Fringeville #214: Avoiding Blimpification

...Um...I'm never going to look like this, keto or no keto...

...a very good friend of mine asked me a while back what "keto" is after I posted on my weight loss.

First, I am not on a strict keto diet. It's because at my age I know my own mind. At some point, I rebel against everything. If I put my diet in a confining box, I will resent the walls. I will rebel. I will grow a butt with its own zip code.

I follow a keto-influenced diet. University of Michigan dietician Kevin Joy wrote an article last year on keto, pointing out its strengths and potential drawbacks. One of the concerns was yo-yo dieting (...yeah, I know I was a yo-yo before I ever started a diet but read on...) which is what often happens when one comes of a diet and slips back to the old bad habits. (In other words, blimp city.)

In my case, that is what happens when I rebel. I get a little skinny. Rebellion comes. I blimpify.

Instead of too tightly constraining myself, I've adopted keto as a guiding lifestyle. I feed my dark side the occasional treat from the old days, but my primary diet is (as pointed out in the U of M article) "...a low-carb, high-fat diet rich in meats, eggs, nuts and dairy." I strictly limit "fruits, root vegetables, grain products and legumes" but I don't follow a strict ban.

With one exception: I don't use sugar.

It's impossible to avoid completely because it is in so many, many things but I haven't added sugar to a damned thing since being told I was pre-diabetic. My white bread consumption is also down at least 90%. It would be 100% but ...and here comes that word again ...I would eventually rebel against a total hoagie ban.

I know people who do very well on a stricter flavor of keto, and I am certainly not knocking them. But, again, I know my own mind. I'm a frigging rebel at heart. If I don't occasionally feed the beast, it will feast on me.

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 ...be good to each other. (Is that a hoagie over there??)

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