Intro and looking for tips for someone who keeps starting and stopping keto!

[AUPM]

Hey all, I thought I’d take a minute to introduce myself and see if I could get some advice from the forum.

I am 42yo based in Melbourne, Australia, I work in the ambulance service, and have 2 young kids aged 7 and 9. I’ve been a long time fan of 2 Keto Dudes and about 5 years ago went keto for about 6 months, losing around 45lbs / 20kg.

Since then I’ve been on and off keto a bunch of times, never able to get myself to stick to this way of eating for more than a couple of weeks. I fast occasionally but all in all find I just have this massive hump to get going and stay going.

Psychologically I beat myself up because I know how good I feel when I’m eating this way and how effective it is for me. I believe the science, I just find that the effort to get into keto, and then stay there, given the social pressures, having two young kids in the house who are basically carbivores! etc.

So my question to the forum is how do you guys get and stay motivated to overcome the daily obstacles - food prep, lack of available food when on the road, social pressure etc etc.

I’m hoping that by becoming an active member of this community opposed to passively reading some stuff here and there, it may help me as a bit of a commitment device!

[Shinita]

Welcome!

I am unsure if I will be of any help as I need to do things suiting my own personality and circumstances…

I go off all the time since several years, I am mostly fine with this except I want to make my off times more rare and better But that happens automatically (off times aren’t as blissful as before carnivore…), I am still changing, it will be even more fine later But no way I giv e up any food I happen to fancy! I can handle it but saying no to me, that would bother me. I merely train myself to want the right things, it goes quite well but takes time.

To me, trying carnivore brought the big changes. I just was off too often on my normal, meat- and benefitless keto… Well it was a special change and surely meat helped but I REALLY needed very very low carb from non-animal sources. Plant carbs mess with me somehow, even in ketosis, I had an unfortunate relationship with food (okay it’s still not perfect but loads better), I was too focused on it and with the carbs, I lacked the “impossible to eat” perfect satiation to stay away from the fridge at night and stuff (sometimes I got truly hungry).

I like experimenting anyway and tried out many things. So I know that the right items matter A LOT, at least for many of us. Some people just do keto and all is well. I am not like that but the right food choices make wonders. I especially need to be mindful of what I eat if I want to make sure I won’t overeat. The wrong, not satiating item and I overdo protein and fat, sometimes quite epically. And that’s just wasteful, among other problems.

Timing may be important too. And zillion other factors I don’t have, stress eating, bad sleep… Humans are quite complex and it’s the same with the effect of our eating on our health. I can just say a few general things and my personal experience but it may be close to useless for your individual case.

I don’t do food things out of motivation. Or my motivation is getting maximal joy Well that’s a great motivation I suppose… Nothing is less hedonistic than feeling unwell and getting sick so my hedonist inner self (it’s the boss :)) is inevitably health-conscious. If I know something is bad for me, I typically lose interest. I like my body and it deserves the best I can give to it. Or close, aiming for total perfection, no matter what is usually unhealthy I do what I comfortably can, more like.

The problem is with motivation that you sometimes just lose it, life gets into the way and you just DON’T CARE so much, it happened to me many times. I still want to stay healthy and stuff so I won’t start to eat totally stupidly (usually… but I think I completely lost the worst things and anyway, the worst my off eating is, the more extremely rare it is. and my body can handle that. if I got sick, I never would do the thing, I HATE being in pain and feeling miserable. no food is worth it, anyway, my best food is carnivore) - but yes, sometimes I just can’t bring myself to care about my smart rules about my woe.
And then… I typically still eat keto as what else? It’s good food, it’s what I am very used to… Good habits are powerful too, not just bad ones. And the more I do keto especially the very low net non-animal carbs version, the stronger my habits become. I like my food more and more. I CAN’T and won’t resist true temptation and I am easily tempted. I won’t be “strong” and “self-controlled” ever I think. I need training, changing and good habits. And LOVING my food So I am safe.

That’s what I do. But I am very much aware that others need a very different approach, they are ABLE to be strong and controlled, they don’t quit the moment they feel things hard… And they may evolve way quicker than me but I don’t care as I only have this option.
But getting rid of all those plant carbs really and immediately helped a lot to me. I just got way more FREE.

vercome the daily obstacles - food prep, lack of available food when on the road, social pressure etc etc.

Food prep: I toss a lot of meat into the oven (it takes a few mins of my time, it does the roasting all alone) and that’s for the next few days for base of my eating… Boiling eggs or grabbing some ready to eat sausage or cheese is pretty simple too. I like cooking and especially baking and I need variety so I complicate things a bit more but I can eat without cooking for days if I want.

On the road: it’s rare for me but I pack food And one can buy certain things in supermarkets if the travel is longer.

Social pressure: I probably don’t know what that is. Good luck to pressure me, never cared much about what other people wants when it’s MY business only. But I can get tempted (less so as time passes but it’s still there). Packing food and bringing food may help. I used to bring my own cake or savory muffins and others liked them too. Resisting baked goods when I don’t have my own is significantly harder. I bring my own “bread” too as I used to go off keto too often because I needed something like that at a relative and there was only normal bread (that I don’t even like at all so my hedonist inner self is sad if I eat it. bad deal. no joy, all the disadvantages of carbs… I want to enjoy the hell out of my rare off eating). I don’t eat that stuff anymore but I had that problem just a few years into keto and several into low-carb and before carnivore. Carni changed me a lot, for the better, even in my not clean and on/off style, I am very thankful to it But it’s just my great happening, many others need other “tweaks”.

If I ever felt social pressure, I would just use my knowledge, common sense and hedonism. WHY would I eat something bad for me (if I can resist it)? How insane is that? Harming my body, making bad deals, what? NO. Sometimes it’s not instinctual even for me and I need to stop and think and persuade the silly voice tempting me. I have a very good idea what is good for me and I do want good to me so it helps a lot. Other people have no right to interfere, it’s not their business. I don’t listen to others when I make choices about my personal things. And eating affect me quite seriously…
Social pressure can be quite strong (not for me but I know about things even if I barely ever meet a human besides my SO) but we need to put our food down, for ourselves. I am very selfish as one should be, I am on my own side and I protect myself so it comes naturally to me. I don’t say it’s perfect, oh yeah lovely family members showing their tempting freshly baked goods… But my problem was the temptation, my own desires - and I only desired to please the relative a tiny bit, I greatly desired the food itself…
It can be a long road with lots of thinking and training, feeling bad may help, sadly (well no I like I am sturdy and I HATE feeling bad) I barely ever feel bad after eating a bunch of sugar if it’s just one time… There is less motivation to say no but if we think it over and especially if it happens too often, we eventually should put things right in our head.

DON’T feel quilt, I never do and consider it super anti-hedonistic. Well if only quilt helps you to stay healthy, feel it, I suppose… But it’s not a crime to eat wrong. A huge problem but you should aim for better, not being tied down by feeling guilty or a failure - when it’s just food, of course you do it wrong, almost everyone around you do that and it’s hard to get it really right and for some of us, it probably never will happen ALL THE TIME. It’s fine, our body can handle some non-ideal things (those happen all the time, after all), we just should keep it low where we have control over it. And it’s very rare that someone hasn’t some (usually big) level of control over their eating. Well, in 1st and 2nd world, at least.

Why is hard for you to get into keto? That was always super easy for me (except a few times. but I went on/off keto hundreds of times and most were fine). It’s even easier for me now that I don’t enjoy my off times as much as my carnivore-ish ones.
I do had low-carb years before keto (that was needed), lots of great recipes and the desire to make more, everything to feel my woe is the possibly most enjoyable… But maybe if I know what is your problem with the change, I can say something that possibly helps…? I am lucky as I wake up and get a tabula rasa to a great extent. Determination helps too. But even if there is a siren song of carbs, you can just grab some very proper keto food and eat it first. A full belly may be quite effective. Of course our hungry mind may get stupid ideas when carby times are still close. It could wear me down but if I am hungry, I grab some proper food and it stops.

Good luck! And don’t think that having off times makes your keto times not useful You still practice doing keto, forming new habits, at least I strongly felt that in my case. It got more and more natural. I couldn’t stick to keto longer but my off times became shorter and probably less wild too. Practice makes things all better. You don’t get back to the start line when you restart keto

Maybe you know much of these, that’s good. But I saw people making so obvious (to me) huge mistakes so I just wrote a lot of stuff I consider useful and important. I hope I helped a tiny bit.

[cvkemp]

I am just going to simply say that like me maybe keto isn’t for you. I do better doing low to moderately low carb and supplement it with intermittent fasting.

[PaulL]

Welcome to the forums!

Would your wife and kids by any chance have any interest in a low-carb, high-fat, ketogenic diet? The advantages for the kids would be a great reduction in tooth decay, more mental stability, and normal weight growing up. And you wouldn’t have to be tripping over carb-laden foods all the time.

The challenge is to learn to think of yourself as a carbohydrate/sugar addict and apply the techniques addicts use to stay clean and sober. One technique that addicts find helpful is not to swear off forever. The idea is that you can have all you want–tomorrow. But for today, no. As the A.A. literature points out, “Even the worst alcoholic in the world can go twenty-four hours without a drink,” so the goal is to take it one day at a time.

Also, if your wife does the cooking, perhaps you could ask her to cook an extra portion of meat for the following day’s lunch, and to make sure that one of the veg at the meal is keto-friendly. You can do quite well by eating the meat, the safe veg, and a salad (put plenty of high-fat dressing on it; I like blue cheese) and ignoring the bread and potatotes. And don’t eat dessert! If you have to make your own lunches, you could pre-cook bacon and hard-boiled eggs on Sunday to take during the week. Put cream cheese on the bacon and roll it up, for a bit of extra flavour. Or take pepperoni slices and a nice, hard cheese. You get the idea.

These are just some thoughts. I hope they help. But you are blessed to have a number of keto doctors in your region, and if you look them up, they might be able to point you to suitable keto professionals you could see locally. Rod Taylor is an anaesthesiologist in Melbourne, and is founder of Low Carb Down Under. He, if anyone, should know where you can find support. Peter Brukner, former doctor to the Australian cricket team, is at La Trobe University. And those are just the folks in Melbourne that I know of; there are plenty in NSW and Queensland, and of course there’s Gary Fettke in Hobart.

I know of these people from their YouTube lectures; they have all spoken at Low Carb Down Under events. It might also give you support to watch some of the lectures on that channel. The talks are usually heavy on the science, and the lecturers generally give citations to the scientific literature, so you can check out how well-supported their beliefs are. Some of the LCDU speakers have done primary research into the ketogenic diet, whereas others specialise in aggregating data and presenting it, but all are pretty rigorous about documenting their positions with data.

In any case, good luck, this time around, and remember, we’re here to help, as well.

[robintemplin]

Sounds like you just haven’t found your true motivational switch yet. Whatever that my be for you. It was a number on the scale for me.

Some tips.
Don’t think of keto as forever. You are likely addicted to carbs, physically and emotionally. Like all addicts, the thought of giving something up forever is daunting. But you can stick with it today.

Carbs create cravings. So the longer you abstain, the easier it gets. Also, a craving will pass whether or not you feed it.

Each consecutive day you stay keto, you’ll think you may never again get the fortitude to stick with it again. That was a big motivator for me, with all my addictions. I had tried and failed so many times before.

Having kids can make it harder, for sure. This is where the fortitude comes into play. But you can also start introducing them to healthier food, bit by bit, on the sly.

Make sure you keep keto friendly foods on hand to snack on when you get the urge to chomp on something.

Keep it simple. You have a busy life. Just keep the carbs under 20 and carry on.

Instead of your kids (and their diet) being an obstacle, realize they are your best reason to get healthier. To be there for them.

You already know how to do it.
You got this!!

AMMEMDMENT: Paul must have been writing the same time I was. And per usual, we repeat each other quite a bit. So, double whammy for you! You’re welcome.

[velvet]

I had a couple of starts and stops in the course of a few years also. At the time hubby was still alive and he was a carb eater. He also did all the shopping, and while he always brought what I needed, the fridge was still full of carbs I had to look at, plus I cooked his food. It can be really hard to stick to it when others around you eat carbs. Suggestion: Get a small fridge and/or freezer for yourself and only look in there and eat from there.
As far as on the road - order omelets or get burgers and discard the bun. Find a place that serves breakfast all day and skip the toast etc. Order a meal that has no gravy and just eat the meat/fish and veggies. Lots of ways to eat on the run.

[kib1]

I have more time on my hands than you do, but I find that reading the science (and watching the youtubes) motivates me. Weight is a big motivator, and when I’ve met my weight goal, I need some other incentive. Reminders about what health benefits I may achieve if I stay the course help me. Things like checking off how many days in a row I did a certain behavior - what’s my streak, can I beat it? - help me. And wearing tight clothing (or tight clothing underneath my clothes if I feel modest) is a physical nudge reminding me not to stray too far. Today I have a little muffin-top, because I’m wearing jeans that (mostly) fit and not sweatpants, and WOW do I hate that!

[clackley]

It was a long struggle for me to get keto to catch for me and probably the key thing was developing a new habit of making a daily plan every single day. It has been almost 14 years now and every single day, I make a menu in the morning or the night before. No surprises. Just prepared.

As an aside, the reading and listening that I did (as the above poster talks about) was a big part as well. It was the cement!

Wishing you success and having a forum like this is very useful as well.

[velvet]

That goes to show how different we all can be. I suppose it does help though to see how everyone else does it, to find the proper fit. I was the exact opposite from you. I didn’t succeed until I simplified it to a carb chart on my fridge and just added up the carbs as I went. Beyond that, I ate whatever turned me on at the time. I have a freezer full of meats and pull something out to thaw every morning. The fridge has low carb veggies and various cheeses, some cream, butter and of course eggs and bacon. Once in a while I will use low carb tortillas or low carb marinara sauce… Been doing that for some 5 years now and will always live this way now. I keep being surprised at how much variation of meals is possible with just that. I like the spontineity this allows me.

[gingersmommy]

Some of what you are experiencing resonates with me. I’m going to second what some of the others have said here and add a few other thoughts.

I’d identify what keto foods you actually enjoy, that are easy to prepare. This isn’t going to work long term if you are hungry and not enjoying what you eat. For me, that isn’t a bunch of choices. Eggs, bacon, sausage, butter/ghee, mayo, beef/pork/chicken/fish, and a few keto friendly vegetables. Our meals are simple, no recipes. Usually I grill meat for my husband and I and serve it with a steamed vegetable. If you eat as a family, make sure your meals are simple and easy to prepare so that you aren’t making the kids’ dinner and then slaving over making your own. Mid-day meal or heavy snack is usually eggs, with or without bacon. I would not fast, especially in the beginning. IMO, you will feel deprived and more likely to go off if you don’t see efforts reflected on the scale. Remember, you are in this for the long haul. In the beginning, I’d eat at least 2-3 meals a day. After you have a few months under your belt, you may not want to eat as often. Maybe then move to an 18:6 eating/fasting window.

Don’t beat yourself up if you slip. Just remember, the more you cheat or indulge in carbage, the more you awaken that sleeping giant which only wants “more” but will never be satisfied. Good luck to you!

[AUPM]

Thanks all for the great responses - lots of good practical advice here! Will keep you posted as I progress.

I think one of my biggest issues has also been trying to jump straight it so I’m working on reducing carbs over the next week and I like the feedback a number of you provided about keeping it simple and making a plan! That will definitely help.

I also agree that I need to really find my motivation and why I’m doing this. I’m thinking a daily journal similar to a mindfulness journal may be a good approach here to keep me focused and on track!

[velvet]

You may try to put your journal here: Latest Accountability topics - Ketogenic Forums

I did and it was a help to me, and hopefully helped some others later.