Hello,
My name is Blake I’m a 35 y/o male
I’m 5’10”
MY start weight was 243.0 and waist size 36 to 38. I currently Am at 192.2 with a waist size of 32 my goal is 165 before adding my water weight back. The weight I want to maintain for life is 175
I did this diet about 6 years ago hardcore and got in the best shape of my life. 6 years later after owning two businesses, babysitting employees all day, buying my first house and having a child,the stress got the best of me. I gained about 65 lbs… I’ve been on this diet now for about 2 months and I am down 50lbs as of yesterday. “Wahoo”
I struggled in the past With hunger. the first week or maybe two it’s been a while… this time around I made sure to fast for the first day. Only drinking water and ate my last meal (which I made sure was low carb) the night before at 6pm. I feel this was a huge advantage. Early in the evening I went to bed, when I woke up after some good long rest, I was already 16hrs in! Fasted the day and the fallowing morning I started eating keto. By that night my test strip was off the charts.
The first week I ate lettuce like it was going out of style, iceberg specifically mainly blue cheese dressing “lightly” and always covered it in olive oil… I went to the store and bough 4 gigantic things of bacon and cooked all the pieces up at once “a little time consuming” stuck them in a huge Tupperware and tossed them in the fridge. (bacon is my go to snack) Whenever I need a little something, I would grab a piece of bacon or maybe two… I always wanted to go back for more but I forced myself to wait 20 minutes and usually was satisfied or just forgot about it. I eat a decent amount of cheese, but not too much, cause the calories will get ya.
When I started this diet 6 years ago there was no talk of this whole net carb thing, minus fiber crap. At that time it wasn’t even keto! it was Atkins… so I never used the net carb rule and still don’t. I check actual carbs, if it says 2grams then it’s two grams. Why complicate things?? It worked great before so I’m sure it would work the same again.
I stayed right at 20grams for the first week then my appetite almost disappeared. When that happened I went down to about ten grams a day. I always count under twenty and try and stay at ten to 15, no matter how much I eat in a day i can never be really sure my exact intake of carbs. unless your measuring out everything, which to me isn’t the life! (I’m not a baker) I’m trying to live. I pretty much eye fuck my dressing and call it three grams. (Pardon my language)
My typical day in the early stages were 3 eggs with bunch of cheese in the morning. I like salsa on my eggs and the stuff I use has one gram per tablespoon. I would count that as a 4 gram breakfast.
For lunch I would have a salad (a decent size one) with blue cheese crumbles and olive oil… I would call it 6gs
between breakfast and lunch I would open my container and have a few pieces of bacon.
For dinner I would find the thickest fattiest ribeye and that’s it ( eat all that grisell) maybe a slice of cheese or two with it. That was my day
I tried to skip dinner every other day and by day 5 I literally had no appetite. then my problem was “crap I forgot to eat breakfast oh well let’s get lunch” then I would get a bigger salad and then get a steak for dinner.
By day six I started taking stool softeners every morning and cal mag zinc. (I wish I would have done that from day one as my body wasn’t adjusted to the new diet)
it’s been smooth sailing ever since then. I’m literally never hungry and have to force myself to eat. Because my carb count is so low.
This last week my weigh loss start slowing down so I introduced xct oil instead of mct oil and have seen a big increase. already back to steady again.
My best friend started the diet with me. He read all these articles and did good in the beginning, then really slowed down. when his motivation tapered and he had the urge for the tastier things, he came to me and asked what he was doing wrong.
well he wasn’t taking into the account that he drank lemon water all day and one lemon has 5 grams of carbs so I asked him his count for the day, he said “I’m at fifteen” ok tell me your day “well I had 3 eggs for breakfast and 4 pieces of bacon, then for lunch I had some chicken wings a salad and 10 pieces of salami. Then for dinner I had some spinach a steak and 3 cheese sticks” well that sounds around 15 to 20 grams to me, did you have coffee? “Yea but I used heavy whipping cream and everyone says to use heavy whipping cream” well how much did you use? “I don’t know, I went on a keto site and ordered this Keto drink everyone swears by from Starbucks” 
so heavy whipping cream is great for the fat but ummmm there is 1 gram in 1 tablespoon. how many dam table spoons does it take to fill up a grande 3/4 of the way? Cause 1/4 of Espresso is a lot. It takes a lot more than 20 tablespoons… Soo yea he was more at like forty for the day I said well what else did you drink? “I had a sugar free Red Bull” (medium size) well there is another 4 what else? “Nothing just water with lemon” how much lemon? “ a couple slices” how many glasses? “A few” new slices in every glass? “Yea” well there is another 5 grams.
Point being there are a lot of things you don’t think about. this is why I try to stay around 10 a day cause sometimes I forget a few things and if I want a red bull I can have one. If your over that 20 mark you never going to get to full blown ketosis… (the darkest of the strip)
I’m a firm believer that you need max out ketosis heavily because then it’s almost as if you fasted. The great thing about fasting is that after 3 to 4 days you have no appetite, like NONE. I fasted for some health benefits a while back for about 8 days and I felt great! I didn’t want to start eating again cause I had energy from my fat. my body was in 100percent ketosis. I didn’t need anything other than water and my fat… my theory is simply. I think it’s best to treat the first week as a fast so your body gets into the state it gets into to where you don’t crave any food… then you choose your food and eat cause you want to. Not because your hungry. And for people new to keto. after eating salads for a month, it just becomes the new norm. Every time it’s like ugh another salad, but each time you take a bite it’s the whole “ wow this is hella good”
My father started the diet 6 years ago when I did it for the first time. He never stopped. He is 65yo in he best shape of his life, runs 10 miles a day EVERYDAY (I don’t get it either ) he is extremely healthy and swears he will never go back to a regular diet. Now 6 years later he isn’t at twenty grams a day. maybe something like 100, sometimes less. every now and then he will have something with higher carbs, but never a giant French roll to the head or a huge plate of pasta… maybe something along some chilli with beans or something…
Being that I have done this before I think the biggest thing I have learned, from seeing where people fail is, people don’t do the diet long enough. It’s all about developing new habits (good habits) so my theory is if you going to do this diet to lose weight, do it for 6 months to a year. set your goal for 5 to 8 lbs under… your going to gain back water weight immediately and that’s 5 to 8 lbs (don’t quote me on that but it’s somewhere around there) once you hit your goal, up the carbs to a steady amount. A amount where you wont gain weight and just be stable. instead of eating bread all the sudden just double the amount of salad you eat… ad some tomatoes in, some bell peppers… but keep doing the whole “no breads no pasta no potatoes etc”… do it for six months. after 6 months you won’t want it and when you do eat it, it’s not going to be the end of the world and all the sudden you want it everyday. It will kinda be like, yea it was good but I want a salad tomorrow.
The habit part I think is key to maintaining a healthy life. anyone can lose weight. Unfortunately sooo many people, do sooooo well, then a few months later they are back where they started or heading that direction.
These are my words for today. off to bed.
I have never done any forums or anything. just wanted to share some thoughts my stories and my life a little
Sugar free jello before bed is awesome!! Eat 4 of them if you want! zero carbs 1g of protein and 10 calories
the biggest must for me is crystal light! Every flavor always in the fridge cause I crave sweets and the sweet drink satisfies me… I have a cabinet full of different flavors and if I always have options I’m always happy. if I run low,I start getting irritated
One last thing- I started this diet not because I was unhappy with myself or how I looked… I started it because after my weight gain, the businesses, the house and the kids my blood pressure shot up to 160 over 108 and for the last year I’ve been on blood pressure meds… last week I stopped my meds and I’m doing great. And bp is stable 
Please feel free to comment, make suggestions, ask suggestions or whatever people do on these sites
Regards
Blake
