My epiphany!

DISCLAIMER: I am not a doctor, trainer, or any other kind of professional in regards to a ketogenic diet. Everything you read below is based on my personal research and opinions.

I have struggled with my weight since I was a little girl.  I remember my very first diet from when I was in middle school.  My mother helped me design a weight loss program and it actually did work, a little.  Peanut butter toast for breakfast, salad with no dressing for lunch, lean meats and healthy vegetables for dinner.  It got old quick.  But I did lose a few pounds and felt pretty good about myself.  But that was not a way of eating I could do for the rest of my life so of course it didn’t stick.

The next diet I remember was after I found myself divorced at the age of 22.  I focused on exercise instead of food and was really feeling good!  Then I found out I was pregnant and used that as an excuse to stop exercising and eat whatever I wanted.  I ballooned and gained about 60-70 pounds during that pregnancy.

Over the years I gained and lost.  Sometimes through just trying to eat right and other times through joining different diet programs such as Weight Watchers or NutriSystem.  The last time I seriously tried to lose weight before my keto journey was at the age of 31.  I found a lot of success and dropped down to 214 pounds which was the lightest I’d been since the birth of my first child.  But guess what?  I found out I was pregnant with my third child and though I was still trying to eat right for a while, I eventually got lazy and gave in to my cravings.

I found myself at the age of 44 and at my heaviest weight ever - I fluctuated between 260 and 270 and believe if I hadn’t made the changes I made, I would have kept going up.  I tried to tell myself that I was beautiful on the inside and it didn’t matter what I looked like on the outside.  And honestly, I still believe that should be true but for ME, it was not.  I was not  happy.  I was depressed and disgusted by what I saw in the mirror.  I had no self confidence, a poor body image, and had reached the point where I had given up.  

Then everything changed.  I had a very real conversation with someone who was practically a stranger.  His questions and comments made me take a real look at myself and what I wanted.  Did I not love myself enough to take better care of myself?  I was fortunate enough to be very healthy in spite of my weight but how much longer would that be the case?  I had to make the decision to make these changes or accept that I would never be happy with my body.  

So with some help and guidance, I started reading about diets, weight loss, and how it all worked.  This time, instead of just jumping in and trying to do it all on my own, I had help.  I read for weeks about something called “set point”, calories, carbs, protein, fat, and started figuring out what I thought would work for me.  As I studied I slowly started cutting back on my carb intake.  That was the beginning.  I went from eating hundreds (if not more) of grams of carbs per day to less than 30. And it's working.

I started this blog because I want to share my experience with others. A few people have told me that I've inspired them and I hope that if that's true, maybe I can help someone else do what I've done. Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions!