Painfully often, I catch myself wasting time and attention with details that would be much better invested in the 20% (2-3 basic things) that brings 80% of the results.Our brains love to overcomplicate things.Even when we know we’d be better off with just getting a few basic moves right…Nowhere is this more true than in the world of keto and low carb. When trying to adopt a new habit or lifestyle change, there’s virtually no limit to the amount of attention it can consume, and somehow still crash into the ditch of failed attempts (for me, it’s getting mighty full down there…)When I observe people with habits and skills I’d like to cultivate in myself, it seems that consistency is rarely found without daily simplicity and a generous measure of self-love. This is hardly a coincidence.Making anything a part of your daily life, from learning a new instrument or starting a new movement habit or keto requires overcoming these 3 habit killer pitfalls.1. Not making keto simple enoughAhh.. this one’s a time honored favorite: Starting with too high standards that aren’t sustainable in the long run.This is literally how most people start (and fail) keto for the first time. Actually, feel free to replace the word “keto” with “playing guitar”, “new training plan” or basically anything we’d like to start doing consistently.Guilty as charged. Fueled by high expectations and a transient love affair with the new thing, we spend way more attention on it than reasonably justified.It takes courage to admit that the key to any sustainable practice is starting with standards low enough to patiently accommodate them into our days.The most successful coaches and music teachers know that five minutes of dedication a day over time is better than attempting a two-hour routine that only lasts a while before the wheels of the habit wagon fall off.I learned the basics of guitar (enough to sing and play classic songs for hours!) about two years ago with around 5 minutes a day for a few months. The total play time was ridiculously low, probably around 20 hours or so. Consistency and simplicity beats high sporadic volume every time. The tiny time commitment allowed me to stay on track, even on the days when I didn’t have time and was tempted to skip a day.My first keto experiments that I shared in previous letters was nothing like that. It took way more attention and time than would be sustainable.It was clear that I needed a tool that made keto stupidly simple and fast for me. Last time, research, prep, shopping, choosing, looking for restaurants, choosing and making meals, snacks, breakfasts and treats etc. took me probably an hour a day, on average, and probably even more on the first week. In the vein of learning guitar, I decided on five minutes.Otherwise it either wouldn’t happen, or would take way too much time, money and attention to be truly sustainable.For keto, or any personalized food and health goal, it’s actually really easy to know if you’re going to stick it out or not. “How much time did you spend last week shopping, carefully choosing and preparing 3-4 meals a day?“If you’re not spending around an hour a day on carefully choosing and preparing daily meals as it stands, it’s probably not going to happen on keto. Which unfortunately means that the benefits of keto won’t happen to you. At least not without making things stupidly simple.That means that the amount of effort to start and stay in keto needs to be so low that you won’t give up when you’re hungry, angry and short on time. In my experience, that busy moment when I’m about to give up is literally the only moment I need to prepare for. If I get this right, I’ve nailed the 20% of actions that brings 80% of the results of keto, and can feel at ease knowing I’ve locked in the benefits I can feel and measure.The Pareto principle of 80/20, is so basic, it almost hurts. It strips everything into essentials. But still, most of us aim too high and fail spectacularly.If you have doubts of how much attention you can consistently dedicate to starting and keeping doing keto and experiencing the desired benefits, assume it’s 5 minutes per day and plan accordingly. For most people, anything more is unrealistic.Which means that keto should be made stupidly simple. This is where I’ve found fast and tasty options like keto-accelerating meal shakes to be extremely useful.2. Not preparing for the moment there’s no keto food around and you’d like to give upIt’s 3PM, and the hunger you’ve felt since your heroic keto breakfast of two pre-boiled eggs is starting to manifest as brain fog and stressful snappiness that your colleagues are starting to notice. You haven’t had lunch, need to meet a deadline, have family commitments to fulfill – and there are no keto options available in the restaurants close by.It’s really tempting to give up on moments like this, and rightly so. Daily life is enough without topping it off with an additional keto meal hunting meta-game that you get to play at every breakfast, lunch and dinner. But for starting and staying keto, preparing for the busiest, most inconvenient moment is only moment that counts - and it will come. 3. Hyperfocusing on keto and ditching all other commitments and adviceSome people have the tendency to go overboard with new things, and it has certainly happened to me. While useful and maybe even necessary for creating new things and pushing through obstacles as an entrepreneur, hyperfocus is by definition an unsustainable long term strategy for life. And there are definitely more important things to focus on in life than daily food choices.Hyperfocus on keto causes a lot of confusion for many.“Isn’t it enough to just be keto, even if it means eating only bacon?” Of course, the answer is no. For some people, keto is an excuse to ditch all basic health knowledge and every other constructive healthy habit they’ve built over the years.While a simple strategy for going low carb, eating only bacon (or any one thing) is still an extremely bad idea. “Stupid Keto” with little to no vegetables crashes against the reality of the critical importance of plants and their protective compounds, soluble fibre, electrolytes, and stomach friendly foods with probiotics and enzymes. That’s why keto or any other food strategy providing less than 6-8 servings of nutrient dense plants a day is a fantastic and time efficient way to very rapidly screw up your health, longevity and well being. Every sound nutritional study confirms this, apart from individuals with extremely rare and poorly understood autoimmune conditions, usually diagnosed in early childhood.Jumping on the colorful bandwagon of extreme fringe diets like carnivore, 100% bacon, 100% potatoes or other hyper simplified theme rides doesn’t look like a smart way to unlock the benefits of keto, or any other positive outcome, perhaps with the exception of turning yourself into a vegetable (or slice of bacon). Plants are essential for keto. Benefitting massively from nutritional ketosis doesn’t require eating meat or dairy. In addition to the documented health risks of massively meat-heavy diets low in plants and the lessons from the so called Blue Zones with the longest living people on our planet, we know how our food choices and the unsustainable meat and dairy industries are in need of a makeover and better plant based alternatives for all.Hyperfocus on keto at the cost of everything else, including your health and body goals, is probably not worth it. In my opinion, it’s also beside the point. I want things like keto to support everything I love in life, not the other way around. Food should feel and taste awesome. It should never have to become a source of stress. Life is too short to not enjoy what we eat and how we feel every day. That’s why I choose to enjoy the benefits of powerful tools like keto and my 5-minute-a-day guitar lessons in ways that are smarter, not harder.After trying every other “easy” keto option out there, I wanted to make keto easy and tasty for myself and everyone who has messaged me about it. With my cofounder and our recipe mastermind Ironman-Arno and my team, we even called it “Keto made easy” when we started creating it…We have big chocolate fans in the team, including me, so the level of pure chocolate satisfaction needed to be on par with a five-star chocolate dessert. It’s a high bar and required countless rounds of trial and error, but the satisfying, deep and smooth chocolate in our final formulation really hits the spot for me.Want to try it now?>> Check out the exclusive Keto Launch Deals before they are gonearticle written by Simo Suoheimo
