March 11 Day 15

Well, I have a confession to make. I had to withdraw my rainy day account because sadly the rain was falling, In buckets. Too much catch up had to be done from the two months of working part time. So I am back to a literal square one in my nest egg.

I am having a hard time feeling strong today, So much happening on my family front, I have the daunting task of an exam that I have to write Friday for work and there is a job position coming up that I am desperately trying to make them look at me for as it is the holy grail of where I want to get to in the bank.

For about a week I was feeling very up, motivated and on top of the world, this week, with my kiddo acting like a stranger and company in my house on top of it I am feeling like a caged animal, I have also had hunger issues which is surprising to me. Leads me to believe that my body is working on figuring out the new regime as I know I am eating enough.

In any case, been a bit of a rough week but I am holding strong, feel depressed today and very much like I don't want to deal with people. Sucks that my job is totally dealing with people. I am hoping that if I drop off the planet just for a day it will not be too noticed.

on the PLUS side 15 days keto! I am taking a challenge from my favorite Facebook group to not track macros etc for 30 days. Just eat. Eat when hungry , don't when not.

Take the stress out of it.

I am also thinking that next week I am going to take my new found energy and start going to yoga again, if I can seem to get myself out of my head by then. Right now I am in it and not much to be done about it.

March 6 Day 10

Good Morning all,

I am sure finding that posting every day is a challenge to find the time. Today is Sunday and this weekend has been my first weekend that I have really felt the effects of the keto way of eating. I am a machine, I seem to be unstoppable, I have boundless energy and am in a very good mood. My biggest observation is how calm I seem to feel. I think maybe it is because this no longer feels like a diet choice, it is a lifestyle. I feel amazing and I am over the bad part now.

Compared to the last time I did this, I feel very educated. I have found the most wonderful facebook group called ketogenic success. So much knowledge in that " room" it is a place to celebrate all of the little victories. For example, yesterday I made bread from scratch with my boundless energy.

now, 2 things are interesting about this. First of all, prior to keto I had a really foggy head from my fibromyalgia, I could not for example read a recipie and retain any of it. I had a hard time baking for that reason. Seemed to complicated. I am on medication for the fibro and was still having the head fog issue, I find now 10 days into keto I have been able to read and retain alot more. This is pretty fantastic since I have a course for work that is due on March 20. I am not near done but now that my head works I feel I am able to get going on it.

Second thing interesting about the bread is that I didnt even feel an urge to eat it, I was so satisfied making it... but in doing that I realized I had not eaten all day, I had coffee in the morning but that was it. It was 6 pm when I decided I should make food and really it was hard to eat. Have to be mindful of that one, I do not suppose I can just not eat.

So that part is going well, the money part, well not so much. I have been forced to go over budget a bit. I had only worked part time for the past 2 months and so although this pay check was the one I was going to begin my austerity with, well, I have had to go into what I put away to get a few survivial things. My medication for an example is 64.00... after coverage. I did give in to a few frivolous things too. I dyed my hair, I bought a curling iron. Shampoo conditioner and leave in conditioner. Also, two bread pans.

So I can justify most of it, not the curling iron or hair dye .. karma is a bitch though, I burnt my thumb on the curling iron.


orking on making extra cash though, I am knitting dishcloths for sale. So far I have 75.00 in orders. I have decided to put the money for them right on credit. no point in saving extra money if I owe money. As a financial adviser I KNOW this.

SO I have decided that next pay day I am putting away my cards. Going to put them all in a lock box and then I do not have the ability to go on a spree at walmart because I am bored. I have to control myself a bit and put a bit of a leash on me.

The other thing that was fun that happened was I got back the pictures I had done as my sexy before pictures. Even chubby I still look pretty cute. They made me feel good , I have found I feel sexy and I feel confident just Knowing that I am doing something for myself to better myself.

OH MY GOD, I made a Meatza the other day. it was wonderful. I think I may start a tab for food creations on this page. Maybe down the road. I have alot on my plate these days.

A few goals established this week as well,

The boy and I have been talking about trying to rent and open a gallery space for art, he does amazing alternative photography. I like to model for these types of things and I want a place to sell my wares ( knitted projects and jewelry if I get back into making it ) . My biggest struggle is time management , I seem to never have enough time to do much of anything, Trying hard to boost my income through monetizing the blog and through any avenue I can think of.

It is early days and I have total faith that in a year my life is going to look so much different, in a good way.

Cheers for today, talk soon. Please feel free to comment and share the blog if you know anyone that might benefit from reading along with another's story.

March 2/2016 Day 6

Well, I have not been very good at posting every day for the past 5 days, this is largely because I wanted to DIE for most of it. WOW! Carb addiction is an angry angry foe! I feel about a million percent better today though, Feel as though someone lifted the veil and my energy is high!

To be honest my energy is so high I almost am having a hard time sitting still, I have hopes it will level out a bit. Last night I was up with my kid until 11pm and we were baking.

Baking?? yes baking. I did not sample any of what we made, That is not a hardship for me though, I was right on the heels of finally not feeling like I had the worst dehydration and flu of my year. It was an easy thing to not care about the beautiful berry pie that I made.

Confessional time, I did use my MasterCard yesterday. I was at the grocery store and my order came to 4.00 more than what was in my wallet. In hind sight, I really should have just put something back but I had the card there and I used it. I guess what I learned from that one is that I need to take them out of my wallet. If I am every really in an emergency there is nothing that I can not get access to through online banking so really, the cards have to come out. That is what I am going to do tonight. I could not actually bring myself to do it yesterday.

Today will be more difficult. I am down to literally .50 in my wallet. I do not think I need to purchase anything today. I really have all I need, The part that is hard is knowing there are funds in my bank account. Those funds are not for my entertainment though, they have purpose and that purpose is not for me.

Second Confession, I am having a hard time staying off of online banking. It is such a part of my day. I am a financial person and sadly when I am stressed out one of the things that I do is reorganize my budget, try to find better ways and then I end up borrowing from myself.

I have set up a really good automatic payment program that looks after everything, it even transfers to me the cash that is mine. I should actually never have to look unless there is a problem and maybe once on payday to make sure everything went where it was supposed to. I logged in about 6 times yesterday to look. Today will be better.

Ok, I think that does it for my slips ups, well for the first week anyway.

Now, the good news! I had my weigh in this morning, and * drumroll* I am down to 173.8lbs. That is a total loss of 3 pounds in the 6 days I have been doing keto!. I have been really cautious about not eating too much of anything. Not too much protein, not too much snacking on nuts which is very easy to do. My day is usually that I have a couple cups of coffee with heavy cream in the morning, an avocado and some broth with butter for lunch and then I eat a more balanced dinner with veg and protein etc.

I work at a desk job so it is actually easy for me to not eat a whole pile of food while I am working. I feel better to not be full and bloated when I am sitting at my desk.

My biggest challenge is night eating, I am not hungry, I feel my appetite is well in check but I am such a night time snacker. I have found the best thing to do is keep busy and if I really want something I have a bag of peanuts that I can have some of each day. Lots and lots of delicious fat for calories, butter should be its own food group.

So week one is down for all intents and purposes, I am now diving into a study manual for a test I have to write very very soon. Lets call this my stress challenge.

More later.

~ Whiskey,

Feb 25/16- Day 1

1-Feb 25/2016.

So, I am probably you. 36, Short , fat desk job and broke. I have two kids, a mortgage, too much debt and well here I am living the North American dream.

I have said for years this is not how I see myself when I grow up. Some time in the last little while I looked at my 13 year old who is my youngest and realized that I DID grow up. I am still waiting to make the changes that I know I will have to make in my life to achieve the things I dream about.

So then, A little about me. I have never been the best at follow through. I am a true procrastinator, I have a lot of big ideas ! Big ideas become work and finally then they become passing thoughts that I figure might have been great if I had just kept it up.

My best example of this is money. I work at a financial institution. I spend my days helping people either buy their dream homes or invest for their future. I look at an account that has 800.00 in it and I think “ wow this person is cutting it close on usable cash”

My bank account is currently -745.00. My bills are behind and this is not for lack of making a decent salary.

IF I had stuck to the original financial plan I made for myself about 8 years ago, small savings and no credit. Live on cash and don’t spend what you don’t have. Make a plan for all events and set up automatic payments so that you never have to worry about having enough to pay your bills. Budget and do not spend for fun.

IF I had done this, at 36 I would be a comfortable woman and able to plan some living in my life.
I did not and so the result of that is that I am a slave to my job, working to pay for what I have already spent and emotionally eating to make myself feel better about where my life is at.

Putting this on paper sounds like complete insanity, and my IQ is way too high to keep going this way.

I have come to the conclusion that like every other flimsy dream/goal in my life I have sat back and kinda wanted it to happen but not prioritized it. I have not defined this with a solid start date, end date and rules to live by.

Rules, that is another thing about me, I don’t like them. I don’t like rules even when I am the one who has created them. As an example, I don’t believe in marriage because I feel that suddenly I will no longer have the choice to be in the relationship if I am married, I am then legally bound to be there. This remains true even with my partner who I can not imagine not spending the rest of my life with, I still don’t want to marry him.

I don’t like rules with money, life, work, I generally don’t like anyone telling me how and what I need to do. This I recognize is a bit of a personality flaw and part of my quest for the next year is to stick to the rules I am laying out for myself.

So you get the pictures. I am a stubborn redhead with a few authority issues, a whimsical gypsy mind that is easily distracted and loves loves loves food.

I love me as well, but I am still not the person who I see in my head. I see my reflection and feel like there is a strange bloated sad looking version of me staring back.

I do not need therapy, I do not believe I am depressed , I simply need to do what a million people each year do, make a choice and stick with it through to see some change.

This brings me to the Keto-Cash Project. I have not yet decided if the entire project will stay a secret or simply the fact that I am writing a book to produce at the end of it. I guess, true to form, I simply cant make that choice right now.



The Keto-Cash Project is my personal 365 day experiment with food and money.

We will start with “ keto” Short for Ketogenic diet. I do not like the word diet as it indicates that there will be an end date. I feel physchologically this is a bad thing. Real change has to be felt as a permanent embrace I am told , so I prefer the shortened form of the word.
There is a huge “ Keto “ movement out there in the world right now, Just spend 5 minutes on google after searching the word and you will be transported to a thousand sites of people with seemingly miraculous weight loss and health benefits. I am skeptic by nature when it comes to most things, Truth is though I have done this for 3 months before, I have never ever felt better.

“keto” is fairly simply. Restrict your carbohydrate intake to 20g net carbs a day. Moderate protein and most of your calories from healthy fats.

That’s it, easy right? Well only if you do not get too caught up in the world of macro nutrients and food weighing and supplements. These of course are just fancy words for rules.

Keto has to be monitered to some degree to be successful, you do have to make sure you eat within the carb confines. This is the heart of the whole process, turning your body from something that runs on glucose for fuel ( sugar) and one that runs on your own fat strores.

The science is out there, it is tested and proven. I think that if you are reading this then it is worth your while to go and read a bit of it just to have an understanding of why it works.

As far as I am concerned I have done the research, I have done the reading, I have listened to the podcasts and still do. Now I am simply ready to stop thinking about it and start.
I also am a person with an autoimmune disease and a large predisposition to cancer. I have a complete hysterectomy at 25 to avoid that issue when some nasty cells were found. I have no gall bladder for the same reason.

“Keto” although yet unproven, has shown to have major health benefits when it comes to cancer fighting and inflammation reduction. Simply put, Cancer cells eat sugar- keto has no sugar – keto starves cancer.

I love the thought, I hope they can come up with some studies that prove it soon. I do not believe big Pharma will be happy with the conclusion.

So, these are the reasons that I am doing “keto”. I have 40 pounds to lose and a lot of life I want to live.

Now, on to the Cash part, I want to be able to afford to live all that life. I have looked at the things that I have financed over the last decade, and I am not talking about the big stuff, cars etc, but the stupid little things that rack up your credit cards and then just sit there. I can not tell you anymore what the purchases even are on my cards. I can not tell you where the money went when I took out a loan to refinance.

I am an emotional spender as well. I may as well just face it, I have what one would call an addictive personality driven by instant gratification. I never wait for anything I want it 5 minutes ago.

As Mr Einstien said, “ the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”.

So I present to you “ The Keto-Cash Project”.
Very simply put, I am going to follow a “keto” food plan and live on cash only for 365 days.



The Rules:

1. Eat a ketogenic meal plan for 365 days starting Feb 25 2016-Feb 24-2017 ( this is a leap year)
2. No cheating. Not even for holidays and high days. I know it is possible to do this as I have done it in the past. There are always ways to make your food ketogenic
3. Document. No holds barred documentation of the process. I will be honest about how I am doing through the entire time. AND, I will continue through to the 365 days.
4. Live on Cash. No credit spending, no debit spending, no borrowing. If I do not physically have the funds then I do not have the ability to purchase what I want.
5. Do not short change bills or family in order to have cash for things. I do not get to put myself in front of adult responsibilities.
6. This is key- Only log into online banking when necessary. I am an addict. I look at my accounts and try to sort out ways to make it more complex and more lucrative all the time. I watch my tiny investments and try to decide if I should take them out. It will not matter because the cash in my wallet is what I will have.
7. Pay down credit cards with any and all extra funds that come my way. I have a budget of 300.00 per month that is my money to spend. That works out to 10.00 per day. Logically that should be enough for any little things. If I decide to go for dinner with the boy well then that is a few days after that I do not spend anything.
Gas is 30.00 a week so that still leaves me with 40.00 for entertainment. Actually that is plenty.

8. Monthly financial recap. I will report the balances on my accounts monthly on the 25th. This will not only help me track my progress but I want to keep this very real.
9. I will make money from any and all sources that I can. I like to knit and so I am sure that I can get my infiknits business off the ground if I really try.
10. I will finish this book, meaning I will stick to this project.

So, there you have it, The Keto Cash Project is on.