Mr. Dave Does Keto: Some Bread Alternatives (What Have I Become?)

So maybe you have noticed that I haven't been posting a whole heck of a lot lately. This is partly due to my seasonal malaise, but mostly because I am in the throws of a self improvement kick. For the past 34 days I have been on a ketogenic diet. I won't bore you with too many details about the diet (the Keto Reddit is a great resource if you are interested), but in short it is a high fat/moderate protein/very low carb (less than 20g per day) program. Done right and you throw your body into ketosis which is great for burning fat without experiencing too much muscle loss. Needless to say, I haven't been indulging in too many blog post worthy projects as of late.

Why am I doing this to myself? Well, I think it is some sort of early thirties crisis. I am not really overweight or anything, but over the past couple of years I have accumulated what I like to call an abdominal "bagel" with accompanying "lovely handlets." I am relatively active, I average like 20-30 miles a week running during warm weather and I am in the gym a few times a week. But it seemed like my body was at sort of a plateau. It is almost as if my subconscious was hesitant to give up the strategic reserves it had worked so hard at accumulating. In order to achieve abdominal definition for one last time during my life, I decided to give the keto diet a whirl.

Probably the hardest thing to give up is beer. To tell you the truth, beer is probably at fault for my wee belly. Cutting it out of my life has been a bit challenging but I have persevered. I have not had one single oat soda since 30 November.

I am also rather fond of bread. One of the most difficult things about the keto diet is that you are always left wanting to eat something on something... You can only eat so many fried eggs before a primal urge to transport them to your mouth via some sort of vehicle kicks in. Luckily, there are a couple decent alternative bread recipes out there. I thought I would share a couple with you so you can share my pain a little (sort of joking, the keto diet really isn't that painful).

First we have "Mr. Peanut Bread." This is basically nut butter and eggs with some baking soda/vinegar for rise.

After making this for the first time I was pretty surprised at how bread-like in appearance and texture the stuff was. With the peanut butter you are left with a very peanutty flavor (I also tried almond butter which was a bit less assertive). But heck, the stuff really ain't that bad. My favorite use this was bacon sandwiches (I like peanut butter and bacon sandwiches).

Next we have the "Oopsie Roll." These are basically comprised of whipped egg whites and cream cheese.

These are perfect egg n' cheese or hamburger vehicles (pulled pork was good too). The Oopsie Rolls are almost good in their own right, diet aside. These probably do the best job of tricking you into thinking you are eating real bread. They are not a crusty Prinzo's roll, but really they are a reasonable alternative.

There you have it. I kind of hate myself for being on any sort of diet as people on diets tend to be pretty annoying. Heck, I even catch myself talking about keto a little more than anyone probably wants to here... In any event, I have lost 12 pounds in a month which is way more then I thought that I had to lose. I think I am about done with the weight loss phase and am going to transition into the "keto gains" version of the diet (carb up strategically) for sculpting purposes. My bagel has mostly shriveled into what I now call my "bagel chip." I am still not where I want to be, but I am getting close.

Oh dear god, what have I become. I just penned a lengthy, self indulgent, "diet" post... I feel sick.