Hello Everyone!! Hope that this post finds you well, and that the first week of your new year is coming along fabulously!!

Day 3 of my Keto adventure was full of tasty food, and though I may have gone a little high on the calories, I have no regrets :). In my defense, all the eating was in preparation for a dental procedure which would follow the next day. Because the procedure involved an oral sedation, I was required to fast 6 hours before the appointment, so I would not be getting breakfast , or lunch on day 4 , which is why i ate a little more this day :)

Day 3 I did feel a little bit shaky, weak, and tired at points, but i also have been fighting a minor cold, so i am not really correlating that with the diet change. Luckily i was off work this day, and able to rest after finishing my house chores at a leisurely pace.

DAY 3 WHAT I ATE

BREAKFAST:
For breakfast this day, i started out with hot tea with a little heavy cream in it. My fiance also made me a cup of hot water with beef bouillon to sooth my throat, since i was not feeling well. After that we had our regular morning green power shake, but only with the single avocado, because we did not have two that were ripe. Such is life sometimes! Picking ripe avocados can be tricky, and sometimes, there just aren't many at the store to choose from!

We also took Vitamin D supplements, as well as MCT oil, and a Trace Minerals Supplement. MCTs or Medium Chain Triglycerides (of Medium Chain Fatty Acids) are fatty acids of a certain length, as reflected by their name. It is an odorless and tasteless liquid at room temperature. MCT oil supports gut health and immune health. There is also evidence that MCT oil may support hormones and weight regulation.

For more information on MCT Oil check out this blog that lists some benefits and precautions about using MCT oils : https://wellnessmama.com/98671/mct-oil-benefits/

This is the link for more information for the exact oil that we have :https://vivanaturals.com/supplements/mct-oil .

Unfortunately the trace minerals that we have here at the house do not give specific details of how much of each mineral are in it, so it is not a viable option to enter it into Cronometer. I have included the label of them below. You can see that this supplements every single mineral on the Cronometer mineral tracker(and more!), but since I do not know the exact values, I left this information out of it.

LUNCH:
For lunch i made a delicious keto chef salad with butter lettuce, spinach, cucumber, mushrooms, olives, cheese slices, summer sausage, topped with garlic parmesan dressing :)

This was a meal that i actually prepared for myself :) In case anyone was wondering if my fiance makes all of my food hahaha ;) I enjoy preparing, washing and cutting vegetables, so making salads is always something i take pleasure in.

Preparing the vegetables is sort of meditative when you tap into enjoying the process. This was a huge salad though, so i did not finish it all in one sitting :) I put the remaining bit into a tupperware to use as a lovely side with my dinner later.

DINNER:

For dinner my amazing fiance prepared a delicious beef steak for me, coupled with asparagus pan fried in butter. He did an excellent job on the seasoning for this meal, and it was very filling and satisfying. I finished what was left of my lunch salad as an additional side.

The water in my mason jar looks a little murky in this photo, because i sometimes will add the juice from half a lime to 32 ounces of water to make it more appealing and tasty and keep me up on my hydration :) I used this method twice on day 3, which is why 'lime juice, raw" appears on my tracker as the juice from one lime. It's a great way to trick yourself into drinking more water :)

SUMMARY:

For this day, my diet was 71 % fat, 23% protein, and 7% carbs. A Keto target would be 75% fat, 25% protein, and 5% carbs, so this is a great balanced day, in terms of a ketogenic diet :) As I mentioned before my calories are a bit high, but calorie restriction is not really something I am very concerned about, as i am not trying to lose weight anyway! A girl's gotta eat!!

Nutritionally , this day is actually pretty balanced. Cronometer shows me as hitting 89% of nutrition targets for this day, falling a little short in fiber, iron, and folate.

For day 3 i definitely hit my hydration target, coming in at 153% of Cronometer's suggested amount for my personal age, height, and weight :) Hydration is key to optimal health, and I feel so much better when i am hydrated!!!cMy skin is clearer, my digestive system functions better, and my mind seems more alert when i am fully hydrated. My body just feels like it is running so much cleaner on just water, without the additional sweet drinks. For this day my carbs come in at 32.1 g and my sugars are coming in at 14g. To put this into perspective, a serving of Dr Pepper (my once-favorite soft drink) has 64g of sugar in it, and 66 carbs.

Of course the fats on this chart do appear to be high for the tracker, as i have still not calibrated my Cronometer account to the keto diet presets. I will likely switch it over after one week, so that the information for the first week is consistent.

For this day, vitamin levels are a little hit and miss. I am showing low levels in Vitamin B1 and Vitamin E. Folate and B5 levels for this day are also not optimal, but again, before i become too concerned, I will wait to see these numbers at the end of the week. If any vitamins are consistently low, i will be addressing supplementing these naturally or via tablet supplements.

Mineral levels for this day are also pretty respectable, especially considering that we took the Trace-Mins supplement ( not reflected in tracker due to non-specific nutrition facts), so these numbers are showing lower than what we actually had. The Trace-Mins supplement that we have has every one of these minerals in it, in an "optimal blend" so I would almost assume that mineral nutrition was fully covered on this day. More detailed nutrition information would be required from the supplement for confirmation.

For Day 3, I met, and exceeded every protein nutrition target :) The dairy, summer sausage, and cheese, as well as the steak were likely the main source of this protein. This was the highest protein day of the diet thus far.

CONCLUSION:

Day three's menu was delicious and included some of my favorite meals. I love a big tasty salad for lunch,and a savory steak for dinner, so maybe I have found the ideal diet for me after all! I did have some cravings for carbs and sweets, but these seem to be subsiding relatively quickly, and are, surprisingly, not much of an issue :)

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below! I look forward to sharing my keto journey and all the delicious food to come with you all :)

Brightest Blessings!
SO MUCH LOVE!!
Evening Star