My First Week on Keto

Three months into the keto diet and I’m still going strong! This was me pre-keto!

The keto diet seems to be the latest and hottest trend in the diet world right now and I admit, it was something I was really skeptical about when I first started.  Eating a high-fat diet is so contradictory to what I’ve been told my entire life, but after watching The Magic Pill on Netflix, it was something I thought worth trying.  The results in this documentary were surprising — how can a high-fat diet have the potential to reverse diabetes or help with Alzheimer’s (which by the way, are some of my biggest health fears)?

My weight was getting out of hand and I was becoming more aware of how much sugar I was eating every day, so after a lot of research (which I recommend you do before starting any diet), I decided to give it a try at the end of July.

Here are some things I experienced during my first week:

The keto flu

You’ll hear all about this when starting a low carb diet.  Basically, when you start going low carb, your body goes through withdrawals because you’ve been using carbs as an energy source your entire life.  I felt so tired, my joints were achy, and it felt like I was coming down with the flu.  For some people, they can avoid this by taking a lot of electrolites like sodium, potassium, etc.  But even with that, I still felt the keto flu for about two days.  You might feel like crap, but I promise it does get better when your body adjusts.

 

Mental fog

This goes hand in hand with the keto flu, but you’ll also experience mental fog.  I felt mentally slow and unmotivated.  I found that including MCT oil in my coffee definitely helped, but honestly, I just took my first week on keto really easy so that I could ease on into it.

 

Digestion changes

I was peeing non-stop for the first week and I think this is because your body is excreting all the extra water it was holding on to (which is why extra sodium and electrolytes are really important on keto).  Also, I know this is TMI, I also noticed I wasn’t as regular in the first few weeks.

 

Fast weight loss

On the plus side, I dropped about 5 pounds the first week!  I know it was just water weight, but seeing my scale change helped motivate me to continue with the keto diet.

 

For most people, the first week on keto is the hardest since you’re adjusting, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought!  I have so much I want to share with you about this new lifestyle, so stay tuned for more wellness content.

Have you heard of the keto diet or are you interested in trying it?