About Me

I'm Jenn and I've been vegan for 13 years. When I first went vegan, the change and diet and walking a few miles a day led to a 20-25 lbs. weight loss. Then it stalled. I amped up my workouts, lost a little, got busy or traveled and fell out of my workout routine, gained it back. Over and over and over. I did Dr. McDougall's plan for awhile and lost some weight again. But despite having numerous McDougall recipe books, I got bored with the food after awhile and vegan junk food found it's way back into my diet. I found out that despite began vegan and relatively healthy, I had high cholesterol and triglycerides, but also soon learned this was likely due to my inherited hypothyroid which I began medicating. Cholesterol went down but triglycerides stayed high. For other reasons, I went gluten-free -- hard core gluten-free -- for a year and lost some weight. But I didn't feel like living GF was really fixing the issues that caused me to try it and I still limited gluten but quit adhering to it completely. Gained some weight. Tried Dr. Furhman's Eat to Live plan and felt amazing, lost a little weight and got my triglycerides down for the first time. But there aren't a ton of recipes available and I found it hard to stick to.

Fast forward to 2013 -- I had 3 surgeries to fix my knee (it dislocated at nearly any moment, regardless of what I was doing since I was a child). During the long recoveries, there were only a few months between surgeries that I could actually walk, let alone exercise. I gained about 25 lbs. and I was already overweight. In 2014, I started seeing a personal trainer, for a few months, I was doing strenuous workouts, boxing (Muay Thai), and walking / sprinting steep hills -- all multiple times each week -- with no weight loss or change in body fat. My trainer recommended The Carb Nite Solution (TM), with some modifying for being vegan. I lost 7 lbs the first 2 weeks and stalled, so after a couple more weeks my trainer weighed me and took a body composition reading. I lost 2% body fat. But I still hadn't lost more weight. I'm sure I have gained some muscle, and that accounts for part of it. But an even bigger part of the equation, I had no real guide, not for a vegan. I found so little information online about being vegan on an ultra low carb diet, but a lot of people asking if it's possible and how to go about it. Many of the low carb gurus seemed to completely ignore these questions (but not others!) or just said something like "it's possible if you're willing to eat cheese and eggs." Thanks for the info. Not helpful.

I got some ketone test strips and realized I wasn't staying in ketosis; I was constantly getting booted out and so my intro period was being prolonged. I started feeling tired and worried I couldn't make it work as a vegan. Screw that.

I reread The Carb Nite Solution (TM), started testing for ketones all throughout the day, listened to podcast about ketosis, and searched through many (non-vegan) low carb sites and blogs to glean any help that I could veganize. I've been compiling information, trying new products and recipes, and playing scientist ever since. I have managed to get my carbs lower and I finally started to regularly see moderate-large ketone reactions on my test strips. And my energy is back! I feel really great, and I'm hoping the weight loss will follow. I will keep you posted. And if it doesn't, I'll tell you all about the next version I try, until I find one that works.

I hope this blog about my low carb journey will be helpful. I have learned a lot about diet, the body, and it's physiology, but I'm not a nutritionist or expert. So try it for yourself, leave comments, ask questions, and tell me if you have any good resources. I'll share them here with others.

Thanks for stopping at the Ultra Low Carb Vegan blog!