45m, old hand with ketogenic diets, starting again for the final time

[LeCheffre]

Hi all,

I’ve been doing some version of ketogenic dieting for the last 17 years. I have yo-yoed, I have fallen off, I have gotten back on, I have fallen off again. I’m sick of the cycle.

Back in 2007, I lost 55 lbs using the Protein Power Lifeplan, keeping carbs to <40g/day, <10/meal/snack. I was a data fiend, a goal crusher, on the verge of writing my own self-help book. I fell off during a two week trip for work and have never had that level of everything together again.

I’m working to recreate what I had a decade ago. But doing it smarter. Then, I had a weight goal. I got there, and then what? Now, I do not have a weight goal. If I sat down with a spreadsheet like I did compulsively then, I could come up with one, but I’ve learned a lot about myself in the intervening 10 years, and that’s not the goal. It’s about health and fitness.

The things I was doing then: I was weighing daily and charting every half pound. Now, I am logging meals daily, and charting compliance.

Then, I had my thyroid properly adjusted for my hashimoto’s. Now, my doc just got my first normal thyroid reading after 6 months of tinkering. One more clean one, and I don’t have to see Doc M every month and change. Not that I don’t enjoy her company, but I’d like to keep more of my blood in me.

Then, I was a gym rat. 5 days a week at work, lift on MWF, HIIT on TTh. Obsessive about data. Now, I am walking and stair climbing, and getting the eagerness to get back in the gym back. I’m a month deep in keto, and I suspect April will be when I want to get back to the gym.

I mentioned my doc. Then, I had to convince my doctor that carbohydrate restriction was workable and wouldn’t make my cholesterol worse. Now, my doctor recommends a merger of low carb and vegetable heavy diet. Gonna have to turn her on meat, but it’s nice to not have to fight the USDA pyramid/myplate/DASH/Mediterranean fight. She recommends a book and some documentaries. I’m recommending Gary Taubes for her.

I cook. A lot on the weekend. I make things for dinner for the week and increasingly lunch for the week. This week’s lunch is turkey leg confit, made sous vide. Nice cost basis, amazing flavor, clean eating. Dinners come out of the SV device, the pressure cooker, the grill (when it’s not freezing out).

The goals: 95% compliance with the diet, as the minimum standard. The 20th day will be to disrupt my system.

November: Willis Tower Climb (103 flights of stairs for a local charity). That is a big stretch of a fitness goal, but I have 9 months to build to it.

Excited to be here.

[LeCheffre]

I need to correct a few things here. How bad memory is, how amazing having a journal is.

I did not have a weight goal before. It was always a composition goal.

It was not the two weeks in Italy that fouled me up. It was a combination of hitting a goal (sub 19% BF), the two week run up to Italy (where I struggled with motivation ahead of a two week baccanalian vacation), a less than well planned return from that trip and a week on a work assignment in a KC hotel. I have not been anything but occasional since that LC trip. Periods of dilettante performance mixed with complete disregard.

I’ve linked to the concept of the Harajuku Moment. I’ve actually had it three times. The first, in 2003, was me on the toilet looking at my thighs with despair. I was 245 then. The second was on a work project dealing with sick days and productivity, when I realized I was part of the demographic that should have the lowest productivity and burn the most sick days. Now, it’s a reflection on the last 10-12 years. It’s that despair that folks get in midlife. “Is this it?”

I’ve been mining my journal for the essential factors for the success then. Thyroid-ADD-keto-gym-management science-data-Diet science-exercise science. Voracious reading, tenacious data, can do attitude.

Any rate, the better goals are coming, the more serious plan is coming. The gym is coming.

[agapelove1313]

Welcome! I, too, am 45 & have just recently delved into this WOE, but for me it is my first real love affair with it. In the 2000’s, I messed around with low carb, lost some weight, yet wasn’t in a place to be serious. It is very inspiring to read your words, and the sense of drive whick you evoke. Research has become quite precious in this incarnation, for myself. When you brought up Harajuku, I had an impetus to respond. I apologize for being quite self focused, the real intent was to make you feel welcome! May this forum be one the first steps which will carry you along the journey to the destination you seek.
Godspeed.

[LeCheffre]

No worries. I used to think of it like “rock bottom.” You had to find that low that you never wanted to hit again. Then I read about Mr. Fowler, and I prefer the term Harajuku despite the closest I’ve ever come to that place is an hour layover at Narita.

I’m going to start an accountability thread soon. That’s part of my essential factors. Daily accountability.