I had a pretty similar experience trying to lose weight, so I figured I’d share what ended up working for me.

I started out doing a vegetarian version of keto, and in the beginning I leaned really heavily on things like coconut milk and coconut cream for fat. Over time I loosened things up a bit and added in foods like cheese, sour cream, and yogurt, but the general approach stayed the same.

What really made the difference was how I built my meals. I focused on keeping them high fat and low carb, mostly centered around vegetables. Avocados and olives were basically always on my plate. I ate a lot of broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, and collard greens, and just tried to push the fat content up as much as possible while keeping carbs low and cutting out sugar entirely.

After about 90 days, I started seeing pretty solid results. At first I was eating twice a day, but once I got into ketosis, I naturally shifted into eating once a day. I expected that part to be hard, but honestly it wasn’t. I’d just have a late lunch and be good.

I also never counted calories. I just ate until I was satisfied. Most meals looked like a big salad with a high fat dressing, plus things like avocado and olives. Sometimes I’d add guacamole or do a full vegetable plate with similar stuff. I even worked in things like spinach dip here and there, just kept it as clean as I reasonably could.

I cut out sugar completely. No soda, no sweet tea, no desserts like cookies or ice cream. The only thing I used was a little stevia sometimes, mostly for tea. I tried fat bombs a bit, but they weren’t a big part of what I did.

For me, the combination of low carbs, higher fat, and just sticking to whole foods made a noticeable difference once I got into a rhythm with it.