After two months, I’m stalled. 20 lbs lost then–blammo! nuttin. Stupid diet. Stupid 50 year old metabolism.

Of course, I’m an idiot. I haven’t discussed this with my doctor, I have only done minimal internet research on this diet and I’m not measuring or weighing my food. I only go to the gym once a week so I’m really about 37% into this whole “lifestyle” change. And let’s be honest, I’m pretty sure that about 10 pounds of my initial loss was water weight (it’s amazing what simply drinking a lot of water will do for you) and the other 10 pounds was my body adjusting to it’s new chemistry.

Like most lazy people, NOT doing  something is really pretty easy. So cutting out carbs was much easier than I thought. And although keto fanatics will say “not all carbs—you can have 10% every day…” ummmmm…that means no carbs. I think you absorb 10% of your daily intake of carbs through your skin if you so much as pick up a pop tart—let alone eat it.  Carbs are in everything. There are 6 grams of carbs in a carrot. Of course you have to subtract the 1.7 grams of fiber in that carrot to get to 4.3 NET carbs which are the carbs that actually count.

Yeah, there is math involved in  this diet. It just gets better every minute.

And because I’m a lazy American, this diet also involves every Yank’s favorite thing…BUYING SHIT! So far I’ve bought:

• Cacao powder
• cacao butter
• coconut oil
• keto coffee mix (I make my own now)
• Ketone supplement mix
• Keto to go liquid supplement
• chia seeds
• ground chia powder
• several avocados (I actually ate one)
• lots of heavy cream

And thankfully I already had a stovetop expresso maker and emersion blender which I use every day. Also, my food processor has been really useful.

Besides getting to actually use my kitchen, there are lots of benefits to going keto and drinking a gallon of water a day.  My skin isn’t dry and my cuticles aren’t cracking on my fingers, which I suppose is just the result of true hydration. I don’t take three antacids every day like I used to and I never feel bloated. Obviously, my stomach has shrunk which makes my sorely neglected yoga practice easier. (Sidebar about fat yoga: NOT EVRY FAT PERSON CAN DO THAT! Those videos of large women planking and standing on their heads are not inspirational. Those women, like most yoginis are freaks of nature. Why don’t you try that shit you skinny bitches and then come back to me about how yoga is for everyBODY!) Although my energy isn’t through the roof, I am sleeping better. I do have weird dreams, I have no idea if this is connected to the diet or not but it’s noticeable. Probably the best benefit is that I really like eating now and not because I’m starving to death but because I’m tasting food differently.

Perhaps the best part of dieting is that you change your relationship with food. I used to shove just about anything in my mouth to get me through the day—usually for the dopamine rush—and I sure thought that I was enjoying it. But now that I’ve been forced to think about what I’m going to eat, it makes eating the actual event it should have always been. Also, I used to be absolutely dysfunctional without several cups of coffee all throughout the day. Now I have my keto coffee which consists of an espresso with cacao butter, coconut oil, a little cacao powder and heavy cream, it’s a high fat coffee for sure but it’s very satisfying.

I need to lose about another 50 pounds. And frankly I could probably lose another 35 on top of that but I’d be happy right now with another 50…and that alone is a lot to ask for. Obviously I need to see my doctor to see if there is a real metabolic or other reason that I’ve plateaued and to ensure that I’ve not jacked my Cholesterol levels through the roof. With the Keto diet being 70% fat, 20% protein and %10 carbs it’s easy to forget about all of the other bad shit in food and focus on those ratios.

As I enter the glorious and truly under appreciated Crone phase of my life, I long not so much for the sexual mastery that comes with age because I figured that out AGES ago…I long for a life free of type 2 diabetes and chronic cellulitis. I’d also like to walk up a hill without blacking out. I have no desire to look younger or wear shorts in public but I would like to be immature and stay alive long enough to see my behavior annoy everyone.

It’s going to take a little math, probably a kitchen scale, maybe a personal trainer and a lot of work to get me 50 lbs lighter. But I’ve done over a third of that in two months in a fairly lazy manner so there is hope for me yet.