I myself have had an on-again/off-again relationship with dieting for most of my life. Always committing to some new fad diet or workout plan when I decide late one night to get in the best shape of my life on a whim. 

These inevitably fail for one reason or another. Cheat meals, missed workouts, etc. 

The one diet that has actually paid dividends for me is one that I was able to stick to for a long period of time due to the ease of it and how little work it actually took to do. 

That diet is the keto diet and I am sure you have heard of it, but if you haven’t, the simple way to explain it is that it is a diet that removes carbs from your meals. 

That includes breads, pastas, potatoes, rice and really anything with sugar in it. The goal is to lower your carb intake to a point that your body starts to burn its fat reserves for energy instead of the carbs that it normally would. 

This is a strict-ish diet, but easy enough to maintain if you can afford to eat a diet of mainly grilled meats, eggs, cheese and vegetables. 

When I first did the keto diet, I was a senior in highschool and it helped me lose over 40 pounds in about six months. 

That was with no cheat meals whatsoever but also a minimal amount of exercise and no defined workout plan to speak of, mainly just the diet. 

In case you are looking to lose weight, feel better physically and mentally or simply try out some new meal plans; I am going to list out some steps that I took when I first started the diet and one’s that I stick too whenever I begin the diet again, with specifics for those who are college students like me. 

The first step is to find a place where you can get a good amount of food that you can actually eat on this diet. I have found that the best place to shop for meat and vegetables at a good price is Aldi. The place has a wide selection and really affordable prices for good portions. Walmart has the cheapest eggs and cheeses that I have been able to find in Jonesboro and the price difference on things like ‘free-range’ eggs and normal ones are getting steeper and steeper and I have had plenty of both and can never really tell the difference. Do what works best for you, but in my experience, a weekly trip to Aldi and Walmart is all I really need to get my groceries.

The next step is to prepare yourself for what is called the ‘keto flu’ which happens a few days after you start the diet, in my experience. This will involve some headaches and general unwellness as your body reacts to not being given the carbs that it is used to and tries to force you to eat some. This will pass after a few days, your body will adjust and begin to burn your fat reserves instead and everything will return to normal and more than likely you will feel better than you felt before starting once those initial hurdles are cleared. 

Another step is the hardest and that is consistency. Going out with friends and family, snacking or just plain craving something sweet can make it so easy to excuse your diet for the night and indulge. Every once in a while, this is totally fine, but if you are not careful, you can get carried away and simply stop the diet and all its benefits altogether.

 I myself used chewing gum and flossers during my first experience with the diet to give myself an oral fixation that replaced mindless snacking and it really did help. I found snacks like Puff corn and Skinny Pop popcorn that are low in carbs if limited to serving sizes that helped when craving something crunchy or salty. Sugar free candies are all around and of varying quality but be careful around these because they often use sugar alcohols to offset the sugar content and if you ingest too much it can make your stomach very upset. 

On college campuses, it can be difficult to diet like this because your options are more limited and you probably do not have a massive budget to buy meat and eggs all the time. I usually stick to Chick-fil a on campus and order the grilled nuggets. You can eat any salad or burger without the bun anywhere on campus and if you stick to low sugar beverages and stay away from bread, you can actually manage to stay keto much easier than you think. 

Generally, staying below 50 carbs per day is enough for your body to enter ‘ketosis’ which is the state of burning your fat for energy instead of carbs and this is easy enough to do with a bit of effort. Amazon sells a 150 pack of ketone strips that you can pee on to test if your body is in ‘ketosis’ for around 10 dollars and while these are helpful, they are by no means necessary. 

I have found that the diet was very beneficial for my physical and mental health and I recommend it to many people in my life when they feel like they need to make a change or just want to try something new. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to try and I have only had good experiences with it,  you should do what you want, but I really do not think you would regret it.

Categories: Life