Hi everyone,

I have been really off the wagon with my eating habits here of late, so this week I am trying to get my body back into ketosis and kick my sugar cravings.  Before I really delve into this post, let me say that I am in no way, shape, or form a doctor, and any information on this blog is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.  Furthermore, the statements on this blog have not been evaluated by the FDA, and I am sharing it with you all to provide information about my personal experience, not to provide medical advice. Please do your own research and always listen to your doctor when making decisions about your health.

P.S. This post has affiliate links to products that I use and love, and I may receive a small commission if you click the links and buy a product.

Okay, here we go!

To start off, I would like to share a bit about myself in the context of weight loss, dieting, fitness, and body image.  I have always struggled with my weight.  I can remember not eating ice-cream at school parties in the second grade because I thought I was bigger than the other girls (seriously people– THE SECOND GRADE!).  Growing up, people would gush about my “pretty face” and describe me as “big-boned.” Riiiiiight….everyone knows what is implied by “Aww…you have such a pretty face!” and don’t even get me started on bone structure!  One of my favorite “compliments” was when people looked at me, my 240lb dad, and my 115lb mom, and tell me just how much I took after my dad with my size [insert expectant look where they waited patiently for me to say thank-you].  Ummm….is there any girl out there who takes being compared in size to their former football player-dad as a compliment?!  Little did they know just how much time I spent fervently wishing I was as petite as my mom.  To compound matters further, I have been a performer since I could talk, so the judgment was even harsher for me than for the average girl.  Despite winning talent competition after talent competition, I consistently received feedback that I needed to lose weight to be taken seriously in “the industry.”  I dieted, starved, binged, threw up, and started the whole process over and over again, just to drop a few pounds and then gain it all back again.  To me, being smart and talented was never enough; no amount of awards, honors, or accolades could take the place of being small.

Suffice it to say, I learned to take the negative comments in stride, and fortunately, I met and married a man who loves every curvy inch of my big-boned self [here’s the place where birds start singing and you can hear the Cinderella soundtrack “So this is love” playing in the background 🙂 ].  Where I see flab, he sees softness. Where I see cellulite, he sees dimples.  Where I see abnormal largeness, he sees roundness.  Sometimes, I feel like I’m in the movie Shallow Hal, which is totally fine by me! 🙂 Having someone love the very things you dislike about yourself is a really amazing feeling, and it took me a really long time before I could accept that love and really believe Milo when he tells me that I’m beautiful.

Despite having a man who loves my curves, I still fall victim to the crazy standards that our society has set for women, and I get insecure often!  Maybe it would be different if there wasn’t a definitive line separating “normal” women from “plus-sized” women, but such is the world we live in, right?  Every time I go clothes-shopping, I am reminded that because I wear a size 16, I am over and above the cutoff point for an acceptably-sized woman.  I remember back to the days when I wore a size 8, and I thought I was a cow because I didn’t wear a size 4.  The sad part is that there are women out there who wear a size 4 who feel the exact same way as me because they don’t wear a size 0.  The vicious voice of insecurity isn’t exclusive to those who shop in the plus-sized section.

At this point in my life, I have taken a step back and decided that I am going to love my body and treat it as the temple that God made it to be. While I still want to lose weight, my motivation has definitely changed. Now, rather than be motivated by an irrational desire to be small, I am motivated by the desire to be healthy and fit.  I am motivated by the energy that I experience when I put the right fuel in my body and the way I feel when I am not poisoning my body with toxic foods.

I promise folks….we are almost to the good stuff!

For those of you who are still reading, thank you!  I know that was a wordy introduction to fat fasting, but I felt it necessary for you to know a little of my background and why I am even fat-fasting in the first place.

There are multiple schools of thought when it comes to dieting.  Some believe that counting calories is the way to go, while others believe it is all about limiting carbohydrates.  Then there’s (5) small meals a day versus (3) meals a day.  More recently, the idea of intermittent fasting has made big strides in the dieting world. Do you fast every other day or fast for a certain number of hours a day or fast for one day a week?  The options are endless, and the most important thing is that you find a style of eating that works for your life.  As someone who has tried just about every diet out there (and someone who has learned to listen to my body), I have found that for me personally, restricting carbohydrates is the best way for me to lose weight.

Still waiting to hear about the fat fast?

In order to talk to you about fat fasting, first off I need to talk a little bit about ketosis.  Ketosis comes as a result of restricting carbohydrates.  According to WebMD, ketosis is a metabolic process where, in the absence of carbohydrates, your body burns fat and produces ketones. Basically, you switch your body from burning glucose (sugar) to burning fat.  The best way to get into ketosis is to restrict carbohydrates and get the majority of your calories from protein and fat.  Some of the benefits that I have experienced from ketosis include:

• Not feeling hungry
• Increased energy
• No cravings (this is probably my absolute favorite)
• Better skin
• No UTIs/Yeast Infections (This is a biggie for me.  I started getting UTIs/Yeast Infections in college, following a string of about 40 shows where I wore my costume commando without ever washing it. Gotta love being a performer.)

Ketosis can be reached by restricting carbohydrates (usually 20-50 grams of net carbs per day).  The time it takes to enter ketosis varies from person to person, but usually after a couple of weeks of restricting carbs, your body will be keto-adapted, and you will have made the switch to using fat stores and ketones for energy.

For those people who want to get into ketosis faster, another alternative exists.

Enter:  The Fat Fast

Fat-fasting is a method of eating developed by Dr. Robert Atkins to jump-start weight loss for people who are metabolically-resistant or who cannot lose weight on a traditional low-carb diet. Many people use fat-fasting to break weight loss plateaus, and from everything I have read, it produces fast results.  Fat-fasting is typically only recommended for people who have been eating low-carb and are not losing weight.  As someone who has eaten low-carb in the past and who knows my body’s limitations, I am choosing to use the Fat Fast to jumpstart ketosis, eliminate my cravings, and make better decisions about the food that I put into my body.  When I eat the Standard American Diet (which has a large portion of calories coming from carbohydrates), I experience digestive issues, yeast infections/UTIs, skin problems, feelings of sluggishness, mental fatigue, and overwhelming cravings for sugar.  The ketogenic diet, on the other hand, has the opposite affect on me.  Digestive issues/UTIs/Yeast Infections/Acne all disappear along with hunger pangs and cravings for sugar.  In the place of all that yuck, I have soaring energy levels, mental clarity, and laser-sharp focus on whatever I am doing at the moment. Pretty easy to see why I want to speed up the process of ketosis and get keto-adapted as quick as possible, huh?

So here’s the Scoop

Unlike normal low-carb dieting, fat-fasting involves restricting both calories and carbohydrates.  The concept is that 80-90% of calories come from fat, and you restrict your total daily calories to 1,000 calories per day. It is recommended that the fat fast not be followed for more than 3-5 days, as it is not a healthy diet to use for long-term weight loss.  Following a fat fast for more than five days can result in your body reaching starvation mode, muscle loss, and a nutrient deficiency.

In order to meet the restrictive requirements of the fat fast, you have to choose foods that are high in fat, while being low in protein and carbohydrates.  This is actually much more difficult than one would think. The original fat fast protocol advocated eating a block of cream cheese all day and nothing else.  I’m sorry, but there is no way I could stomach just eating plain ole’ cream cheese for five days straight!  I have to be a little more creative than that.  Some foods that are fat fast-friendly include: heavy whipping cream, grass-fed butter, cream cheese (my personal favorite is jalapeno), and avocado.  I have a lot of fat fast recipes on my Pinterest board “Low-carb” that you are welcome to check out!  In the meantime, here’s my experience with the Fat Fast so far.  I will be posting weight loss, side effects, and what I’m eating for the next few days.

Day 1

7:30am- After waking up and getting ready for work, I made myself a fat fast-friendly coffee.  Ingredients:  Coffee, blended with 1 t of grass-fed butter (Kerrygold), 1 T organic extra virgin coconut oil, (1) packet of Truvia, and a splash of Vanilla flavoring.  It’s creamy and satisfying.  I’m feeling good!

11:39am- I am absolutely starving!  Clearly, I’m not anywhere near ketosis yet!

12:00pm- Time for lunch.  Lunch includes (4) slices of Bacon and (2) T of jalapeno cream cheese.  I ravenously wolf it down like it’s day 30 on Survivor and I just won reward!

12:13pm- I’m feeling satisfied from my lunch but I’m not as full as I normally would be after a meal.  I also have a slight headache.

1:30pm- I am so sleepy I can barely stay awake!

3:18pm- I am feeling abnormally hot.  I hear that coconut oil can do this as it speeds metabolism.  Definitely feeling flushed at the moment.

3:45pm- Time for another mini-meal.  This time it’s 1.5 slices of bacon (that’s all I had left!) and (2) T jalapeno cream cheese.

5:07pm- Surprisingly, I am not feeling famished.  The real test is going to be when I get home and have to skip out on all the carbohydrate-laden goodies in our pantry.  Wish me luck!

8:54pm- Chicken broth with 2T of heavy whipping cream, salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  While this is a yummy soup base, I have to say, I am not satisfied.  I could really go for a grilled cheese sandwich right now!

11:00pm- Time for a snack to quell my hunger pangs!  I have to keep reminding myself that in a few days, all these cravings will be gone! 16T sugar-free whipped cream (approximately 2 cups).

Total Calories:  883

Total Net Carbs: 7.9

Percentage of Calories from Fat: 87%

Macro-nutrient breakdown (thanks to MyFitnessPal):