time.