Previously on Kind Courage Keto: In the first post of Emma’s Keto journey, Emma lost her father-in-law from complications due to diabetes. In the second post of her Keto Journey, Emma tried to lose weight by breastfeeding 3 babies, eating high carb “healthy meals”, exercizing a lot, and calorie restriction. After nearly blacking out at the grocery store one day, Emma decided it was time to try Keto.
November 2016
Okay, so I said that I was ready to try Keto. Truth is, at this point I had never even heard of the term “Keto” before. I know it may seem strange now, but this is a time before the word “Keto” was plastered on magazines at Walmart, or snack foods at Costco. My husband and I were clueless. The only thing we knew to search for was “low carb”. We even schlepped to Barns and Noble (kid in tow), to find a “Low Carb” recipe book. The one we got ended up having a lot of recipes that used egg whites, or low fat dairy … this was clearly the wrong type of book.
So, I did what any mom with two nursing babies (I had weaned one), who spends all of her time feeding them on the couch, sitting in front of the television, with a chromecast plugged into it *gasp for breath* would do: I searched for YouTube videos about it.
I started with the one that started it all. Sarah Hallberg’s Tedx talk. That lead me to the playlist of some kind soul. I wish I could find it now, but it’s been too many years. At the end of all those very informative presentations, was a rather long one by Dr. Stephen Phinney. Now we had the two search terms we needed: HFLC (high fat low carb), and Keto.
Those handy little search terms helped a lot. My husband found some ebooks on Kindle: “Quick and Easy Ketogenic Cooking” by Maria Emmerich (which I did not find quick or easy), and “The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living” by Dr. Jeff S. Volek and Dr. Stephen Phinney. (Just so’s ya’ know: These are NOT affiliate links, these are just here for your reference.)
The Purge
It started with vegetable oils. I already was grossed out by how canola oil was made. I was using loads of peanut oil instead, because I found that it did not need to go through a chemical cleaning process. But, I was trying to follow Maria’s recommendations. WOW! just WOW! My chronic knee pain (lasting 18 of my 27 years) went away within a few days. A Few Days! Peanut Oil – Throw it out!
Next came the electrolytes. Salt is a beautiful thing! I was incredibly angry when I learned that regular table salt is diluted with DEXTROSE – you know, Pure glucose, 100 Gllycemic Index, 96 Glycemic Load! So, we bought a few different types of salt: pink himalayan, grey celtic, sea salt, and canning salt. Oh goodness, I compared the canning salt (pure NaCL) with the table salt and wow, the canning salt was at least twice as salty! Talk about a salt that has lost it’s savor, table salt is weak compared to real salt. Table Salt -Throw it out!
Good-bye things with corn starch. Good-bye things with sugar. Good-bye wheat based products. Good-bye complicated sauces. Good-bye potatoes that always had a way of rotting in some forsaken corner of the pantry. Good-bye bunches and bunches of banana’s that we used to buy. Good-bye flour that always got dumped. Good-bye grocery store bread that also always got dumped.
Hello to creamy shakes! Hello to real cheese sauces! Hello to bacon and eggs! Hello to meat. Hello to deli meat wraps. Hello to low glycemic fruits and veggies (I never liked carrots anyway). Hello to blender-made ice cream with liquid stevia. Hello to pickles and olives and sauerkraut. Hello to cream cheese everything! Add it to a shake – now it’s cheese cake flavored. Blend it into broth – now it’s creamy broth. Add it to eggs … you get the picture.
April 2017
I lost 40 pounds (18kg)! I didn’t know I had 40 pounds to lose. I didn’t even go full Keto. I was breastfeeding and was afraid of not getting enough carbs for that. I was Keto-ish. I would add carbs mainly through the things that my husband wouldn’t be tempted to eat. I also added carbs to the kid’s diet by things neither of us wanted to eat (usually things the kids had put their fingers in. yuck!)
And my husband’s transformation? He lost 50 pounds (22.5kg)! 50 pounds was the weight of my oldest child at the time! (Frankly, it was close to the weight of my second oldest too.) This was more than weight loss for my husband. It was the possibilty of a longer life than his father had lived. And even more liberating, it was the possibilty of no longer being ruled by appetite. Keto was restoring my husband’s ability to choose.
October 2017
I was pregnant with our fourth. I was nearing the end of the nausea. I get nausea pretty badly when I’m pregnant. Eating was difficult. Keto is a tool. Keto was the wrong tool for what I was going thorugh. But, higher fat taught me that eating saltine crackers all day made my blood sugar spike, then crash, which made me sick. I ate what I needed to when I needed to. And that worked just fine.
My husband had lost 100 pounds (45kg)! He had completed a full year with no “cheat days”. With a year complete, and 100 lbs down, and Halloween on the horizon, he decided that enjoying higher carb treats here and there could be manageable. Sometimes he would go a little overboard, but never too far for too long. He knew how to successfully start Keto. He knew how to successfully stay on Keto. So he was able to have a lot of success staying mostly Keto long term.
December 2017
Also, his work insurance requires him to get a lipid panel every year. The year before, all the numbers were at conscerning levels. Every number improved dramatically. Triglycerides were down to healthy levels. HDL was up and in a perfect range. Overall cholesterol was perfect too. His LDL was just barely above the line where they would like it to be. The person on the phone, giving him the results recommended a diet high in fruits and vegetables and low in fat. My husband listened politely, finished the call, and declared that was the last thing he was going to do!
5 Plus Years After Starting Keto
I feel like my husband is quite the success story. He has kept the 100lbs off (for the most part) for more than 5 years! He is a little more critical. He has sees all the ups and downs. I see a little more big picture. I see very little weight gain compared to where he was 6 years ago. I see him reversing it before it gets very far. I see his effort over the last 5 plus years and I am in awe.
As for me, Kid number 4 and kid number 5 came along. Problems, and stress, and a kidney stone, and a pandemic came and … well mostly passed (the kidney stone needed some help, but that’s a different story). I didn’t stay at my bottom weight the whole time. I’m okay with that. I just take it one day at a time and try to put the most important things first. I’m in a healthy place with my weight and with my soul. Because I have Keto, I have a reliable tool that I can use to care for my body. Because I have emotional recovery tools, I have reliable tools to care for my soul.
The End … for now