Caroline started Keto Diet in September 2017 – she had been struggling with her weight for a long time. She had recently been told that the only hope for her was bariatric surgery. This is her story.

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve been active. I played football, hockey, volleyball, and tennis. I wanted to improve my health and lose extra weight, so I started exercising. I then got into endurance sports such as running and triathlons. My weight was always going up and down.”

In 2012, Caroline weighed 110kg, despite a significant amount of exercise, and although she managed to get her weight down to 102 kilograms, she had to do endurance sports for 2.5 hours a day and severely restrict her food intake. It was impossible to maintain, and eventually, the weight crept back on.

By January 2017, I weighed 110kg. She knew she needed to lose weight, but she didn’t know what to do. Nothing she had tried had worked. In April, she caught acute cholecystitis. Eventually, she was admitted to the emergency room of her hospital. As gently as possible, her doctor told her that she was obese, had a fatty liver, and slowly killed herself. She needed to lose weight, he said.

“To lose all my weight:… I have been on a diet since I was nine years old. I’ve always wanted to be normal!”

The ER doctor told her to consult with her doctor/physician, and her only option was probably bariatric surgery.

Finding a low-carb diet

Caroline made an appointment with her GP, who knew her very well and knew what she was going through. Her doctor told her about the Keto Diet, a low carb diet, and that this option might be worth trying before undergoing an invasive and irreversible operation known for its long-term complications and failure rate.

Caroline decided to give it a go herself while she waited for her appointment. After much trial and error and with her fitness trainer’s help, she started a low-carb diet focusing on ketosis. She soon rediscovered a feeling of fullness that she hadn’t felt for years. It was one of her first victories without a scale.

Every morning she had a cup of coffee with butter and cream, and she lost weight!

“I realized that if I followed my meal plan, I wouldn’t always be hungry. I couldn’t believe it! I was drinking a cup of coffee with butter and cream every morning, and I was losing weight!” She said.

Caroline started the Keto diet in September. Caroline found that with the Keto diet coaching, she could refine her diet and eat various foods, but because she wanted to be in nutritional ketosis, she needed to make choices to keep her carbohydrates below 20 grams per day. She wanted to continue to use his ketones for endurance and long-distance sports.

Over the next six weeks, she lost 28 pounds ( almost 14 kg). This was virtually the same amount as the 32 pounds she had managed to lose in the previous six months through hard training and a rigorous diet! This is the weight loss she has managed to achieve.

Can a keto diet help you lose 100lbs (45kg), boost your energy levels, and get you excited about working out? And how easy was it?

YES!!! All this has happened thanks to a low-carb, high-fat diet (LCHF).

“I’m closer to my goalkeeper than ever! I have the energy to do things with myself; I can do things with my people. I have the energy to do things with my children,” says Caroline. It wasn’t easy at first. I was eating too many snacks, sweets, and fast food. My portion sizes got out of control.

I realized that not only was I setting myself up for health problems in my family – diabetes, heart failure, high blood pressure – but I was setting my children up for the same. I decided enough is enough. A friend told me about the keto diet and the success she was having, and I started the next day.

These days I cook at home, and we rarely eat out. I have learned how to make a variety of healthy and delicious meals. I can make any dish very food-friendly. I have also adopted intermittent fasting. Most days, I eat from 12pm to 8pm, and at least one day a week, I do “one meal a day” (OMAD).

Of course, I’ve eaten many carbs before, but after I ate them, I realized my body was out of whack. A low-carb diet works better for me. I have the energy to do things with my kids – both cardio and strength training -, and I’ve found that exercise is fun and a great way to relieve stress. In addition to the keto diet, I work out 5-6 days a week. 

I was just under 100kg at my peak weight, and now I’m closer to my goal weight than ever! I have the energy to reach my goal weight. I have the power to do things with my kids, and I think exercise, like cardio and strength training, is a great way to have fun and relieve stress.

In my opinion, exercise, regardless of diet, is an absolute necessity for a healthy lifestyle. Exercise increases muscle mass, reduces fat, and strengthens the cardiovascular system. Find something you love to do, get up and move your body.

My advice for those of you who want to follow a keto diet:  do your research. Don’t jump right in. Instead, identify the types of food you can eat, read up on the keto flu and prepare for social events by bringing snacks with you. Also, read the labels because almost every food in the supermarket contains sugar. And don’t try to add keto without doing your research. You don’t need supplements to get into ketosis. Your body does everything on its own. You just have to trust the process.