      College life is enviably chaotic, and becoming stressed and pressed for time occurs regularly. It seemed like this semester went into full drive before I was able to fully develop a good routine and any good eating habits I had went directly out of the window. To top it off my birthday happened within the second week of class, so eating and partying like it was birthday progressed the bad habit situation.
           Due to a lot of terrible food and beverage intake, my stomach was constantly hurting. I felt extremely bloated and sluggish. At the end of week three (I hope, who keeps track anymore) I fractured my foot, leaving any plans of hitting the gym in the dust. Sadly, but also thankfully, this gave me the extra push I needed to clean up my diet since this would strictly be what I would rely on in order to not gain weight. Here’s what happened:
           This is what we’re starting with. Extreme bloating. Shorts aren’t quite fitting right. Honestly this is pretty embarrassing to post, but maybe this’ll be the motivation I need to not let myself get back to this state again?
           In order to clean up my diet, I started back up an eating plan that I used to live by, but stopped following in the summer after taking ten credit hours, working as a cyber security analyst intern, and spending any of my free time with friends at restaurants. The Keto diet seems to be extremely popular these days, but it’s not exactly the best plan to follow for a long time. It’s more of a quick fix in my opinion, and can be difficult to maintain. I’m not entirely sure how popular carb-cycling is, but this eating plan is what has helped me maintain my weight the most.
           Carb-cycling incorporates the Keto diet to a point. As in I’m only going carb-less for about two days a week, maybe three if I feel like making things a bit more extreme. On days I don’t eat carbohydrates, I increase my protein and vegetable (not fat) intake greatly to make up for the energy I’m not receiving from carbohydrates. On the other days, I simply watch my carb intake and the carbs I do consume are whole grain. Now for best results and making sure you feel your best, you should probably eat clean constantly. If you’re like me though, I have a hard time giving up Fro-yo covered in sugar and Taco Bell entirely. So I haven’t strictly followed this diet the whole time, but about 95% of the time I am.
      After a two-week period, here’s where I’ve gotten. Obviously I’m not a Instagram influencer baddie, but it’s defiantly great progress from where I started.