Losing Weight Through Ketogenic Diet and Intermittent Fasting

I read up and watched a lot of videos on the ketogenic diet and decided to try it myself which I managed to do so for almost 3 months. Combined it with intermittent fasting so I only ate 2 meals a day within a 5-hour window and fasted for the rest of the 19 hours.

I used to have this binge eating disorder that was triggered by depression and I would always eat loads of carbs and sugary stuffs even when I wasn’t hungry. As a result, I actually put on 27kg over a 2-year period. 😯 With the ketogenic diet (and a new course of antidepressants), I actually managed to curb my compulsive eating and reduce my cravings for crap that wasn’t doing my body any good.

Starting out was tough but as time went by, I became more and more in control of my emotions and eating habits, was more energetic and overall, just felt really good about myself. Best thing of all, I lost a total of 13kg and a couple of inches off my waist without trying too hard. I wasn’t even exercising a lot and I even consumed so-called junk food like ice cream, fried chicken, bacon, sausages and more.

Eating High-Fat, Low-Carb

Keto diet is supposed to be a high-fat, low-carb diet but I’m not super strict about it. I don’t even count my macros like most people do. What I mainly do is cut away rice, noodles, bread (basically anything that’s made from flour), root vegetables (potato, sweet potato, yam and the like), cereals, sugary soft drinks and most desserts. I eat all kinds of meat (even Korean BBQ, lol), most vegetables that are grown above ground and most fruits but in moderation because of their fruit sugar content. No durians though as they are too high in carb. 🙁

Making Changes When Eating Out

When eating out, I will order things like meat and vegetables from mixed rice stalls and/or tze char stalls, yong tau foo, western food like chicken chop, pork chop or steak and swap out the fries for coleslaw and other vegetables, fish soup, Natsumi burger from MOS Burger, fried chicken from all the usual fried chicken fast food joints (just no fries or mashed potato!), salads – which are what I usually eat anyway whether I am on keto diet or not.

Replace High-Carb, High-Sugar Food Items with Alternatives

When it comes to cooking, I basically replace high-carb, high-sugar items with alternatives. Shirataki (konjac) noodles instead of regular noodles. Stevia instead of sugar. Unsweetened almond milk instead of normal fresh milk, etc. I get my ice cream supply from Sugalight that uses stevia as sweetener so I don’t have to totally give up on ice cream and I do drink Coke Zero every now and then. Don’t normally like sugary drinks anyway so it isn’t such a big sacrifice. I buy a lot of keto-friendly and paleo-friendly snacks from iHerb too. Stock them up in my pantry so I can treat myself to a chocolate peanut butter bar or a slice of fudge brownie whenever I feel like it.

Honestly, it’s not easy to survive on a keto diet for long. Really takes a lot of discipline and determination to resist temptations, lol. But the end result is very rewarding, not just physically but psychologically too.

I was off the keto diet for 3 weeks when my in-laws from UK visited us. Now that they have gone back, I’m just about to get back into keto eating again ‘cos I still need to shed off the remaining 14kg!!

Using Cauliflower as Rice

Today I’m sharing my all-time favourite Fried Cauliflower Rice Recipe. It’s about replacing regular rice with cauliflower. You can just use a food processor and pulverise cauliflower florets into rice-like bits (see below pic). You can use this cauliflower rice for any fried rice recipe with whatever ingredients you prefer. All up to you.

Cauliflower Rice Cuts Calories

One good thing about such a recipe is you’ll greatly reduce your calorie intake by swapping out the rice for cauliflower even if you’re eating a big plate of it because cauliflower is just so low in calories. And it gives a nice refreshing crunch too. Give it a try and let me know what you think. 😉

Tags: chinese fried ricehealthy cookinghealthy foodhealthy fried riceketo cookingketo mealketo recipelow calorie recipelow carb fried rice