Wow, what a long time it has been since I’ve blogged, since April of 2018!  I did continue to post on my Instagram account a bit, but no real blogging in over 4 years!  So much has happened over the last years since my that post, honestly I contemplated taking the site down and forgetting about my blog.  But I was recently contacted by one of my followers who discovered my blog and told me how encouraged she was reading about my journey.  This was so inspiring to me that I decided I needed to pick up the keyboard and start writing again.  Thanks Kim 😉 

My life is in such a different place today than it was 4 years ago.  The last time I wrote I was prepping for ankle surgery and to attend a weekend running coach certification course.  Today I am recovering from a total hip replacement and struggling to get back on track with my eating.  Terrible as it was to have to have my hip replaced at 46 years old (which I will talk about in another blog post), it redirected me to a different approach to keto which has been very successful for me.  When I learned I had to have the surgery back in November the surgeon told me he wanted me to lose 10 pounds before the surgery.  That was just the kick in the pants I needed, as I had gained back about half the weight I lost initially.  This protein focused approach to keto allowed me to lose 20 pounds by my surgery date and another 25 or so after that during my initial recovery.  Life has been somewhat complicated over the summer, during which I have returned to some of my old emotional eating habits, but I’m hopeful I can get right back on the wagon and continue to a healthier weight.  

I remember when I was first researching keto back in the spring of 2017 running across Maria Emmerich and her books.  I didn’t spend a lot of time looking into her approach, but when I knew I had to get back to some form of healthier eating again (and the traditional approach to keto was just not working for me the second time around…which apparently is a thing), I decided to read more about Maria’s well-researched approach.  I was also concerned that my age was impacting my weight loss attempts, worried that as I approach 50 perhaps my strategy needed to change.  

“Traditional” keto is high (healthy) fat, moderate protein and low carb.  Most normally a calorie breakdown of roughly 70%/20%/10%.  The Emmerich approach is different in that it is higher lean protein, lower fat and very low carb.  There is a focus on clean ingredients, as well as counting total carbs, not net.  It really is next door to carnivore.  The theory behind this approach is that we don’t want to have our body burning the fat we get nutritionally, but burning the excess body fat we already have.  Eating a higher amount of leaner protein and having just enough fat each day is key to this.  As well as keeping the total carbs very very low.  She recommends only 10 grams of total carbs per day.  In the interests of full disclosure I rarely keep my carbs that low, I usually fall closer to 20-30 carbs per day, but it works for me.  I lost 15.4 pounds in the first 5 weeks of eating this way.  And before I sort of fell off this summer I had lost about 45 pounds total.  I’ve gained a smidge of that back, but only because I’ve been stressed and resorted to emotional eating again, not really following the plan.  That’s something I’ve got to continually work on.  I’m praying that getting back to blogging will help!  

The other important piece of this way of eating is the Protein Sparing Modified Fasting days.  Whereas many keto plans encourage some form of fasting, whether water fasting or fat fasting, this plan does not encourage that.  Instead she encourages 2-3 days per week of PSMF, in particular if your goals is weight loss.  These days you eat primarily protein, less fat than on the other days, and still very low total carbs.  The calories are lower but with the increase in protein on those days it really doesn’t feel like fasting.  

I’ve been amazed at how well this approach has worked for me so far.  If you’re intrigued by this approach to keto, I would encourage you to look Maria Emmerich up.  She and her husband have something like 20 years of research into this, and she has many amazing recipes, a special macro calculator, meal plans and programs you can sign up for to get more help.  There is also a great Facebook group where I’ve gotten a lot of leads and tips on recipes and different things.