I mentioned in a recent blog post that I wanted to lose weight. I asked if people would be interested in a review of a Keto-Veganish diet or the Whole30, two very popular diets right now.
The idea here was that I would try one of these diets and report back to you with my love or hate, results and opinion. Upon a quick review, I know the Keto diet is not for me. I do need to look more closely into eating the vegan version but without being able to eat legumes, I’m worried already.
The Whole30 is a diet that began as a means to discover how certain foods effect your body by elimination and then adding them back in. Many people praise this diet but I do not have current ailments that I’m looking to solve other than I wanna lose the last 10 lbs of this baby weight. Again, you can’t eat sugar, grains, dairy, alcohol, LEGUMES (I don’t believe their explanation but whatever), soy, or any processed foods. You actually can’t even eat foods that are approved in a form that reminds you of comfort foods like pancakes (eggs + bananas) or ice cream (frozen bananas blended with unsweetened non-dairy milk) or smoothies even.
My approach has always been a realistic diet that allows you to maintain success while eating out, making dinner for your partner that you both enjoy.
After research Whole30 and Keto, I actually came to the conclusion that Paleo is the least restrictive however since I’m trying to eat a more plant based diet, none of these plans fit my lifestyle. Whole30 could be good if I had ailments and wanted to isolate what was causing me discomfort.
Then I heard about Intermittent Fasting. A bunch of people suggested I try the 16:8 method which means you eat relatively what you want but between a span of 8 hours and fast during the other 16 hours. Many people recommended 12-8 pm. I accidentally tried this when I got to sleep in one morning.
I continued to see if I could do it before jumping on any other restrictive programs or shilling out money. There is a version of Intermittent Fasting that is also part of an MLM called FASTer Way To Fat Loss that people on Instagram recommended I check out. Basically, the program is a 16:8 fasting schedule, with carb cycling and I think a feast day which means you can eat whatever you want. If I thought I could do the 16:8 without any restriction, maybe I could do the program. It’s $199 so I wanted to be sure I was going to follow the plan.
The plan allegedly comes with workouts (I don’t really need as I like to do my own and take classes) as well as the diet and support from a community which I don’t have time to participate in. That being said, I haven’t ruled it out…
But then someone asked on Instagram if IF (intermittent fasting) was allowed while breastfeeding?
So I asked Google…
And guess what, apparently it’s not recommended. I wasn’t really able to do it to be honest any way. This week I had 1/2 grapefruit with my coffee and “broke fast” at 11 or 12. I also finished a glass of wine at 9 pm.
I wake up sometimes at 6 am and to go until noon felt too long, especially nursing. Also, you can move your eating window but I usually can’t eat dinner until 7:30 or 9 pm with bedtime. An option I suppose is to eat at 5:30/6 with the boy and not Nick but I rarely have time to cook with both of them during the witching hour.
Maybe we should cook together?
After sharing my thoughts on Instagram about Keto and Whole30, a lot of people wanted to see me try a Keto-veganish diet but even more wanted to see a Whole30 lifestyle. I lost about 100 Instagram followers after I said I thought Keto and Whole30 were too extreme and some science behind the diet felt stretched, mainly the take on beans.
Bottom line: If I were to follow a diet, I think I would try IF, and would be very interested to try this FASTer program. However, right now, I think I may just need to focus on cutting out refined sugar, eating cookies regularly, cutting down the wine and less processed foods and maybe experiment with a 10:14 fasting schedule. I think I could do that!
