Ketogenic Diet—Does it Work?

I happened upon the popular "keto" diet on Pinterest when I was searching around for low-carb recipes. At the time, I was having a hard time with energy levels, itchy feet, and headaches. With a family history of diabetes, that was my first thought.

I checked my blood sugar for about a week before calling the doctor. My blood sugar was hitting 180 pretty consistently, and obviously I assumed I was diabetic. While waiting for my appointment, I cut down on sugar, but wasn't really worrying about carbs too much. Sandwiches with white bread and cereal continued to be two main staples of my diet.

My doctor (reluctantly—I don't know if I have just always had horrible doctors, but I've never once gotten through a visit without a "you're too young for that") did a blood test and luckily, I'm not a diabetic. Not pre-diabetic, even. Apparently, I "probably" simply react more adversely to the inflammatory factors of sugar than other people. My doctor was not willing to look into anything further because all of my blood tests came back normal. I've spent every doctor visit since I was 13 years old hearing about how I need to lose weight and all of my problems will disappear - this time was no exception.

As you can probably tell, I don't have much faith in the medical field.

But what I did know at that point was: I feel horrible, I have chronic headaches, and my blood sugar is spiking even though I'm not diabetic.

I started transitioning to a low-carb diet the end of my junior year of college. I probably went from around 700g of carbs a day to maybe more like 100-200g a day. For me at 5'11" and 280 pounds, this was a shock to my body. The first two days I couldn't even get out of bed. I had a horrible headache, and my left leg felt like it might fall off. I still don't know what exactly was going on, but if that's what it feels like to come off of sugar, it should be named a drug in my opinion.

After the first week, my leg stopped hurting, and I didn't have a headache. At this point, I was pretty certain that sugar was the issue. I went from eating about 10 sugar cookies, 3 bowls of cereal, and a few microwave pizzas every day to eating breakfast burritos, turkey sandwiches, chicken salads and microwave beef stir-fry. Thinking back on it now, that still wasn't a very healthy way to eat, but as a junior in college at the end of the semester it was quite an improvement.

I was excited to be feeling better physically, but mentally I was still frustrated. Frustrated that being "fat" is the reason I'm given for every medical problem I have. My sophomore year of college, I got a pilonidal cyst. (Don't look it up, it's gross.) I was in so much pain, and had a fever from the infection. My cyst was not showing on the surface of my skin yet, and when I went to urgent care (and paid $100 for that mind you) they told me I was just overweight and needed to exercise and that's why I had back pain. They sent me off with some prescription pain pills to boot. The very next morning I had an emergency surgery to remove a water bottle's worth of infected liquid from my lower back at a hospital emergency room.

I, and so many other plus-size people, are discriminated against in the doctor's office with care that is not thorough. This latest scare of diabetes was the last straw.

I am officially on the journey to lose weight. I have never had a problem with the way I look or my size, but now I do have a problem with where the number on the scale puts me on the obesity chart.

I decided I wanted to stay low-carb for two major reasons:

1. So far it had stopped my headaches and helped my muscle pain
2. Sugar is apparently what feeds cysts—and I NEVER want another cyst (I had a second surgery for a re-appearance of the pilonidal cyst only 5 months after the original procedure).

After a few days of looking up low-carb recipes on Pinterest, I ran into the keto diet. At first, it didn't seem to make much sense. 70% of your diet should be fat? Fat is exactly what I want to lose.

But it actually makes sense. Basically, usually we burn carbs as glucose for energy. Our body has to burn something for energy. So all I am doing is switching from burning carbs, to burning fat, which I have plenty of. So with a calorie deficit, it seems logical that my body will be used to burning the fat from my food and will be able to start burning the extra fat on my body when I have a deficit. To me, this made sense.

Another thing I was very intrigued about was the idea that a keto diet stops you from craving food and being as hungry. I had already decided that sugar is addictive (a drug I say!) and so if I am not eating sugar, my body won't be craving it. That way you end up only eating when you are hungry instead of just because you are craving a sugar fix.

I was still skeptical, but I jumped in head first. I cut my carbs down to 25g per day for the first week and lost 8 pounds. This first week I was pretty strict, drinking my coffee with heavy cream for the extra fat and eating grass-fed beef.

Strict keto was not going to be sustainable for me when I went back to the dorm and had nothing but a mini-fridge and a microwave, however, and I knew it. About 3 weeks into my keto diet, I was down 264 pounds and about to turn 21. I hadn't felt any of the good effects on my energy, and was having sore muscles all the time. Thinking about it now, I probably had the keto flu.

I knew on my birthday I was going to cheat. I decided that would be my turning point. On my 21st birthday, I ate about 300g of carbs. I had pasta, mozzarella sticks, a strawberry daquiri, everything I wanted.

I regretted it immediately. I had a horrible headache for the rest of the night. I felt great the next day, probably high on the carb energy, I immediately went back to keto, but this time I put my goal for more of a lazy keto, and got some magnesium supplements.

Currently I am trying to stay between 20g and 40g of carbs per day. I have been eating mostly things that require no cooking, and getting meat that is pre-cooked whenever I can (In-N-Out double double protein style keto version, look it up). Low carb tortillas, lettuce, cucumbers, ranch dressing, brown and serve breakfast sausage, and slices of peperoni have been some of my staple foods. I am not 100% keto, but I have stayed in ketosis (according to the strips I ordered off Amazon), and am currently fluctuating between 255 and 260 pounds. That is more than 20 pounds down in just over a month.

Honestly, I am not feeling more energized, and I still have achy muscles all the time. I am hoping that it is the keto flu and will go away at some point, but for the amount of progress I've made and the fact that I no longer have headaches, I think it is well worth it.