Ah weight loss, where to begin…

I’ll start here – Jon has been on a weight loss journey for about two years.  His low fat diet coupled with his almost daily workouts at the gym have helped him to achieve a significant amount of weight loss.  I am so unbelievably proud of him, it takes a lot of determination and will power to accomplish what he has.

I came to a time in my life, recently, where I knew that I too wanted to lose weight.  Let me clarify – this is not because anyone told me to or because of societies expectation that all women need to be thin to be beautiful.  Let me put this out there, I appreciate and love my body in whatever form and fully support the body positivity movement. With that said, I was ready.

I have tried every diet known to man, at least it feels that way.  The low fat diet, the eat small meals every few hours diet, the starve yourself diet (I know, it’s unhealthy), etc.  I had heard so much about the low carb diet, and based off of what I could and couldn’t eat, I figured this would work best for me.  I watch a lot of YouTube, and one of the videos suggested for me was about the Keto Diet.  I researched further, and decided to give it a try.  I spoke to Jon about it as well, and he was willing to do it with me, to support me, even though it went against almost everything he had ever learned about dieting.

So what is Keto anyway?  Keto is essentially a very low carb, high fat and moderate protein diet.  You can find a ‘Macro” calculator online which with information you input will give you the amount of carbs, fat, protein and calories you are allotted per day.   The information that is usually asked is: your height, weight, age, physical activity level, how much you want to lose and by when.  If you stay within these macros (limits) you will lose weight.  In addition to that you will find yourself having much more energy, better sleep patterns, increased alertness and a better attitude.  This is because your body goes into a state of Ketosis, which burns your fat stores as a source of energy rather than glucose. It sounds weird but it is true, we can attest to this.  Within the first two weeks or so, we noticed all of these positive side effects in addition to an accelerated weight loss.

The downside to this diet, if there is one, is that you get NO cheat days, practically no carbs (almost everything has carbs, even spices), it can be difficult to stay within your macros, specifically protein, and sometimes the same food just gets tiring.

We went on a couple of back to back trips, and I found myself slipping, I fell off the wagon.  Jon stayed true to the diet for the most part, but that is him, extremely disciplined about weight loss.  I wish I had that attribute, I don’t, bottom line I love food.  When we got back home, we restarted the Keto diet and again, Jon of course was infinitely more disciplined than I.  Weight loss is one step at a time for me,  I noticed I always try to make it a race, and I need to take things at a steadier pace.  This is something I have and always will struggle with, but that is okay. I am now going to try a low carb diet and ease my way back into Keto, if I decide that is what is right for me.

As always, keeping it real.  Stay tuned to hear more about our weight loss journey.

xoxo – angie