Hi, y'all! I don't know if anyone remembers me, but I used to hang out here quite a bit a couple years ago. I have tried to stick with LCHF, dabbled in some other ways of eating, went completely off the rails for a while, and now I'm back. No other WOE has yielded the results low carb has both on the scale and off the scale, but it can be hard for me to stay focused without the support of this group, so I decided to come back.

My weight has climbed over 200 again, my feet and knees and SI joint hurt every day, my mood sucks, and I feel sluggish all day long. I don't want my kids to remember me like this. Also, my youngest was diagnosed with absence epilepsy a little over a year ago (he's 5), and we have had difficulty managing his seizures with medication (he had a "honeymoon period" of 3 months with one medication before the seizures returned, and a few other medications have failed to work for him). At present, he appears to be mostly seizure-free on a combination of an anti-epileptic drug and a benzodiazepine, but it's only been about a month (and his sisters still tell me they see a seizure here and there), so I won't be surprised if it stops working in a few weeks. I hate that he has to take these medications at such a young age, and I don't like the mood and behavioral side effects I'm seeing, so I am preparing myself for possibly putting him on a ketogenic diet. (His current epileptologist will definitely put him on keto if genetic testing shows he has a glucose transporter deficiency, and those results should be ready any day now.) I have had such a hard time staying on a low carb diet myself, though, that I don't want to jump right in with him. I know it will be easier if I have a head start eating this way first.

So that's it. That's why I'm here. I look forward to learning and relearning from you all again, as well as the support and accountability I get from being here.