“We’re living like bums – eating whatever we can get. And most of the time we’re getting juice and sweets, bread and canned goods.”

For a lot of people keto diet is not only tasty, but also a real way to restore and maintain your health. Ksenia from Kiev was among them. Sadly because of the war, Ksenia was forced to go back to carbs.

I was corpulent for the most of my life, or rather thought so. Diets and constant living in stress destroyed my metabolist, and nearing 40s, I was weighing over 100kgs. Then I found out about keto diet. I was able to maintain it for months, and finally lose some weight.

But I was slipping for different reasons. I found out I have an eating disorder. Even though for some periods I was eating healthy, my blood work diagnosed a higher percentage of sugar in my blood and also insulin resistance.

My muscles were hurting, my legs were heavy, I always wanted to sleep and didn’t really enjoy living. I couldn’t get pregnant, even though I wanted to. My doctor recommended taking metformin, and strongly advised against keto, because “brain needs carbs”. Thank you, next.

I dived into Berg videos, started a keto diet and implemented intermittent fasting. Swimming pool, meat and leafy greens came to stay in my life. One week made a huge change: nothing was hurting anymore. I was cheerful and fresh! My brain didn’t want to sleep anymore, and my life was filled with new plans and happiness. In just a month I’ve lost 8 kgs. I felt lighter and better.

It’s war. Kyiv was immediately bombed in the very first hours. A few sleepless nights brought fear: you never know if a rocket strikes your 9th floor, and your Borschagovka hourse flips immediately, taking your life. Sleeping in the subway was not an option. We decided to leave.

My husband is a foreigner, so it’s impossible for him to join the army, and in the streets there’s a danger of being treated as a foreigner. I couldn’t go to his country for myriads of reasons. There was no opportunity to work for me, because I was working in a beauty industry and everything was closed. We came to Lviv. Western Ukraine was too expensive to even try to live. We had credit debts, no work and no money.

We crossed the border into Europe, but it was incredibly hard – my husband is from a “migrating risk” country.

Now we’re living like bums – eating whatever we can get. And most of the time we’re getting juice and sweets, bread and canned goods. We’ve crossed five countries searching for a place to stay.

Whole Europe is helping us, women with children first of all. Of course it’s fair and just. And we’re thankful, but we can’t allow ourselves the possibility to eat meat anymore. We don’t have the audacity to ask for meat.

Now we’re in Belgium, we’re living with wonderful people. We eat rice, macaroni and bread. What can we even do? My legs are heavy again, everything is hurting and I’m constantly falling asleep.

The only thing that’s left is to wait for documents (and we’re waiting for two weeks already) to start working, living and eating our own way.