Being Nutrition and Lifestyle Coach i.e. Health Coach, we are somewhat obligated to try different diets in case we’re asked by potential clients about these diets so we know how to help and so we have experience with what they are asking of us.

I didn’t know what the Ketogenic diet was and I didn’t know whether it was for me.  After receiving emails and seeing articles about the Keto diet, I decided to do some research.  If you know my story, I’ve always been thin.  I used to have relatives say to me in Chinese i.e. Cantonese: “Don’t you eat?  You’re so skinny! It’s not good!” My grandmother used to say to my mom: “Give her cake to eat.” It is a Chinese cultural thing: If you’re skinny, you’re not healthy.

While I was doing my research, I looked to see if a person could gain weight on the diet especially since he or she would be consuming lots of fat. I thought the fat consumption would help but you are actually burning fat as fuel since you don’t have the glucose from the carbs to burn. This is the primary reason a person loses weight.

May 28th was my first day of my Keto journey.  I lost a couple pounds that I didn’t need to lose because I cut my carb consumption. If you are on the Keto diet, you know that you need to really up your fat consumption, lower your carb consumption and protein consumption is moderate.  One other thing: like a high carb diet, you have water retention with a high fat diet so you really don’t know how much weight you are losing or gaining.

Most foods especially fruit, pasta, well, pretty much any grain, are loaded with carbs.  My daily consumption of food was this: lots of vegetables – leafy vegetables, cauliflower, cucumbers, etc, some protein (chicken, fish, ground turkey), healthy fats (extra virgin olive oil, avocados, pecans, nut butters, ghee, and organic unrefined coconut oil), dark chocolate, eggs, feta cheese, pepper jack cheese, strawberries, and blueberries.  Once in a while, I made my own fat bombs and a couple slices of fuji apple.

After 27 days on my Keto journey, I found that if you really want to lose weight, it can be done. You really cut your calorie consumption down on the Keto diet.  I ate a lot more calories for my personal circumstance.  Since I don’t normally eat dairy products, I wasn’t too hip on eating cheese. The only dairy product that I normally eat is Greek yogurt.

Suggestion: If you want to try the Keto diet, it’s very important to read labels!  Almost everything has carbs in it!

In summary, I missed eating whole grains such as quinoa, brown rice pasta, oatmeal, fruit – bananas, mangoes, grapes, etc.