I started gaining weight after high school. Up until then, I was fairly skinny (about 105 pounds), but I noticed that when I ate anything out of the norm, I would quickly and easily gain weight, so I kept my calories extremely low. When I got married, I weighed 150 pounds. I am 5'2". After having two children, my weight was at an all-time high of 194. I had gestational diabetes with my second child. I lost about 10 pounds doing the South Beach Diet. When I added carbs back, my weight loss stalled. 


A year later, I was at a health fair, and the nurse doing the blood sugar testing told me I had pre-diabetes. I was in denial. I didn't believe him at all. Still, I wanted to be sure, so I started taking readings on my old blood sugar meter. It was right. I did have it. I was so shocked and sad. I started following a carb restricted diet. I lost about 30 pounds just doing that, but then I stalled again. I read about something called The Primal Blueprint, so I stopped eating grains of all kinds. It really worked. I lost another 25 pounds or so. I've been stalled since June 2011, but it's been my own fault. Every time I get on a roll with my carb restriction and lose a pound or two, I have a carb relapse and eat pizza or something, and gain the pound or two back. It's been over and over like this. Still, I think of carb restriction as the most successful plan I've ever tried. My husband is not on board with me, and I know that if he were, I could lose the 20 pounds more I would like to lose. I'm not giving up, though. I feel much, much better when I don't eat the carbs. I have more energy, and I sleep better. 


If I eat carbs, then I have headaches, and mental fuzziness. I am also more irritable. I feel like carbs are a drug for me. Anyway, that is my story. I hope someone will benefit from my telling it. 

CHALLENGES: 
Family members who are not supportive, especially when they buy things I should not have. 

ADVICE: 
For me, it is life or death. I don't want to die of diabetes complications or heart disease. These things are rampant in my family. I don't know if I would have changed anything about my diet if I had not been diagnosed pre-diabetic. I just was not wiling to give up the foods I loved, until it became a health issue. If you need to lose weight, please don't let it get to this severe a point before you do something. 

I have a degree in dietetics and a fitness back ground in biomechanics.  I have over 14 years of experience in the fitness industry, and I currently manage Transformation Fitness Center in Edmond Oklahoma. My journey began with a 12 month search for the truth about diet and exercise.  What I found is not what I assumed to be true.  The more I looked, the more counter indications I found to what I had learned in my own degree of dietetics.  The guidelines promoted by the health fields and the USDA might not have the firm foundation I once thought it had. 

I would like to start with myself and show the differences it has made in my life and health.  I have seen my own roller coaster of weight gains and losses.  I have been as high as 217 pounds and back down to 175 pounds, and then to see my weight shoot back up over 200, all of which is tough on my 5 foot 7 inch frame. My ability to over exercise and not over consume calories seemed to be the only manageable possibility.  It appeared I would have to constantly be under even the recommended amount of calories or my weight would soar.  I had my blood work done for health insurance purposes to find my triglycerides and my cholesterol above of the recommended levels, and I was still in my mid-twenties at the time.  I ended up needing my gall bladder surgically removed after dealing with almost ten years of gall bladder attacks.  April 2009 I decided to get serious after my wife Erin decided to try the HCG diet.  I figured I could do something similar just a bit more calories and see if I could get my weight down as well.  I did lose weight, but my strength was decreasing as fast, if not faster, than the pounds.  I decided to research and find a better way to lose weight, without giving up what muscle I had. I stumbled onto what is called the Paleo diet.  It was completely against what I had learned in school, but the information made a lot of sense to me.  Researching well over 12 books, multiple documentaries, podcasts, and video lectures, I felt I had found the key.  Mainstream wisdom would call it pseudo-science or a fad diet.  If this is a fad diet, it is the oldest and most successful fad diet the world has ever seen.  

I am enjoying food, better health, and am at a weight I have not seen since my teens.  My weight is at 170 pounds and I am as strong as I was with forty more pounds on me.  I can eat without all the stomach problems that I had in the past.  No more bloated, heart burned filled indigestion spent after every meal.  My pant size is down from a 34 to a 30, and I dont have to spend hours in the gym to see results.  Usually lifting once to twice a week and running a few times a week.   

Pictures: Before 217 lbs VS After 162lbs

CHALLENGES: 
Being prepared daily so there are no excuses for cheating.  Having the Kids and wife to eat the same way.

ADVICE: 
Knowledge of why it is a better lifestyle.  To much bad advice in the media is a problem.  Being able to convince loved ones of the importance.

Hi everyone!

Im a 40 year old mother of three, who was a super skinny teenager who ate rubbish (especially sweets) her whole life. I did eat well at home, but anytime out of the house I ate very badly. I had no health issues, except chronic bronchitus as a teenager. I weighed about 45kg my entire youth, and Im 173cm tall. So quite thin! (99lbs/5'8")An Australian size 8. (the smallest size you can buy here)

Fast forward to my adult life and I was about 80kg at my heaviest. (180lbs). I had three children, and my eating was bad. I loved Maccas (McDonalds) and would eat it often. I loved coke too, and lived on cereal and two minute noodles when I was a young mother. 

As I got older, and remarried, I adopted an Asian diet, mainly due to the fact that we had an Asian student living with us, and I knew that they would not like our style of eating, so we began to eat chinese 6 nights a week. Pizza on Fridays was our junk food night. I typically ate rice at least 5 nights a week, and good healthy lean meat and lots of nice fresh veg to go with. A lot of bottled sauces though.

Over the years, I was unhappy being this weight, and aspired to be a size 8 again, or at least a 10 like I was in high school. I did Jenny Craig, weighwatchers (three times), Gloria Marshall, and as a last resort I attempted exercise. I went to the gym for 5 days a week for 2 years and became a little addicted to cardio. I managed to get down to the low 60kgs at this time, but I remember thinking that I didn't look much different to how I was when I was fat. I was very discouraged. I then got the Susan Powters book and began her exercise program, and instantly hurt my already sore back. I was also suffering the worst gall attacks and had to have my gall bladder removed, I had massive stones. I distinctly recall the Doctor commenting when I awoke, saying youre not fat forty and fairskinned so how come you have such huge stones lady? I had no idea. But during the time of my attacks I did stop eating any fat at all. Nothing. I also stopped eating greens as they gave me attacks too especially broccoli and similar vegetables. So I lived on bread. I got fatter which as I recall really confused me, I was not eating ANYthing with fat as I was so frightened of another attack which had me on the floor unable to dial 000 (911).

My back issue was so bad that I abandoned all and any exercise for a long time, I just said to myself ok that's not for you, it hurts a LOT and its too much money to keep going to the Dr. They put me on antidepressants which I hated, and gave me strong meds for the pain which further incapacitated me. I decided to go to the chiro for my back and throw out the drugs. I managed my pain as best I could over these 15 yrs or so.

So now to my current  circumstances. I am single again! I decided to go to uni and get a degree. I enrolled in dietetics and nutrition as Ive alwasys been interested in food. I was sitting in my Biochemistry class totally engrossed. I loved my teacher, he was so great to learn from and the added benefit was he was gorgeous and had a fantastic body. Im being honest here, and I was impressed with his teaching and his obvious level of fitness and health. He was in his mid to late 40s and I sat there thinking I wish I could look that awesome. We were learning metabolic pathways, and he was explaining what we were going to be spending the next 16 weeks learning, and during the overview he showed a illustration of what happens when we eat protein, fats and CHO. My mouth fell open. Im sure my eyes bulged. The rage inside me started to boil up. I turned to my fat friend (she was in her 50s and us older students stick together at uni) and I said through gritted teeth, "do you know what that means?...... that means that when you eat CHO it turns into FAT woman." I was blown away. I was livid. I put my hand up In the lecture and said  um excuse me, so why then do we eat so much grain and all that stuff on the food pyramid. He said  well thats a very good question, perhaps you should look into that.

I did. I looked online, and I remembered a diet I went on about 15  yrs ago for two weeks and lost 10kg. the Atkins diet. I did it while my husband was out of town because he was a vegetarian (fat) and he was very anti me being on this diet. So although I had great success on it, I did not immediately recall that this was something I could do long term. I had it in my head that eating bacon and eggs and roast chook exclusively was unhealthy and not sustainable. I think that for the few weeks I was on it I lived on meat and eggs and I was bored, and it was not possible to do long term and from my memory his diet was not a long term thing. I know now of course that if I added good carbs until I maintained, that this would have been a great life style, but at that time in my life I didnt read the book or understand the science behind it and so I dismissed his diet as a life style choice.

So back to google, and I came across Marks Daily Apple. I was immediately hooked. I loved his sensible approach coupled with lots of sciencey backup, and even though the website was hard to navigate, I kept going back if only to read the success stories.

I basically just googled everything I wanted to stick in my mouth to make sure I was under 50g of CHO a day. I did not cheat at all in the first few weeks, except I ate half an apple each morning while I made the kids school lunches. I really enjoyed this which is odd for me as I hate fruit and always have. I also still drank a lot of diet softdrink, pepsi max mainly, and could not give up milk in my two to three cups of instant coffee a day.

Breakfast was bacon and eggs with cheese, butter, spinach, mushrooms. I ate so much in the mornings I felt ill. Sometimes 4 eggs! I hate eating breakfast so this was a BIG deal for me.

Lunch:  I made a large bowl of carrot, zucchini with either chicken meat or tuna. Drowning in butter and garlic.

Dinner:  steak and vegetables such as carrot, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans. Huge portion of meat. I love animal fat, always have so never bought the good cuts, always ate the big hunk of fat down the side. In fact as a kid Id eat my parents discarded fat strips much to their disgust. During weight watchers I used to weigh my meat 100g of raw meat. Now I double the meat or triple it and halve my veg portion.

Snacks:  salami sticks  not great nutrition but at least Im not getting fatter! Ham cubes, cheese cubes, macadamia nuts, boiled eggs. I don't feel hungry for snacks much to be honest. Treats:  I  have a square or two of 85% dark choc at night, sometimes with a red wine, sometimes not.

Other stuff  I have started to cut back on soft drinks. I now drink a bit of soda water. Also added green tea. I sometimes fast. I hate and always have hated eating breakfast, so I mainly dont.  I eat when Im hungry. Yesterday I had no breakfast, at lunch time at work, I had a cup of beef stock. I tried to buy beef broth but it appears that it doesnt exist in my local supermarket. I needed some salt (feeling a bit odd when I stand up fast) and I read somewhere that a cup or two of broth can fix that. I thought oh well this is obviously going to be salty, lets eat it and see what happens. I had it and immediately felt way better. I wasnt hungry at all. I drank green tea all day at work.  I was surprised that my concentration was superb. I am supposed to get three sales a week. Yesterday whilst not eating I got 10. I usually get one a day. I am also really bad at counting the money (I work in a bank) and yesterday for the first time in ages, I balanced to the cent, and that hasnt happened for months. Im not saying that not eating did this, but I expected to be a bit vague and weary and I wasnt. I was sharp as a tack. As they say!

I do have a few cravings, esp when my teenage daughter is eating sweets. I miss that. But I do allow myself to eat crap when I feel its worth the health risk. If we eat out I made very good choices for the main meal and the beverages, and then I just have the sticky date pudding. I mean the world wont end just cause I ate that will it. I now let that happen and I dont worry about it at all. In the old weight watchers day I would eat it, and then sit there and calculate the amount of hours it would take to burn that off. I can still work it out to this day. (Its about 15 hours of flat out walking to burn that baby off). Thank god I dont have to do that anymore. Weight watchers (my fat mother was a leader for goodness sake) was the single most stupid weight loss thing I ever stuck at over and over and over. Obviously I didnt stick at it well. Its impossible to stick to long term, and I never had a lecturer that was proper thin. They were all medium fat, and did not have a body that I wanted. Even the chicks at the gym handing out advice to me when I did that for two years had bodies that I thought were not what I wanted to look like. Very uninspiring. 

So Ive been eating primally (as mark calls it) for about 6 months. Ive lost nearly 20kgs, most of it in the first month. I feel fabulous, Im getting people asking me if I have cancer. I love that. Its bizarre that people think that Im sick. Im not anorexic looking, I still have plenty of body fat. The thing that amazes me is that my coworkers are beside themselves thinking Im doing irepairable damage to myself. They sit in the lunch room with the rice crackers and cottage cheese and say things like I dont eat much, I dont get why Im not losing weight. I try and tell them but Im afraid the old conventional wisdom is too ingrained.  Im sitting beside them eating chicken wings by the plateful and getting disdainful looks. LOL I say swap that damn cracker for a piece of good quality ham, pop some proper real full cream cheese on top, and then eat about two dozen of them and see if youre still hungry. They look at me like Im a crazy woman!

I love that I discovered this on my own, That I did it on my own, and that I know my body so well now. My back has improved, the arthritis in my hands has gone, my reflux and bloating gone. My lack of energy is gone. I want to exercise. I hated that previously.  Its a miracle. 

CHALLENGES: 
I found the food easy. I find that people are weird when you tell them.

ADVICE: 
Yes, don't tell people at all, Just do it, and when they ask what youre doing say - Im not eating anything processed. That covers nearly every carb. 

After graduating college I moved to Florida where I worked in the subprime mortgage industry.  Things started to go bad, I got depressed.  I ate and drank by myself.  I ballooned up to close to 250 lbs.  

Then I moved to DC.  I started exercising again. I tried a number of different diets and exercises but found the most success with the Paleo influenced eating (which was initially kicked off by The Zone Diet and speaking with people from Crossfit).  

AWLR Comment: David has now lost over 60 pounds.