What was your moment, when you absolutely had to change?

(Roxanne) #60

Hmmmm…mine was gradual - there was a turning point for me, but I didn’t realize it at the time. I’ve always struggled, always carb binged, and always wondered why I could do ANYTHING I set my mind to except lose weight and keep it off. Why did I have no willpower? Why would I eat an entire pound of chocolate in one sitting? Diabetes runs in my family, ALL of my siblings, aunts and uncles have T2, so why was I doing this to myself? It was my constant question.

In March 2015, I went to a personal development workshop (Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Academy in San Diego, highly recommended). One of his speakers was Dr. Amen, who gave a fascinating presentation on the impact of sugar on our brain scans, showing that our addiction centers light up when we consume sugar. Ah ha… was I an an addict? But did I have the energy to tackle it? Not at the time. There were several other presentations stressing the importance of going beyond your regular medical physical and really finding out how your body ticked. Just because your various blood levels fall within the “accepted ranges” didn’t mean they were right for you. Interestingly, David Asprey of Bulletproof Coffee fame also gave a presentation, but at the time I though he was a quack :slight_smile:

So when I got home, I met with a naturopath, as well as my regular doctor. I had all the routine blood tests, which my GP said was all normal. But the naturopath pointed out that many of the figures were at the very bottom of the acceptable ranges, including B12, sodium, ferritin and thyroid. She showed me that in other countries (I’m in Canada), I actually fell below the reference ranges. I started supplementing with B12 injections, magnesium, selenium, natural thyroid and ashwaganda, and my brain fog lifted, my energy improved, and I finally had the will to look into this “sugar addiction” concept I had heard about at the HPA workshop. I googled sugar addiction and came across Bitten Johansen’s series on Diet Doctor. It made sense. I started looking at the other videos on Diet Doctor…Jason Fung, Westake, Lustwig, etc…and it all made sense. I watched Fung’s etiology of obesity on his IDM website, and it made sense too.

So I started LCHF in July 2016 and haven’t looked back. Down 31 pounds (currently stalled for 2 months), haven’t binged on carbs once (and twice on pistachios, can’t keep those in the house, apparently). I still have more to lose, but what amazes me is that for the first time in my life, I feel in control over food. I usually do 16:8 IF, have been doing a 24 hour fast once a week, and last week I did a 36 hour fast. I used to get headaches if I didn’t eat every 3 hours…the fact that I can go 36 hours without food totally astonishes me.

So not a single moment, really, but a journey. One that hasn’t ended yet!

(suzanna) #61

Took the words out of my mouth Brenda!
Reminds me of dr Phil years ago saying to Oprah when she bitched about thin people eating whatever they want and not gaining weight: “yeah, but that ain’t you!”

#62

@Henna Amazed you know what it is. Are you Suomalainen? I know a bit about my ancestry…but not too much.

(Henna Selnes) #63

I am Swedish/Sami from Sweden, married to a Norwegian, living in Norway. :slightly_smiling_face:

split this topic #64

13 posts were split to a new topic: Lutefisk

Lutefisk
(Ross Daniel) #65

@findingmysisu TIL sisu is war cry. Reminds me of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6vHOR8lzTg

Lutefisk
#66

That’s the way I look when I walk through the grocery store lol

(Marie) #67

I was afraid of hunger too.

(Andy Hanson) #68

I have an irregular heartbeat, though my cardiologist tells me there’s nothing to be concerned about. It’s of the harmless variety.

What got me was that part of the troubleshooting process to figure out why my heartbeat was irregular was to take me off of one of the two BP meds I was on. That particular drug can cause an irregular heartbeat. I sat down and looked at all the potential side effects of the medications I was taking, and discovered that all of them, while fixing one problem, were breaking my body in some other way. I was experiencing MANY of those side effects, which were making my life miserable.

Luckily, this all happened when I heard a couple of Joe Rogan podcasts. One was about some guys who did a weight loss challenge. Joe talked about the ketogenic diet, which I had never heard of before. A week or two later, he had Gary Taubes on. I decided to give lchf a shot, and here I am, feeling better than I’ve ever felt in my life.

(Michael Wallace Ellwood) #69

Well the weight thing was fairly obvious, but I suppose what really got to me was having to urinate too often (which at my age could also have been a dodgy prostate…), and then tingling / general feelings of “funniness” in my feet and toes.

So I knew I had to do something, but what? That took a while, but first reading an online article, and then the book “The Diet Delusion” (= “Good Calories, Bad Calories”) by Gary Taubes, pretty much convinced me of what I had to do. I then started reading up everything else I could find on low-carb…Jimmy Moore’s website and forum, Barry Groves’ website, blog and books, and many other websites/blogs over the years. This was 2007, going into 2008. Did well, but some time after 2009/2010/2011, I fell off the wagon big time. Was in denial for a few years. 2nd half of 2016, I knew I had to “do something” (again), and for a while, kidded myself that exercise was the way forward. However, (cutting a long story short) on 1 Jan 2017, I came back home to low-carb (with added keto goodness). (Still exercising though; it’s a necessary, but not sufficient condition).

Edit: I am often reminded of something I probably read first in “Good Calories, Bad Calories” (learned a heck of a lot from that book), which goes something like “it’s the lucky ones who get fat”. The unlucky ones (though they don’t realise it) are the ones who stay lean, but are actually as sick as the rest of us, and one day, it will come as a shock to them.

There I was, with my flab wobbling about, trying to shout at me “hey Mike, there’s something wrong here, why the heck don’t you do something about it…?” and I was busy going “yeah, yeah, I know, I’ve heard it before”, and doing my best to ignore the obvious. But those without the flab don’t even get this warning.

(Michelle) #70

What a great thread. Thanks goes to everyone for sharing their stories.

My aha moment was when I was wearing the largest size pants I’d ever bought, and couldn’t even zip them up. Had to fold in the button/zipper part and wear a shirt that covered up that part. Was miserable all the time and this was the point where I said, enough is enough.

Of course, that was a long time ago, and I lost it with carbs, protein and eating no fat. Exercised liked crazy. Took me a year to lose 60 pounds, and have struggled ever since - yo yo yo yo. Until now!!! Love Keto WOE!

:heart: this quote!!! Generation K!

#71

Love this thread. Thanks to everyone for sharing their stories. So much history of dieting, which ultimately wasn’t successful. AND made me feel miserable (and yes blame myself). The end of last year (Nov/Dec), I went to the doctor for some issue or another. I was tired (I would sleep 12 hours a day if I could) and felt too emotional. How I was feeling, I knew was a result of the bad food I was eating. I vowed to give up gluten for the new year, which lead me to keto as I tweaked the foods I needed to remove from my diet. Once I went into ketosis, I felt great. And I’ll never eat any other way again. I’ll be 48 at the end of this month and no way do I want to waste one more day of my life feeling miserable, cranky, or tired!

(I want abs... olutely all the bacon) #72

Hear hear, well said!

(gooeykablooey) #73

I went to the doctor the beginning of January 2015. For bleeding that wouldn’t stop (on third week of that), was so depressed I cried through the whole visit (I never cry) had recently taken up self harm (everyone needs a hobby right?) My cholesterol and blood pressure were both awful and my a1c was 7.9. They wanted to put me on birth control, antidepressants, and schedule an appointment to start talking about diabetes. So I said frig it. I’m not doing any of that. None of that would fix the underlying issues. Started doing my research and found Wheat Belly which lead to keto

(Peggy Theriault) #74

When I realized that I was 56 years old and my Dad died at the age of 58. It no longer seemed like a long time from now. My diabetes was out of control and I could see my path leading down the same one both of my parents have walked and are now no longer with us. So far I am doing really well and the neuropathy in my feet has stopped. I can’t reverse any damage done but I can prevent further damage. Now I have hope and a new outlook…I won’t go back to feeling lousy just to have a slice of bread or whatever else. This is my lifestyle now and I just want to forge ahead and talk to like minded people. :wink:

#75

I started in January, 2016. I was 27, 370 pounds, had been depressed for years, and had been avoiding going to the doctor for the greater part of decade because my blood pressure being taken was usually followed by a speech, and I knew that I probably had much bigger problems than that. Besides, ignoring my problems seemed easier than solving them. Then, in December, I started feeling a numbness in my hands/arms. Looking back, that wasn’t even new. I was just more worried because the numbness had stopped responding to me massaging my arms.

I had been wanting to do something about my weight for a long time, but hadn’t had much success with diets in the past. Then, one day, I heard Doug Benson mention that he stopped eating sugar because of a movie, Fed Up. I watched that, and decided to try and slowly turn bad habits into good. My first two steps were to kick the diet mountain dew (2L+ a day habit for pretty much my whole life.) and find something healthy and super quick for breakfast. I searched for a low-carb meal replacement drink, and found Keto Chow and from there, r/keto. I ordered a week, and was so impressed by the weight loss that not only did I fully commit to keto, but I also signed up on Dietbet and Healthy Wage, and started wagering on my weight loss. In a year, I lost 170 pounds, and won ~$5,000. I’m now 180, depression-free, and sporting a blood pressure of 123/70.

(Sierra) #76

“The moment” for me was…well there are a few that all kind of happened at the same time.

  1. (maybe superficial) We booked a 7 day cruise for next year and I want to look and feel good and actually enjoy myself on it as it will be my first cruise and I don’t want to go on it being self conscious and hating myself the entire time.

  2. I am getting married in June next year.

  3. My fiance and I want to start trying to conceive next year (after the cruise) and I want to be healthier when I start trying to do that. Being obese is not ideal for being pregnant and I want to be as healthy as I can be when we start trying :slight_smile:

and really… I am tired of hating myself and looking at myself in the mirror and getting all those old feelings back that I had when I was younger when I abused diet pills and mae myself throw up after I ate.

(Mark Lewis) #77

My eye doctor telling me that I started developing retinopathy due to type 2 complications. In the follow-up to the referred Ophthalmologist telling me I would likely need injections in my eye was a clear wake-up call. A friend of mine had been telling me about Keto for over two years and I never considered it for myself. He was doing it for weight loss, it was not until I looked into it further than I found out about the positive effect on diabetes.

(Roxanne) #78

That would totally freak me out…good luck!

(Jessica) #79

Yeah, it’s superficial. But this ‘Click’ Moment came, when I realised that I had developed a second fat roll on my back and started to get a little double chin. I had already given up the belly section, but this was too much.