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How I found Keto
- Kelsey
- Jun 20, 2019
- 5 min read
Updated: Jun 24, 2019
Some of you may be wondering why I started keto, why do I intend to make this a lifestyle and why did I consider keto in the first place? You might even be a little curious what my overall health background had actually been. The truth is, it was a very “wishy washy” start. I chose to try this fad diet that was becoming ever so popular, to help my husband and try to find some success for myself. However, I soon noticed some changes in my body, energy and mood that I could not deny.
It all started when my husband, Joel, mentioned he might be interested in trying keto because of a couple of his friends at work had seen amazing results. But I had grown up in a time of fad diets and at one point my entire family went on the Atkins diet for and extended period of time. We all lost a bunch of weight, stopped the diet and gained all that weight and more right back! I was a classic example of a yo-yo dieter from quite a young age. All that to say my attitude toward an Atkins like diet was poor to say the least.
It was Summer of 2018, after my son (who was 6 months old at the time) had been born. The mild postpartum depression that I seem to get with my babies had just started to hit me hard. I didn't have any resolve to stick to any healthy eating plan that I tried and kept sabotaging myself so badly that, to my dismay, I had started to GAIN weight again! This is something no woman wants to see when she's short on sleep, trying to keep a baby and toddler alive and overall feeling depressed with life. (I am not going to tell you that keto was the answer to my mild PPD, but I know that for me personally, my weight and overall health correlates very much to my mood.)
I go to my husband, Joel, and tell him I need to start something, but I need for him to do it with me. Being on a diet and still cooking non compliant foods for the husband had not worked in the past and I needed support. Joel suggested that he would be willing to try keto because, “you can eat all the meat you want.” After researching for months, we jumped in with both feet on the condition that Joel would stick with it until Christmas. This would end up being about 3 ½ months. Certainly a good starting point.
So we jumped in! I scoured the internet for recipes that I thought Joel would like. I researched what the most common low carb veggies were. I figured out what our macros would be, even though I wasn’t sure what that even meant. I logged every single thing that I ate and monitored my weight loss. (Now, Joel never did the food tracking like I did. He wanted it to be simple and he has been successful doing it this way. But this blog will follow what I did that worked for me with occasional reference to my amazingly successful husband!)
So I’m going to get real here and talk numbers. I have always been a little insecure about telling people my weight using real numbers, however I feel it can be encouraging or helpful to other people who are on the same journey. So here I go. The disclaimer here is that these are the results from the last 10 months of my life. I am human, so I am not always consistent. I cave to temptation just like everyone else. We fell off the wagon over the Christmas holidays, so you can see I didn’t always make HUGE progress. BUT I will say you can always see some weight loss!
(I also understand using the scale is only one of the many tools there are to measure progress, but it is a tool that I personally like to use most days of the week.)
Just the numbers:
July 2018:220lbs (heaviest non-pregnant weight)
(Day #1)September 17th: 208.4lbs
October 18th: 200.6lbs
November 17th: 196.4lbs
December 14th: 191.7lbs
January 17th: 191.4lbs
February 18th: 188lbs
March 18th: 182bs
April 9th: 179.6 lbs
May 15th: 178.4lbs
June 16th: 175.8lbs
So looking at those results, does anyone want to tell me that the Ketogenic lifestyle doesn’t work?? Just to recap, from day one of this eating style to our deadline I lost 17 entire pounds! But what were the other benefits that I saw? I saw my clothes fit better. I had gone from a tight size 16 pants to a comfortable 14 and switched out my XL shirts for a plain old Large! I had more energy and wasn't in dire need of my mid afternoon nap to be able to get through the day with my new 1 year old and almost 3 year old. My aches and pains and headaches were not nearly as bad as they tended to be. I used to take ibuprophen most days, if not multiple times a day and I found that I wasn’t even taking anything to get through my PMS cramps (which I can say was and continues to be fantastic!)! Not to mention my husband had lost 25 pounds by this point as well!
As you can see, we didn’t stop there! On our way back from visiting family over Christmas, Joel and I talked about not really wanting to quit Keto. We agreed that we felt better with this style of eating and definitely had felt bogged down and gross when we very much over indulged on the Christmas treats! So when we got home, we got right back on the plan and “ketoed on” as some say. It has been such a great journey. And I have lost an additional 16 pounds!
Since starting Keto I have been able to discover so many great resources that are out there. Through following people who are just wanting to share what keto can do for you and have learned so much, that I too want to share! I have been introduced to some exciting things about how to fight fat with fat, fight inflammation, low energy, aches and pains and even cancer with a lifestyle that is doable once you wrap your head around it. But I think the most exciting thing that I have discovered is that I can and have been wildly successful at losing the weight that I had put on for most of my life. And guess what? You can too! It is possible to embrace a new style of eating, lose the weight that’s been bogging you down for so long and to start feeling satisfied and great again! If I can do this, anyone can!
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