My Experience Losing Weight With The ‘Ketogenics’ Lifestyle – Part 2
My Experience With Losing Weight With the Ketogenics Lifestyle – Part 2
By – Dwight Lilly
This is a follow-up and a more detailed accounting of how I have approached the Ketogenic lifestyle. I want to put a caveat out there which is this, I’m not a medical doctor and there is no intent on my part to coach you the listener or counsel you on your particular weight or health situation. You need to work with your doctor on YOUR issues. This is my story.
My first challenge was how to develop a grocery shopping plan that provided the food I was going to use. I also had to go through the kitchen cabinets, our pantry and refrigerator and clean out the food I was no longer going to be eating. This I admit was tough, there was hundreds of dollars of food involved. I also decided to leave our emergency food stores intact, although the content is focused on food my lifestyle was no longer embracing, I would probably need the high calories and ingredients, as a life in an emergency situation would be one of lots of physical activity where those calories and food types would come in handy. Plus the food is packaged with a shelf life of twenty-five years. It was only for emergency. I planned on augmenting these stores with food that fits my new lifestyle, hopefully replacing it all over time. I was not going to sink my emergency preparedness life raft without a replacement.
It is important to stick with the 70% high fat, 25% protein and 5% carbohydrates. This ratio is the gold standard for Keto, some people eat more carbs and protein, the key is never straying over 20% carbs. High carbs will take you out of Keto and back into sugar burning mode. FAST. I’m not going into the chemistry or biological reason in this part of the series I’m writing, let’s just say that when I did stray I stopped losing weight and began reversing my health gains. This is my story.
One area of worry was whether I could get used to eating the food I was going to be eating, after all I had developed a fondness for and taste for what was in my pantry and refrigerator. I had been eating like I was for decades and liked it. My problem was that this eating habit was killing me. The cravings I had were real. I found that food is highly addictive, changing my lifestyle was dealing with an addiction. I had not realized that like alcohol, cigarettes, or narcotics, that carbs – sugar were equal or more addictive. I don’t smoke but I did decades ago and had to go through the withdrawal and associated symptoms from food. I don’t drink alcohol but decades ago I did, and there is a certain addiction to the lifestyle where bars and cocktail parties are social events that I liked, and enjoyed. It was my lifestyle. It was also difficult say no when the wine glasses were offered, and the questions were posed, “do you want a beer or do you want a drink and what can I get you”. The same was present in my new Ketogenic lifestyle, going out for lunch and not ordering any food can make others uncomfortable, and I like to please. I had to develop a menu at the restaurants I frequented, and I had to learn it was OK to ask the waiter for a deviation in the menu offerings. So as you can see, there was a lot of preparation and change involved in my life.
As I mentioned in the Part 1 of this article, I have tried and failed at a lot of diets in the past. I had to change my weight and health strategy from one of a diet to one of a lifestyle. A permanent change to an entirely new way of living. Food and eating is a lifestyle.
I wish I could write here that after all my planning and preparation, that the rocket (lifestyle change) left the launch pad on time and without incident. I’m human and have a history of failure in the food and lifestyle arena. My subconscious and yes, conscious mind began almost immediately to rebel, the little voice in my head put doubt in my mind. This was my normal response to dieting, and in the past this little voice won out. The difference this time was the urgency and necessity to change. My life depended on it. The graveyards are full of those who lost the internal fight their little voice put up — and they died. And they died with a much-shortened lifespan than they could have had. This is a truth I knew, as my research and watching others around me confirmed this as a fact. I have family members who succumbed and are now pushing up daisies. My sister just this past year.
The reason I’m now almost two parts into this series and you still haven’t a clue what I ate/now eat, and that part of this saga, is purposeful. I want to have the readers understand that my process went through stages and challenges. It still is and perfection will never be the end of my story.
I had/have to deal with the comments and questioning of friends and associates. Yes, remember, I have dieted in the past and some of these same people saw me lose weight and fail, regain the weight and then some. My last major failure was the juicing diet, and I had hundreds of people following that disaster on social media and duplicating my plan. I feel responsible in a way for taking them along on the ride. I also feel responsible now writing this tale, and would not have taken this series on were I not convinced I’m somewhat settled into my new lifestyle and that I’m beginning to benefit as I needed too.
I think it’s important to get this point across, my story does not have an end date in sight. Like most people I want instant gratification, when I want something I want it NOW. Patience has never been my virtue. This story does not go from me starting on Ketogenics last summer, to me being at my health and weight goal in a few months. The journey has been in stages and the progress has had bumps along the way. I have cheated and those times set me back. I have had to work on a new mental and emotional ME. This has taken time. The times I have fallen off the wagon are further and further apart, so this tells me the lifestyle is becoming ingrained. I’m succeeding in sprints and baby steps. I’m being as honest as I can with you the reader and myself on this journey.
In the next episode/part of this story, I will address some of the meat and potatoes (food) I began with and how this evolved over time. It won’t be boring I assure you.
Dwight Lilly’s blog can be found at www.downtherabbitholemedia.com