The Ketovore Journey Continues
Well hey there! You probably thought I gave up and went sliding back into the corner of shame (for once again not succeeding at weight loss) – But alas, that is not the case!
I’ve just been, well lazy HA!!
I’ve stuck to the plan – I just completed the 5th month of eating Ketovore! I just got busy with life and haven’t written an update so I’m going to do a 3 month round-up to catch you up.
Ketovore Journey Month 3
October was my third month and was still experiencing VERY slow weight loss on the scale but continued to lose cm/inches which helped to keep me motivated. Thankfully I’m not completely motivated by the stupid square weighing thing but it is still nice to see those numbers go down once in a while!
In October I kicked into doing exercise. Not so much because I wanted to “get fit” but more to work on reducing my blood sugar levels and improving my insulin resistance.
The numbers on on my CGM (continuous glucose monitor) were improving but still way to high for my liking despite eating a zero/very low carb diet. So I gave into conventional wisdom and started walking, then one day I walked to the local Curves gym and joined. Curves was exactly the kind of workout I was looking for – fast, resistance based and not intimidating.
I also love the data you can get from their tags (yes I am a total data nerd!). They keep track of your workouts, change the difficulty of your workouts based on previous performance and challenge you. A winner in my books!
The result of adding in exercise – I saw a big drop in my blood sugar levels. The walking has the most impact on a daily basis. But using the gym to build up muscle has definitely made a big difference as well. Since I know fall into the ‘aging’ category (I turn 50 this year YIKES). Building and maintaining muscle is really important for so many reasons.
This is especially important to me as what really impacted the decline in my grandmother’s health was her lack of muscle in the end. She often had falls and had broken her arms and hip a number of times.
In the end getting her to eat enough to maintain her body composition saw her health decline. I’m lucky enough to be armed with the knowledge on how to prevent that so I’m putting it to use now before it’s too late!
Here is my month 3 progress pics
Ketovore Journey Month 4
Ah November. This is when things really started to improve on the insulin resistance and blood sugar level.
I remained on plan eating carnivore/ketovore. I played around a lot with the amount of calories and my macro levels in November. Again my weight loss was minimal but measurements continue to improve.
I continued to heal a lot of my niggling physical issues – my skin improved and I felt great. I started cutting down the amount of fat and increased my protein this month and that seemed to start shifting things for me.
By the end of November I had pretty much become obsessed with walking – my entire schedule has changed and I pretty much don’t feel like I’ve had a good day unless I’ve got my 10K steps in. If you know me well, you would know I have NEVER been an exercise kind of girl.
Now my walks are part of my day and my sanity. I love how I feel and I love the escape it gives me from my desk and the kids lol!
Here are the month 4 progress pics
Ketovore Journey Month 5 – Things Really Start to Move
Ah December you have been my favorite so far. FINALLY there has been big progress.
Right at the end of November I was listening to a Podcast and they were talking to Marty Kendall the creator of Data Driven Fasting.
Well that little podcast has absolutely been a game changer for me. I devoured the info on the Data Driven Fasting site, joined the Facebook group and despite the monthly DDF Challenge already having started I joined anyway.
I had massive results with the challenge – even with just 3 weeks. Following the DDF method my blood sugar levels became gold standard. I was even having low readings! The idea is that you use your data (blood glucose levels) to drive your fasting/eating schedule.
Instead of just blindly doing 16:8 fasts or multi day fasts you use your blood glucose trigger points to figure out when your body has used up it’s stored energy and when you are truly hungry. Once you’ve dropped below your personal trigger point you eat. Then you don’t eat again until you are hungry and have dropped below the trigger point. In the end this is a moving target and as you progress your trigger point drops (along with your blood sugar).
For the first time since I started this journey the scale started dropping significantly and that was/is pretty darn exciting!
Month 5 progress pics
Reflection on the last 3 months
The biggest most useful tool I’ve had is the continuous glucose monitor. I have learned SO MUCH about my body with this.
I’ve learned my hormones have a huge impact on my blood glucose and that I have to give myself some grace in the second part of my cycle. I’ve learned that cortisol has a definite impact on me in the mornings, that when I workout in a fasted state my blood glucose sky rockets, that the better I sleep the lower my blood sugar.
Most importantly I’ve watched my body heal and my metabolic health improve drastically over the 3 and a bit months I’ve been using it.
In that time my estimated A1c has gone from 8.2% down to 6% and is improving everyday. This is a huge accomplishment and it’s all been done completely with a change in my nutrition and activity levels. No gimmicks.
I’ve also learned to let go of letting the scale rule my concept of success. Bodies are weird – the do not work to a set formula and we are all very different. Never get tied to one ‘diet’ or dogma there is no one size fits all. Never be afraid to experiment and change when things aren’t working for you.
For me the real celebrations have happened when I wake up with a ‘normal’ fasted blood sugar reading, I’ve had to buy new bras, my ‘skinny’ pants that usually sat unworn in the closet are now big on me and well best of all my family is finally taking notice and wanting to jump in with me to get healthier. I’ve led by example and they’ve taken notice.
See you next month!
You can check out my previous journey entries here: Month 1. Month 2
