Extreme Sugar Addiction

Here I am again trying to get my health back. Back in December 2022 it dawned on me that my pretty extreme sugar addiction was likely contributing to mental health problems. Mostly severe depression and extreme energy fluctuations. I was definitely using sugar to numb out and be in a food coma. Unhealthy…I know. It was something that snuck up on me before I realized I was doing it. The thought of quitting sugar suddenly made sense.

Last December (2022) I decided to quit sugar. I then found The Sugar Free Man on youtube and liked some of his teachings. It started off with just quitting sugar but then I got swept up in the keto thing again. I have tried keto in the past here’s my experience back then.

Previous Keto Attempt

My diet tends to be mostly carbs. This was a huge dietary change. The reason I quit keto before was because I felt bloated, terrible, and actually gained weight on it. This time I realized it was the sugar alcohols in certain keto friendly junk food. I was really overdoing it on those. 

I happened to find these quest peanut butter cups and they are not only delicious, they have protein, and the sugar substitute didn’t make me bloated hooray! That helped me realize why it wasn’t working when I previously tried Keto. 

Keto Until April

It is now April 23rd and I’m still on keto. I guess for the first 2 months the majority of the time was low carb and likely not “keto”. But now I am doing keto and have been for a while. And guess how I feel…..terrible!

After doing some online research I believe that I’ve been consuming too much fat and keto “junk”. I drastically increased my intake of dairy trying to stay keto, cheese and heavy cream oh my. And I am not much of a meat-eater so that limited my options of keto meals. In my opinion,  meat is gross and sad and I really have to force it down.  Also I gained weight…I was shocked when I put on some clothes I haven’t worn in a couple months and they were too tight. It just didn’t seem to add up. But I believe that too much fat for me and others can cause weight gain. I mean, it’s not rocket surgery.

Fruit and Veggies to the Rescue

I’m now working on figuring out what makes me feel the best. I’m upping my intake of low carb fruits and veggies. I am a strong believer in the health of fruit and it is something I need in order to feel okay. 

Well well well it is now May 20th. Guess how I’ve been feeling for the past couple weeks or a month I don’t know, time goes by so quickly I can’t tell anymore. I’ve been feeling grrrreat!!

I stopped tracking my food and have done a gentle nudge towards some fruit and occasional higher carb things like corn tortillas, I have eaten a sandwich here and there and boy it was freeing.

Doctor Christopher Palmer

One of my reasons for going all in on keto was because of the findings of doctor Christopher Palmer. He wrote the book Brain Energy. I found out about him on youtube and I have watched/listened to about 10 hours of him talking about his work. It is mind blowing how effective a keto diet has been for some people with mental illness (not all mental illness benefits from it).  I legit felt worse doing keto.  But I definitely wasn’t doing it perfectly healthy. I was counting all my calories and macros and I was meeting those just fine (well, not always enough protein but I tried!) but it could have been much healthier. 

I Thought It’d Be Miraculous

I’m still absolutely done with sugar. I have noticed surprisingly few benefits from quitting sugar than I thought I would. Like if you would have asked me a year ago what my life would be like if I quit sugar, I would have guessed that all my problems would go away, I would have no chronic pain, headaches, energy dips, depression would be gone, I’d be living the DREAM…. Out of all of those things not much, if anything has changed! My life is definitely moving in an upward trend in terms of what I see as “success”, happiness, and general lifestyle, but for the most part there aren’t that many changes. One huge thing I never expected is that my menstrual cycle has completely regulated itself. While on sugar it would be irregular, but it is like clockwork now! Another thing that is for sure is my energy levels don’t completely tank multiple times during the day. When I was doing keto and higher fat I felt really sluggish and my brain felt dumb, but now that I’m eating a little healthier I haven’t been having the energy dips, and my brain doesn’t feel dumb as often.

Beef Butter Bacon and Eggs Diet…

This is a recap of what’s been going on with me diet-wise. I think it’s important for us to use our own innate sense of what we know is healthy for us individually. Just because people on the internet tell us to do the BBBE diet challenge where you only eat BEEF BUTTER BACON and EGGS …doesn’t mean that’s what’s best for you. And hey, maybe the BBBE diet works for you but we are all different and there’s no one diet that’s perfect for everyone.