Today is National Teacher Day. Teaching runs in my family. My grandmother and mother were teachers. My sister was a teacher. I went to university to become a teacher myself. Not a keto teacher, a classroom teacher. Then life happened.
The year I would have gone into the Bachelor of Education, the universities in my area brought their three programs together into one, so the competition was fierce and I didn’t get in. I was devastated! What would I do with my life? I ended up getting into hospitality management and it turns out, I did okay. But I knew I was meant to teach somehow, even if it wasn’t in a classroom.
Our First Keto Teacher
The first time I learned about keto was when a client of a day program was told by their doctor they should go keto. All I knew was that you couldn’t eat a lot of the fruits that I thought were important in a balanced diet. We live in an area that sells apples and the client said they couldn’t eat apples. What?
What kind of healthy eating didn’t include apples? I was stunned. We looked at their list of “can” and “cannot” eat foods and I couldn’t understand it. I mean, not eating junk food was a no-brainer. But why couldn’t you eat potatoes? I dismissed it as another fad diet and wondered what kind of doctor would prescribe such a thing.
Why I Became A Keto Teacher
Then my partner got sick. He was getting shaky and light-headed if he didn’t eat every couple of hours. It got so bad, he ended up in the emergency room. Bill got an amazing doctor who knew right away what it was. He made Bill fast for a few hours and then took his blood sugar levels. It was what he suspected. Bill had hyperinsulinism. When he took in sugar, his body produced insulin, but it didn’t know when to stop. It kept producing it, making him sick and damaging his heart.
Bill was given three options. He could do nothing, eat every couple of hours and continue to damage his heart. That didn’t seem like a good option. He could take medication, which would end up damaging his kidneys. Again, not a good option. Or he could stop eating carbs so his insulin levels would remain steady – in other words, eat keto.
You’d think it would be an easy option. It was not. We were so addicted to food that we grieved the idea of giving up the pizza, the pasta, and the Pepsi. But, we had no choice, so we binged one last time and started our keto journey together.
Learning To Be a Keto Teacher
When I started learning about keto, I started to understand why the doctor had suggested it to the client I knew. The problem is, keto isn’t easy. It’s not just about what foods not to eat. Keto is about what foods to eat to make sure you stay full and get the nutrients your body needs. It’s complicated and you need a high literacy level to understand it. I got the first stirrings of passion to teach.
Once Bill and I got our heads around keto, we decided we wanted to help others learn about it. We tried to make it accessible to everyone by offering what worked for us. And it was working for us! Together, we lost over 220 pounds in 18 months. So, we started this blog and did a workbook. We are not nutritionists or doctors, but in many ways we are teachers. We’re teaching people how to do keto so it isn’t overwhelming.
Keto Helped Me Achieve More Than A Weightloss Dream
I feel that I’ve reached my goal of becoming a teacher, but in many ways it’s even better. I’m not in a school every day and teach students. I teach people who are motivated to discover keto. We let them know what worked for me and I hope to inspire people to take their health into their own hands and go on their own keto journey.
Wendy
