Okay, so I realized late last year that I had gone a bit over the line with the proverbial "pound a year", let's call it 20 pounds over 20 years that I probably didn't need to be carrying around. I wasn't obese or according to some charts "overweight" but I was far from what I would call my "fighting weight", I definitely felt sluggish in the body, a better indicator than any charts put out by the study of the week people.
Enter Keto mania! OK, I like meat, call me a mea-gan if you will but I also loved the carbs, they have a crack like property that causes the "can't eat just one" syndrome, like the old commercials used to say. I can be full but will continue to stuff chips, pastas, breads and other goodies until I'm really full. It's based more on craving than a hunger, not good. So, around Thanksgiving of last year I decide to try Keto, I do like meat so why not.
The first thing I noticed when you drop the carbs is that you no longer crave carbs, the chip attacks ceased immediately. No cravings, no problem, I substituted the "salty-crunchy-snack" food with carrots, celery with peanut butter, even dips to get that chip like experience and it works wonderfully. The transition for me was easy, I even eye the aisles of carbs in the grocery stores as the poison aisles, they are certainly not good for you, just read the ingredients, it's all processed food, who knows what's in it or how it affects you. Meat is meat, apples are apples, there are no "enes" or "xies" in real food.
I mentioned apples above because I did decide to eat fruit and vegetables, as much as I wanted but stayed away from the higher starch stuff like potatoes and bananas, now some keto folks would call that "dirty-keto" because of the sugars in the fruit but in my mind I just can't see apples, oranges, grapes or any other unmolested fruit or vegetable as "dirty", I think it is a term dreamed up by the same people who apply negative labels to anything.
How things are working out:
I ate the food and lost the weight: Dropped 5 pounds a week for 4 weeks and then plateaued out. 8 or so weeks in and lost another 5 pounds. I don't weigh every day, it's (weight) has never been an issue with me, I just hit the scale at the grocery store every so often. The body is close to being "ripped", a bit strange since I haven't seen that since my teens, twenties. I can see how some can get overboard with this. Since I don't have any modeling contracts I really don't care about it that much but it's cool except for the cost.
The downsides:
Sleep! I don't why, but for some reason I don't get those long, deep sleeps, I do sleep a rock solid six hours but bam!, I'm up at 4 or 3 or some crazy hour and actually feel wired, all day, everyday. The extra energy I think probably accelerates the weight loss, more energy, more burning of fat, less weight so I don't think it's the lack of carb input alone that causes weight loss but the added "energy" caused by who knows what. Anyway, it was novel for awhile to get up at 3:30 AM and start my day but the fun wore off, I began to feel like a pill popper, like I was running on diet pills or something. Alertness and being energetic is one thing but running hard and fast all day every day got old, the sense of hyper-activity is too much.
Maybe some TMI here but regularity disappeared, I usually run like a clock but keto definitely causes constipation and irregularity for me. Very much not good! I have spoken with some people who tried keto who suffered some pretty serious issues in this area, some to the point of medical intervention. Again, very much not good, the benefits of any diet diminish if you are harming your body.
Where I'm at now:
I'm going to a keto-ish plan, I'll stick with low carb for mornings and afternoons but have started eating pasta and other carbs with dinner. I do still stay way from processed stuff (chips, donuts, etc, etc.) Bingo, sleep and regularity returned and I actually have enough mental clarity to write a multi-paragraph forum post. No more mental jitters all day long.
My thoughts on the whole keto thing is that you probably NEED carbs but you really, really don't need processed foods, since most processed foods are carb based I suspect that the processing is more harmful than the carbs.