Keto Diet and Exercise makes the fat in my body cries!!!

Hello! My name is Darby I'm a 38 year old father of two who is an assistant Store Manager with Lowe's. I have been for years up and down with my weight maxing out at 207. I am 5'9" so this was an issue for me. I have most of my life been very athletic and able to stay pretty lean until about the time 30 hit. I had kids and doing sports and exercise was always pushed aside for good reason. I needed to take care of my kids. So I started packing on the weight. I have in those 8+ years had spurts where I have exercised and done anything from P90X, P90X 2, Insanity, and T25 all with really gods results. Then vacation or holidays happen and completely derail my progress! My mentality was "Oh, well I did it once I'll do it again after vacation or Christmas" but the holiday ran into months of putting it off. This the vicious cycle.

In this time I have never dedicated to a diet or proper way of eating to support my fitness. I would always give in to cravings or going out and having some beer or whatever else that helped lead to packing on the pounds again. My problem is I'm a picky eater and do not like many veggies or seafood so that leaves me with limited options. I would look at recipes and instantly push them away because of what was in it that I didn't like. It's really hard to eat healthy when your pallet is so empty! Or, so I thought!

Back on June 5th I was 197.8lbs and I decided to give up my 64oz daily habit of drinking Diet Dr Pepper! Talk about hard!! I started drinking only water. I get up and drink water and use my Star Wars Tervis that is 24oz to track my water intake daily. I noticed after a week I had again started losing weight with no real diet change or exercise! Heck yeah I thought. Then on the 8th my wife proposed us going on the Keto Diet. I wasn't really thinking anything of it. We had done South Beach which seemed like the same thing until I started. I started slow. I didn't track my food either. I wasn't trying very hard but was sticking to minimal carbs. In the first two weeks I saw some more weight loss. At this point I was down to 191lbs. I thought man this two weeks we easy I wonder what I can do if I really track my intake and focus on keeping carbs under 20g a day! I started on MyFitnessPal keeping a daily log of my meals and water. I noticed I was eating more than 20g of carbs fairly regularly. So I looked through my logs and noticed the cashews I was eating were high in carbs as were the peanuts and dairy products. I decided I would try cutting most of those out!

Man what a difference! In a week and a half I went from 191lbs to 180.4lbs!! I also at the same time started working out 4-5 times a week. My goal is to get to 170-165 by the end of August which back in June seemed like a huge tack but now it seems like I will beat my August end mark!! In the process I have realized that what I thought was a weight loss curse in my picky eating has now become a blessing! What I mean by that is being a picky eater has made it extremely easy for me to find a combination of foods that work in my Keto ratio and get the protein and fats while almost completely eliminating carbs! I now have a set daily meal plan that I know weeks out which eliminates trying to plan meals. I have been able to save a load of money because I get much less filler foods with hidden carbs in them that claim they are good for weight loss. It has made my dieting so much easier.

As great as my progress is going I still get cravings every once in a while! I really miss pizza, Chipotle burritos, Italian foods, and a lot of other things. I now have after a month and a week been able to adapt my mind to block out those cravings and focus on my goal. Knowing when I finally reach my goal I can then feel safe on occasion eating the occasional Chipotle burrito without feeling horrible because I have changed my eating habits and no longer crave glucose to function.

I feel clearer, more energetic, and proud of finally sticking to a diet for the first time ever!

I have written this to hopefully inspire, help, or motivate maybe one person who is struggling with weight to push past the issue and give it your full dedication! I promise you can do it as I continue to do it daily with the help of MyFitnessPal!