I attempted the keto diet for six days, it worked, then I stopped.
Going into it, I knew it was going to be a challenge. I knew this because I’ve never gone on a diet before and I usually don’t like changing my routine. But for this I figured a little bit of sacrifice could go a long way. And it did.
I started on a Monday and quit on Saturday night. Surprisingly it didn’t take as much out of me as I originally thought. I substituted the two sodas I drink every day for water, and I exchanged Heineken for a couple glasses of red wine. For meals, I simply cut out bread and pasta and tortillas and ate meat and vegetables. When I got hungry for a snack, I ate peanuts.
I intentionally didn’t exercise all week, because I wanted to see what the diet itself would do to my body. So on Saturday night when I weighed myself, it came out to 175.0, a full five pounds less than what I started at. Again, that included doing zero cardio, no push ups, no sit ups, no burpees, etc. I did nothing for a week and ate according to the keto diet, and lost five pounds. So that’s nice.
At the end of the day I just didn’t enjoy it. Sometimes I just want a fucking cheeseburger with some french fries, you know? I don’t get much of a bang out of making myself eggs and avocados, or having steak by itself with some broccoli on the side.
I also didn’t appreciate the limited alcoholic menu at my disposal. I enjoy having my two or three beers every night, because I always know where I’m at. The first beer takes a load off, the second gets me feeling good and sparks up some of my creative juices, and by the time the third one is finished I’m ready to chill out and eat something before getting ready for bed.
On keto I found myself drinking two or three glasses of wine and feeling completely sober; then the next night I would have a glass of a different brand and get seemingly hammered. When my girlfriend and I went out to a local casino to watch a basketball game, the merlot I ordered just wasn’t what I needed. I’m not averse to ordering wine in public, it just didn’t do it for me the way as a few humble beers.
I think by Thursday or Friday I kind of checked out in my head. I think I knew that keto wasn’t going to be something I was interested in long term. Somewhere in those first few days — which were naturally the hardest — I had already begun the process of rationalizing why I didn’t need to continue. Most importantly, at the very least I found out that basically everything I eat is garbage. When I’m at the grocery store with my girlfriend I can pretty much eliminate all the things I enjoy. It’s basically just meat, which is nice, and green veggies, which are whatever.
Now that I’m on the other side, and I’ve already had my fair share of cheeseburgers and fried chicken and pizza, I figure I’ll just do what I did the last time I lost 30 pounds. So I bought a new treadmill, and I won’t slack on going on it at least once a day. I still believe I can accomplish what I want by doing it my way.
And I learned some shit about myself. I do have the self-control to do something if I really want to. The thing with keto was… I didn’t really wanna do it. If I can maintain my same diet and just exercise consistently, I should be able to accomplish the same thing. It will give me a reason to earn my cheeseburgers, and earn my beer.
We’re nearing that point in the year when I’ll be writing about football all the time, but I just thought I’d poke in and be straight up about why I stopped doing keto. I’ll come through again at some point to update how the running and working out goes, but I’m really confident that I’ll follow through. Because at least I’ll be able to eat and drink what I want.
Future Bets 