As a child and through my early teens I was active and slim. Then along came college and university. During my first year of college I slowly started gaining weight. I did a combined 7 years of college and university to obtain my bachelors of mechanical engineering. In my final year of university, I was required to do a senior project with a group of classmates. We designed, built and raced a human powered vehicle (essentially a pedal car). Being the only girl in the group I had to race our vehicle in the women’s category. I needed to be in good physical condition in order to finish a race. Like most fourth year university students, my group wasn’t overly active or healthy eaters so we enlisted a senior kinesiology student to help us create a workout routine. The creation of our routines and analysis of our results ended up being her final year project. During our first meeting she took measurements, ran tests and of course took our weights. I will never forget standing on the scale and reading 198 pounds. I was ashamed and embarrassed at how I let myself gain so much weight without noticing.

Through college, university, starting a career and helping raise my two stepsons I never considered my own health a priority. For years my (and my boyfriend’s) weight kept creeping up and we knew we had to make some changes. Not only were we both overweight but I had developed skin and digestive issues and my boyfriend had developed Type 2 diabetes. Together we tried Weight Watchers a couple of times. It was never a program that really stuck for too long. We’d start very optimistic and ready to follow the program but after a few months we’d slowly go back to our unhealthy ways of eating. We never really lost more than a few pounds each time and we’d gain it all back plus some extra as soon as we stopped. That’s not to say the WW program doesn’t work for everyone. I know multiple people who have had great success with it. It just wasn’t something that was sustainable for us.

As a couple our health slowly declined while we yo-yoed in and out of Weight Watchers. We finally gave up WW for good and instead focused on trying to eat healthy whole foods and periodically exercised when our schedules allowed. We started to feel a bit better but never saw the weight loss results we were hoping for. In 2018 my daughter was born and everything changed. After years of poor commitment to losing weight we knew something drastic had to be done so we were around long enough to see our daughter grow up.

We spent hundreds of hours researching every diet. Whole food, plant based, paleo, Mediterranean, south beach, keto, etc. We always ended up back at keto and decided that was the best diet for us. We spent months researching every aspect of the keto diet and finally started in January 2019. In the first 6 months I had lost 40 pounds. I reached my goal weight by the end of the year and have been hovering around 126 pounds ever since. For me the benefits of the keto diet have not only been my weight loss but also an improvement in skin irritations and my digestive issues have almost completely disappeared.

In the past year I’ve answered numerous questions about my success on the keto diet. I’m certain a keto lifestyle would help improve most people’s lives but I try not to be that preachy keto fanatic who tells everyone keto is the only way to lose weight. Anytime I do suggest someone try a keto diet the typical response is how it’s just too hard or too drastic a change to be sustainable. I completely understand these opinions. Even with the 100% support I got from my boyfriend along the way it took a lot of researching and self education before getting started. It would have been so helpful to have a mentor with experience to guide us through the first few months. This got me thinking about how I could do my part to help support other people beginning their keto journeys.

In the past 6 months I have completed multiple keto/nutrition courses and started a blog in the hopes to support people who wish to try out a keto diet but just don’t know where or how to start. My goal is to provide the personal support I was so fortunate to have while sharing the knowledge and experience I’ve gained along the way to those who are struggling to begin their own keto lifestyles.