Long post alert! 
Today is my Ketoversary! I consider the 21st August 2018 as my official Keto birthday. The day after my birthday weekend which, if I’m brutally honest with you, was a horrible weekend. Nothing to do with anyone, or anything but all to do with myself and the anxiety I had been bottling up for so long…
The week leading up to my birthday I ‘dabbled’ with Keto recipes. I made Keto rolls and egg and bacon for breakfast. I unsubscribed from the ‘Toast Club’ me and a colleague had at work (we could demolish a pack of bagels in a morning between two of us 
) cut out my toast and peanut butter, followed by my second breakfast of Greek yoghurt, honey and pineapple, and generally cut out all starches and carbs. I lost what I now know to be ‘water weight’ in that first week, felt great, then the following weekend was my birthday and I ate all the pizza, drank all the gin and ate all the cake. The feelings I had the next day were indescribable. My anxiety had peaked and I was unable to enjoy my birthday because I felt so mentally unhappy. I knew something had to change and made myself the promise that the next day (the 21st) is the day I jumped head-first into Keto life and I haven’t looked back! With the exception of a 12 day holiday to Ontario where I knew I would be kicking myself out of ketosis in Tim Horton’s (large double double, chilli and a bread roll followed by Tim bits and a honey crueller 
) I returned from holiday and got right back on that Keto train and I’ve been on it ever since.
I’m not gonna lie it’s not been easy at times…Keto hasn’t always been sunshine and rainbows! Figuring out my electrolyte balances weren’t fun. I’ve gone without sodium, and I’ve taken too much…both feel surprisingly similar in my experience! Magnesium has been interesting to say the least, and realising I needed potassium and experiencing the painful heart palpitations was scary. Followed by a bit of a stumble over Xmas where I found myself restricting calories…a very dangerous game that I’ve never even considered doing before – deliberately keeping calories low led to me looking like shit real quick. Dry and tired skin over Xmas… looking back now I do understand how tracking and weighing daily is what lead to my disordered eating. This combined with fasting was something I became quite rigid and obsessed with and I am glad I realised the error of my ways early on and got myself out of that bad patch. I never wanted to be that person, I’ve never been one to hop on the scales daily, even when I embarked on my weight loss journey to shed my baby weight I got on the scales once every six months….and I wanted to go back to that mind-set. In order to do that I had to take myself back to the original reason why I started Keto in the first place – my mental health. I got all caught up in the weight loss, and the numbers and forgot the real reason why I made the switch to Keto in the first place!
All was going well up until the weekend before I got my new job at Easter, when I realised more hair around the place than usual…I lived in denial for a few weeks but it became apparent that I was experiencing the dreaded Keto hair loss (as previously documented on this forum!). This has been huge for me…I love my hair, and as devastating as it was to pull strands from my head every day, it’s also taught me that I need to pay more attention to my calories and my general macro intake. I stopped fasting and counting grams of protein. I stopped living to meet targets every day and I’m so damn glad I did. Looking back now I cannot for the life of me understand how I even survived the mornings in a fasted state. For the longest time I was convinced that I was comfortable surviving on 1300-1500 cals a day, but since I upped my calorie intake to closer to 2000 a day I’ve not lost much hair at all. One thing I can take away from this experience, is that even though I ‘felt’ like I was eating enough food, it’s clear that I wasn’t. My body was trying to tell me and I feel like I ignored it for too long 
One other massive thing I realised around the same time my hair loss was at its worst, is that I needed to love myself more. Despite all the ups and downs, I continued to lose weight which made me happy as I was desperate to gain my pre-baby body back…I honestly thought that one day I could look the way I did before I had my daughter…boy how wrong was I! A couple of months ago I saw a photo of myself which didn’t really sit well with me. I’d gone down to a size 6 (I think that’s a size 0 in USA) and that’s the smallest I’d ever been, and realised how stick thin I actually looked. Whilst trying to get a flat tummy, everything else on me had gone flat too. All the elements of me that made me feel like a woman had gone. Nothing ever fit me right, I left the shops empty-handed all the time, got told I needed to put weight on, and one day I caught a glimpse of my arse in a three way mirror in M&S and it basically resembled an old man’s arse! All the squats/deadlifts/walking lunges/bridges in the world weren’t gonna bring my cute bum back! Something in me just snapped that day and I knew my weight loss journey was officially over. This went deeper than just weight loss. It was time for me to accept that my body will most probably never look the way I want it to ever again, and that I’m a mother – which is one of the best things that has ever happened to me…regardless of the permanent changes to my body, it’s time to appreciate my body for everything it’s done. From that day onwards I started to eat more, I always have breakfast and I eat when my body tells me it’s time to eat. I need food to function. My brain needs the fat to work properly, and so does my body.
Back when I was fasting, I never realised how much I needed the food until I stopped fasting. Some mornings I would move too fast and feel dizzy. I was so weak, I dragged my arse right up until lunchtime. My body CRAVED mineral water every morning. It was so weird, it was my body’s way of telling me I had to eat more. Although I’m slightly annoyed at myself for ignoring these signals for longer than I should have, I do feel now that my hair loss is connected to my food intake. Since I started eating three meals a day I no longer crave mineral water. It’s safe to say I’m not a natural faster. Maybe one day I will be able to fast again…who knows. All I know is for me personally, fasting is NOT an option. I cannot ignore hunger signals, nor can I feel I can perform to my best abilities in a fasted state.
All in all though since I started Keto I’ve gone from strength to strength. I perform better at work, my skin and face appear so much younger…I need less make up which is a huge bonus! My skin has cleared up nicely, I never had bad acne but every now and then a spot would appear leaving a massive scar on my face that took ages to heal. When I get bouts of anxiety I’m able to sit back, review the situation, take a deep breath and calm the f*ck down. In the past I’d have gone crazy with my thoughts. I have the energy to run around after my toddler in the evenings. I’m a much calmer and happy person. I’ve had the courage to go for things I never imagined I could before…in the past 365 days I’ve achieved and pushed myself to go for a job I never thought I’d have the balls to go for, let alone succeed at, as well as finally get over my driving fears! So much so that I’ve now got myself a Manual driving license. My relationship with the father of my child has improved massively…mostly because I’m calmer (he used to drive me mad!) and so has the relationship I have with myself.
The next hurdle I need to get over is getting back into my exercise. I stopped doing that when the hair loss started and I’ve not felt happy to get back into it until I felt it was time to do so. I miss working out. It’s amazing how quickly all my fitness and toning has disappeared. I think I’m more concerned about needing extra calories and the hair loss getting bad again. I’m also inclined to think it’s just me overthinking things like I always do…when I overthink I put a block on my own progress and imagine the worst outcome all the time, when really, the worst has happened…my hair has fallen out!!
I’m still working on the relationship I have with myself…in time it will come. I’m a work in progress and I can’t wait to see what happens in the next 365 days!! KCKO!
happy Keto anniversary 
