This is a guest post by my sister, Summer, I am trying to get her to join us on a regular basis.
About 5 years ago, I was getting my hair colored when my stylist mentioned the new fad in town, the Keto diet. I listened her through, silently dismissing the information. Just another diet that will harm my body. What I didnt think was how much I was already hurting myself by being overweight and maybe obese by bmi standards.
Three months later I decided to give it a try. I found it too stringent but stuck along with it because somehow found the benefits outweighed the cons. I loved not thinking about food, losing weight while toning up, looking like I went to the gym regularly (I didnt!) and also getting great results on the blood work.
Despite loving the diet, I always felt it was too stringent and unsustainable. Then life got in the way (doesn’t it always) and I stopped keto in 2018. I had also started hearing murmurs about how it was not good for women and messed with the hormones.
Since 2018, I struggled with my weight, trying to eat right. What we don’t understand is that there is no single ‘eat right’. It varies with people and personalities. A person may be interested/disinterested in food. A person may have more/less will power. A person may think in terms of black and white or they may think in shades of gray. I am an all or nothing person. I tried, unsuccessfully, eating a balanced diet, I failed miserably. I evaluated how the balanced diet would be difficult from keto. Ok, so I will stop eating sugar, grain, and rice (which is ok to drop both in keto and balanced), but I will keep eating lentils (allowed in balanced, not in keto). Trying to approach it this way didnt work either.
So I accepted that I am a black and white girl and looked into going back to keto. I luckily came across some youtube videos where they showed that the emphasis in keto is on eating even more veggies. I loved that. This time I tried to approach it in a manner where I don’t feel restricted. I will allow myself ginger, onions, tomato and other stuff that I had initially considered banned.
I started in March, am comfortable with it, give myself breaks, and love the discipline around following a low-carb diet (since I am not stringent, I call it low-carb :))
The whole point of the post is not only to share my experience about my diet and weight but also to emphasize how important it is to understand one’s own personality, what one likes, what one is comfortable with, and not try to fight it unless ofcourse it’s wrong (and one will know when it’s wrong). We try too hard to do the right thing according to the norms, but in all aspects of life, we need to also look into what we want, what we are comfortable with, what we will be happy with.