We’ve had a lot of people asking us why we’re putting ourselves through this somewhat difficult change as we switch to a ketogenic diet. Some think we’re going to starve ourselves, others just think it’s a hassle. A lot of the responses come out of a place of misunderstanding and it’s given us some great opportunities to share our knowledge about what truly happens to our bodies and all the great benefits that can happen because of being on this type of diet.

We each have our own individual reasons as to why we’re going to give keto a try and we wanted to share those reasons since many people may have some of the same issues or are looking for a way to healthier living. We hope to become a great resource for you as we go through this together.

Nick:

I’ve tried many different diets throughout my life, not just to look and feel good, but for health reasons. I’ve gone from 4,000 – 5,000 calories trying to bulk, to shredding with refeed days. I’ve done periodization diets where I would eat every 2 to 3 hours and I’ve kept up this type of diet for most of my adult life. I’ve always been health conscious and wanted to have a physically fit body but losing a certain amount of weight has never been my goal. Even when “shredding” after a bulking phase I wasn’t doing it because I thought I was fat, I was doing it to get back to normal and see my muscle growth while losing the extra weight I put on. However, after going paleo about a year and a half ago, I’ve tried to stick to that type of diet because of how much better I felt. My goal now is to try and help family and friends to do the same, but I don’t normally want to recommend something that I haven’t tried myself. That’s why I think it’s so important to research and test how different diets can affect our bodies.

Recently I’ve started researching a lot about the ketogenic diet after hearing about the benefits people have experienced. Coming from a science background, a lot of it made sense on the surface, especially with how a ketogenic diet can help with cancer patients. But I didn’t just want to understand it on a surface level so over the course of 3 months I did extensive reading into the keto diet. Thankfully I had access to many publication resources since I am in grad school. I realized that this diet had great potential in so many areas of preventative medicine and for treatment of current diseases, so I suggested that a family member of mine try it. They were suffering from many issues and it seemed to line up with a lot of things that a strict keto diet could help with. Thankfully it helped a great deal. So, 2 weeks after my family member started keto I started it myself. I wanted to be able to go through it so that I could know the feelings, experiences, and results for myself so when I recommend it, the recommendation is coming from first-hand experience. I think this diet can help on many levels in ways that western medicine lacks.

Rosalyn:

First and foremost, the ketogenic diet intrigued me because of how different it was from so many other healthy eating lifestyles and diets I had any knowledge of beforehand. The curiosity was enough for me to give it a shot but as I did more research I realized that switching to a keto diet could quite possibly be the answer to a lot of my minor health issues that I experience.

For the past several years I’ve had a slight sensitivity to lactose, as many people do, so I pretty much eliminated dairy from my diet except for the occasional queso and nachos (I love Mexican food too much to say goodbye entirely). But about 8-10 months ago I started taking a probiotic and a strange shift happened in my body. Along with the sensitivity towards lactose I began to realize I could no longer eat eggs without feeling like I had a mild case of food poisoning. This was such a struggle for me because I usually started my morning with eggs and even sometimes had them for dinner. So, with two major food items cut from my diet I started to think something may be wrong. Especially since with what I knew about probiotics I thought I would have been helping my body and not causing it to have more issues.

As I researched more about a healthy gut biome and how that can affect your entire body, keto seemed like a great reset for me to allow my gut to readjust back to a normal and healthy balance. It could be that over years of eating processed foods, a few rounds of antibiotics, and a lack of the right nutrients my body needed I could have offset my gut and it didn’t have the right tools to allow dairy and eggs to be properly digested so instead it created a sensitivity.

At the same time, I started to get less control of my acne. For whatever reason my face reverted back to what it was like in high school which was not fun. Instead of looking to what I was putting into my body I began looking at what I put on my body. Long story short, I tried a lot of things, but only saw small improvements – but I’ll get into that in another blog post because through the process I learned a lot.

As we’ve begun to research more about how diet effects your body I have been shocked by how processed foods and sugars can alter us. It can be as simple as food intolerances or go to the extreme of altering mood and behavior.  This was an encouraging factor to give keto a shot because I want to do everything I can to help my body and mind function at peak performance. I even wanted to see if my diet really had an impact on things like my mental focus and anxiety control.

Hopefully as you’ve read through our reasons of why we’re switching to a keto diet you’ve learned more about what keto can do and how it may benefit you as well. What we do really want to stress is that it’s important to do your research before making such a big dietary switch. By calculating out what levels of fats, proteins, carbs, and calories your body needs you create an easier adjustment when adjusting your body’s fuel source. Proper nutrient levels only makes this adjustment easier.

If you’re curious about anything keto leave us a comment or find us on social and ask us your questions. We’re more than happy to share what we’ve learned and even happier to learn more by digging up more research to answer your questions.

Rosalyn & Nick