#accountabilty

I didn’t try keto until I read some articles on a PCOS blog that I came across while anxiously google searching some weird symptoms that I had been dealing with for a while. Hypochondriac eyes wide open, I read some comments that keto, being low carb, could be beneficial for PCOS symptoms as sugar is a little devil that wreaks havoc on hormones. Now,  I don’t have a diagnosis of PCOS, but I have documented issues with hormones, as well as with blood sugar, and I figured this was it. The golden ticket. Keto was the freeway entrance onto my fitness journey.  I wasn’t going to struggle with chronic yeast infections. I wasn’t going to binge anymore, the internet told me, because my blood sugar wasn’t going to spike and cause binge urges. My sugar cravings were going to go away entirely.

I was googling furiously. I love rules, and I wanted to find every rule that I could possibly adhere to.  

I headed to the grocery store and picked up meat, cheese, heavy cream, natural peanut butter. I mean, you know already. 

I was ready. 

Now I’m sure you all know that Florida was hit by a hurricane a few months ago. Conveniently just a few weeks after I had begun my keto dabbling. In preparation for the hurricane, I went to Sedano’s and bought every fatty item I could get my hands on. Chicharrones and cheeses and canned meats. I left thinking I was heavily prepared.... Then the lights went out in the house and opening the refrigerator wasn’t a good idea because the word around town was the lights would be out for a while. They were. Nearly a week at my house. To make this long story short, I had to eat carbs. It was all there was to eat.

I kept trying for a while after, but struggled. Carbs came back like the nasty BEASTS they are and sabotaged me at the end of each day, despite all of my work. And then, I just gave up. I didn’t have any energy to work out. And the less I worked out, the more sluggish I felt, until I looked at my boyfriend one evening and said, “forget it. I’m not meant to be fit because if I was it wouldn’t have been this much of a struggle.” And struggle it has been. For years.

Keto was a major struggle for me, too, because my stomach reacts horribly to dairy, and to some extent, meat. Maybe there was another rule I should have been following, but dairy and meat sink in my stomach like swallowing rocks and my belly puffs out so far it presses into the counter when I’m standing against it. 

So I quit keto. And now I’m just eating. Last night I told myself I wanted to avoid dairy, because I know for certain that it affects me. All day today I prepared dairy-free meals and snacks and then, out of habit or otherwise, squeezed tzatziki on my chicken pita without even giving it a second thought. Immediately upon the realization I sucked my teeth in frustration, but thought ‘what can I do now? It’s already sinking down onto the lettuce.’ and ate it anyway. In case you're wondering, I do regret it.