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A story about keto and fasting for weight loss
Once my weight was 242 lbs (110 kilograms)
As a child, I was very thin. My relatives could see that everything is fine with us. They tried to feed me in every possible way. And it was miraculously successful, I broke the metabolic exchange, and I literally became a crumpet in one summer.
But neither at school nor at the university, I did not suffer from excess weight, always cheerful, there were a lot of boys around, boyfriends, so I was not going to lose weight.
But in 1999, during my senior year, a young man left me on the eve of my wedding. He didn't do it very well, as it turned out later, he had another one, but he couldn't admit it when he looked me in the eye.
Fasting for weight loss
I cried for a month! I just lay in bed and cried. My friends wanted to cheer me up and dragged me to the beach. I barely got into my bathing suit. I looked in the mirror: "What kind of whale is this?!» And it was at that moment that I thought: "What am I doing!". I was so angry that I thought, " I'm going to lose weight and become a goddess! Then you, mad dog, will see what a star you have lost."
Where did I start? I refused Breakfast. Until the first meal at one o'clock in the afternoon, I only drank: coffee, tea, water. Naturally, without sugar, cream, or anything else. I ate whatever I wanted for lunch. Around 4 PM, I prepared a salad, for example, an apple and a carrot. And then nothing until the next day.
That's how intuitively I started using interval fasting for weight loss according to the 20:4 scheme. At that time, they did not know about it.
Interval fasting: a detailed guide
For the first month, I did not lose a single gram, but I decreased in volume. I thought about what else to do? I reviewed my lunch and removed the cake from it. I lost a little weight, and the weight stopped again. Yeah, I added one day on water and started losing weight again. Plus, I did sports: I went to aerobics and swam in the pool.
As a result, over the course of a year, the weight changed from 242 lbs (110 kilograms) to 141 lbs (64 kg) thanks to sports and fasting for weight loss.
I was terrified
Four years later, in 2004, I got up to 103 lbs (47 kg)! I couldn't stop – it seemed that I was still fat. Perhaps it would have come to anorexia, if not for one story. I flew to rest by the sea, in the hotel near the pool animators photographed guests, then hung the pictures on the board, and they could be redeemed. I see people crowded together, looking at someone's photo, I decided too - suddenly some star is resting with us.
I approach and understand –this is my swimsuit. For the first time, I saw myself from the outside: these are bones, not a person, but a skeleton! I then became wildly afraid, I saw the light in a moment. I gave up fasting for weight loss and after a while, I returned to 116 lbs (53 kg).
I stopped eating at intervals, using fasting for weight loss. I followed the rule: if, for example, I ate a lot of sushi, then the next day only water and fruit.
I tried different kinds of diets. But I was constantly hungry, and I wanted to find a type of food that would not make me hungry. And it wasn't fasting that helped, but keto.
I was a sugar addict
I made my first keto breakfast: an omelet of two eggs in butter, bacon, avocado, olives in olive oil, and coffee with coconut cream. I looked and thought: "This is what makes me lose weight? Seriously? It's just a fat bomb." As they usually say, if you want to lose weight, go to light, low-fat.
I closed my eyes and ate this delicious, flavorful breakfast. Honestly? I ate with the thought that if I gain weight, I will gain about 4 lbs (1.8 kg). I have nothing to lose and I know how to lose extra pounds: the ideal way out is fasting for weight loss, one cucumber a day, chicken breast, and I will return to my weight again.
Of course, I absolutely consciously approached keto nutrition, found a coach, studied theory that my head refused to agree with, I could not believe that this was possible. Although I am a doctor by first education, I know about ketosis, but I did not understand what food ketosis is.
And since I didn't really believe it, I dived into keto without expecting any concrete results. I read that the feeling of hunger disappears in 3-4 days and becomes easier. And I was a terrible sugar and bread addict. And because of this, I lived in two states: I starve and I overeat. Insulin resistance, a constant desire for sugar – I dreamed of ending this eternal struggle.
The addiction was so severe that I was scared of hunger – high levels of insulin, and the cell is hungry. I could shake with hunger, even if I ate a cake.
Or, for example, if I knew that there was a chocolate bar in the locker, I opened it and it turned out that my daughter had found it earlier: I got in the car and went to the supermarket in another city at night because everything is closed. I bought brioche or chocolate there and stuffed it into my mouth with shaking hands on the way home.
And I'm tired. I realized that this is grief... the path to diabetes.
I started looking for ways to treat insulin resistance and found keto. They wrote that literally from the seventh day, a state will begin when you do not want sweet things. And I just decided to give it a try, and if there's a change, I'll be interested. If nothing happens, it means that the next one is not mine.
On the third day, I experienced a classic keto flu. In the afternoon I went to the market, it is in the center of our Italian village and at some point I realized - I can barely move my legs, they just don't go. Imagine, you need to climb literally four steps, and I look at them and realize-I just can't. I dialed my keto coach's number and said, " I can't move."
She asked: "Is there a supermarket nearby? Go in and buy pink salt, put 5-6 crystals under your tongue, and suck it out."
Again I thought-some nonsense! I'm dying here, and they offer to put salt under my tongue? But if you found and chose a person whose opinion is important to me, do not argue, just go and do it!
I bought it, sucked it out, and just three minutes later I was back to normal. I think: how is it? Magic! I did some shopping at the market and got home with my bags as calmly as if nothing had happened.
The action with keto flu was one-time but very convincing.
My first weeks on keto were over, and my friends and I met in the center of our village in an old pasticceria. It has been kept by the same owners for four generations, and they have incredibly delicious pastries.
We came, and I just ordered coffee and found myself thinking that I just don't want any more cake or brioche. I challenged myself to a duel: maybe this - NO, and this one - NO. I just don't want to, and it's such happiness. I used to be able to buy six of them and eat them right away.
But not everything was so great, we also had to deal with breakdowns. The first was the most striking, with my husband I went to visit his parents. My mother-in-law usually asks about my dinner preferences in advance.
This time it was asparagus, salmon steak, parmesan with coffee – just perfect. If it hadn't been for the fragrant sweet focaccia, the traditional dish of their town. And my mother-in-law almost tearfully asked me to try at least a piece. I ate a little, then another, and another... and I couldn't stop.
In the morning, hunger came, swelling, and guilt. I wanted to give up. But I let out a breath and started the day with keto again, trying to pretend like nothing had happened, but my conscience was bothering me.
It took a long time to adapt to food in restaurants. I read all sorts of tips; for example, I ordered pizza and ate only the top part-cheese and sausage. But can you imagine when you go to a pizzeria and eat only the top, and leave the dough? They look at you like you're crazy. My husband said: "Please stop it; it’s a shame."
Over time, I began to get out of it in a different way: we started to go to restaurants that cook not only pizza or just do not eat pizza under the pretext that my stomach hurts.
My husband still thinks that I only eat six eggs a week
At home, neither my husband nor daughter are on keto, but they eat my keto food wonderfully. That's why I always cook more than just for myself. I say to them: "People, are you not pushing too hard? Your carbs and my fat will make you fat so quickly. At least then, don't eat pizza or pasta on this day."
By the way, my husband still does not know that, for example, I can eat butter in a piece, he would faint. He doesn't know about the number of eggs, so he thinks we buy six for a week, so he eats them.
In fact, when he goes to work, and I stay at home and quite calmly go to the store once every two days for butter and eggs and quietly put them on.
He doesn't understand what keto is. But this is better than before when I ate ten brioches at a time. I started keto at a weight of almost 132 lbs (60 kilograms) and quickly came to a state of comfort 119-121lbs (54-55 kg).