How does someone measure success on keto? Whenever people talk about keto success, they talk about weight loss. I’m not going to lie; I enjoy being smaller than I was. I enjoy buying clothes in regular sizes. We like others commenting on how “good” we look. We both believe that a healthy body image is important. It’s not about how much you weigh or if you have loose skin, it’s about how confident you feel in your own body. I am a size 12 and I’m sure that is the lowest I will go.
That’s totally ok – I can love my curves! Everyone is different and everyone has things they like about themselves and things they don’t like. Embrace it! If people are looking at you for any reason, work it! It’s all about confidence. But, the way I look has never been my primary measurement of success on keto.
Is Weightloss Success on Keto?
If you measure your keto success by the weight you lose, you may become frustrated. The scale can give you false information. It will go down when you lose water weight. It will go up when you are feeling bloated and constipated. If your hormones are a bit out of whack, it will go up (this is especially true for women). It will tell you a different weight based on the time of day you check it. Weighing yourself every day, you will get you dizzy from the up’s and down’s.
What I like to do is measure myself and keep track of how many inches I have lost. As a woman, this is a more accurate way to keep track of whether keto is working for me. It might not sound as impressive as “I’ve lost 150 pounds” but losing 2 feet of area from your body is mighty impressive! But again, for us, weight and inches were not the primary way we measured our keto success.
Link measures success in snuggles!
The reason we turned to keto was physical health. We needed to keep Bill’s blood sugars level through diet and that’s why we started keto in particular. Happily, this has had the desired effect on his physical health. What we didn’t expect was the other physical health benefits he and I both experienced!
I used to have at least one headache a week and sometimes it lasted for several days. There were many medications to get rid of them and I even tried jaw surgery, but nothing worked. After we had been doing keto for a few weeks, I realized I hadn’t had a headache since the end of our keto flu.
Wellness is Success on Keto
There are still headaches, but it’s about one a month instead of one a week. A huge improvement! I also used to get embarrassing stomach issues. I was never diagnosed with irritable bowel, but I had a lot of the symptoms. When I stopped eating gluten, most of those symptoms went away. And remember, these are my health benefits. We started keto to help with Bill’s health!
There is the benefit of energy. Before we went on keto, I’d spend half the weekend in bed. I’d sleep until 10-11 in the morning and then take a nap in the afternoon for an hour or two. Was I up all night? Nope. I’d be in bed by 9-10 pm. Now, I still like an afternoon nap on a Saturday, but it’s a want; not a need. I also don’t feel exhausted at work by 2 pm.
There were times I took some overtime I’d built up in the afternoons just because I could not keep my eyes open. I don’t have those afternoon lulls anymore. That means the overtime I earn can be used for fun stuff – like hair appointments or a trip to the mall!
Mental Health Gains is Success
And then there is the mental health benefits. I haven’t done a lot of research on this, so I’m just going to talk about my own experience. General Anxiety Disorder is my diagnosis. I have taken medication for this for years and have a very difficult time identifying what was my anxiety and what was an actual worry.
My inner thoughts would think that everyone hated me and that any time someone disagreed with me, my relationship with them would be ruined forever. When I had been on keto for a few months, I realized that I was thinking about things more clearly. When I had a thought like, “They hate me,” I would then think, “That’s just my anxiety talking.”
I was able to identify when my anxiety was taking me down a rabbit hole of disaster thinking. That was new to me. I am still on the medication because I don’t like how I feel without it. But I also do a lot better at identifying what is anxiety and what is reality. It has been a wonderful change! My mood has improved and my brain is working with me, instead of against me.
There are so many measurements of success on keto that aren’t related to weight or size! These are why we continue with keto. These are our motivators for sticking with this lifestyle. These are what are important to us.
Wendy
