I have been eating a ketogenic diet since April 2015.
Beginning in the 1980s, I spent most of the following 30 years yo-yo dieting, exercising, trying to control my appetite with diet pills, and struggling to make the “eat less, exercise more” approach to dieting work for me. While self-employed and working 70-80 hours per week, I was unable to obsess over my weight and ballooned up to 50 lbs overweight. After losing that weight, I regained 25 lbs, lost it, and gained 25 lbs again, and lost it again. Then I found the ketogenic diet and created a lot of delicious low-carb recipes that I prefer over store bought and restaurant versions. The ketogenic diet has given me the ability to eat nutritionally and to maintain a healthy weight without feeling deprived or hungry.
I do not believe in trying to talk others into joining me in this dietary choice, but if you are on a journey toward dietary health and working on your relationship with food, trust me when I tell you that I really do understand and have some tips and ideas about how to work through food-related challenges.
If you are on the ketogenic diet and struggling because friends and family do not understand and are nagging about how you should be eating more fruit and grains, I understand that too! I also understand the struggles of plain old dieting (eat less, exercise more) and how our loved ones can sabotage our best efforts.
Anyway, I won’t tell you what to eat or which dietary lifestyle you should choose, but I can offer empathy, understanding, and some helpful tips and coping skills while trying to get healthy. I will continue to post videos of doctors and scientists presenting their research findings about nutrition and health regardless of which diet they favor. There is a lot of excellent data showing that any diet that gets processed foods and unnecessary sugars out of the diet (healthy versions of vegan, vegetarian, paleo, ketogenic, and carnivore diets) is going to be healthier and will offer improvements. I will be watching for and sharing scientific studies that validate if and when nutrition effects mental health.
I am not a medical doctor or a nutritionist, so any articles or videos posted will be for informational use only and you are always encouraged to do your own research and seek medical guidance whenever warranted. However, I am a Certified Integrative Mental Health Professional which means that in addition to traditional forms of talk therapy, I am also certified in alternative forms of therapies involving sleep, diet, exercise, spirituality, and other integrative approaches that can effect both your physical and mental health.