My Keto Journey Series #1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QasBTDfCIro

I’m 50+ year old and I’m passionate about good health, fitness, and well-being. I’m careful about what I eat but also enjoy dining out with friends and the odd glass of wine. I love feeling strong and vibrant, so I regularly practise yoga, meditation, swimming, and other forms of cardiovascular exercise.

In my younger days I could eat whatever I liked and could maintain my weight easily. As the years go by, this gets harder and just takes a few Xmas parties to tip the scales over by a few kilos. This really annoys me as my clothes get tight, and my yoga suffers. I feel heavier and more sluggish. I’ve experimented with different ways of eating … from high fibre (in my teenage years) to on-and-off vegetarianism in my 20’s to 40’s. Eventually I came across a method called “metabolic balance” which was the most successful approach and balancing your insulin levels causing your weight to just drop. I did find it quite restrictive and left me feeling deprived and hard to integrate with my weekend socialising.

I came across the Ketogenic diet about 3 years ago when having lunch with a lady who looked much younger than her years. I noticed she wasn’t touching the carbohydrates on her plate (e.g. potatoes and bread rolls) and avoided dessert. She said her secret was the Ketogenic diet, so I parked it in my consciousness as I was happy with the metabolic balance approach which I used on weekdays but became lax on weekends.

In 2020, one of my friends who is a doctor in his 70’s lost a lot of weight using the Ketogenic approach and was recommending it to his patients with great success. He said it was very easy to integrate in everyday life as you only followed a few simple rules:

· Restrict your carbohydrate intake to less than 50 grams per day by avoiding rice, bread, potatoes, and pasta

· These can be replaced with keto-friendly alternatives like konjac rice, cauliflower rice, low carb bread, low carb noodles

· Consume protein, fat and vegetables as per normal

· Avoid many fruits, except berries

· Enjoy delicious sauces

· Avoid sugar and honey, but use keto-friendly sugarless sweeteners (e.g. monk fruit, stevia) I found this easy to follow and was able to maintain a good weight in 2020.

Then came Xmas .. the carbs … and then 3 extra kilos … not happy

So now I’m wanting to drop those unwanted kilos by re-adopting the ketogenic approach, coupled with intermittent fasting.

I’ll be documenting the approach and creating a video journal of:

· Weight checkpoints to see how fast I’m dropping the kilos

· Food diary and keto recipes that I’m trying out

· Log of exercise

· Intermittent fasting

· Lifestyle hacks

Cheers, Adrian