1 year on a Ketogenic Diet: My Weight Loss Story

Today marks exactly 1 year of doing the keto diet. During this time I learned a lot about nutrition and about myself. I now have a good idea of what works for me and what doesn't. My official total loss for the year is 167.8 lbs! My overall weight loss total since I really starting dieting back in 2015 is 247.8 lbs!

Here is me on January 3rd, 2017 - 430 lbs

Pre-Keto

I have been fat my entire life. Being over weight has lead to many problems for me over the years. High blood pressure, high cholesterol, kidney issues, pre-diabetic. At my highest weight it was hard for me to get around and just breathing was hard, I just couldn't seem to get a good breath in. Not to mention some embarrasing things that I will spare you the details.

Over the years I have tried almost every diet you can think of. I even tried a hot pockets only diet for 30 days. It actually worked pretty well, but it wasn't sustainable at all, to this day the smell of hot pockets makes me nauseous. Some of the diets worked, some of them didn't. What they all had in common is that they were not sustainable for me. I was basically starving myself and felt awful. This would lead to a "cheat day" that would turn into a cheap month, then I would stop dieting completely. This lead me feeling awful and going into depression. I did this off an on for about 15 years. Lose some, gain some. I eventually got up to about 510 lbs. I am not sure how much I actually weighed at my peak weight because the scale I had at the time did not go past 500 lbs. When I eventually started taking the diet seriously it took me about 3 weeks of pretty strict dieting to get below 500 pounds so I could see my weight again. 510 is the weight I am going with, it might have been higher, but I have no way of knowing for sure. I wish I had more pictures of myself when I was at my highest weight, but being fat for so long and being made fun of for most of my life lead to really low self-esteem and I just didn't like to have my picture taken.

In August 2015, I started my weight loss journey. It was one day after my birthday and I felt miserable. I started with just trying to eat less and cutting out soda. By December of that year I had lost almost 30 pounds, I was in the 480s. I went to visit family in California over Christmas and was there for 2 weeks. When I got home, I weighted myself and I was back up to 498 pounds. I didn't let it get to me too much and just kept on with the diet. In 2016, I started trying new things like green smoothies and trying to eat more veggies. I even started trying to walk. I slowly got down into the 470s by June of that year. That same month I moved to California to just get away and try to start over in a new place. I moved in with my family that live California. When I first arrived, dieting wasn't a top priority for me but I still managed to lose about 40 pounds over the next 6 months. My family has a swimming pool so I spent a lot of time swimming and I think this helped a lot with loosing those 40 pounds. For a couple of months I was reading about keto and doing research on it. I spent a lot of time reading success stories and getting all sorts of information on the keto subreddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/keto

What is Keto?

The keto diet, or Ketogenic diet is a way of eating that involves eating high fat, low carbs, and moderate protein. The typical macros are 65% of your calories come from fat, 30% come from protein, and 5% come from carbs. Basically stay under 20 net carbs and you will be in ketosis. Ketosis is a process your body uses to burn fat as its main fuel source, your body naturally goes into ketosis when it does not have enough glucose to burn as fuel. So people on a ketogenic diet eat very little carbs on purpose so that their bodies are in fat burning mode all the time.

My Keto Diet

On January 3rd, 2017 I officially started the keto diet. I didn't really have any problems with the keto flu because I had read about getting plenty of electrolytes. That first month I lost 22 pounds. I realize that most of that was water weight, but it still felt really good. I was almost under 400 pounds for the first time in over 10 years. Month after month I continually lost 12 or more pounds. My best month was in September, 9 months into the diet, I lost 23 pounds.

When I started my original diet in 2015, I was wearing a size 7x shirt and size 54 pants. I am currently wearing a 2x shirt and size 40 pants.

Old Pants, New Pants

I have lost 21 inches from around my belly, 13.25 inches from my chest, 16.5 inches from my waist, 10 inches from my thighs, 5 inches from around my neck, and 7.5 inches from my arms. I have had to add 16 holes to my belt and have gone up a total of 20 holes.

The reason keto worked so well for me is because when you eat so much fat, you feel full a lot faster compared to eating more carbs. This allowed me to keep my calories low and not feel like I am starving. For the most part, I do not feel like I am missing out on any foods because I still get to eat really tasty food.

A typical day of eating for me is for breakfast, 4 fried eggs cooked in real butter, 4 slices of bacon, and an avocado. For lunch, a couple hamburger patties with cheddar cheese on them, and some broccoli. For Dinner, Pork chops fried in butter, spinach cooked in butter, and some cheese.

If I need a snack, I can eat pork rinds, cheese, nuts, and pretty much anything that has low carbs.

Here is me on January 3rd, 2018 - 262.2 lbs

I still have a little ways to go until I am at my final weight goal but I know this year I will get there! If you feel like you can't lose weight, trust me, you can. Sometimes it just takes something a little crazy like eating a whole bunch of fat to lose fat. Keto may not be for everybody, but it worked well for me and continues to work.

Comparisons pictures, 1/3/2017 vs 1/3/2018

Feel free to comment any questions you may have and I will try my best to answer. Thank you for reading!