We each weather our own storms. We each claim our own small victories. And in those small moments, we begin to find ourselves.

Keto was supposed to be a diet, a tool, a way to carve away the extra pounds. I paired it with fasting, counting hours and carbs, thinking only of the numbers. But somewhere around the two-month mark, something more mysterious happened—something I never expected. The storms inside my mind—the wild winds of bipolar disorder—fell silent. Not overnight, not all at once, but slowly, almost imperceptibly, like a fog lifting at dawn. I didn’t understand it at first. I only knew that life felt different: steadier, quieter, more possible. Curiosity led me deeper, into the science of the brain and metabolism, and eventually into the pages of Brain Energy by Dr. Chris Palmer and Change Your Diet, Change Your Mind by Georgia Ede. In those words, I found a new kind of map, a map for a journey that didn’t begin in a classroom or a clinic.
It began under the fluorescent lights of a grocery store, standing in front of endless rows of boxes and jars, reading labels like they were secret messages meant only for me. Health, it turns out, starts in strange places. Sometimes, it starts with learning how to choose.

Sucrose, fructose, glucose, dextrose, maltose, lactose, maltodextrin, high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), corn syrup, corn syrup solids, brown rice syrup, agave nectar, honey molasses, evaporated cane juice, cane crystals, cane sugar, fruit juice concentrate, caramel (used for coloring and sweetening), barley malt, rice syrup, maple syrup, treacle, sorghum syrup, turbinado sugar, invert sugar, raw sugar, beet sugar, date sugar, panela (unrefined whole cane sugar), glucose solids.

The dizzying amount of alternative names for sugar on food labels are a storm in themselves, but a sugar by any other name, is still a sugar and could derail a keto diet. Learning this was a slow process. The first time I looked at a nutrition label, all I saw was a bunch of words I couldn’t pronounce. It can be a painstaking process to look up every ingredient on a label with the goal of finding the cleanest foods on the market, but I did my homework, sifted through the chaos, and found a comfortable level of nutrition label competence. I got help from influencers who specialize in deciphering ingredient labels

Those who would like to avoid the storm altogether do have an alternative. The carnivore diet is simplicity at its finest. No storm. No chaos. No label-reading. Just the best cut of meat the consumer can afford, maybe some eggs, and water. There are still choices to make. What did the cow, or chicken, or fish you are eating, eat. Grains, soy. Some swear by read meat because the ruminant stomach can make up for some less than ideal feed. Some swear by grass-fed. Some include chicken and pork. 

Finding the diet that is right for you takes work and experimentation. You are an N=1. I tried the carnivore diet for about 6 months. As an elimination diet, it helped me incalculably. I suffered from debilitating back pain and when I went on carnivore, the back pain went away. It turned out that vegetables, especially high oxalate vegetables were a no-go for me. If I ate them, by back pain came back.

Like I said, N=1, over the last two years I have done a deep dive into the science of keto and carnivore. I have also done a lot of experimenting on myself.  I hesitate to place a label on myself (no pun intended), but I have settled on an animal-based diet with occasional forays into low-oxalate vegetables. I love avocados (which are high in oxalates). I don’t have to read a lot of labels anymore because I rarely shop in the middle aisles at the grocery store. I generally shop the periphery, meats produce, dairy. I’m also familiar with the “products” I do buy that have ingredient labels. They ideally have one or two ingredients only, so no more long lists of chemically names. Beware of “natural flavors”. It can hide some unnatural substances.

Learning to read ingredient labels was an important rite of passage because it taught me to be discerning and to understand for myself why ultra-processed foods were affecting me the way they were. Early on in my journey, I packed some high-protein bars in my backpack as meal replacements for emergencies. They were delicious, but they were sweetened with maltodextrin—which I later learned had a higher glycemic index than sugar.

It is a hard thing to give up the treats that you love, but for me, the trade-off has been incredibly rewarding. The more I learn the more I understand why some foods are “my foods”, and some foods will probably never be again. Losing weight has proven to be a bigger challenge than I anticipated, possibly due to the metabolic effects of medications. It takes patience, but my path is lined with small victories.