How did you discover keto?

(MooBoom) #1

So @JaneyMae started a great thread letting us know her SO is starting keto because he saw The Magic Pill and it got his wheels spinning. Which is AMAZING!

And it got me thinking, how did everyone else discover keto, and what made you decide to start?

For me it wasn’t one single light bulb moment. I’d struggled with weight loss all my adult life, and finally turned to a dietician for tailored advice. She put me on a LCLF program, and I responded well. But it got me researching low carb, which led me to keto, which led me to the 2KD’s, their Facebook page, then this forum, a lot of reading and research, and finally the decision to ‘go keto’. One of the best decisions of my life, as it turns out :blush:

Share your keto discovery stories folks! Maybe we can draw learnings on how to help others discover keto in the process.

(Elizabeth ) #2

I was low carb several years ago, but just for weight loss. Focusing on weight loss did not end well for me. In December 2018, I visited some friends. The whole family had gone keto for a family member with Type 1 diabetes. Pretty much no one in the family was overweight, but several of them saw their health improve in different ways. So, I decided to try when I got home from the trip. Now I’m losing weight (which is great), but my health is also improving. I sleep better, I don’t have stomachaches anymore, and my headaches are mostly gone. And the wild cravings are gone! Yay!

(Khara) #3

Mine was a long journey of trial and error and anecdotal occurrences that no one else seemed to believe or understand. Long story short, I started realizing I was addicted to sugar about 15 years ago. That concerned me and I started trying to research it. Didn’t have much luck but got my first glimpse of the word keto. Then, got scared off by stumbling into the word ketoacidosis and was unable to rectify the two. This is long enough ago that we barely had internet in the house. Wasn’t any info on there that I could find. No smart phones/apps. I really felt like I was onto something but was stumbling around blind in the dark. Fast forward to 4 years ago and I started realizing that sugar was causing me to get sick. Whenever we had a big influx of sweets in the house and whenever I was consuming too much (bingeing), I’d catch something. Whatever was going around, I’d catch it. I was constantly getting sick over and over. One year I had something like 9 colds. I’d get over one and two weeks later get another. I became convinced that sugar was inflammatory. Started researching it, and sure enough, it is. At this point (2015) there still really wasn’t much on the internet about keto and I’d forgotten about it. I ended up talking to a family member about sugar just randomly one day. She knew of the Diet Doctor website. Hallelujah!!! What I had been looking for for 10 years at that point and kind of full circle for me! Got started on keto with that site alone and then a bit over a year later I found this forum. There is something to be said for less info. Having just the Diet Doc site kept me focused and the info felt legitimate and solid. I wasn’t diluted or confused by too many sources. Then finding this forum stepped up my game a lot, but I was ready for it with a good solid base under my belt. (That actually was the short version :nerd_face:)

(Coney Avellana) #4

I’ve done Atkins Diet before so I know something about keto. Diet Doctor led me to try it again.

(Alec) #5

I needed to lose weight (yet again), and found diet number 53 (the 5:2 diet), and followed it religiously for 8 months. It worked, probably better than any diet I had ever been on. But I thought the only mechanism going on was calorie reduction when fasting (classic CICO).

12 months ago, I was on the 5:2 diet website forums and someone mentioned keto and I was intrigued (I had never heard of keto before). I googled keto, found the 2 keto dudes, devoured the podcasts, and then understood what I had been doing with the fasting was essentially reducing insulin and improving my insulin sensitivity.

I came to the conclusion that fasting plus keto was the right approach, and that is where I am right now. I hope that I will never need diet number 54.

(Steaks b4 cakes! 🥩🥂) #6

Ironically enough it was my mum who introduced me to Keto (She started it for her health, saw great results but gave up after a couple of months :disappointed:) she had all the cookbooks. I had been low carb for about two years to lose 6 stone of baby weight i gained, and suffered massively with anxiety and low energy. I still had a bit of weight to lose and after researching more about how Keto could help with energy and mood I decided to give it a shot!
During the week leading up to my birthday in August I started making keto bread and other recipes, rather than having my usual toast and peanut butter for breakfast followed shortly after with a bowl of granola or fruit and yoghurt, I was having a fathead dough sandwich or bacon and eggs, and that was it! The weekend of my birthday I splurged, ate all the pizza and drank all the gin, and had a HORRENDOUS anxiety attack. I felt awful and it basically ruined my birthday. I got back on the Keto train the very next day and I went from strength to strength, my mood lifted, my energy was out of this world and I felt awesome, and those stubborn last few pounds I couldn’t shift through exercise alone started to disappear. Fast forward to today and I’m so grateful for Keto. It’s made me a better person, I’m happier and calmer, I’m a better mum who has energy to see the day through, hell I even feel like I perform better at work. My confidence is back. I’ve even noticed I have more confidence to drive - I passed my driving test last year but my anxiety always held me back, now I get in that car and off I go! I’m almost certain that keto has given me the calmness and clarity I needed.

Don’t get me wrong, I still have my ‘overthinking’ days, but I now have the strength to sit back, take a few deep breaths and remind myself who the hell I am. In the pre-keto days, I would have beat myself up and over thought every thing until those thoughts took over my mind and soul.

(Carol) #7

I had broken some bones in my foot. The bones healed but the inflammation stayed. The foot doctor’s best advice was that at my age, just be patient. That rather ticked me off so I came home and starting researching anti-inflammatory diets.I narrowed it to 3. Whole 30 was too restrictive for my then mindset. Then there were 2 - Paleo and Keto. I could have mayo on Keto. Done. Best decision ever!

(Allie) #8

Completely by accident through laziness. I was on the CICO train and started cooking just meat on its own to save time, noticed a massive drop in weight / body fat so did some research and found it had a name.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #9

I had gained 30 lbs in 7 months after a kidney transplant. One month my blood work was normal and the next month I was in the diabetic range although my doctor said it was pre diabetes. I freaked out because I didn’t want to become a diabetic, I’m already an amputee for 19 years and diabetes is destructive to the kidney I just got. I decided to try Atkins, my dad and uncle did it successfully about 15 years ago. I was reading an article on Healthline.com about the Atkins Diet a week or so into it and it said stage 1 is like the Ketogenic Diet. There was a link to the other Healthline article and I liked the healing benefits for diabetes aspect so here I am. I’m out of the diabetic risk zone now 8 months in and approaching my weight goal. I found this forum on a google search for something a week later and joined up. Keto for life. :cowboy_hat_face:

#10

Been low carbing on and off since I was a kid. I just never could stick to it until this time. I tried it in college once, but there were too many Carby temptations and I was weak. Watching my father die an insulin related death finally lit the fire. It helped that I found Fung’s etiology of obesity series on YouTube around that time. I started with intermittent fasting, then went keto, now I’m almost carnivore.

(Sue ) #11

I have been gaining and losing the same 15 lbs for years. Weight Watchers was my go-to diet. It worked, but I felt hungry and deprived on it. Always waiting until I could be “done” with my diet and get back to a more relaxed way of eating. I would usually last 2 weeks at a time on WW but my cravings were out of control and all it took was a weekend social event to send me off the rails.

Plus, I was still battling perpetual low energy that was making life hard to deal with. I felt old, sluggish and tired all the time. Quick to anger. My 10 year old son developed health and psychological issues and not feeling well most of the time really made it hard to cope.

My friend started keto and lost 30 lbs. I had heard about keto and my understanding was that it was a highly restrictive fad diet, completely unsustainable. I remember thinking, she will probably gain that weight back once she stops eating only bacon and cheese!

But she continued to lose weight while I continued to struggle with WW. Around the same time I saw a Facebook post from a local chef and keto coach. He shared photos of the delicious keto food he made and that turned my notion of keto upside down. You can have pizza? Chicken parm? And heavy cream??

I started reading about keto and found Diet Doctor, and like someone else said, the information seemed credible and made so much sense. No wonder I felt like crap after eating a bowl of “healthy” cereal. No wonder I was stuck in this scary cycle of deprivation and bingeing. I was addicted to carbs and sugar.

I found this forum and reading all your posts inspired and convinced me even more. I canceled WW and began a low carb eating plan. After 3 weeks of that I started straight keto at less than 20 net carbs daily.

It’s been 8.5 weeks since I started LCHF. I haven’t lost a lot of weight, probably because I had already been dieting, I haven’t got much to lose and I am 44.

BUT I am losing flab. I am less bloated. My carpal tunnel is gone. Knee pain, gone. Hot flashes, gone. And my energy is through the roof. I am getting so much done! Mood better and laughing more. I know it can only get better from here. I find eating the ketogenic way to be easy and natural. I never feel deprived or famished. It just feels right.

Now I am sloooooowly trying to move my husband and kids toward a LCHF WOE. They are open to it but it will take time. I’ve got time! :blush:

#12

I had done Atkins years ago but stalled and then went back to the SAD. Predictably, I regained weight (and then some) over the years. At the end of January, I was having dinner with a friend and was telling him about struggles with regular atypical chest pain and a recent abnormal stress test. He told me that he had been doing keto for a year and was feeling better than ever. I immediately began looking into it and purchased a glucometer that measures ketones. I discovered via the glucometer that I’m diabetic too :flushed:! That sealed the deal.

(Carl Keller) #13

I was nearing the end of my rope, physically and mentally, when I met a person at work who told me he had lost about 60 pounds eating ketogenically. I was about 40 pounds overweight and had never dieted in my life but I knew something had to change. I had about four hours worth of energy and patience each day before I just became miserable, mostly from inflammation.

A few days later, I read a single article from Ruledme and decided to try LCHF for a week. After three days I was hooked. 75% of my inflammation vanished and with it, my state of mind vastly improved. Three days convinced me that LCHF was the antiodote for decades of poisoning myself with processed foods. I spent the next month researching everything I could find about keto and it led me further and further down the metabolic rabbit hole. I learned more about my body and myself in that month than I had in my entire life. That knowledge empowered me and all the lies I discovered I had been told made me angry and motivated me to find this forum. I soon found that helping others here was the best way to channel that anger.

(Jane- Old Inky Crone) #14

Thanks @ClareBear, you made me realize that since I’ve started Keto in March, my anxiety has reduced dramatically. My mood is more calm and steady, I haven’t been having meltdowns like before, and I don’t obsess as much. More NSVs for sure!!

#15

A knitting forum, lol.

For the last 20+ years my dietary intolerances have increased steadily - first it was only Solanaceae foods I had to avoid. Then corn. Then wheat. Then most grains. Then most spices. Then rice. Then, in the last year, nearly everything I ate caused me gastro-intestinal upset of some sort. I think at one point I was drinking nearly 2L of milk a day to settle my upset stomach. Then I cut back to eating nearly nothing because of stomach and intestinal cramps. Then came the rash(es) that wouldn’t go away.

Someone on a thread in a Knitting forum group linked to this forum - I read and read. And then read some links. The change to the woe wasn’t a great leap - I already didn’t eat most of the bad things. Oh, and I can eat again because all of a sudden the stomach and intestinal cramps have disappeared. I’m two weeks in as of tomorrow. Never going back. The weight loss (of which I have much to lose) will be a fabulous side benefit if it happens.

(Jane- Old Inky Crone) #16

I grew up with 2 diabetic parents who were insulin dependent (I was adopted, but birth family also has DM). I was always slender, with a very high metabolism, and athletic. Any time I gained what I thought was too much weight, I’d adopt the diabetic diet and lost it quickly and easily. When I was around 15, having put on a tiny bit of normal adolescent padding, my boyfriend at the time said “you’d be a really cute girl if you weren’t so fat.” Well, I was off to the races! Pretty much became anorexic, lost down to 97 pounds and stayed there until pregnant with my first child. After that I couldn’t seem to drop below 105, but at almost 5 foot 4, was still thin.

Fast forward 17 years and at 35 I had to have a total hysterectomy due to problems after an ectopic pregnancy that burst on the operating table. No ovaries anymore to make hormones and a couple of brief attempts to do HRT, but I’m not able to tolerate the conventional hormones. Pain in my belly all the time for several years caused me to be sedentary, I put on a lot of weight. I tried calorie restriction over and over but couldn’t stick to it. I did Atkins and lost some weight, but I had no support, and no information except the little book he published, so I eventually went back to the SAD. Hubby and I did Atkins together for a while, but only lost a little and gained it back. After getting up over 180 pounds a few years back, I discovered CRON and my husband and I did severe calorie restriction for about a year. I got down to 122, and stayed at 125 for a few years. I got to a point that I couldn’t deal with being hungry all the time anymore and gave up my 700 calories a day diet. I found IF, and through that discovered KETO. Lost and gained over about 5 years, tried Keto, but was too high on carbs, and didn’t stay with it. Now, having developed several health issues I’m doing it for my health. Haven’t lost much weight, but sticking with it and hoping that as soon as my thyroid meds get regulated, and my other issues get straightened out, the weight will come off.
As @KBG said, this is the short version :sunglasses:

#17

Jimmy Moore Cholesterol Clarity (2013). I watched my dad die with Alzheimer’s that year.

(hottie turned hag) #18

Being a recluse who is not up on popculture and who never watches the news and who eschews social media I had NO IDEA “keto” was a new trendy thing until I’d been doing it for weeks and dropping weight like mad, ditto fasting.

My Master’s is in medical genetics and I knew of the ketogenic diet used to treat epileptics; I didn’t make a connection though between what I was doing (eliminating carbohydrate, eating once/24h and only meat, veg and cheese) and that at all; indeed it is not the same diet though the terminology is used for both.

I dropped carbohydrate just because I felt it would work, and it surely did! Benefits aside from weight loss were many.

Two of my kids were who clued me in that what I was doing was called “keto” and “intermittent fasting” and was now a popular “thing” :expressionless:

TBH I was not happy to be so on trend and look like a bandwagon jumper when I wasn’t.
#crankyoldbag

(Mary) #19

I know, right? I so don’t want keto to be trendy…

(Scott) #20

I was bored and looking for something interesting and thought the magic pill would fit the bill. The line that sucked me in was “why can every animal on earth regulate its weight except man or any animal cared for by man”