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Heather Wainer is the owner, Publisher and Vice President of Media at WholeFoods Magazine, a family-owned, woman-led publishing and full-service natural products media company. Heather grew up in the natural products industry, watching her father publish WholeFoods Magazine. After college, Heather joined the WholeFoods Magazine team, and in time took over running the company. She has been instrumental in the growth of WholeFoods Magazine, as well as the newly relaunched WholeFoodsMagazine.com, the WholeFoods Source Book directory, In the Know e-newsletters, and The Natural View podcast. In a joint venture with Industry Transparency Center, Heather helps lead the development and execution of the Naturally Informed virtual conference series, now in its third year. She is also on the board of What’s Up with Supps. www.linkedin.com/in/heather-wainer-1227184

My Keto Experiment

February 19, 2019

Heather Wainer

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This year WholeFoods is publishing a series on special diets, so we thought it could be useful and informative to try each diet, too. I tackled Keto as our first diet. I started on New Year’s Day--the perfect time to start fresh with a new food formula. I have always had a hard time wrapping my head around eating lots of fat--I felt the same way when I tackled Atkins years ago. But I’ve read a lot about how healthy fats are beneficial. I’m not going to say I never had any bacon--I did, but mostly on weekends. I also used my MCTs and ate a lot of avocado. In the beginning I had trouble figuring out what to eat and found it difficult to cut back my veggies and fruit as I know it is necessary, and I do enjoy those foods. But I started following keto influencers on social media for ideas and recipes. There is a whole world out there, and tapping into it helped.

Throughout the month, I checked on urine sticks and while I never made it to deep ketosis, I did get into ketosis and kept it. During the first few days I felt those “keto flu” side effects, but that quickly went away. Overall, sticking with the diet wasn’t that difficult. I traveled, ate at a restaurant, had dinner at a friend’s house, etc., and it wasn’t a challenge. The diet is adaptable. I did break it for Super Bowl, though. We were having a party, and I wanted a little more flexibility.

I also read that intermittent fasting helps, so I did do a few times but feel I could have done more. I went for 16 hours usually, with most of those hours being overnight. I usually ate around 11 in the morning. I did like one day when I ate a big, late lunch and didn't eat again until the next morning. I wasn't able to keep that pattern up, though. That next day by lunchtime I wasn't hungry enough to eat another big lunch, and so I ended up being too hungry later in the day to hold off on eating until the morning. Still, I did feel less hungry on Keto at mealtimes. In continuing I would like to try more fasting.

I worked out mostly with indoor cycling and some strength training. Basically, my lifestyle did not change much and I felt good. I lost 6 pounds in the process and will continue. What I have noticed is that I can get back into ketosis again easily. I slipped for Super Bowl and our company anniversary party, but was able to jump back in within a couple days. Protein powders and bars helped, and I did more with collagen and bone broth. As I continue on with keto, I’m looking into other products, and there are many more recipes I want to explore as well.

I have eaten more eggs and meat than I usually do...and cheese--it’s one of my biggest downfalls, so I probably ate too much of that! And I do love eating peanut butter. I’ve learned about fat bombs for a treat. Those are great when you when you need something sweet or find yourself craving chocolate like I do. I don’t think I can make keto a lifestyle forever, but think for me it will morph into a healthy low carb diet--with a break for pizza from time to time![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]