I Ate Like Kim Kardashian For 3 Days and All I Got Was a Stomachache
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I’ve never believed in diets. My personal “diet” consists of eating super healthy when I cook for myself, and eating like I’m going to the electric chair when there’s free food involved or someone else is picking up the tab.
Because I’m a broke bitch, I don’t eat much meat. Because I’m a wannabe healthy bitch, I don’t eat much dairy or grains (unless it’s pizza, cuz $1 slices are totally in the budget).
When People published Kim Kardashian’s food diary, I have to admit it actually looked pretty delicious and easy. I mean, you get to have scrambled eggs with turkey sausage and smoked Gouda for breakfast, AND Greek yogurt with blueberries. That sounded wonderful, and I was super on board to try this alleged Kim K diet for a couple of days. I even convinced my boyfriend to try it with me as he was trying to drop some pounds before our trip to the beach for the fourth of July.
The main reason why Kim’s diet looked so delicious to me was the plethora of cheese involved in her meals, but it also raised many suspicions. The reason I was so attracted to cheese was not only because of it’s obvious deliciousness, but because I normally don’t eat cheese in my attempts to be healthy. I asked Erin MacDonald of U Rock Girl about Kim’s diet, specifically the cheese.
“I don’t recommend that much cheese, as it is high in saturated fat,” said Erin. “I recommend only organic dairy products and quantity can vary from 0-2 servings a day, depending on the client. Dairy can be a part of a weight loss diet, but I recommend plain Greek yogurt and cottage cheese over most cheeses.”
Recent studies even show that cheese is addictive — maybe this is why even in Kim’s diet she couldn’t resist a bit of Gouda and Feta? I knew all that cheese was too good to be true, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to eat it all in my “dedication to journalism.”
Because I don’t have a personal chef, unlimited grocery budget, or the estimated $52-88 million net worth of Kim, I made some modifications when shopping at the grocery store. Instead of buying Gouda, Feta, sharp cheddar and whatever other cheeses I needed to follow her diet (there was a ridiculous amount), I bought one pack of shredded soy cheese (dairy hurts my tummy) and a pack of cheddar cheese sticks. I also couldn’t find halibut, so I went for a much more cost efficient pack of mahi burgers. Lastly, I didn’t feel like buying and cutting up an entire honeydew, so I bought a pack of pre-cut cantaloupe instead, same shit, right?
Our Trader Joe’s Haul
My boyfriend and I spent about $50 at Trader Joe’s, and I spent about $10 more the next day because I had to go to another grocery store to search for Kim’s probably-sponsored Atkins Harvest Trail Bars. My question is, what’s the point of Kim clearly being paid to endorse a product that is impossible to find? Even at the second grocery store I went to, which had a full shelf of Atkins products, there were no Harvest Trail bars to be found. Instead, I bought Atkins Chocolate Chip Day Break bars, they had around the same calorie count, and were one of the only bars I saw that weren’t meant as meal replacements.
Day 1:
Breakfast:
Scrambled eggs with turkey sausage and smoked Gouda
4 oz. Greek yogurt with 1/3 cup fresh blueberries
The one thing that bothered me about attempting to follow Kim’s diet was that there were usually not any specific measurements like there would be in a real diet. How was I to know how much turkey sausage, eggs, or cheese I was supposed to use?
Because Kim said she used this diet for weight loss, I always estimated on the lower end of things unless I was really hungry. For breakfast I used one egg and one sausage, and a pinch of the soy cheese (sorry, not Gouda). I only realized after eating that the yogurt cup I bought was 6 oz, not 4. Oops. Regardless, I was definitely full after breakfast.
Snack:
Atkins Harvest Trail Dark Chocolate Cherry and Nuts Bar
I didn’t need to eat my snack until about noon, because breakfast was so big. When I did try my substitute Atkins bars, I was surprised how delicious that it was. Unlike normal protein/weight loss bars, this shit actually tasted like real chocolate. Just like the obnoxious amount of cheese, I was also skeptical about the Atkins bars. When I asked Erin, she confirmed my suspicions.
“Atkins bars, shakes, and frozen food line is just a revenue generating machine,” she said. “You do not need to consume these foods for a successful weight loss diet. Most of the sweetened products contain sugar alcohols, which can cause digestive upset (gas, bloating, diarrhea).”
I also felt weirdly embarrassed eating Atkins bars in public. Like, I didn’t want people to know that I was still doing the Atkins diet in 2016, or that I was on any type of diet at all. I especially didn’t want people to think that I thought that these Atkins bars were actually healthy.
Lunch:
Grilled lime chicken over spinach salad with a feta-ranch dressing
Again, the above description was all I got from People, and although I’m sure Kim’s chef whipped her up a delicious salad with lots of veggies, all I used were spinach and chicken because those were the only ingredients listed. I forgot to/didn’t want to buy ranch dressing or feta cheese, so I attempted to sprinkle the soy cheese on top (I say attempted because soy cheese basically just sticks to itself and doesn’t really work unless it’s melted). I used olive oil instead of ranch dressing. If you like eating raw greens with random pieces of chicken, this is great. But I much prefer salads with a variety of vegetables.
Snack:
1 medium carrot and 4 tbsp. hummus
I didn’t buy hummus because I decided I was going to make some, but I forgot to, so I ended up just eating the carrot plain.
Dinner:
Lemon thyme halibut with sautéed green beans
Okay, so it was Mahi instead of Halibut, but it was still good. However, I was still hungry by the end of the day. I ate an extra carrot, but according to the calorie counter I was using to track my intake (My Fitness Pal), I only consumed 1,303 Calories that day. I figure this probably had to do with the fact that there weren’t any actual measurements given, so maybe Kim was eating more green beans than me, or more chicken, or whatever.
Day 2:
Breakfast:
Chicken chorizo and cauliflower sauté with cheese and salsa
On Day 2, I woke up with a stomachache. I assume this had something to do with Kim’s obsession with cheese.
I made breakfast using riced cauliflower because I fucking love riced cauliflower, and it was good. I didn’t get as full from breakfast today, and I ate my snack around 10:30 even though I knew I should space the food out better throughout the day so I wasn’t hungry in the evening again, but I have no self control when it comes to food.
Snack:
½ small apple
2 oz. cheddar cheese
Lunch:
Turkey burger with chipotle aioli, tomato, pickles and onions
I packed this lunch with me and ate it on the go, so I forgot to take a picture (sorry). I’m sure you know what a turkey burger looks like, so I’m not too worried. I didn’t have a pickle to accompany my turkey burger for lunch, so I figured another carrot would be fine considering a carrot is way healthier than a pickle.
Snack:
Atkins Harvest Trail Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramel Bar
Delicious, as it was before. This was maybe my favorite part of the diet because it was basically desert and not healthy at all.
Dinner:
Slow roasted lemon rosemary chicken with asparagus
1/3 cup of wild rice
Ain’t nobody got time to slow roast a chicken, but I still used lemon and rosemary to season the chicken and asparagus. This dinner was pretty standard, it was nice to have some rice in there so that I wasn’t hungry in the evening. This day totaled out to about 1,296 calories, which was less than Day 1, but didn’t leave me hungry because I didn’t work out on Day 2.
Day 3:
Breakfast:
Hatch green chili, cheese and egg bake with arugula
1/8 of a honeydew melon
I woke up with a stomachache again and I barely wanted breakfast. I could not find hatch green chili at the grocery store, the closest thing I could find were green chile peppers, so I went for those. I didn’t make an egg bake because again, too time consuming, but I made an omelette with the same ingredients. I didn’t consult the diet too closely and somehow forgot to have fruit on the side.
Snack:
Vanilla coffee frappe
It was raining this day, so I passed on walking all the way to Starbucks to get a drink that wasn’t even healthy, and I ate another piece of cheese and half of an apple instead.
Lunch:
Zucchini noodles with spicy chicken sausage
This was bomb. I love zoodles. I didn’t have any chicken sausage yet, so I subbed it for some ground turkey that I found in my freezer. Probably not as healthy, but same shit. Still eating a fuck ton of protein like Dr. Atkins would want me too.
Snack:
Atkins Harvest Trail Vanilla Fruit and Nut Bar
Dinner:
Grilled chicken with cauliflower mac and cheese
I’m still confused how this dish made it into a weight loss diet, but definitely not complaining. There was no recipe for cauliflower mac and cheese, so I looked up a “healthy” recipe for it on Google and followed that. Keep in mind this recipe still involved about a cup of low-fat sour cream, a cup of cheese, and no vegetables. The only slightly healthy aspect about the recipe would be that you get cauliflower instead of pasta, but Kim probably negates that by adding chicken on top.
This day had the most calories (thanks to that cheesy ass dinner), and totaled to be about 1,406 calories.
On day four, I ate the leftovers from my Kim-inspired grocery shopping. So although I didn’t technically follow her prescribed meal plans, I was essentially still on the diet for an extra day. At about 11:30 on day 4, when I decided I was finished, I split a funnel cake with my boyfriend cuz YOLO.
I weighed 115 pounds before starting the diet, and I finished the diet at 115 pounds as well. Shockingly, eating a shitload of cheese and sugar-loaded Atkins bars for four days didn’t give me Kim Kardashian’s body. Honestly, if I wasn’t limiting my portions, I probably would have gained weight on this diet. I asked Erin what she thought of this “Atkins 2.0” Kimmy diet.
“It’s a slightly healthier version of the high-protein, high-fat Atkins diet of the past,” says Erin. Erin says that Atkins’ recommended three servings of protein a day (4-6 oz/serving which translates into 84-126 grams of protein a day) and the 2-4 tbs. a day of healthy fats is “perfectly healthy and the latest literature does support a higher protein intake for weight loss and maintenance.”
Erin explained that Atkins is still under speculation because of their low carb diet and the chosen source where Atkins users get their carbs.
“Akins uses the term ‘net carbs,’ which is total carbs minus fibers and sugar alcohols (found in their products and other “low carb”/sugar free products),” explains Erin.
The Atkins idea of ‘net carbs’ is still questionable. Atkins crafts their diet around the idea that all consumed carbs should have high fiber content, which equates to less net carbs, with the goal being 40 net carbs per day.
“Vegetables are stressed as primary carb intake, mostly from leafy greens and other non-starchy vegetables. Other carbs: nuts, seeds, legumes, fruit, grains, dairy, and alcohol should be limited but can be part of the daily diet,” explains Erin.
It definitely does seem odd that Atkins doesn’t advocate for nuts, fruit, or beans, which are constantly viewed as healthy foods by other doctors/ nutrition plans.
“Is the Atkins 40 better than the traditional junk-food, processed American diet? Yes. It advocates vegetables, lean protein, and healthy fats. However, I wouldn’t restrict legumes, nuts, seeds, fruit, starchy vegetables, or whole grains. They all provide important fiber and antioxidants, which reduce risk of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.”
The one saving grace of the diet for me was the fact that because I had to stick to the diet, I didn’t have a glass of wine with dinner, I didn’t grab a cake-pop from Starbucks on my way to work, and I didn’t let my boyfriend order take-out when we were too lazy to cook dinner. But then again, this basically happens with any diet.
When I put on my bedazzled gold bikini for work on Saturday (my first day fully off the diet), I did feel like I was looking good, but I honestly have no clue if this had anything to do with my three day diet.
The downside was that because my stomach isn’t accustomed to all that dairy and meat, it really wreaked havoc on my innards. I woke up with stomachaches every morning on the diet, and was still not feeling back to normal even three days later.
When I asked my boyfriend what he thought of the diet, he said he didn’t think it worked and that he definitely didn’t lose weight. He “felt like it was a lot of food for a diet, like for example the one morning when I had the yogurt and the omelette, I would’ve been fine without the yogurt.” Keep in mind that my boyfriend is a college wrestler and used to literally eating a handful of black beans for his one meal of the day when he’s cutting weight, but still.
Maybe there’s a reason why nobody except Kim Kardashian has used the term Atkins since the early 2000s. Or maybe, Kim just knows what works for her body (and her bank account, since there’s no way she’s not getting paid to endorse Atkins bars). Kim’s love of cheese and vanilla frappe’s may work for her bodacious body, but when I’m trying to feel thin, my body responds way better to lots of veggies and no dairy whatsoever.
