Weight loss was my initial singular goal. I had no idea that LCHF would become a healthy lifestyle overhaul. I also had no idea how successful my efforts would become. So now, I stay LCHF for health, and weight management is a side benefit.
I achieved my goal of weight management within 5 months. Since I’m LCHF for life, I am continually changing my goals. Many of these changes reflect an evolving understanding of diet, nutrition and my other life goals.
Life is a journey so I learn and move on. I learn best when I’m facing down in the gutter. My only regret is not sticking with Atkins back in 2005-ish, or, if we want to have fun with the time machine, back when Atkins initially published his book.
Frequent forum members will roll their eyes, but, it goes without saying I believe Dr. Westman has identified the best path forward for those looking for either weight management, T2D management or simply living a healthier lifestyle. There are other doctors I greatly admire, but he remains the touchstone. His rules are simple:
Stick to page four
No more than 20 total carbs a day. Include fiber and other unicorn carbs in your total.
Don’t worry about tracking foods or macros.
I wasted a lot of time and effort on scrupulous food and macro tracking. I’ve been tracker-free for about a month now. I relish not doing so now.
Update
I wish to make my observation about Dr. Westman’s guidance as explicit as possible. He runs “Heal Clinics” which offers remote help for people who want to take on LCHF. I have found his advice – interventions, as I’m stubborn – invaluable towards my success.
I’ve been keeping a personal journal of my experiences here.
My only goal was to reverse my p2td which I’ve done, hadn’t realised it would make the fat melt off, still got some to go but already off 1 lot of BP meds and reduced dosage of the 1 still on.
Have been keto since Aug 2017, best advice is that you (anyone) can do it, the first few weeks of carb withdrawal are shite but you will feel better.
Seven months. Weight loss goal achieved at four months. But more importantly, keto slashed my triglycerides in half and raised my HDL. Fasting blood sugar in the 80s for the first time in at least five years. I wish I had eaten more real food in the beginning. There was an awful lot of cream and pork rinds going on!! The cream did my GI system no favors so I finally figured out my fat was best obtained with nuts and avocados. But I still love cream.
Lose the belly fat and barricade the road to diabetes and heart disease.
I’ve lost 75% of my belly fat and have less than 5 kilos to go. I feel like my overall health is better than it’s been in a long time and I worry a whole lot less than I did before.
Going on 11 weeks.
Eat less fat after the first 4 weeks. I think I might have been overdoing it. My body was feeding off what was in my belly more than what was on my belly. Although this is a minor thing since I consistently lost around 3 pounds per week. But honestly, there really should be no rush as long as you are improving consistently.
Switching up my eating habits (patterns). Prior to keto I was a nutritional slave to the clock. I ate at the same times every day and I’ve taught myself that the time does not decide when I need food. I mix in OMAD with a 24-48 hour fast here and there and some days I do 2MAD. I think this better better accomodates digestive and fat burning systems that evolved over the past 200,000 years. A meal was not guaranteed just because the sun came up or was about to go down.
I tend to agree but I find the macros and what I am hitting or not hitting, interesting. It also makes for a good point of reference when speaking to people who do have questions about tracking
Address my type 2 diabetes and bring it into a normal range. My HbA1c started at 10.1 back in May and my goal was to bring it below the pre-diabetes range (i.e. < 5.7). I ended up at 4.6 on my latest check this month.
Secondary goals have been weight-related and body composition, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised with a bunch of other side-effects I hadn’t set out to achieve with keto alone, but just seemed to happen.
To what extent have you achieved your goals?
I think I bat the type 2 diabetes one out of the park. It’s now a lifelong commitment, that I’ll stick with this as how I eat and how I live, because I hate the idea that I’ll die from something I could have easily prevented just by caring about what I put in my mouth. I have a family and want to spend as long as I possibly can with them.
How long have you been keto?
Seven months - since April 11th 2018.
What would you do differently if starting over with the same goals?
Honestly, I’m not sure if I’d do anything differently. I checked my blood glucose several times a day, I’d highly recommend doing that if HbA1c is a goal of yours. It helped me stay focused and realise how much control over everything I actually had. Previously my weight, my sugar highs, my sugar lows all felt like things I couldn’t manage and would have to look at medication to treat longer-term.
What did you do that worked and you would recommend to others with the same goals?
I listened to the 2 Keto Dudes podcast (and still do) which was great because they’re so transparent, so honest, and you feel like you’re on the same journey with them as they try various experiments over the years. They have amazing guests on who are very enlightening.
I managed my salt very carefully and rarely had dizziness, lightheadedness or any of the other symptoms of an electrolyte imbalance. It feels very natural to me now to tinker around with pink Himalayan salt.
Finally, as weird and contradictory as these may sound, I also think consistency and switching things up helped a lot. By consistency I mean I kept to my macros and didn’t have any days where I intentionally went out of my way to chow down a ton of carbs. This is coming from someone who used to previously have problems with eating and had no issue eating the same amounts of food as multiple people would eat (in private). I avoided not only sugar but sweeteners as well as I wanted a clean break from sweet foods (having had a problem with those as well) and felt like I’d enjoyed them as much as I wanted to in the past, time to move on. Everyone reacts differently to sweeteners and some are better than others, so it was nice to leave them out of the equation entirely. For some things, I can’t avoid them, but I don’t care. This does mean I don’t cook most keto equivalent things (cakes, pies, etc). Lots of people do, they love them, and it doesn’t affect them, but I’m convinced it’s one of the things that’s kept my progress pretty smooth the past seven months.
Fasting has also been crucial for me and part of mixing things up. I rarely repeat the same eating schedule more than a few days in a row. Some days I’ll fast (2-3 days works well for me, I’ve done longer and felt great from it but it’s not a goal or anything), some days I’ll eat only once, some days I’ll eat at every traditional mealtime and eat a lot. I always keep my body guessing. When I do eat, I don’t calorie restrict either, but I do watch macros.
I may need to change things up now that I’ve lost almost 100lbs and have far less body fat to rely on for energy, but so far it’s worked well and I exceeded my primary goal.
