Being Sick and the Keto Diet

I've been ill for most of the last two months, so ridiculous. I don't like to exercise when ill because I tend to get worse, especially if the illness is upper respiratory. But I'm starting to feel like a normal person again and I'm no longer coughing so hard it feels like my insides are going to burst out of me.

As a kick start to getting back into a normal exercise and diet routine I'm doing a low-carb keto diet. I even got my husband to participate in solidarity. We have a sugar and carb addiction so the keto diet will be a good way to break those terrible, oh so terrible habits.

Yesterday on my day off, instead of planting a garden since it was raining, I spent six hours cooking and making snacks so we don't stray and start to mindlessly consume carbs. The main dish is a chicken vegetable soup with bacon, onion, garlic, chicken stock, cauliflower, green beans, spinach and yellow squash which we'll eat for lunch and dinner for a couple days. Breakfast is two hardboiled eggs and two slices of bacon. The afternoon snack will be egg salad with a plain lettuce salad.

And I've been making a chia seed pudding for an after dinner desert which is just 1 c plain yogurt, 1 c unsweetened almond milk, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 2 tbsp honey, and 1/4 c chia seeds. Leave on the counter for 30 minutes so the chia seeds can swell, and then refrigerate for a couple of hours or overnight. This should make 4 small servings or 2 normal servings. Then I top the pudding with a couple of sliced strawberries and pecans mixed with a tiny bit of honey right before serving.

I'm one of those people who ordered a giant bag of chia seeds, like 5 pounds, which I've been putting in overnight oats but the bag of seeds seems never ending. I'll probably start adding unsweetened cocoa powder or green vegetable vitamin powder to the chia seed puddings soon, and I'll replace the sweetener with something low carb. One of the miraculous things about chia seeds is the amount of fiber, there's 11 grams of fiber in 2 tbsp or 1 ounce.

Avocado is another thing I eat fairly often when I can afford it, mainly because one avocado has 13 grams of fiber. It's like eating two bowls of raisin bran. Not that I need help in that department, but I really like the idea of consuming that much fiber in a piece of fruit. Plus the omega threes. It seems like a few brain cells have died since having a kid and omega 3s are supposed to help with that.

Tomorrow I need to make more food that'll last us for a couple more days. Maybe deviled eggs, tuna salad, more chicken vegetable soup, celery with pimento cheese for snacks, and spinach salad for lunches.