I should be selling myself as a self-help expert?

I was watching the news this morning and one of the channels had a guy on who was an inspiration because he'd lost 45 pounds during Coronavirus work from home via a keto diet and exercise.  Apparently he was teaching others to be just like him and eat healthy and harness the ability to change during this time.  

I've lost roughly 42.5 in the same period.  No Keto.  I have a beer now and then, and even a little more often now that I do a beer swap with the new neighbor (although he takes beer off my hands, so maybe that's the secret), eat a lot of ice cream, numerous eggs, have some m&m's.  If anything, my most common meal is a large pancake with a whole chopped banana, berries, and a bunch of whip cream almost every morning.  Seriously.  I have a plastic freezer bag with a series of dates on it going back to 3/16/2020 which is when I started making sure I always had a week to a week and a half of pancakes in reserve.  If anything, my whip cream consumption is foiled by my niece who steals my whip cream and fresh strawberries about as fast as I can procure them.  I've learned to create a glut before she gets here.

I'd add that most of that weight was the first 4 months.  The last one has been a little slow.  Cutting a big chunk of weight means you burn less calories day to day, so my speed of loss has slowed down.  And I had a habit of a really long bike ride every third week or so that was foiled by some flats the last two times.  I also slowed down my running a bit after I managed to run a couple of 5ks in a week (I'd never run a 5k before period before that).  Seemed like I'd met  my goal, so I lost some motivation.  I ran on Sunday this week for 30 minutes and I can REALLY feel it, so I know a slacked off a bit and have to get back on the plan.  I wanted to be able to do a comfortable (6.25 mph) 5k.  I have made sure I baseline about 10,000 steps a day as well no matter what else I do. I walk to the grocery store or the other grocery store or Target or wherever I'm going.  And if I'm an idiot and forget my mask, well then I walk further than 10,000 steps because I simply walk back to get it.  For a while I was listening to podcasts, but my headphones died, and in the two weeks it took to get new ones I fell out of the habit.  I'll get back in that groove too.  Listening to music and jogging outside is far preferable to treadmill running, even if those 90+ degree days mean I wear out fast.

I think my point is, you don't have to do a keto diet, and what you're doing isn't necessarily going to work for others.  I'm happy for the guy.  45 pounds is a big accomplishment.  But for my part, I wouldn't consider that a mandate to explain to others on national television that what I do will work for you.  Most folks I know have to find their own motivation and own groove - if keto makes you unhappy, you're unlikely to stick to it and there's probably a semi-low calorie food option that makes you happy, reasonably full, and doesn't deprive you of vitamins.

And iterate.  If you find yourself in a rut, the biggest advice I have is mix it up a little and try something else. Don't shift the whole thing (per above, I stuck to 10,000 steps all the time), but mix up the exercise, the food, the destination, the music....lot of options to make things interesting (although I apologize if you're a woman and scared of exercising in the dusk/twilight/dark; that's a serious spanner in the works not to mention patently unfair on a variety of levels).