Keto made easy

A Hard Year, Two Dogs, and No Focus Left

2016-11-09

November 2016 — seven months before day 1

This story doesn't have a single carb count in it. That's sort of the point.

In November 2016 I wasn't on keto and I wasn't counting anything. At my heaviest I'd been 265. That summer I'd gotten down to 213 without ever hearing the word keto, and by the winter I'd be back up to 237 (video cTGYIFOTPl8).

The morning after

The day after the 2016 election I went live on Facebook from my house and talked for about two hours (live HRKA0401). It was mostly politics, and this isn't a politics site, so I'll skip the hot takes. The bit that matters here is something I admitted partway through.

I said I'd voted, but I hadn't phone banked and I hadn't campaigned. I went back and forth on whether that was even my job, and then I said the honest part: this year had been especially difficult for me, personally, for a number of reasons, and I didn't think I'd had what I needed to give something like that my focus (live HRKA0401).

That's a guy who wanted to throw himself into something and found the tank empty. There just wasn't anything left over.

Two dogs and a screen door

Life at home that morning was me and two dogs: Molly and Buzz. Buzz was the new one. Partway through the stream I had to call him over, because he was new to the house and I didn't trust him alone with my stuff yet. I said it wasn't his fault. He was just learning his boundaries (live HRKA0401).

At one point the wind was banging the screen door and the dogs were convinced we were being invaded. I joked that it was almost nice they finally had some angst to match mine (live HRKA0401). Earlier I'd said the reason people own pets is that the dogs don't know what happened in the news. They're just playing with balls and chew toys (live HRKA0401).

If you've ever brought a new dog home you know what that season looks like. You're not doing big projects. You're watching the shoes. You're getting up because somebody needs to go out. A dog learning the house is a part-time job, and it doesn't care what else you had planned.

Why this one goes first

I'm putting this story at the start of the series on purpose, because every keto story after it is about adding something to my life: tracking, testing, cooking differently, going live on camera, eventually running a group. And the version of me in November 2016 couldn't have added any of that. Not because he didn't care about his health. Because he was already carrying a full load and had admitted, out loud, on camera, that he had nothing left to give a project he did care about.

I don't have a weigh-in from that morning. I don't have a blood sugar reading. I didn't start keto until June 13, 2017 (video DoSUgIr2rNo). What I have is a recording of a guy saying the year had been hard and his focus was gone.

When you read the later stories, where I'm logging every condiment and peeing on strips every other trip to the bathroom, remember this one. That guy got there by first getting out of a year like this, not by willpower in the middle of it.

What I'd tell you now

If your life is already full, adding a diet is a project like any other, and it costs focus you may not have this month. That's not failure, that's arithmetic. Pick a start date when you can give it attention, and make the first version small: count carbs, log food, nothing fancy (that's how the MyFitnessPal setup video starts). The guide's chapter on starting keto and the page on habits that keep the weight off are both built around doing less, better. If a hard year includes depression, grief or a history of disordered eating, bring a doctor in before you change how you eat; that's not a disclaimer, it's the right order of operations. And there's a short piece on why most diets fail that's worth reading before you pick your start date.

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