I feel SO bad.
Please consider this my formal and sincere apology.
I normally don’t make mistakes like this, and I feel awful about posting a great low carb dinner idea that I know others chose to eat after I shared it… knowing what I know NOW.
I know better than this too.
So here goes…
I’ve been super focused on testing certain foods and improving my ketone levels to see what impact that had on both my weight loss and how I feel.
My tests were successful: ketone levels improved dramatically, and I even saw a 2.2 pound loss – a “whoosh” as we call it, after the scales not budging for weeks.
This is the Keto Mojo Testing Meter and that link will get you 15% off the kit for glucose/ketone testing.
Nutritional Ketosis is important to my low carb lifestyle.
There are various ways to eat low carb, but for me personally being in ketosis is KEY to maintaining an active feel-good lifestyle.
Even at my lowest weight (too low for me personally) I continued eating “keto” to maintain nutritional ketosis, specifically to stay out of chronic pain.
Prior to going low carb I suffered terribly with chronic back pain, sciatica and at one point my doctor wanted to diagnose me with fibromyalgia (I refused).
I was on pain medication, did chiropractic and electronic and massage therapy up to 3 times a week (expensive!!), etc.
Once I went low carb, and got and stayed in ketosis specifically, my pain all but went away! I water skied for the first time in 23 years, I started hiking and rock climbing and dancing in high heels even! 🙂
See this video: Nutritional Ketosis by Dr. Stephen Phinney to learn more.
Just so you understand WHY this is such a big deal to me, and the reason I do such DETAILED testing on the keto products I recommend to you.
Rewind back to Tuesday…
I was craving “junk food” on Tuesday night and had a favorite show to catch up on, so it seemed like a perfect time to have a pizza night!
I called up Domino’s and ordered a medium pepperoni pizza with extra cheese on a thin crust with no sauce – and simply peeled the toppings off and enjoyed them.
Yummy!
I also ordered plain bone-in wings, well done (extra crispy):
Oddly enough I didn’t have that much of an appetite by the time the pizza arrived. I think I got busy or distracted or something, and ended up having one serving of the Pizza toppings and putting the rest of the pizza (and the wings) away to enjoy the next day.
The pizza toppings are fine, btw…
Domino’s publishes their nutrition facts and they have a nutrition calculator on their site, so it takes a little math… but first you use the PDF nutrition facts so you can subtract the crust (20 net carbs) and the sauce (2 net carbs) PER SERVING (the way I ordered mine) based on their nutrition facts.
Then you go to their nutrition calculator and put in what you ordered (the crust and sauce will be included by default). Mine came to 26 net carbs – then I subtract the 22 net carbs for the “no sauce please” and the crust I didn’t eat… which comes to 4 net carbs for 1/4 of the pizza.
At this point you may think I’m “KETO OCD” lol, but… you’ll see why!
I didn’t actually eat the wings until LATE the next night…
My ketone levels were strong before and after eating the serving of pizza toppings, btw:
So it was late Wednesday night when I finally crisped up the wings in the oven and sat down to enjoy them. And they were delicious. 🙂
But then Thursday I felt OFF.
My back was hurting, I was aching all over, I was craving things I normally don’t…
I tested my ketone levels and discovered I was OUT of ketosis!
Anything 0.5 or above is IN ketosis. Below 0.5 is NOT in ketosis. Learn more here…
I generally look EVERYTHING up.
Er, see my complicated pizza math above lol.
But chicken is just chicken – right?!
That’s the only other “untested” thing I’d eaten, so I headed straight to the Domino’s website and did exactly what I should have done in the first place.
I ABOUT FELL OUT OF MY CHAIR!
Not only is an order of 8 bone-in plain (no sauce) wings 14 carbs, look at the INGREDIENTS:
holy-freaking-paragraph-of-ingredients!
FOURTEEN carbs for 8 little plain chicken wings!
Not so plain after all, are they?
If you are just eating low carb and not concerned about nutritional ketosis, you should still be aware of the ingredients – just in case one of them affects you, or you have a weird reaction to it.
And just because it’s good to know exactly what you’re eating!
I’m not an ingredient snob by any means, but this was SHOCKING. I honestly thought I was just eating plain chicken. As in ZERO CARBS “plain ass chicken.” Seriously.
Your blood ketone levels respond slower than your blood glucose levels, but I kept an eye on this out of curiosity. My ketone levels continued to drop throughout the day.
By 5pm the day after I ate the wings (about 4 1/2 hours after my last test), my ketone levels were even lower:
And by the next day, lower still!
This was Friday around noon:
Almost 8 hours later, Friday night at 7:47pm to be exact:
I continued eating super low carb, only ketone-tested foods, to see just how fast I could get my body back into ketosis.
In fact Friday night I skipped dinner altogether and just had a fat bomb packet.
I checked again on Saturday morning at 6:30am:
I was FINALLY back in Ketosis by 2:30pm Saturday (today).
It took me 3 days to get back into ketosis, or around 63 hours.
That was sixty three hours of chronic pain for me, plus bloating and cravings and energy tanking lows… all over 8 little “naked wings” – that are FULL of invisible ingredients!
I feel SO awful if anyone else ordered and ate these.
I had NO idea.
I’m truly sorry for not looking these up before I ordered them, and for sure before I shared them on Instagram and Facebook and other places around the web.
Especially since I’m the one always saying you should look things up!
Normally when I get knocked out of ketosis like this, I find it to be a great opportunity to go have sushi (or worse, lol) but I decided to use this as a test to see how FAST my body would get back into ketosis this time.
There were A LOT of eggs, and there was A LOT of finger pricking this week. 😛
I fought the cravings, and the usual tendency to just go ahead and enjoy something high carb – since I was out of ketosis anyway. I mean, if you ARE going to eat something crappy, that’s the best time to do it – right?!
I know me though, and I know that could lead to me going totally off the rails, so I did what I always recommend to you:
I ate super clean and super low carb and got RIGHT back in ketosis!
I have overcome WAY too many food addictions and eating disorders over the years to let some “poison chicken” derail me. 😉
On the topic… we’re discussing food problems on Facebook right now:
To learn more about Ketone Levels and how to improve them, see:
4 Ways to Improve Your Ketone Levels for Optimal Weight Loss
The blood glucose & ketone testing kit I use is by Keto Mojo, and they were kind enough to set us up with a 15% discount on those:
Get 15% off the Keto Mojo Ketone Testing Meter
Without that meter, I never would have figured out this culprit – and discovered what all (!!) they were putting in those poor little chicken wings.
Again… my apologies.
I’m sincerely sorry for the misleading post about what I thought was a keto-friendly delivery option. I feel AWFUL for not looking it up first before sharing it – and definitely before eating it. Ugh.
I’m going to go crawl in my box of shame and close the lid now. 😛
I hope this saves you from the same experience I had.
And maybe nutritional ketosis is not a goal for you, which is fine! But at least now you know what you’re eating – and that those 8 wings are 14 carbs.
I honestly thought they were just skin-on, bone-in, plain old zero carb chicken wings… and I’m sure I’m not the only one that thought that!
It pays to look things up before you order them.
(Why did I not take my own advice?! Argh! lol)
*sigh*
I’m happy to be back in ketosis. Part of me wishes I’d gone out for sushi and donuts. Ha! But I have GOALS and I also have a responsibility to you to do the testing and see it through properly…
Best,
Lynn Terry,
aka @LowCarbTraveler
Netrition – The Internet’s Premier Nutrition Superstore!
0 Comments