I have a confession to make: I loved keto.
There. I’ve said it.
I know keto has become one of those diets that can divide a room faster than the question of whether pineapple belongs on pizza. Some people swear by it, some people think it’s completely unnecessary and others seem to have very strong feelings about what you should and shouldn’t eat.
I actually think there is a lot more nuance to it.
I went deep into keto during COVID lockdown, and while I don’t follow a strict ketogenic diet anymore, I genuinely believe it was one of the most valuable things I have ever done from a nutrition perspective.
I lost weight. I had more energy. My sleep improved dramatically. I ate more vegetables. I became much more conscious of what I was putting into my body and, perhaps most importantly, I learnt how food actually works.
I also learnt how to count calories and track my macros, and I honestly think understanding macros should be taught at school.
Yes, really.
We teach children algebra, which most of us haven’t used since approximately 1997, but somehow we don’t teach them how much protein they’re eating or why the nutritional information on the back of a packet might actually be useful.
I know which one I would have found more helpful.
How I ended up going keto
Lockdown was actually the perfect time for me to experiment with my diet.
Suddenly I was at home. I wasn’t rushing around. I wasn’t eating meals because I happened to be somewhere and I wasn’t grabbing whatever was convenient because I was too busy to think about it.
I had time.
And when you’re at home with your own kitchen, a little time and nowhere to go, you can become surprisingly enthusiastic about vegetables.
I started experimenting with keto recipes and, to my surprise, I loved it.
I loved finding ways to make food delicious without relying on a mountain of pasta, bread or rice. I loved discovering how much you could do with vegetables. I loved experimenting with different combinations of protein, fats, sauces, herbs and spices.
And I loved the structure of it.
For the first time, I was really paying attention to what I was eating rather than simply eating what was in front of me.
That made a huge difference.
The results were pretty amazing
I don’t want to pretend keto was some magical cure-all, but I saw some genuinely impressive changes.
I lost weight. I had more energy. My sleep improved. And if you know me, you’ll know that the sleep improvement was not a small thing. I was a proper insomniac.
Sleep and I had a complicated relationship. Other people would lie down, close their eyes and apparently disappear into dreamland. I would lie there conducting a full-scale internal board meeting about something that happened six years ago.
So when my sleep improved, I noticed.
I also found myself eating more vegetables. This surprised me because when people talk about keto, you often picture bacon, eggs, cheese and butter before you picture vegetables.
But for me, keto actually encouraged me to experiment with vegetables more.
I discovered different ways of cooking them, using them as substitutes for higher-carbohydrate foods and making them a much bigger part of my meals. And that is one of the things I still love about keto-inspired cooking today.
Keto also taught me how to understand food
One of the most valuable things I got from keto had nothing to do with ketosis. It was learning how to count calories and understand macros.
I used MyFitnessPal to track what I was eating, and initially it was a bit of a learning curve. You suddenly realise that the handful of nuts you casually threw into your salad has calories. That olive oil you poured over your vegetables has calories. The cheese you grated over dinner has calories. And yes, that “healthy” little snack can have considerably more calories than you thought.
None of this means those foods are bad. It simply means that healthy and calorie-free are not the same thing.
Learning macros was another eye-opener.
Protein, carbohydrates and fat all contain calories, but they play different roles in the body. Understanding the balance between them gives you a much better picture of what you’re actually eating than simply looking at the calorie number.
And honestly, I think this is something we should teach children.
Not in a way that encourages teenagers to obsess over every calorie they eat, but in a way that gives people basic nutritional literacy.
We teach kids how to manage money because it’s an important life skill. Understanding food is also an important life skill.
You should know what protein is. You should know what carbohydrates and fats are. You should understand calories. You should know how to read a food label. And you should understand that the word “healthy” on the front of a packet doesn’t necessarily tell you very much.
I don’t track calories like I used to
These days, I don’t religiously track every calorie I eat. Partly because I got really good at it.
After doing it for long enough, I can generally look at a meal and have a pretty good idea of how many calories are sitting on my plate.
But I still use MyFitnessPal, particularly when I want to lose weight. Because here’s the thing: it is incredibly easy to underestimate what you’re eating.
You can be out by 50 calories here, another 50 there, perhaps underestimate the amount of oil you used, forget about the sauce, misjudge the portion of nuts and suddenly you’ve accidentally eaten an extra few hundred calories.
If you’re out by 50 calories on six different foods throughout the day, that’s 300 calories you haven’t accounted for.
Do that regularly and it adds up.
This is why I still think tracking can be incredibly useful, even if you don’t want to do it forever.
For me, it was a bit like learning to read nutrition’s fine print. Once you understand it, you don’t necessarily need to have your calculator out every time you eat an avocado.
Although, if you’re trying to lose weight, getting the app out occasionally can be a very useful reality check.
The carb, craving and chocolate cycle
This is where keto became particularly interesting for me.
Before I got my blood sugar under better control, I felt like I could get caught in a cycle where carbohydrates and cravings fed into each other.
And this is where we need to talk about insulin.
When you eat carbohydrates, your digestive system breaks many of them down into glucose, which enters your bloodstream. Your blood glucose rises, and your pancreas releases insulin. Insulin helps your body move glucose from the bloodstream into cells where it can be used or stored. That is a normal and necessary process.
The problem is that how people respond to carbohydrates can vary considerably.
Some people can eat a bowl of pasta and carry on with their day without giving it another thought. For others, particularly some people with insulin resistance, the story can be very different.
PCOS is relevant here because insulin resistance is common among women with PCOS, although not every woman with PCOS has insulin resistance.
When someone is insulin resistant, their cells don’t respond to insulin as effectively as they should. The body may compensate by producing more insulin to help keep blood glucose in range.
And this is one reason I think the conversation around PCOS and food needs to be more nuanced than simply telling women to “eat healthy”.
Because what does healthy actually mean for you?
If you’re someone who is struggling with insulin resistance, constantly eating highly refined carbohydrates and sugary foods may not leave you feeling particularly good, even if the individual foods aren’t inherently “bad”.
For me, I felt as though I could get caught in a vicious cycle.
I’d eat carbohydrates, then find myself wanting something sweet. I’d have chocolate, which would satisfy the craving temporarily, and then I’d find myself wanting something else.
It wasn’t necessarily that every carbohydrate caused my blood sugar to crash. That’s far too simplistic.But I did feel that I was caught in a pattern of cravings and eating that I didn’t particularly enjoy.
And once I started paying attention to my carbohydrate intake and building meals around protein, vegetables and healthy fats, that cycle became much easier for me to manage.
That was a huge win.
Why insulin sensitivity matters
I think insulin is one of those words that has become so overused online that we’ve almost forgotten what it actually means.
Insulin isn’t the enemy. You need insulin.
It is a hormone that helps regulate blood glucose and plays an important role in how your body stores and uses energy.
The issue is insulin sensitivity.
When your body is insulin sensitive, your cells respond appropriately to insulin and glucose can be moved from the bloodstream into cells efficiently.
When someone becomes insulin resistant, their cells don’t respond as well, and the body may need to produce more insulin to get the same effect.
PCOS can be associated with insulin resistance, and this can happen independently of someone’s body size. It isn’t simply a matter of having a higher weight.
For women with PCOS, this is particularly important because insulin resistance and higher insulin levels can interact with the hormonal environment associated with PCOS.
And this is one of the reasons I became so interested in the relationship between carbohydrates, insulin and cravings.
I wasn’t looking for a diet to follow because somebody on the internet told me it was fashionable. I was trying to understand why I felt the way I felt after eating certain foods.
That distinction matters.
Going cold turkey helped me reset my habits
Eventually, I decided I needed to go all in.
I cut out most carbohydrates. I also cut out alcohol completely for a period of time.
It was probably easier during lockdown because there wasn’t exactly a thriving social calendar to contend with, plus they had shut down the sales of alcohol.
And this is one of the things people don’t always talk about when it comes to keto.
It can be incredibly anti-social.
You have to have willpower.
Going out for dinner becomes a strategic exercise. You start looking at restaurant menus like you’re analysing a legal contract. “What exactly is in the sauce?”, “Is that cauliflower actually cauliflower?”, “Could you please remove the bread?”
And then someone orders a basket of chips and suddenly you’re wondering whether your friendship is worth sacrificing ketosis for.
Okay, perhaps that’s dramatic.
But restrictive diets can make social situations harder.
Birthdays, dinners, holidays, restaurants and drinks with friends all become more complicated when there are foods you have decided you aren’t going to eat.
I was willing to do that for a period of time because I wanted to see how I felt.
And I felt really good.
But I also realised that I didn’t necessarily want to live like that forever.
I even gave up alcohol
During my strict keto phase, I also stopped drinking alcohol. Completely.
This was another experiment in removing something from my diet and seeing what happened.
Today, I do drink alcohol, but it is much more occasional. I generally treat it as something I enjoy rather than something that needs to be part of every social occasion.
And I think that’s the biggest difference between how I eat now and how I approached food before keto.
I’m much more conscious. Not perfect. Definitely not perfect. But conscious.
What changed when I stopped keto?
Eventually, I decided that strict keto wasn’t something I wanted to maintain permanently.
But I didn’t go back to eating the way I had before.
That is an important distinction.
I still eat chocolate. I eat pasta. I eat carbohydrates.
I am not sitting here pretending that I have achieved some sort of nutritional enlightenment where I gaze lovingly at a bowl of steamed broccoli while everyone else eats pizza.
I like pizza. I like pasta. I like chocolate. I’m human.
The difference is that these foods are now treats rather than staples.
I don’t feel that I have to avoid carbohydrates forever, but I’m much more conscious of the type, portion and frequency.
I also understand my own body better.
My diet now is generally lower in carbohydrates and higher in protein, although it is absolutely not perfect.
Some days I eat more carbohydrates. Some days I eat less. Some days I’m incredibly organised and eat exactly the way I intended. Other days life happens and dinner is whatever I can throw together before everyone starts asking what’s for dinner.
That’s real life.
What I still take from keto today
This is probably the most important part of my entire keto journey.
I don’t need to be keto to use what keto taught me.
- I still prioritise protein because I understand how important it is for satiety, muscle and maintaining a strong body as we get older.
- I’m much more conscious of carbohydrates. Not terrified of them. Not convinced they’re evil. Just aware of how much I’m eating and how different foods affect me.
- I choose carbohydrates that I personally tolerate well. Sweet potatoes and quinoa can absolutely have a place in my diet. So can pasta. The difference is that I’m not eating a giant bowl of pasta simply because it’s Tuesday.
- I’ve reduced the amount of highly processed food I eat.
- I pay much more attention to hunger and cravings.
- I read food labels.
- I understand that “healthy” doesn’t automatically mean healthy for me.
- I’m not afraid of fat, but I also don’t treat fat as a free food simply because it happens to be keto-friendly.
- And perhaps most importantly, I’ve learnt to pay attention to my own body’s responses instead of blindly following a diet.
That is the part of keto I think is worth keeping.
What I don’t believe anymore
I don’t believe that everyone needs to go keto. I don’t believe that carbohydrates are automatically bad. I don’t believe that eating a potato is going to derail your health.
And I certainly don’t believe you have to spend the rest of your life measuring every gram of carbohydrate that passes your lips.
But I also don’t believe that carbohydrates are completely irrelevant when it comes to blood sugar, cravings or metabolic health.
There is a middle ground.
And I think that is where I’ve ended up.
Keto gave me a very useful reset. It helped me lose weight, improve my energy and sleep, increase my vegetable intake and become much more aware of nutrition.
It also gave me the skills to understand calories and macros.
But perhaps its greatest gift was teaching me that food isn’t one-size-fits-all.
So, am I anti-carb now?
Absolutely not. I’m anti-being-controlled-by-carbs. There is a difference.
I can eat chocolate now without feeling as though I’ve opened Pandora’s box. I can eat pasta without deciding that I’ve ruined my diet and may as well continue eating everything in sight. I can have a sweet potato and enjoy it. I can have an aperol spritz.
And then I can go back to the way I normally eat. That, for me, is freedom.
I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on a diet. I want to understand food well enough that I don’t need to.
The Forever Forty approach to keto
So you’ll see plenty of keto-inspired recipes here on Forever Forty.
Not because I’m telling you that you should be keto.
And definitely not because I think there is one perfect way to eat.
You’ll see them because I genuinely love many of these recipes.
Plus, today, I eat a diet that is generally lower in carbohydrates and higher in protein.
Is it perfect? No. Nor do I particularly want it to be.
Because I’m forty-something, not a robot.
I want to enjoy dinner with my family. I want to go out to restaurants. I want chocolate. I want pasta. I want to have an aperol spritz occasionally.
But I also want to feel good. I want energy. I want to sleep. I want to feel strong. And I want to understand what I’m putting into my body.
For me, keto was the beginning of that journey.
I may not be keto anymore, but I’m very glad I went down that rabbit hole.
Even if I did emerge from it knowing far too much about cauliflower.
Frequently Asked Questions About Keto
What is the keto diet?
The ketogenic, or keto, diet is a very low-carbohydrate, higher-fat way of eating that aims to put the body into a metabolic state called ketosis. When carbohydrate intake is kept very low, the body produces ketones and uses them as an alternative fuel source. Keto is more restrictive than simply eating a low-carb diet, which is why it requires a little more planning.
Did keto actually work for you?
Yes. I genuinely loved keto and saw some pretty amazing changes while I was following it. I lost weight, had more energy, slept better and increased my vegetable intake. I also became much more aware of what I was eating and learnt how to track calories and macros. That doesn’t mean I think keto is the right diet for everyone, but it worked very well for me at that particular point in my life.
Do you still follow a keto diet?
No. I no longer follow strict keto, but I still eat in a way that is generally lower in carbohydrates and higher in protein. I also still make plenty of keto-inspired recipes because, quite frankly, I loved the food. These days I have a much more flexible approach. I eat pasta, sweet potatoes, quinoa and chocolate, but I treat them as part of my overall diet rather than foods I need to eat every day.
Why did you stop keto if you loved it?
Because I eventually realised that I didn’t need to follow keto forever to benefit from what I had learnt. Keto taught me a huge amount about nutrition, portion sizes, carbohydrates, protein, fat, calories and my own body’s responses to food. I wanted to take those lessons and create a way of eating that was more flexible and sustainable for my everyday life.
Can you eat carbohydrates on keto?
Technically, a ketogenic diet is very low in carbohydrates, so eating significant amounts of carbohydrate can make it difficult to remain in ketosis. This is one reason I prefer to distinguish between keto and simply eating lower carb. My current diet is lower in carbohydrates, but I don’t eliminate them completely.
Are carbohydrates bad for you?
No. Carbohydrates are not inherently bad, and I certainly don’t believe you need to eliminate them forever. I eat carbohydrates myself, including sweet potatoes, quinoa and pasta. What I’ve learnt is that the type, quantity and overall context of the carbohydrates you eat can matter, particularly if you’re someone who experiences blood-sugar swings, cravings or digestive issues.
Why can carbohydrates sometimes lead to cravings?
Carbohydrates are digested into glucose, which raises blood glucose and triggers the release of insulin. How strongly your blood glucose and insulin respond can vary depending on the food, portion, meal composition and the individual. Some people find that meals high in refined carbohydrates leave them hungry or craving something sweet soon afterwards. That was certainly part of my experience. I found myself getting caught in a carb-to-craving-to-chocolate cycle, which was one of the reasons I wanted to experiment with eating much less carbohydrate.
Is insulin resistance common with PCOS?
Insulin resistance is common among women with PCOS, although not every woman with PCOS has insulin resistance. PCOS is a complex hormonal and metabolic condition, so it isn’t as simple as saying that everyone with PCOS needs to follow a particular diet. My own experience with carbohydrates and blood sugar is just that — my experience — and it shouldn’t be taken as a universal prescription for managing PCOS.
Does keto help with PCOS?
There is research looking at low-carbohydrate and ketogenic diets in relation to PCOS, particularly because of the relationship between PCOS, insulin resistance and metabolic health. However, that doesn’t mean keto is a cure for PCOS or that every woman with PCOS needs to follow a ketogenic diet. PCOS is highly individual, and dietary choices should take the person’s overall health, nutritional needs and preferences into account.
Did keto help your sleep?
For me, yes. One of the unexpected benefits I noticed while following keto was that my sleep improved. And given that I was a serious insomniac, I definitely noticed the difference. I wouldn’t claim that keto is a guaranteed sleep solution because everyone’s experience is different, but improved sleep was one of the benefits I personally experienced.
Did you lose weight on keto?
Yes. I lost weight while following keto, and learning about calories and portion sizes also played an important role. Keto can change the foods you eat, but weight loss still comes down to the overall energy balance of your diet. One of the most useful things I learnt was that even foods considered “healthy” can contain significant calories.
Do you still count calories?
Not every day. After tracking my food for long enough, I became surprisingly good at estimating calories and portions. These days I can usually look at a meal and make a fairly reasonable guess. However, I still use MyFitnessPal when I’m deliberately trying to lose weight because it is incredibly easy to underestimate portions or forget about things like oils, sauces, dressings, nuts and snacks. Being 50 calories off here and there might not sound like much, but several small miscalculations can add up surprisingly quickly.
What are macros?
“Macros” is short for macronutrients: protein, carbohydrates and fat. These are the three main macronutrients that provide calories in our diet. Learning about macros helped me understand food in a completely different way. Rather than simply asking whether something was “healthy”, I started looking at what it actually contained. I genuinely think basic nutritional literacy, including understanding calories and macros, would be incredibly useful for young people to learn.
What do you eat now?
These days I generally aim for a diet that is lower in carbohydrates and higher in protein, but I’m not obsessive about it. I eat a wide variety of foods and I’m much more flexible than I was when I was strictly keto. I still love keto-inspired meals, but I also eat pasta, sweet potatoes, quinoa and chocolate. The difference is that these foods are now treats or occasional choices rather than the foundation of every meal.
Can you eat chocolate on a low-carb diet?
Absolutely. Well, I do! I no longer see chocolate as something that I can never have. I enjoy it as a treat and then carry on with my day. For me, that is a much healthier relationship with chocolate than feeling that I have either been “good” or “bad” depending on whether I’ve eaten it.
Is keto difficult to stick to?
It can be. I actually found one of the hardest parts of keto was the social side. Eating out, going to someone’s house for dinner, birthdays and social occasions can all become more complicated when you’re avoiding so many foods. It takes planning and, at times, quite a lot of willpower. For a period of time I was happy to put in that effort, but eventually I realised that a more flexible approach suited my life better.
Is keto healthy?
That depends on the individual diet and the individual person. A well-planned ketogenic diet can include plenty of vegetables, quality protein and nutritious whole foods, but keto isn’t automatically healthy simply because a food is low in carbohydrates. Cheese, butter, cream, nuts and other high-fat foods can all be part of keto, but they still contain calories and should not be treated as unlimited foods. Nutritional quality matters regardless of whether something is technically “keto”.
Can you combine a high-fat keto diet with lots of carbohydrates?
Once carbohydrate intake rises substantially, you may no longer be following a ketogenic diet. More importantly, combining lots of calorie-dense fats with large amounts of refined carbohydrates can make it very easy to consume more calories than you realise. That doesn’t mean eating fat and carbohydrates together is inherently dangerous, but it is worth understanding that adding carbohydrates to a high-fat diet changes the overall nutritional picture.
Do you recommend keto?
I recommend learning about it before deciding whether it is right for you. Keto worked extremely well for me and taught me an enormous amount about nutrition, but I’m not going to tell everyone that they need to go keto. My biggest takeaway wasn’t that everyone should eliminate carbohydrates. It was that we should understand what we’re eating, pay attention to how our bodies respond and find an approach that we can actually live with.
What is the biggest lesson you took from keto?
That understanding your food is far more useful than simply following food rules. Keto taught me about calories, macros, protein, carbohydrates, fat and portion sizes. It taught me to read labels and pay attention to cravings. Most importantly, it taught me to listen to my own body rather than assume that there is one perfect way of eating. I’m no longer keto, but those lessons have stayed with me.