Monthly Archives: March 2023

I get told this a lot when I tell people about what I’ve been doing to lose weight. It’s hard to imagine someone losing 34 pounds (as of today, March 25) in less than three months without starving themselves.

But honestly, I’m not starving. Most of the time I’m not even hungry.

That’s kind of the point of the ketovore/carnivore lifestyle: You eat the foods that don’t make you crave other foods. Which is why dumping the sugar – especially processed sugars – and carbs is so important. Carbs make you crave other carbs. They set off a process in your body telling it to make insulin, which then tells fat cells to accumulate more fat and burn carbs – instead of fat – for energy.

(Want to know watch me gradually learn how to use YouTube? Check out my Molly’s Ketovore Life channel!)

When you’re not giving your body those carbs, it reverts to burning fat for energy. Cool, huh?

But getting to that lifestyle isn’t a matter of just flipping a switch. You have to be committed to making a change, and making it more than just a diet. To me, the word “diet” as a verb has always meant something temporary. That’s not what this is – this has got to be long-lasting. That’s not to say you can’t have “cheat” meals or weekends – I have already had a few of each – but you have to realized that once you start giving your body those carbs again, it’s going to keep wanting more. AND the weight you put back on will come faster than before.

Getting started

When my boyfriend started telling me all about his experience with the ketogenic and then carnivore diets I thought he was nuts. Yes, I’d heard that through ketogenic dieting you could lose a lot of weight fast – but the things you had to give up were things I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to: pasta, chips, potatoes, fruit, rice … those were my mainstays (and probably the reason I couldn’t lose more than 20 pounds with any given diet). With carnivore it was nothing but meat and meat products. Period.

Nope.

Then he started talking about “ketovore” – a kind of blending of the ketogenic and carnivore diets. It focuses on upping your amounts of animal proteins and fats, and limiting other foods. You still get rid of the sugars and carbs but your menu is a bit more open.

I agreed to give it a month. After the holidays. I’m now three months in and LOVING it.

In the week before Christmas and New Year’s Day I gutted my kitchen: got rid of the breads, tortillas, frozen fruits, fresh fruits, canned soups, oatmeal, rice, pasta, potatoes, most condiments, tortilla chips – damned near everything. My son and daughter-in-law probably didn’t have to buy groceries for a few weeks.

We had one final “hurrah” for New Year’s and officially started the ketovore journey on Jan. 2.

What I eat

There are a lot of articles out there talking about what you can and can’t, should and shouldn’t, eat on ketovore. I use them as guideposts, but really kind of customize this menu for me. Some experts say to allow yourself one “treat” of vegetables each week – I eat more than that, but not daily. Some days I’ll have a small salad with lunch (olive or avocado oil and red wine vinegar for dressing), or will sometimes have some steamed broccoli or roasted aparagus with dinner.

I’m probably not losing weight and seeing the health improvements at the rate that devout ketovore followers are, but I’m OK with that. If I don’t enjoy myself on this journey, it won’t last. And I want it to last.

Before ketovore I ate beef only when my body let me know I needed iron – typically 3-4 times a year. Now it’s on my plate 4-6 times a week. But I also allow myself to eat chicken, fish, pork, and shrimp throughout the week, as well. I don’t get the high protein with those (other than some fish) that I do with beef, but then I supplement with added protein: chicken and shrimp, surf and turf, etc.

Eggs are also a staple, along with butter. Butter is a great source of animal fat – I typically scramble four eggs in a tablespoon of butter, cook up 3-4 strips of bacon, and there’s a good (great!) ketovore meal. Sounds like a lot of food, I know – I thought it was crazy the first time I put that on a plate – but it works. It really, really does.

When I go out to restaurants, I usually order a bunless hamburger or grilled fish, usually with a salad or vegetable. Yes, I’ve cheated and eaten fries (twice) but then made up for it in the following days.

Just as important as what you eat in this lifestyle is how often you eat. I had stopped being a three-meals-a-day person for the most part a few years ago, with the exception of the occasional yogurt or grapefruit for breakfast. With ketovore, two meals a day is a regular occurrence, and occasionally it’s just one. And once a week I don’t eat at all.

A typical week for me starts with a late breakfast/early lunch Sunday, we usually have bacon or steak and eggs (I know, what a diet!), and then nothing until dinner, usually steak or roast or chicken or something and shrimp or another protein. Sometimes I have a vegetable, but mostly I save those for during the week. Once dinner is over, usually around 6 or so, I start my 36-hour fast. It sounds tough, I know, but really I’m too full to eat after dinner, I fast all day Monday, and by the time I am ready to eat late Tuesday morning the fast is over. It’s tough some days, but not most.

And going back to what I said at the beginning of this post, I’m not starving – and rarely even hungry.

I mean, I wanted to believe I could do it, but whenever I’d set my mind to losing weight I’d struggle for six months and drop 20-30 pounds at the most; the only time I lost an egregious amount of weight was when I dropped 115 pounds in the eight months after my husband asked for a divorce. And I really didn’t want to go through that kind of stress again.

Spoiler alert: I did it. And I’m still doing it. Yesterday I hit the -50 mark from when I started in mid-August – but even more, 30 of those pounds have come off just since Jan. 2 – 10 weeks ago.

Here’s what’s happening:

I knew 2022 was going to be a big year: I was going to a California beach for 10 days with some family in the summer, and my son was getting married in the fall. I wanted – needed – to lose weight. I was the biggest I’d been since before the divorce and I wanted a change. Plus, the pain in my knees was excruciating during the coldest of the winter days – I didn’t want to spend another winter like that.

That January I made up my mind: I was going to lose 20 pounds by the time we went to the beach at the end of June, and another 20 pounds for my son’s November wedding. Small bites, easier to manage.

When it came time to go to the beach I had gained 15 pounds. I was devastated.

I finally decided I couldn’t do this on my own, I needed help. The academic medical center I work for has a weight management clinic, so I made an appointment. My first visit was Aug. 14, 2022 and lasted a little more than two hours. We talked about my lifestyle, what I thought some of the issues were (portion control and pasta – they go hand in hand). I agreed to and was prescribed an appetite suppressant.

When it came time for the wedding in mid-November, I’d lost 20 pounds. Then the holidays hit, and I gained five of them back.

A few weeks before the wedding I met a man who talked at length about the “carnivore diet” and its healing qualities. I was very interested in the man (still am 😉 ) but hesitant on this carnivore thing. According to this diet, you eat beef and eggs. That’s about it. He was trying to convince me it was the greatest thing ever while I was trying to convince him of the value of fruits and veggies. We had hit an impasse – at least on the diet front.

Then our conversations turned to “ketovore” – a diet that kind of “marries” the ketogenic and carnivore diets. Lots of animal protein and animal fats, but with a few veggies sprinkled here and there and a few other additions. The biggest thing was that it was the elimination of sugar and carbs. No creamer in my coffee, no pasta, no potatoes, no tortilla chips.

It sounded like something I could try so I agreed to do it after the first of the year. I gave it a month. I cleaned out my cupboards, my fridge, and my freezer. Processed sugars were gone.

My first week, I lost 14 pounds.

Yes, it was mostly water weight and I gained a few of them back, but week after week I continued to see losses of 5 pounds or better. By February I was seeing numbers on the scale I hadn’t seen in years. And They Keep Going Down.

One of my biggest hesitations about switching over to this lifestyle – because that’s what it is, it’s not a temporary “diet” – was that I didn’t want to stop enjoying the foods I loved. I couldn’t stand the thought of never again having nachos, or a cocktail, or a piece of cheesecake.

And here’s the fun part: I haven’t had to stop enjoying them. We’ve had “cheat weekends” where we’ll order a pizza or go out for Mexican, or get a sinful ice cream dessert at Culver’s or Dairy Queen. I’ve even had french fries – once. We went away for a long weekend and just threw caution to the wind. I gained nine pounds.

So here’s the other part of the diet: I do a 36-hour fast every week. Sounds awful, I know, but it’s really not: I eat a regular dinner Sunday night, and then no snacking. I fast on Monday, and by the time I get up and ready on Tuesday, my fast is over.

THAT is the difference. I did a fast after our long weekend and lost seven of those nine pounds. The other two came off through the week.

And the really weird part is I don’t feel deprived at all. We eat steak, roasts, ribs, shrimp – I’m far from starving, even on the fast days. Breakfast yesterday was steak and eggs. Not bad for a diet meal.

The proof is in the proverbial pudding – or the pictures. See for yourself. Or watch this video I shot in January to hear more: https://youtu.be/QKzK06LtAjw.

I’m not done – I still have a ways to go. But damn, this trip doesn’t seem so bad.