A new beginning

Hello and welcome to A Keto Blog! 

As you may have guessed this is a blog about my experience on the ketogenic diet.  There are many keto blogs out there and I can't claim that there be anything unique or special about this one in particular.  It will simply be a place for me to keep track of my progress.  Hopefully sharing my experience will help others in the future.

Even though I am going to be counting today as day 1, I'm not actually new to the ketogenic diet.  I first read about it in December 2017 and so far I've spent almost three non-consecutive months on it in 2018.  I started off the year on several medications which caused weight gain.  I believe they limited my weight loss success in the beginning and prevented me from seeing some of the other benefits I was hoping for.

My first experience with keto lasted from a few days before New Years through to the end of January 2018.  I lost 3 lbs during that month.  I never had the initial water weight loss that most people experience - instead the weight came off slowly over the course of the month.  I had previously been doing normal calorie counting dieting and was expecting to lose more than 3 lbs during that time frame.  Three pounds is really within my normal weight fluctuation so I can't even sure that I lost anything at all.  At this point I started suspecting that something else was going on and took a closer look at my medications.  I decided it was time to go off of my birth control as that seemed the most likely culprit (this particular type is well known for causing weight gain) and I'd been having some other issues with it for some time.  Ultimately the diet was causing family stress due to everyone needing different meals each night so since it didn't seem terribly effective I decided to go off of it at the end of January.

In June 2018 I felt that my body had recovered enough from going off of my birth control and that I was ready to give it another shot.  I'd been on an anti-depressant for a year by then and it had been less and less effective.  I had read that the ketogenic diet helped some people improve their depression symptoms and I was hoping that it might give me the boost I needed.  I stayed on keto for about 7 weeks and lost about 8 lbs - this time I did have the water weight loss and most, if not all, of that 8 lbs was lost in the initial week.  By the end of 7 weeks my depression had worsened considerably and I felt that I was entering dangerous territory with symptoms of an eating disorder starting to surface.  I decided it was time to go off keto and see if a different anti-depressant might work better.  While researching my options I realized that the anti-depressant I was on also causes weight gain. 

Over the following four weeks I transitioned to a new medication, one which is known not to cause weight gain and may even help with weight loss.  More importantly, it seems to be treating my symptoms and I'm much more stable now.  Today I had my medication re-check with the doctor and all is going well.  I've decided that it's time to go back on keto and see if I can get some of the weight loss results I was hoping for. 

While preparing to go back on keto I decided to research the rest of my medications (an anxiety medication and two allergy medications) and discovered that both allergy medications cause weight gain.  At the doctor's office today I brought it up and we decided that I'll try a nasal spray medication and possibly an eye drop and see if that is enough to allow me to go off of the antihistamines.  If that works for me then I will officially be off of any weight gain causing medications.

So, that brings me to today, Tuesday September 18th 2018.  I've regained almost everything I had lost which is really not surprising since it was just the initial water weight.  That means I'm pretty much back at my starting point.  But that is ok because I feel like a lot has changed and I'm more prepared now. 

Today is not the first day of the month.  It's not even the first day of the week.  But for me, it's going to be day 1 because this is the day that I feel ready and excited to start.  Welcome to my keto experience!