Health was my middle name. I am a personal trainer and someone who has always been active. Because of this, I thought I was healthy. Working with clients I would often ask them what the idea of good health meant to them. The large majority said weight loss followed by self esteem and positive self image. These seemed like realistic ideas when it came to health and I went along with it.
Then, November 2017, that all changed for me.
Weeks after getting out of an abusive relationship, I ended up in the emergency with a blood clot in my left arm. I thought that blood clots were for old, overweight and or diabetic people. As someone who eats, clean, balanced meals with protein, carb and fat; this shocked me. MacDonalds is off my list to eat. Drinking pop or anything labeled to be bad for my health was also avoided. I did resistant training, yoga, hiking, roller blading and took the stairs every chance I had. Therefore, I thought I could have been the poster woman for good health.
It made no sense to me. I was told that sometimes it just happens. They put me on blood thinners. Something that, again, I thought was just for old people.
Not even a month later, they found a brain tumour. For someone who I thought was an ideal image of health, I was not feeling very healthy at all.
I started to think that health would need to look different for me and I started to research ‘brain health’.
This is what led me down a path to read more and more about a ketogenic diet. The keto diet is a low carb, medium protein, high fat diet and the goal is to get your body into the metabolic state known as ketosis. This occurs when your body runs out of its sugar stores and needs to find another fuel source. When this happens, the liver begins to process fat into ketones which become the body’s main source of fuel.
I am not a doctor. However, changing my eating habits might be the ‘right’ thing for me and my health. I will post more of my journey and what I learn along the way but in nutshell, this is what I have found out so far.
A ketogenic diet could help improve health by:
– improving mental focus
– You will have more energy.
– It can help fight type II diabetes.
– Increasing levels of HDL cholesterol.
– It can lower your blood pressure.
– Improve mitochondrial function.
– Children with epilepsy are seeing positive results.
– The effects maybe useful in treatment of some mental disorders (like, anxiety, mania, bipolar etc) and I can normalize neuronal excitability.
www.yourbrainhealth.com.au
Hi Lacey, I have tried or used Keto diet many times in the past 15 yrs or so and have always felt great on it. Health benefits are well documented. In 2010 i actually used it to prep for BC championships in bodybuilding and had so much energy people were baffled that i was only a week or two out from my show and not tired …lol Good luck with your foray into the keto world and remember to eat a good portion of veggies to help move those fats thru the liver . 🙂
I had tried it for a competition once and hated it! Honestly, I don’t think my coach new what he was doing. My reasons for doing it now are very different. Glad to know you had lots of energy, that is what did me in when I tried it last! Lots of veggies – got it.