Why Keto/IF?

Many people diet. Many people exercise or lose weight for various reason. I myself have gone through various periods of these various behaviors. As a child, I played many sports (basketball, baseball, soccer, cheerleading). As a teen I did a lot of yo-yo dieting and cycles of exercising extensively everyday for a few months and then not exercising at all for the rest of the year. I kind of eventually came to terms that I would just always be overweight. That I just didn’t have the discipline and that maybe my body just wanted to be fat. Even now, though I am losing weight rapidly and amazed at the changes I already feel, I still cannot imagine myself at a healthy weight.

So what changed? I would say nothing, really. I always had the desire to lose weight, but it was my motivation that came and went in different bursts. I could restrict calories for a while, but I would always turn back to comfort foods when I was stressed or lazy. To be honest, I was scared to start Keto because I thought there was no way I could follow such a strict diet and not cheat. But, I got frustrated. I had started intermittent fasting last year, and I lost about 20 pounds in 2.5 months. I felt great, but then I took on extra hours at work and I was super stressed and my diet and intermittent fasting went out the window. Fast forward 6 months later and I had gained it all back. I tried to go back to intermittent fasting, eating better food, and exercising every day, but it was not working for me this time. At a loss, I finally decided to try the Ketogenic diet, but I knew I would have to be all in. So, I decided to give it an honest 30-day shot and see what happened.

The results in just the first week are an amazing motivator to keep pushing. Water weight or not, seeing an 8 pound drop in just one week made me feel like I could really do it. I knew, realistically, that I wouldn’t see those results every week, but I knew that Keto was working for my body and I didn’t feel like I was just running in place.

Keto has many benefits. Researching about Keto, I kind of thought at first it was like a cult following, but it seems like the real deal. Many people say they started with 30 days just to try it out and just kept going. There are some critics when it comes to the Keto diet. However, I feel like the results speak for themselves. Maybe it seems strange to cut out whole food groups and eat a ton of fat, but I feel better than I have in a long time. I feel like I’m slowly fixing my unhealthy relationship with food. My body doesn’t feel as heavy and gross as when I was stuffing it full of all the wrong foods. Instead of living to eat, I’m starting to eat to live and I don’t even really feel like I’m depriving myself. I can look at that chocolate bar and know that it probably would taste great, but I don’t need it or even crave it like I did 3 weeks ago.

I jumped right into Keto and intermittent fasting. Some have said online that that might not be a good idea, but I think everyone can only do what’s best for their body. I was used to intermittent fasting and comfortable with it, because I don’t eat breakfast anyway. I eat from 12:30-8:30 and honestly I know that if, for some reason, I wanted to eat after 8:30, it probably would be something bad for me, like sweets. I think it’s sustainable because total restriction works for me. It’s not a little bit of this and a little bit of that. It’s saying no entirely, every time.

I have almost reached my 30 day goal and I am both excited and proud of myself. I can’t wait to see my end of months total results.

What is Keto? A brief intro

So what is this crazy thing that I am doing? The Ketogenic diet. I am neither a scientist nor a nutritionist, but I will briefly explain a little about keto. Keto is a pattern of eating that doctors have used for people with epilepsy, for example. While it’s crazy to think that the way you eat could even help to decrease seizures for a serious illness, that just goes to show how important what we put into our bodies is. The Ketogenic diet is a low carb, high fat, moderate protein diet. Usually in terms of macronutrients it looks like: 5% carbs, 70% fat, and 25% protein. Our bodies use carbs as it’s main source of fuel. Yummy yummy carbs that our body craves and our brain rewards us for eating. However, on a Ketogenic diet, you deprive your body of those carbs by eating less than 50g of carbs a day (most Keto dieters start out with 20g or less). Without the carbs to use as fuel, your body has to turn to the next source of fuel: fat. That sounds counterintuitive- lose fat by eating fat? However, without carbs, the body has no choice but to burn fat for energy instead. In the beginning, it’s kind of a shock to the body. You might go through something termed as the “keto flu” in the first week, where you may feel tired, dizzy, etc. You will also drop a lot of water weight (generally up to 7 pounds, but I’ve heard of people losing as much as 15) as your body uses up the stored carbs in the first week (carbs hold onto a lot of water). Once your body realizes it doesn’t have enough carbs to fuel itself, it will start producing ketones, hence the name Ketosis diet, as your body goes into a state called ketosis when it does this.

There are many benefits to the Keto diet. As their body becomes accustomed to Keto, many people report losing a lot of weight, alleviating symptoms for all kinds of ailments like PCOS (which I have), pre-diabetes, hyperthyroidism, infertility, etc. They also report feeling more energy, better sleep, better mental clarity, less hunger, and more.

I personally just started my 3rd week of Keto. During week 1 I lost 8 pounds. I went through the keto flu for about 2 days and I peed allllll the time because I drank a lot of water (Keto makes you thirsty!). In week 2 I lost 3.5 more pounds, and 2 inches off my waist. I noticed that I did have a lot more energy, better mood, and generally did not feel as hungry. The hardest part of Keto is that you can’t cheat (well you can but that would be very sad) because cheating can kick your body out of ketosis, so you basically have to start back over. People who have been on the diet for a few months and have become “fat-adapted” to where their body has completely shifted and grown accustomed to burning fat for fuel, can better re-enter ketosis after cheating. Some of them are also able to eat more carbs (30-50g) without being out of ketosis.

In addition to Keto, I am also doing intermittent fasting. I follow the 16/8 method, where I have an eating window for 8 hours and I fast for 16 (including sleep). Usually my window is even shorter. I give myself from 12:30-8:30 to eat but I usually stop eating around 6 or 7 to be honest. Intermittent fasting also has great benefits in terms of health and weight loss by itself so I feel it’s kind of a double whammy, combining it with Keto. But, I feel GREAT. My body feels good now that I’m not stuffing it with processed foods and sugar and carbs all the time. I want to try the Keto diet for 30 days to see how I feel and what it does to my body, and if I can, make it a lifestyle.

Keto: A new beginning (background)

Alright, I have officially fallen into the newest health care craze: The Ketogenic diet.

Hi, guys. My name is Tanera and I’ve been struggling with my weight since practically forever. Even as an elementary schooler, I always noticed that I had a very round and protruding belly, though back then I still thought I was cute lol. Also, my niece is 2 years older than me, and yet we fit into the same clothes up until about middle school, when I became too big to even fit her clothing size anymore. Looking back at pictures of myself when I was younger, I don’t think I was as big as I thought, but I always just assumed I was fat because of my stomach, where I carry most of my weight. So, even as I gained weight, I didn’t see it as much as I should have. Then I started to see myself in pictures and I was like WOW, this is a problem. I was in the 190s all throughout high school and in a terrible cycle or eating horribly during the school year and then dieting and working out everyday during the summer.

Then I continued that same behavior in college. Instead of gaining the freshman 15, I gained 30 POUNDS, in the FIRST SEMESTER of my freshman year. I was astounded and ashamed with myself. I managed to get back down into the 190s my junior year for my upcoming study abroad to Spain, just to pile it all back on after I returned. Right after graduating college, I came to South Korea to teach English, weighing about 230 pounds. Moving to SK did help me to lose weight initially because Koreans eat a LOT of spicy food, which I just don’t eat, and their snack options were nowhere near the delicious treats I could never resist back home. The first few months in SK, I dropped 15 pounds without trying. I worked off the other 15 by intermittent fasting and working out.

Of course, life got busy, work got busy, especially when I took on extra classes that lasted until 10pm at night. I stopped focusing on my diet and exercising. I also went home to visit during vacation some months later. Needless to say I let my weight rise back up to 215 pounds. I was so ashamed. I really wanted to at least get back to my high school weight so I started intermittent fasting again and working out. It didn’t work this time. My weight did not budge at all. My friend had suggested to me before to try Keto but I was like nah. Cooking everyday sounds like a hassle and the diet seems to be too restrictive and complicated. However, at the time I was also following a lot of weight loss and dieting tags on Instagram to encourage me to lose weight and a lot of them praised Keto as well. So, I did my research. Like a lot of it. I looked for every blog post, website, and Youtube video I could find. Before and after photos, day by day/week by week journal entries about keto, food lists, mistakes, and anything I could think of. I knew if I was going to do this, I had to go all in. I had never stuck to a diet before without cheating, because I thought I could not live without the sugar (chocoholic=me) and carbs (fries and chicken nuggets are life). I was terrified of letting myself down, as I so often did. But I took the plunge and decided to go for it. To get to a healthier weight. To change my relationship with food and my bad habits like emotional eating. To prove to myself that I could do something I thought was impossible. To fit into my clothes because it’s too dang hard to find clothes that fit in SK!

Please wish me luck. It’s a new journey for me, but I feel confident and I am going to fight urges and fight for a better me every step of the way.