For me Keto is all about energy. It has nothing to do with losing weight. When I’m in ketosis I have enough energy to get up at 6am, ride my bike to my first job at 7:30am, ride my bike to my second job at 9am, work until 4 or 5pm, lead one or more events, sometimes gardening, sometimes with children, sometimes teaching an exercise class, then ride my bike home, cook dinner, and do my third job at home until about 9pm. I don’t watch TV. I don’t take days off. I work, and then I work, and then I work. I don’t have time to feel tired.
Before I had three jobs I finished my Master’s Degree while working full time. Oh, by the way, I’m a single mom.
I’m really not saying this to brag. I’m saying this because I don’t think some of you think it’s possible to do all of this and not feel tired. I’m telling you, it is possible.
I used to feel tired all the time. Really, I felt like absolute shit, all the time. I felt like such shit I had suicidal thoughts. I would lay in bed and feel like I wanted to die. My neck always hurt. I got every cold that came around it lasted two months. I had horrible acne.
The first time I went on a low-carb diet I had a candida overgrowth in my throat in 2005. I had been working as a caterer, and then a baker and I ate way too many sweets. I felt sick all the time. I thought I had allergies. I was constantly coughing. Eventually I figured out that the cough got worse when I ate sugar. I went to a naturopathic doctor and he suggested I go on the Candida Diet. Zero carbs, no vinegar, no alcohol. I could eat greens but no salad dressing, sheesh! I did that for several months and started to feel better. Then I went to a general low-carb, whole-food diet and felt better, not great, but better.
Then I got pregnant in 2007. Something about the hormonal shift made the candida much worse. I was concerned about being on the candida diet while pregnant but my naturopath, midwife, and allopathic doctor all said it was actually a great diet to be on while pregnant. It might have been great for my health, but it was hard as hell. Somehow I did it though. The fact that I started coughing immediately if I had even the smallest amount of carbs made it easier. It was instant Karma. It took awhile to get over the sugar cravings, but once I did it wasn’t really that hard, and I felt great! Best of all, the day after the baby was born I was the exact same weight that I was before I got pregnant. I didn’t gain an ounce of baby weight!
However, once I had the baby and started breastfeeding I had to start eating carbs again. It takes glucose to make lactose for milk, so you really have to eat some carbs while breastfeeding. I went back to the low-carb whole-food diet and felt pretty good. I was more aware of my carb intake though and really kept tabs on it.
Fast forward to 2020. I didn’t feel as bad as I did back in 2005, but I could really tell I was eating too much carbs. I felt tired and procrastinated way too much. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my constant neck and back pain, acne, and shitty immune system were all the result of eating carbs, even though I was on a fairly low-carb diet! I would eat a little bit of sugar here and there, but I was nowhere near the standard American diet.
I started working at Natural Grocers by Vitamin Cottage and they had a class called Keto Reset. I had never heard the term Keto before, but I could see that it was similar to the candida diet. I thought I would give it a try.
Yup, it worked. My energy skyrocketed, my acne completely disappeared, my joints don’t hurt at all, and I have only been sick once in the last two years. I’ve been on Keto now since February 2020 and I don’t plan on ever stopping. I tried cycling off once but I just started feeling like shit, so I don’t plan to do that again. I think for me this is just the best diet possible.
I don’t think Keto is for everyone. It is an extreme diet and it’s very difficult and very limiting. Most people will get 90% of the same benefits from cutting out sugar and white flour and eating more vegetables and healthy fat. If you do want to try it, I recommend first doing a no-sugar, whole-food diet until your sugar cravings die down and then go Keto for at least two months and see how you feel. Check out the rest of my blog for more recommendations and recipes. I hope I can help!
