My Keto Journey: I Ate 70% Fat And Didn't Get Fat

You might’ve been hearing “keto” through your newsfeeds or on health blogs recently and you might be asking yourself: “What the heck is keto and how could you possibly eat so much FAT!?”

I thought the same thing too. In fact, I’ve been skeptical about keto ever since my boyfriend introduced me to the idea.

He told me that a bunch of his coworkers at Quest Nutrition were living a ketogenic lifestyle and getting ripped!

And, I just wasn’t buying it. The thought of eating a majority of fat and close to no carbs did not entice me.

But, when my business mentor Chalene Johnson opened up spots to join her Diet Beta Test Program, she taught me about groundbreaking new research about the benefits of living a keto lifestyle.

Benefits like reducing inflammation, curing leaky gut, becoming a fat-burning machine, increasing mental clarity and focus, reducing insulin and blood sugar levels, and even reducing cancer!

And once your biggest inspiration tells you to do something, you have to listen. (My boyfriend obviously doesn’t have that kind of influence on me, ha!)

So, I decided to open my mind to the idea and gave it a try for 4 weeks!

For those who don’t know what keto is, here’s a quick summary:

You eat about 75% HEALTHY fats, 15% protein, and 10% carbs
Eliminate all processed, artificial foods and focus on REAL food
No counting calories
Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re satiated
Optional: Include intermittent fasting by fasting for 18 hours and eating within a 6 hour time frame
 

What happens when you go on keto:

When you’re eating “normally,” your body is burning glucose for energy which comes from consuming carbs. When you reduce your carb intake to 50 grams or lower, your body has no other choice but to use its 2nd option for fuel, which is fat (or ketones).

When your body is fat-adapted and starting to use ketones for energy, you are no longer using glucose for energy, but rather, the excess fat you already have on your body (in other words, you become a fat-burning machine).
 

Note: I am not a Keto expert so if you’re looking for a more detailed review on the ketogenic diet, just Google it!

Now to the benefits of going keto:

Before I start telling you about my journey and the incredible benefits I saw, I want you to understand that I didn’t do this to go on some fad diet, for the millionth time!

I’ve had a long history of starting and stopping diets with terrible body image issues. This wasn’t going to be another one of those stints.

Rather, I did this with the mindset of a researcher. I wanted to learn, explore, and experiment and learn what foods caused inflammation for my body.

My goal throughout this whole process was not necessarily to lose weight, but to understand my body, increase my energy and mental clarity, and not be a slave to calorie counting.

Now that we’re all on the same page, here’s some of the crazy cool things I noticed when I became fat-adapted.

1. I was able to eat almost 1,000 more calories a day and not gain weight
 

1,000 MORE CALORIES!!!

My average calorie goal (when I’m tracking via MyFitnessPal) is usually around 1,600 calories. When I was eating fat, I was easily adding up to 2,300 calories or more!

Kinda crazy, right!?

One of the awesome side effects of going keto is that your resting metabolic rate may actually increase. Meaning, the amount of calories you burn per day can increase! So essentially, you’re able to increase the amount of food you eat and not gain weight.

2. I did not miss carbs or sugar

If you’re going strict keto, your goal should be to aim for less than 50 grams of carbs. You have to keep in mind that there are carbs in literally everything, including your veggies and fruit. So, for 4 weeks, I cut out fruit and just allowed my veggies to be within my 50 gram carb limit.

You would think that your body would CRAVE and NEED carbs for survival, but you’d be surprised. When you’re fueling your body with satiating healthy fat, you will feel an incredible sense of satiety that you probably have never felt before.

You know that feeling of hunger you get 2-3 hours after having perhaps a fruit snack and carbs?

You will never get that with keto. You’ll actually get quite the opposite.

When you fuel your body with a majority of healthy fats, you’ll find yourself feeling full for 4-6 hours!

There was one day where I was able to fast for 20 hours and barely even noticed it! Good luck ever trying to do that on a “normal diet.”

3. You don’t feel like you’re on a “diet”

Yes, any kind of “way of eating” can be called a “diet,” but keto definitely didn’t feel like one. The reason why is because I was able to eat anything and everything I wanted that was full of healthy fat.

Foods like grassfed beef, unsalted grassfed butter, olive oil, bacon, salmon, avocado, chia seeds, Bulletproof coffee, bunless burgers, cacao, and a variety of veggies.

And many keto enthusiasts and experts recommend NOT restricting yourself in any way, you basically eat until you’re satiated!

That, my friends, is FREEDOM! Haha!

4. I discovered INCREDIBLE recipes

Because of this healthy fat-filled lifestyle, it was time to start exploring new recipes. From the The Bulletproof Diet book by Dave Asprey and Chalene Johnson’s Diet Beta Test Program, I started creating new recipes in the kitchen and they were so delicious!

From my Mouthwatering Meatballs and Lime Cilantro Fried Rice, to Upgraded Guacamole and Eggs Benedict with Hollandaise Sauce, everything turned out to be so delicious!

All of my favorite Keto/Paleo recipes are in a free downloadable E-book - if you'd like a copy, put your name and email below and I'll send it to you directly to your inbox!

Now you might be asking, “Should I go on keto?”

And my answer is: Well, it depends.

First and foremost, I never want to recommend you do something JUST because someone told you to do it but you don’t know WHY.

The reason I went on keto is because I learned the research, the benefits, and the studies.

I started keto not to lose weight and go on another fad diet, but to reduce inflammation and understand my body more.

My approach was more health-focused rather than diet-focused. My approach was also that of a researcher, not a diet-chaser.

So if you’re ready to make changes in your life, learn and explore a new way of eating, and won’t beat yourself up if it “doesn’t work,” then sure, go for it.

But, I encourage you to do your own research. Learn the WHY and the HOW first before going into it!

Going on a ketogenic diet is all about restoring leaky gut, reducing inflammation, controlling your appetite, tapping into your body fat stores for energy, and maybe in the process, losing extra body fat.

Will I stay on keto forever?

No. Probably not. It was an incredible exploration for the last 4 weeks to see how it affected my body, but I know myself.

If I try to “pigeon hole” my lifestyle and try to do it forever, I get into this “mindset trap” that if I ever am NOT eating keto, I’m a fraud, or I’m “failing.”

I want to approach my life as more of a “everything in moderation”-type approach.

Life is too short to 100% COMPLETELY restrict yourself.

Plus, on any “diet,” you always face dealing with a plateau.

I always recommend staying as healthy as possible, reducing inflammatory foods as much as possible, and living guilt-free when you want to splurge.

I understand it’s easier said than done, but it really comes down to creating lifetime habit changes.

It’s a matter of changing your mindset or approach of healthy living, but also taking action and understanding your body!

So to recap everything that you just learned in this blog, here it is:

• A ketogenic diet consists of eating a majority of healthy fats, moderate protein, and very little carbs
• The benefits include fat loss, increased mental focus and clarity, restoring leaky gut, reducing inflammation, and reducing insulin levels
• Positive benefits include not having to count calories, eating as much as you want until you’re satiated, and even increasing your resting metabolic rate
• Like any diet, you face the risk of plateau, so you never want to pigeon-hole yourself in any particular lifestyle
• It’s important to approach any diet with the mind of a researcher - stop chasing fad diets!
   

This is actually something I go in detail about in my 21 day FitLIFE Challenge.

If you’re looking for more help in mastering nutrition, meal prep, and workouts that specifically tailor to you and your goals, I coach people to learn how to do it all in my program.

From understanding calories versus macros, what percentage of carbs, fats, and proteins you should being, to learning how to meal prep to save time and money and creating a fitness plan based on your goals.

It’s next level stuff. :)