My name is Neil. I grew up the "heavy kid", and my weight has always been a struggle. I can remember being 110 pounds in the 5th grade, riding my bike a few blocks to go buy a 1/2 lb bag of M&M's...for MYSELF! There was a lot of ridicule, and school-aged kids can be brutal.
But my weight struggle continued through college. That is, until I ran out of money and stipends! I lost a lot of weight...the WRONG way! This was the beginning of my yo-yo weight journey. Take note: at that point, it was still to me just a "weight problem", and I didn't even KNOW to consider all the other factors of good health. My weight was up one month, down the next. Up for another month, down for two...etc. My "strategy" was to simply "burn more calories than I ate". SPOILER ALERT: that DOES NOT WORK!
I had a co-worker turn me on to light jogging/power-walking (because my knees couldn't yet handle running). That worked up to normal jogging, but I didn't have a bad weather plan. I then got turned on to Billy Blanks Tae-Bo fitness workouts (without the spandex! LOL) This began as just a bad weather option, but became my go-to after just a few months.
So....why was I not able to lose weight & keep it off?!?!? That was SO frustrating! I was eating "well" by my doctor's recommendations. I increased my workouts to the point of doing a minimum of 2 30-min workouts a day, and longer ones on the weekends. The best I did was maintain, but that pace was not sustainable. I eventually gave up.
Fast-forward 10 years: I am remarried, and in addition to my daughter, I welcomed in a teenage step daughter and step son, as well as our brand new baby girl! That wasn't my wake-up call, but it did remind me of the importance of staying healthy for a long time...for my family. I dabbled with the same philosophy of "eat less, move more", but to nowhere near the extent as before.
Then C-19 came around, and the entire planet was to told to stay at home, sit on your arse, or you might die if you venture outside! #DangerWillRobinson Even the forced isolation and need to occupy my time wasn't enough to really motivate me to repeat what didn't work in the past. Throughout the holiday season of 2020, I became more and more unhappy with my body, my weight...but now MY HEALTH (how I felt, my low energy level, chronic joint & muscle pains).
As honest as I can be, hand on a stack of Bibles, don't know what lead me to it, but I somehow watched a video from a doctor on YouTube that talked about all these issues I was experiencing. One video lead to another, to another, to another...I was so far down that YouTube hole I wasn't sure how to get out! But I was learning so much, I didn't really want to! The doctor's name was Dr Ken Berry, a family physician with over 20 years of family medicine, ER, and clinical training. I became a SPONGE for what he was teaching: a "Proper Human Diet". I was filling up pages of notes every day! And his channel lead me to several other experts in the field: Dr Robert Cywes, Dr David Diamond, Dr Jason Fung, Dr Mindy Pelz, Dr Daniel Pompa, Ben Azadi, Michelle Hurn-RD...the list goes on!
Through what they offered, and where that lead, I WENT TO "SCHOOL"!!!!! I became a student of the Proper Human Diet (PHD): the spectrum spanning low-carb, to ketogenic, to ketovore, to carnivore. And not just for weight loss, but for optimal TOTAL health.
I started my PHD journey on Jan 14, 2021:
My weight was 267 lbs, chronic pain in muscles and joints, size 40 pants, XXL shirts (button-down only to better hide my weight); I did not have my A1C checked at the time, but my doctor had been hinting at pre-diabetes for a few years, which I guess I ignored. My HDL was below 45, triglycerides were 480, I had fatty liver, fatty kidney, fatty pancreas, and even fatty tongue (I snored like a freight train!)
Within 6 months of starting ketogenic way of eating, I cut my trigs more than in half down to 229, HDL maintained, markers for fatty organs were dropping, and my weight was down by 30 pounds! And not ONE BIT of exercise was done!
That said, I remember the day very well when I thought, "you know...let's just try a push-up" ( a thought I hadn't had in, well...EVER!). I got down on the floor, and shocked myself when I had already finished one push-up without even realizing it! Not a knee push-up; a full-blown, regular, on your toes push-up! So I thought, "let try one more"...8 push-ups later I had set my new baseline for push-ups! I was so excited!
As my health markers improved, I actually felt like being more active; not always a "workout", but just doing more..playing with our daughter, getting goofy with the kids outside, taking the steps, parking further away and not caring.
At my last check, my A1C was a beautiful 5.1, trigs under 100...I have labs scheduled for this November (stay tuned!) I have lost over 70 pounds; my lowest was 194, but my weight has stabilized right at 199-201. I'LL TAKE IT!!!
The Proper Human Diet coupled with some Fasting strategies is what did it for me! Returning to an ancestrally-appropriate way of eating, a better understanding of how humans have existed as a species for so long, has opened the doorway to dramatically better health, and I look forward to living a very long, vibrant life with my family.
...and we want to help you, too!!!
Improvement comes 1% at a time...be better today than you were yesterday!
You are not authorised to post comments.
Comments will undergo moderation before they get published.