I lost 40lbs on keto and after the first week of keto flu, I felt great. No sugar crashes, no energy level drops and overall, more energy than usual. I stopped after six weeks as I couldn’t deal with the lack of flavour and texture in the food I was eating. I reached a good weight that I've maintained, 7 years later.

One thing it taught me, was to reduce the amount I eat and to balance things out if I eat more carbs than usual.

I agree on those stats. Don't forget: Atkins himself died from heart disease. But hey, at least you have the pics to prove it.

Were it me, the potential for humor would be impossible to ignore:

Me: "This diet is miserable, don't do this."

Also me: shows pics looking more shredded that a bowl of mini-wheats

I feel you. Hard cheese, bacon, and pickled eggs were my go-to. Anything with strong flavors. I did that for about a year and then stopped once I hit my weight goal.

In the middle of all that, I noticed that vegetables started to taste sweet as they do contain small amounts of sugar. Especially cabbage. I kind of miss that.

A workaround I employed was to eat lots of kimchi. Fermented foods like that contain sugar alcohols which taste sweet(ish), but are not digestible as such.

That's awesome. Glad that's working for you! If you have any tips on building willpower for the rest of us, please share, and thank you.

I forgot about the smells. My sense of smell shifted to be way more sensitive to sugars and starches too - it was tough.

I didn't bother trying to track fat intake and wound up losing 2+ lbs a month that way; not bragging, but my goal wasn't all that big. I probably could have done things faster by cutting more fat, but it was already hard enough.

I was educated by another user on how the process actually works.

Fascinating, isn't it? It's like each of us is just full of survival mechanisms.