Keto Week 3: Sea Change
I’m almost through my third week of keto and while I’m starting to actually feel the fatigue of depleted glycogen stores, I’m still doing really well. I have a lot of energy to do my workouts each day, which is what I was originally concerned about. But it seems that my body still knows and understands the routine so I just soak up the endorphins and ride it out. The fatigue sets in later in the day after the endorphins wear off, and boy is it a doozy. My dinner this week is a baked zucchini casserole made with eggs (of course) and cheese, and all it requires me to do is cut a slice and heat it up in the microwave. Yet when I get home from work I don’t even want to do that. I just want to take off my pants and bra and sit in silence until bedtime. I was supposed to kick-start an evening cardio routine this week but instead I’m letting my body have its moment and postponing that activity until next week. Right now I’m just kind of listening to the signals it’s sending me.
This week’s menu has a modest number of eggs in it – frittata for breakfast, deviled eggs for one of the snacks, and then of course the eggs in the zucchini casserole. I’m working hard to not hate eggs but right now it’s all I can do to get the deviled eggs down. I think I just don’t want deviled eggs anymore. The frittata and casserole aren’t bothering me, but the deviled eggs? I gag as I eat them. Dammit. Which means I need to start reviewing the rest of my meal plan and see if I can modify all the instances where deviled eggs appear. At this point I’m willing to try anything because another six weeks of gagging on eggs does not sound appealing.
One thing that appeared on this week’s menu that’s giving me serious nostalgia are ham & pickle wraps. Basically it’s a thin piece of ham smeared with cream cheese and wrapped around a dill pickle. When I was a kid, this sort of thing was a staple, except that mom used bologna instead and cut them into little “pinwheels.” I would actually take them to school for lunch sometimes, even though the other kids made fun of me for it. Whatever. Y’all didn’t know the joy of all those flavors rolled up into tiny little packages of creamy salty tangy joy. The more adult version of this is cream cheese and pepperoncini wrapped in slices of salami. Same concept, just a different vibe. So if you’ve enjoyed those, DON’T JUDGE. Needless to say, I’m enjoying my morning snack this week. Next week is similar except with asparagus and roast beef in place of pickles and ham. Who knew something so simple could bring so much happiness to my week?
Today I had my regular gyno checkup with my new doctor and it was fabulous. She encouraged me to keep doing what I’m doing which is a nice change from my PCP who seems to not really have much of an idea about things like bedside manner or the human body. One thing we did talk about was the extreme shifts in mood I’ve been experiencing since I switched from my oral contraceptive to the IUD. I always experienced a little bit of a mood shift when I was on the pill but nothing like I’ve dealt with over the past year. When I told her that I currently had a friend who wasn’t speaking to me because I’d absolutely snapped on him for no good reason, she got concerned and said that perhaps it was time to try some medical intervention. Normally they’d put you ON the pill as a starter to handle this, but since I came off the pill for the IUD she didn’t want to reverse the process. So instead she has prescribed me low-dose antidepressants. Yes, I’m now on antidepressants. To control PMS. The official term for what I’m experiencing is “premenstrual dysphoric disorder.” That sounds pleasant.
I’m trying to wrap my head around all this. I’m on antidepressants. That feels so weird to say. I never thought I’d need anything like that, but here we are. Honestly at this point I’ll try anything. When you watch a good friend slip away because you literally cannot control your angry-assed mouth even though your brain is desperately screaming NONONONONONOSTOOOOOOPPPPP, you know you need help. Reading the list of side-effects is kind of hilarious, but from what I can tell this shouldn’t affect my ability to work out, do keto, or function as I usually do. Still, it’s going to be interesting to see what it does do for me. Will I feel nothing? Or will I just feel everything on a more mild level? I’m really ready to just feel nothing for a while, but whatever happens I’m super down with it.
Aside from that, I’m super stoked for this weekend because I have a race! Yay! It’s the Brazen Goonies 5K…yes, only a 5K. I decided that since this will be the first time I run a race while on keto, I should dial it back a bit to see what it’s like running without my precious glycogen stores. Brazen’s trail races are beefy no matter which distance you run, so I’ll still be tackling a pretty heinous hill somewhere around mile 2.5 and I can just see that taking everything out of me in the middle of the race if I’m not careful. So opting for the shortest distance seems like a wise idea. My only true concern is how it’s going to impact me for the rest of the day. I have a wedding to attend plus some other errands and tasks to complete, and I’m pretty sure my energy is going to go right out the window in the wake of the race. We’ll see. I can’t be the first person to ever nap at a wedding, can I?
