Christina Calle Didn’t Just Lose Weight, She Regained Her Health

Name: Christina Calle

Age: 33

Starting Weight: 270

Current Weight: 159

How long have you been following a ketogenic diet: 7 years

What is your favorite keto meal? Steak and avocado

Why did you start keto?

I tried Keto a few times throughout my weight loss journey. I’ve been on this journey for just over 7 years and I tried so many different types of “diets”. When I first tried Keto, it was during a work weight loss challenge and they were all trying Keto. The foods we were eating were mostly meat, cheese and butter, I didn’t like it and my body certainly didn’t like it.

So I gave up, then a coworker had great results and I tried it again but backed off the cheeses and butter. I did really well and finally got below 200. Then I got pregnant with my third. After she was born I had to do no dairy for allergy reasons and joked I was back to doing “ketoish” and was really eating a lot of veggies and a whole avocado a day, when I fell in love with the steak and avocado combo. Then I saw for the first time all the baby weight came off so quickly and then some, that never happened with my first two.

I started looking into a Keto diet that had more of the veggies focused and I discovered Dr. Berg and Clean Keto, I fell in love and went from 196 to 160 in just 4 months. Again, that never happened before during my long weight loss journey, so I started documenting even more about my KETO journey on IG @simplychristinafitness to share with others. I am loving the Clean Keto diet.

What was the hardest part of keto and how did you overcome it?

So the hardest part of Keto was finding foods that worked with my body, not all keto foods worked for me and made me sick and my stomach upset, which is why I gave up on it the first time. Another part was the “keto flu” that everyone talks about, when I did Keto the first time I was doing a gallon of water a day so I was flushing my body of its electrolytes. I now know that a gallon of water a day was really bad for me and I was just drinking plain water with no electrolytes. I found ULTIMA refresher and drink that every day and now even my kids drink it and they no longer ask to drink juice.

Biggest changes in your day-to-day life?

I am not consumed by food, I don’t wake up thinking about food or crazy hungry anymore. Fasting was never my goal but it just came naturally. For years we are told we need to eat a huge breakfast to “get the metabolism fire going”, but that is not true at all. I wake up with food freedom. I drink a full glass of water with ACV and then I drink a huge tumbler of water and the electrolytes and by 2 I am actually hungry and get something to eat. Now if I do wake up hungry for whatever reason I will eat, I won’t make myself fast, if I am hungry I eat, if I am not hungry I won’t eat.

Best tip for newbies?

Drink your electrolytes, if nothing else drink the electrolytes, it will help with feeling tired, brain fog, and headaches. Stop drinking a gallon of water a day, it does nothing for you. Get your fats in naturally too, don’t eat a stick of butter or a block of cream cheese. I eat a half an avocado with each meal, I eat grassfed beef with a higher fat count, I eat the fat on the grassfed steak, I eat salmon and almonds. But don’t go too crazy with nuts it can slow the process down, at least for me. When I see I am not losing or maintaining, it’s usually because I went crazy with the nuts.

If there is one thing that you could tell yourself when first getting started, what would it be and why?

Take it one meal at a time, when I first started I wanted to go all in and got overwhelmed and wasn’t prepared. I made it too hard for me. So when I got back into Keto after having my third I replaced one meal a week. If I could master one meal then I could sustain the keto lifestyle.

Anything you would like to add about your story? 

Don’t look at this as a diet to just lose weight. For me this was much more than losing weight, I was overweight, yes, but the inflammation in my joints was awful, I had terrible brain fog, I hurt all over, I wasn’t sleeping, I was irritable all of the time. Once I changed the way I was eating, that is when I started seeing more changes than just losing weight. It’s a lifestyle change that I made to better my health for my family.