Slow and steady wins the race

Dear Dr. Berg After many years of trying to lose weight, yo-yo diets, and a generally unhealthy lifestyle, this is the first diet I have been able to maintain for an extended period of time. It is not always easy and does come with its own unique challenges, but overall it is the only lifestyle I have actually been able to maintain for an extended period of time. The biggest learning lessons have been to learn to say no, and on the occasions I have fallen off the keto way, not being too hard on myself. Just knowing how much weight I have lost, I have always been able to dust myself off and get back on without any problems. Being able to continue with the keto lifestyle when I do drop the ball has been incredibly important, as this would normally be the tipping point at which I would give up. Not now. Thinking back to when I started, and knowing how hard it can be to make the change when you are 70kg overweight, makes it very easy to continue. That has been the most important learning lesson in all of this. It is as much to do with mindset as it is to do with the food I put in my mouth and I am very grateful to have discovered keto. I have come up with some interesting strategies to manage my own eating habits. Most importantly has been to “eat deliberately”. Rationalising my own hunger, rather than just eating on autopilot, I have learnt that the times I think I am hungry where I would just eat, I am actually not that hungry at all. I do this with one simple question… “on a scale of one to ten, how hungry are you?” Generally if I am anything less than a 7 out of 10 hungry, I will wait. This has brought my meals back to two meals a day. When I am hungry, I cook with passion and eat just as enthusiastically! No guilt. The other difference this time compared to other times is that I have given myself as much time as I need to lose weight comfortably. No longer am I setting unrealistic goals which only backfire with more weight gain. I decided that I would take as much time as I needed, and as long as my weight was going in the right direction, everything was ok. It is an investment into yourself, not too dissimilar to a traditional investment. Good investments take time, and you need take the peaks and the troughs, as long as the overall trajectory is good, know that in the long term you will come out on top. It has been incredibly valuable having my mother on the same journey. She has managed to take control of her diabetes with keto and we support each other to keep going. She is constantly sending me your videos which are always helpful, which is all the more valuable because of the changes I have seen in her health. Surrounding yourself with like minded people is incredibly important if you want to succeed. In terms of the food I eat, there is no comparison between what I was eating before and what I eat now. There is a misconception that diets are bland and boring. I loved food before I started losing weight, the difference now is that I love food without any of the guilt normally associated with eating it. I have discovered a passion to find exciting new ways to make food interesting. This has lead me to discover a whole range of foods I wouldn’t have normally even considered by adapting traditional recipes to keto. I have lost junk food and gained a world of authentic and exciting keto meals! Thank you for all your content which has been incredibly important in reeducating myself about how the body works. Essentially I have had to unlearn everything I thought I knew about the body. It would not have been possible without your guidance. Regards Dom Dedić