Why Go Keto?

Funny you ask that... I have been asking myself the same question. Which is why I was reluctant to try it. I did watch a pretty good documentary call "Magic Little Pill" that talks about the benefits of low carb, high fat, medium protein lifestyles. Its pretty good... I also think its important to change things up every now and again to keep the body going... in the long run I know this is not sustainable for me. However if it works to change my composition a bit... it was worth it.

One of my issues (prior to Keto), I was leaning too much on "processed food" even though I was eating healthy. I had a lot of oats, greek yogurt and protein powders to hit my numbers. While I wasnt actually eating a lot of breads and still no pastas, there was still a lot of sugar in my diet and it was causing me to plateau. Maybe doing this will help me to eliminate the "junk" so when I do go back to macro counting, I will look for my carb sources elsewhere. I also cheated way to often and found myself back in the “eh, Ill just have a piece of this cake…” or “ohh someone brought in donuts” camp. I don’t like feeling weak to the cravings.

I do not feel as if I am damaging my metabolism at all doing this, since I just spent months “repairing” it with Avatar. The repair was from years of eating too little (less than 1600 calories) for me... Using avatar, I built my calories up gradually to 1800 without gaining any weight. From this point, I am trying to lean out some more, burn some fat in the areas I can spare to lose... and see what happens. I will not be in a caloric deficit at all, so it will not undo what I have done.  

To me "dieting" is a temporary solution, or a kickstart to a lifestyle change or when you are in a lull towards whatever your goals are. Changing your lifestyle is something more permanent. If whatever it is you are doing to lose weight or lower blood pressure is considered a "diet" you are almost always looking for a means to an end. It is a temporary solution and will be difficult and painful to maintain... if you however, change your lifestyle... and understand what you are doing is a permanent solution and you work towards that... you will not fall back into the habits that got you into the situation in the first place... if that makes any sense. 

There are many many lifestyles out there and different things work for different peoples lifestyles. There are some things (I feel Keto is one for me) that is a temporary "diet" that might kickstart a change... Not that I dont think I "can" sustain it, because realistically I could... but I really dont want to. I have already expressed my concerns with Hibs about how I liked the flexibility of macro counting and "flexible" dieting because if I wanted to have an ice cream with Z... I can just track it and adjust for the day. That is the most frustrating part of this whole thing. I dont like elimination lifestyles... This is pretty much just a test to see what happens over the next few months... 

I have the ability to do this because I know that I eat for fuel, the “cheats” are rewards that come every now and again… it’s a challenge I accepted years ago. The first change I made to my lifestyle is what changed my mindset forever. 7 years ago I went strict paleo for 6 months. I had ZERO cheat meals... for 6 months. That means I had no booze, no cheese, no potato, no startch, no bread, no peanut butter and no dairy at all... for 6 months. I lost 40lbs. When I did this, I won the mental battle. I knew what I needed to do to lose the weight I wanted to lose. I had to get over the mental block of not having cake at a party and not feeling guilty... or not having a beer, but ordering water or seltzer at the bar with my friends. It was a HUGE mental game. 

A few years later when I was training for the CF Regionals, my coach got me into Eat To Perform. This is when the mental game that I had learned years before came into affect. He had me eating HUGE amounts of food. I thought he was insane. I mean I was STUFFED all day and then had to eat more because he told me to (understand this was all calculated). I had no choice but to trust the process. I had to trust that my coach knew what he was doing. Wouldnt you know... I LOST weight and I LOST body fat... it was amazing. 

Now, I have a much easier time trying new things and changing my lifestyle slightly. The mind game I played when I went strict paleo for 6 months (and I really dont think it has to be that long for it to happen, maybe just 8 weeks) was enough for me to listen to myself. When I was losing weight and getting closer to my goals, it was easier and easier to say no to the crap sitting on the table at work... and get over the hairy eyeball I got/get when I bring my own food to a company lunch conference. I dont feel guilty anymore. 

Society has everyone in the world thinking about "caloric deficit is what makes you lose weight" and while that is true... everyones caloric deficit is different. Plus, if you add exercise to that... you have to RAISE the number of calories you eat, otherwise your body goes into starvation mode. As I mentioned before... and I do realize that my basal metabolic rate is so high because of how low my body fat is... but at 1700 cals... if I only ate 1200... my body would preserve everything I gave it and I would surely plateau in fat loss and really risk losing muscle. 

Keto is crazy, I still do not understand how this works. I have been scoffing down ridiculous amounts of fat... we are talking 138g of fat a day... and Im maintaining my weight. I am still eating 1800 calories... but only 70g of carbs... I know I do not want to sustain it as a long term lifestyle change. My lifestyle does not work with it... but for the next 30 days I am giving it a go to see what it does with my body composition. I know what was working before... and I know I have the mental capacity to go back to it. 

but damn... not licking the spoon when I mix together Zach's yogurt and peanut butter is VERY hard!! 

I am always up for a "challenge" and I like trying new things. Lots of people do Keto for extreme weight loss, I am not really in it for that. I am in it to see what it does to my body composition.