Hi everyone! Thanks for letting me join your group. I’m a 41 year old man whose struggled to maintain a healthy weight since childhood. I’ve been on a ketogenic/IF routine for coming up on three months now. I have lost about 60lbs (50 of that in the first 2 months) weaned myself off of all but one prescription medication and, according to my latest medical checkup, reversed type 2 diabetes. My goal is to get down to my “fit” weight of 195 by April of next year. I started at 330lbs in April and I am now down to 272lbs and I have gone down three pant sizes so I expect to hit my goal easily. I am very excited and relieved to have finally found a healthy way of regulating my body weight after having been on the “eat less/move more” calorie restricted “LFHC” hamster wheel pretty much my whole life. I have found it very easy to follow a ketogenic diet and the increased satiety has helped me through periods of fasting. Overall my health has improved markedly but I have had some issues with kidney pain and some gout flare-ups which has caused me some concern. I have a history of severe gout attacks since I was 13 years old the worst of which had me bed-ridden for two months and affected most of the joints in my legs, feet and arms. It took me another month to recover enough to walk without assistance after that episode and left me with permanent joint pain in my feet and ankles so, as you might imagine, I freaked out a little when I began having gout flare-ups after my first 72 hour fast about a month into my keto/fasting routine. My fist instinct was to stop doing keto and fasting immediately and go back to the LFHC diet I was on before starting keto but since my blood sugars had improved so much (and stopped the neuropathy cold in its tracks) I decided to stay the course and modify my fasting protocol to doing a 23 hour fast two to three times a week instead of every day. I’ve been doing that for about two weeks now, eating breakfast and dinner on days of intense physical activity and doing an occasional 18/6 fast when I don’t feel like eating breakfast. The weight loss has slowed, which was was my intent since I figured my body was having trouble processing all the fat that was coming off my body and that’s what was causing the gout flare-ups, but the gout symptoms seem have improved somewhat. I just read Gary Taubes’ “lost chapter” on gout which he says increased uric acid levels in the first few weeks are totally normal and expected on a LCHF diet but improve after a few weeks so I am thinking about going back to a daily 23/1 fasting protocol when all gout symptoms have subsided. I have been taking Probeneicid an “old school” gout med since about 2011 (I had an allergic reaction to Allopurinol and Uloric the two most widely prescribed medications for gout). I have also been drinking 4 to 8 tablespoons of ACV and two tablespoons of lemon juice in my water each day which seems to be helping. My line of work often entails pretty intense physical exertion and I’ve noticed that on days of higher than normal physical activity I tend to have a dull aching pain in my kidneys and after a couple of days the inflammation in my feet and ankles gets a lot worse so I am thinking that my body might be producing more ketones on those days making it more difficult for my kidneys to process uric acid since ketones use the same pathways as uric acid. I have read that in may people gout symptoms will subside and go away entirely on a ketogenic diet so I am hopeful that things will continue to improve. Well, that’s my story folks… and I’m sticking to it. Thanks again for letting me ramble-on here on your keto forum. I hope I haven’t bee to long winded. 
New Guy Introduction
anon50169625
#1
buffy
#5
Welcome Lance and Congratulations on your significant achievements to date! Good luck with your continued healing 
JustPeachy
(Sophie)
#6
Welcome to the Forum! Keep us posted as to your progress with the gout issues.
ava_ad0re
(Katie the Quiche Scoffing Stick Ninja )
#7
Welcome to the Group.
Well done on reversing your diabetes and your weight loss so far.
This group is a god send, full of very knowledgeable people who are incredibly kind!
anon50169625
#8
Thanks for the warm welcome y’all. I’ve been “mining” this group for information for a few weeks. Looking forward to sharing with and learning from all the fine people here.