I haven't seen many threads on Keto, so I thought I would share my experiences if it helps anyone out.
I started Keto (look it up if you don't know what it is), in the February before lockdown. I lost 22lbs and got down to 10st 2lb (I'm a 5'7" bloke). The first week was really hard, you can feel tired, mild headaches, but worst of all was sugar cravings. I overcame it though becasue I was sick of having a belly.
The first week I lost 1.5 lbs - it does take a few days to get into Ketosis and start burning fat. The second week I lost 2lbs, and it was pretty much 2lbs a week until I got to my target weight.
Cheese, eggs, meat and salad were my main go-to's. But then I was diagnosed with dairy intolerance so I gave up dairy. Harder to do without having cheese to fall back on as a tasty snack, but still fairly easy. I do not like dairy free cheese at all!
My weight slowly creeps up whenever I come off it. That's not the fault of the diet, but I've always struggled maintaining my weight so I tend to binge on crap and booze whenever I've lost weight!
Pro's and Cons:
Pro's: It's quite easy to follow, not much counting involved once you know what's good and what's bad.
I felt really good on it in terms of energy; because your blood sugar is very low and stable, I stopped nodding off at my desk after lunch.
I slept a lot better through the night
I felt full after every meal which helped stave off the cravings for "pudding" e.g. biscuits, crisps, ice cream etc.
I ate a lot more healthily because salad and green veg were my staples.
If you stick to 25g of carbs, it really does work.
It's nice to be able to eat as much as you want (within reason), so if you still feel hungry after your meal, you can have some more. Or if you're really starving and want 5xbacon, 2xeggs, sausage and mayo, you can.
You can drink alcohol! Well, clear spirits and diet mixers, but that's not bad.
Con's:
First week can be tough, you certainly need motivation to get through it.
You can get uncomfortable symptoms like mild cold symptoms, constipation (or the opposite), bad breath initially, but I only suffered with a bit of constipation.
Can be difficult to have a meal out or a takeway.
Is much more difficult if you are veggie or vegan (I would imagine).
It can wear you down mentally after a few weeks.
Tips and summary:
I mostly ate eggs and bacon for breakfast, or a variation on that e.g. omelletes with ham, cheese omelletes (if you can eat dairy).
For lunch it was nearly always salad but I tried to mix it up by doing different salads. I found coleslaw was a really nice treat, just don't go overboard because of the carrots and onion (check the carbs per 100g and estimate what your intake is). So salad with either bacon, tuna mayo, chicken or ham/cured meats.
Dinner was some sort of meat and veg with gravy. You can get away with a small amount of gravy, curry sauce, whatever... as long as you check the numbers. These are things that can catch you out and bring you out of ketosis, so you'll have to start all over again. I found that if I was craving a curry, I could make it with my own spices, and coconut milk or butter, then I know what's going in it (e.g. no sugar and no thickener). I often had Bolognaise with greens instead of spaghetti. You can even cut them long if you want something to twirl around your fork! And the plus side is, you can use left over bolognese or chilli the next morning for breakfast; a bolognese omellette is quite special.
Feel free to ask me anything else if you want to give it a try. I must also add: If you are very obese or very ill, run it past your GP before you start.