That all changed when I got married in 2014. It was wonderful—I felt like I was finally able to relax, after meeting someone who loved me for who I was on the inside, not just the outside—but I also lost interest in my healthy, active lifestyle.
My life felt like a constant celebration—constantly eating out or having a few cocktails each night—which was a whole lot of fun, but not good for my body (or emotional and mental health). A lower back injury from a car accident around this time also made workouts painful.
Basically, it was the perfect storm. I slowly fell into a rut—and the thing about ruts is that one day you just wake up and you're there.
Here's the thing: I knew exactly why I was gaining weight—and I still couldn't stop.
Years of pageant coaching led me to be come a sort of health coach for my clients. I'd tell them to eat at home, for example, because that way you can control what goes into your food.
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But the busy schedules that my husband and I kept meant we were eating out constantly. (Chips sound way better than a salad when you're tired and overwhelmed from working a 16-hour day.)
I was also vegan, which was not helping me—all I ate was carbs, which made me feel constantly hungry, tired, and grouchy.
When I didn't recognise the person looking back at me in the mirror, I knew I had to change.
My husband loves to take tropical vacations, and it made me so insecure to be on the beach or at a pool in my swimsuit. When someone would ask what I did for a living and I responded that I was a pageant coach, they'd look at me, puzzled—all of this just reinforced that I had to do something differently.
At first, I tried going pescatarian. Adding fish back into my diet slowly helped my body make the transition out of veganism.
After about six months following a pescatarian diet, I eased into paleo—adding chicken or beef to my diet, and taking away most of the carbs. After six more months of that, I began to feel better and more focused—but I'd only lost a few kilos.
Since I'd worked so hard on getting meat back into my diet, I decided to give something else a shot: the keto diet.
My body started changing dramatically on the keto diet.
A quick primer on the keto diet if you're not familiar with it: It's a high-fat, low-carb, moderate-protein diet that forces your body into a state of ketosis (where you burn fat instead of carbs).
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It was tough at first (I had to cut out my beloved starchy carbs, along with any sweets), but eventually I got the swing of things and actually started to enjoy it. I lost about 35 pounds in the first six months.
Here's what a typical day of eating on the keto diet looks like for me:
Breakfast: coffee with grass-fed and organic butter or ghee with MCT oil.
Lunch: a huge salad with arugula, romaine lettuce, and mixed greens with goat cheese, caramelized onions, organic grilled lemon and rosemary chicken, pecans and homemade balsamic vinaigrette dressing.
Dinner: roasted salmon crusted with crushed pecans and dijon mustard with asparagus topped with truffle oil.
Snacks: keto bark (a mixture of Lily's chocolate with coconut oil, crushed macadamia nuts, and unsweetened shredded coconut flakes).
Once I started losing weight, I felt comfortable working out again, too.
I found an incredible orthopedic doctor who sent me to physical therapy for my back injury, and I also started getting cortisone injections and other treatments to help with my pain.
I was able to start working out slowly—about three days a week at the gym, doing a mixture of light weights and slow-but-steady cardio. After a few months of this, I lost another 7 kilos.
Keto isn't always easy.
Sometimes I slide backward and eat something that isn't keto-approved—but I don't punish myself for it. I just tell myself tomorrow is a brand-new day and I get to start fresh.
I also never feel deprived on keto—which is huge for my happiness. I always make sure to have tasty keto snacks on hand: single-serving guacamole, cheese, nut bars—I even get to have tasty pork rinds. And, while I do a lot of my own cooking at home, I always make sure to check restaurant menus beforehand when I decide to treat myself to a dinner out.
But it's not just about the weight loss—doing keto and making a commitment to exercise helped me start putting myself first, which ultimately made me a healthier, happier person overall.
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This article originally appeared in Women's Health US
