I Ruined a Perfectly Good Body! Now What?

Follow along, and hopefully participate, on my second weight loss journey…

That’s right, this will be my second weight loss journey. Back in 2014 I weighed around 317 pounds and was taking pills for my high blood pressure and Type II Diabetes. I was on the verge of being prescribed Omeprazole for my stomach problems, which included not being able to eat bacon without becoming nauseous, and that’s when I decided to do something about my health. I wasn’t getting very much help from doctors except for take this pill for that and that pill for this. I didn’t want to take any pills, so I decided to look into improving my health on my own. In the process I lost 95 pounds and got off all my meds!

I got down to 222 pounds and was feeling great and guess what happened? I retired at 65 years old and then a year later Covid hit. I was stuck at home thinking the world was going to end, so I started eating the wrong things again and little by little I gained weight and now I’m back up to 249 pounds and not feeling all that good! I do not want to hit that 250 pound mark so its time to get serious again. Time to revisit my initial weight loss journey.

So the first thing I did back then was try to fix my gut health since that was the latest ailment I was dealing with. In my research on the internet I came across this doctor named Dr. Alejandro Junger. He developed a gut cleanse program called the Clean Program. After I did that program for 28 days I did indeed fix my gut! I felt a lot better and even lost a little weight! I never got the omeprazole prescription and I could eat bacon again!

So that was a good start. When I was getting close to the end of that program I asked one of the gut consultants, which is a free service while on the program, what do I do when the 28 days are up? That person suggested I look into the Primal Blueprint people for their version of the Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) diet which goes by the name Keto today. The Primal Blueprint website has turned into the Primal Kitchen and now focuses on selling food products made with healthy ingredients and are low in carbs. Primal Blueprint was the brain child of Mark Sisson who had another website called Mark’s Daily Apple. He now has tons of books available and is on Youtube too. You should check all that out because that’s where I lost the majority of weight and normalized my blood pressure and blood sugar too! I got off all my meds!

So over the next 14 months I lost an average of 5 pounds for a total of 70 pounds. And over the next few years, while eating very satisfying meals, I lost another 25 pounds. So I didn’t eat cereal for breakfast anymore. My breakfast of champions was now bacon and eggs! I didn’t always eat 3 meals a day. I only ate when I was hungry! Imagine that! Sometimes I fasted! I would fast 24 hours, 72 hours, 5 days and once I fasted for even 7 days. Check out Dr. Jason Fung for everything you wanted to know about fasting, but were afraid to ask.

YOU MUST ALSO CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR WHEN CHANGING YOUR DIET OR DOING FASTING! I did work with my primary care doctor at the time and she monitored all my vitals by checking my blood work a lot.

When I started losing weight by eating the right foods it became comfortable for me to start exercising again. I could do jumping jacks without cracking the foundation of the house and not jiggling like a bowl of jello! I started riding my bike again, playing tennis, frisbee and doing a lot of walking including hiking on trails around Sedona. I even started watching football games while standing up and not sitting on my butt for 3 hours at a time! You have to keep moving!

So like I said, everything was going fine for about 7 years and then I retired and then Covid hit. I just can’t keep away from the refrigerator anymore. I still walk a lot and thank god for that, otherwise I’d be as big as the Goodyear Blimp! So hopefully, I will get in the right mindset and lose the 27 pounds I’ve put on in the last 3 years and hopefully lose even more weight. It would be nice if I had a little company on the way. I used to be a Primal Blueprint Health Coach and have helped hundreds of people online back in the day. Its always easier with a community of like minded people! My plan is to write health posts including some recipes and try to answer any questions you might have about this process.