This is the story of Kim, one of the very inspirational stories that come across us at Ketogenic Living Facebook Group. Take it away Kim!
I’ve been overweight my entire life. I can remember “doing” the Atkins diet when I was 5 or 6 years old, back when it first came out in 1972, with my mom. I spent my whole life either on a “diet”, or all out binging. I just never found a happy medium where I could maintain my weight loss and change my lifestyle.
In November of 2012, I found out I was hypothyroid, and that I had cervical cancer. Add that to the fact that I was tipping the scale at 300 pounds, and I really didn’t expect to have a long life. I was depressed, and extremely out of shape.
At 300 pounds, just walking across the parking lot at Wal-Mart would leave me out of breath. I had absolutely no physical activity, unless you count going out to dinner every night. I would spend my day eating all of the most unhealthy things you could imagine. Breakfast was usually an apple fritter and a breakfast burrito with extra bacon. During the day, I would snack on junk food (chips, candy bars, cookies, etc) until it was time for dinner. Pretty much every night we would go out to dinner, and it almost always included fries. My favorite was a grilled cheese sandwich (double cheese) with French fries and a large side of ranch to dip it all in. Many nights also included dessert, which was often a full pint of Ben and Jerry’s. It’s no wonder I was unhealthy and immobile!
On February 22, 2013, I finally decided that enough was enough and it was time to FINALLY get healthy and get my life back. I started with Atkins 72 induction. That’s what I was most familiar with. I had “done” it off and on for a good part of my life, but I had never actually made it a lifestyle. This time around I knew that I couldn’t keep doing this. I’m 46 years old. Enough is enough. I had to finally, permanently, get it right.
Kim, nearly 140 pounds lighter!
For me, getting it right meant really educating myself. I immersed myself in information, recipes, and everything I could get my hands on about a low carb lifestyle. That’s when I stumbled onto the information about a ketogenic lifestyle. To me, it was basically Atkins, but one step further. And the more I read about a Ketogenic way of eating, the more it made sense to me.
Over the course of a year, I continued to eat the foods that are listed on the Atkins 72 induction list, but I put a focus on eating higher fat, moderate protein, and very low carb and staying in Ketosis.
During the entire year, I didn’t exercise. While I firmly believe that exercise is great for your overall health, I don’t believe that it’s necessarily conducive to “scale” losses. I needed the motivation of seeing the scale numbers move down to stay motivated, so I didn’t exercise. Now that I’m almost to goal, I did start exercising about 6 weeks ago, knowing that it would improve my body and health, but that it probably wouldn’t really move the scale for me.
All these changes, over the course of a year, worked! I’m down almost 140 pounds now. I’d still like to lose about 15 pounds more, but I know that those last pounds will come off more slowly, and I’m okay with that. My life has changed. The woman that couldn’t walk across a parking lot is now doing 5k’s and hiking in the desert with her dogs! Instead of buying the biggest tents I can find to cover my body, I’m actually buying cute clothes that I like for the first time in my entire life. It amazes me that my body is continuing to change.
A huge difference!
I’m not hungry, I have no desire to go back to who I used to be and to eat what I used to eat. I love living a ketogenic lifestyle. To me, there’s never even the option of eating off plan. I just don’t want to. I love my life and I’m thankful for the healthy person that I’ve become.
