So I’m trying something new. My doc put me on a diet. That dreaded four letter word everyone hates. The resolution nobody can keep. But here’s the thing: I’ve never actually gone on a diet with any intention of following it. They’ve either been too expensive, too far-fetched, too restrictive, too…something.

But this time everything the doc and I discussed leading up to that four letter word actually gave me some hope that making some “dietary changes” would have some positive effects. And once all my labs come back, I’ll probably have a new medication to go along with it. So I’m not going into this with as many reservations this time.

It has taken a long time to get to this point because previously the regular docs have all just told me to drink more water and exercise more and eat less. Well, that doesn’t work for me. No matter how much I exercise or how little  or what I eat, I stay overweight. I’m insulin resistant. I finally got a doc to refer me to a specialist who’s trying to find out why.

I’ve joked for a long time that my family tree has rotten roots. Sadly, this is no joke. Both parents were diabetics with heart disease and kidney disease. The odds are stacked against me. I already have high blood pressure. That, coupled with insulin resistance and an irregular menstrual cycle, means I most likely have PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), which I was diagnosed with in 2000 or 2001. But there are a few other conditions that can have the same symptoms which is what the specialist is testing for.

This mash-up of symptoms, especially the insulin resistance, causes weight gain and it is damn near impossible to take it off. That’s why the new doc has put me on the Keto diet. And I’m doing my research, looking at food lists and menus, printing out recipes, clearing out stuff from my fridge that I can’t have anymore. And I’m already getting into that mindset of “oh wait, I can’t eat that.” Like when we had Pumpkin Spice Everything Day at work and someone was passing out mini muffins. I didn’t think twice about passing on those. But I did get excited about finding a pumpkin fat bomb recipe in one of my Keto recipe books.

So I will give this diet a chance. And hopefully it will become a full-blown lifestyle change once the doc gets his labs back and decides what the next steps are. I’ve been a very round girl my whole life. It would be nice to be just a slightly curvy girl for the rest of it.