It has been a long struggle to stay away from carbs.
It's truly a battle at times. When you see a baking sheet freshly pulled out of the over with hot, crispy french fries sitting within arm's reach, the temptation can be great, such as it was a few nights ago.
There simply is no real substitute for potatoes.  There are Keto foods they have the claim a "good" replacement, but alas and in the end? Not.

However, there are substitutes for sugar.  We all know that - sweeteners that have zero or very low carbs in them.  And a few of them actually taste pretty good.  I'm getting a shipment of 6 pints of "Rebel" ice cream coming in a few days.  7 to 9 carbs per entire pint.  I mean, I stuck with the flavors that have 7 grams.  I will be eating an entire pint the first day.  After that, I dunno.  That's a lot of carbs for one sitting for this diet.  It's just that I can't not indulge in something any longer.  I've been following this thing almost to the T for 3 months now, I need some kind of break.

The results, tho, are my size 34 waist jeans are now getting loose.  After having had that done with size 35's.  I actually think I could fit into 33's.  I'm not going out and buying 33 size jeans at the moment, I'm not buying any pants right now . I have all my old 34's I'm wearing now and the off chance I slip into the 35's? Yeah they won't stay up on my waist now. They just fall off.

So, the results of this forced abstinence of eating the foods I love has had palpable results.  That is what has made this journey worth it.

I talk to people about going on this diet all the time.  But it becomes a non-starter when I start telling them they can't eat pasta, rice, most beans, potatoes, sugar, etc.  All the foods you love? Are gone.  Wait, but not all! You can eat any meat you want!  You can dump ample amounts of butter on everything!  In fact, you have to eat a lot of fat on this diet.

But, you can get tired of eating meat all the time and not eating everything you see everyone else eating.  The Keto diet has become very popular, but no-one I know in person is doing it. People online I know are doing it, some have started it after seeing the results i have posted online.  It does work for most people.  I say most people because some have stated they don't lose anything.  I think they aren't doing it right.  Ketosis is the goal - your body feeding off your fat.  That only happens with under 20 carbs per day and high fat intake.  High fat intake is actually quite important because if you eat too much protein, your body can do some sort of thing where it converts it through some process (sorry, I don't know the technical terminology, I just read about it today) to glycogen/glucose and you aren't using fat as energy.

Tho, to be honest, even if that happens, you are still likely going to lose weight if you aren't consuming sugars and high carbohydrate foods.  See, we are addicted to sugar in this nation.  And high carb foods.  It's why we have so many diabetics in our society. Everything has some form of sugars in it.  It's why this diet really requires you to prepare as much food at home as possible.  Yea, I eat out a lot but what I eat is quite limited.  For example, I'm going to Brownsville tomorrow.  I'll have an Atkins drink in the morning, eat some pork rinds and some cream cheese in the morning and then, when I get to Refugio, Texas, I'll stop at Stripes.  Stripes is a gas station, some of them are truck stops and several of them have huge offerings of various types of Mexican food.

And the offering that appeals to me is the baked half chicken.  Skin and all - skin gives me the fat I need.  I always get 4 roasted Jalapenos with it and it's quite delicious.  Carl's Junior - has lettuce wrapped burger option.  I mean, low carb has taken a foothold in this nation and a lot of restaurants are happy to adjust some of their offerings to make it Keto compliant.  I just find it amazing that I was able to get all of this fat gain reversed. I no longer feel like I am doomed to become a 300 plus pound fat old man.  I really thought at the rate it was going I was going to be there in the next few years.  I was rapidly gaining weight.  I have pics of a large gut.  I now have pics of a greatly reduced gut.  People telling me I've lost enough weight.  I'm sure I haven't but it's good to hear the feedback without asking that my gut is gone.

I feel like I could go off this diet for a few weeks, eat whatever I want, gain 10 or 15 pounds, then go back on it and lose it all over again. I won't do that.  I keep thinking I'm going to cheat for a day or two - but I haven't done it.  But if I do? It's going to include Dairy Queen Blizzards!  And french fries!  And spaghetti!  lol

Should I have to follow this diet so strictly forever? The answer is no, of course.  I'll get myself there - to the Blizzard that is - sooner or later.

Meanwhile, it's not late but it's getting late for my wake up time in the morning.  After 2 days off, I now remind my manager that I'm ready to go somewhere.  Brownsville tomorrow. I haven't had much detention pay lately, a good couple of days would be nice.  But not expected.  It's just random when it happens.  Very nice tho!  I have the Brownsville run memorized. The only help I need from the internet is to find the fastest route through Houston.  Mostly it's the Beltway 8 loop, but there are 3 other options for looping around downtown - which I cannot legally drive through - to take. I'm always looking for the shortest time option - time is my enemy in the trucking industry. Making it down there the same day as getting loaded is fully dependent on getting out of the plant in less than 2-1/2 hours and not running into any significant traffic.