How I lost 92 pounds and kept it off
I was 8 years old and wearing a women's size XL. I was extremely emotional and constantly hangry. We were fed what I considered a normal American diet consisting of pancakes and orange juice for breakfast, a lunchable and chips for lunch and pizza for dinner. I suffered with uncontrollable eating and a never ending desire for more carbs and sugar.
On Halloween night, I remember we would eat ALL of our candy. Zero self control. Thanksgiving and Christmas weren't any better. Then of course New Years, Easter, Birthdays and special occasions. It just never ended.
My dad cooked steak and mashed potatoes on a special occasion but this wasn't often. Besides this occasional real food meal, I ate processed snacks and drinks, and boxed foods for meals.
From the age of 8 years old I started dieting. I never succeeded. It was always a short term just a couple of days thing and then right back to our bad habits.
After all these years, I finally found the method to health weight loss that's sustainable and enjoyable. I have been on my low carb real food journey for over a year. This shocks so many but truthfully, I am never tempted to have cheat days. My cravings for that food is GONE. Here are my 10 tips on how to lose weight in a healthy way.
1. Join a Support Group - This is the most important part of getting healthy and losing weight. A support group will give you the strength, encouragement, and community needed to succeed with weight loss for the long term. With any of our books or our Free Keto Food List, you will have instant access to our private facebook group! Currently over 12k members and growing!
2. Eat a Clean Keto Diet - This is a low carb, moderate protein, and high fat diet. I didn't take away the foods I love, I just found their healthy low carb alternatives (for healthy keto recipes, click here). This also focuses on the quality of ingredients, which is where other low carb diets fall short. No Keto processed junk here! Clean Keto is the upside down version of our American food pyramid. Currently, the SAD (standard American diet) puts fats very low, protein in the middle, and carbs and highly processed food as the highest amount of food required for the human body.) Because fats are discouraged and carbs are encouraged, we now have a Diabetes Epidemic in our country with 130 million US citizens having Diabetes or Pre-Diabetes (CDC 2022 Report).
"The estimated total economic cost of diagnosed diabetes in 2017 is $327 billion, a 26% increase from our previous estimate of $245 billion (in 2012 dollars)!"
3. Intermittent Fasting - Eating a clean diet is not enough. Americans eat around 16x per day. Not kidding. This includes coffees, drinks, shakes, snacks and meals. This spikes insulin all day which over time tells the body to store fat. Turning 10 meals to 2 or 3 meals a day will let your body use your fat stores, let your body rest, and start burning Fat as fuel instead of sugar as fuel. Click here to learn more about intermittent fasting.
4. Drink Electrolytes - When fasting, the first 10 pounds can come off super fast. The body is getting rid of excess water weight. With the water goes all of the electrolytes! Electrolytes keeps your body functioning correctly, your heart and nerves working, and your brain functioning. Without them, the body can have muscle spasms, heart arrhythmia, and when fasting you can experience the keto flu (a terrible migraine from a lack of electrolytes) Click here to learn more about Electrolytes.
5. Don't workout - During the process of fat adaptation, the body goes through changes in hormones, in amounts of insulin, in cellular function, and in brain function. When working out during this transition period, it can increase cortisol which will encourage the body to retain body fat. I highly suggest focusing on nutrition first and getting that routine down. Once this is done and you feel ready, this is a great time to add in your daily exercise routine. Exercise for your heart, exercise for your health but don't do it for the weight loss aspect.
6. Decrease your eating window over time - I went from 3 meals a day, to 2 meals a day, to 1 meal a day over a period of 4-6 months. I didn't rush these transitions. I wasn't starving, and my body was also being fueled by my fat storage. You will most likely be eating more calories than other diets, which is the reverse of starving. The body performs really well on less meals in a day. To see my full path of my Keto Journey, click here.
7. Get enough sleep - Getting 7 to 8 hours of sleep (sometimes 9 or 10) is vital for the body to function at its best. Without adequate sleep, this can tell the body to hold on to fat (even with a clean keto diet and intermittent fasting).
8. Reduce your stress - Stress will kick in the fight or flight function in the body, which will release cortisol and hold on to body fat. Find the ways to wind down, reduce conflict, stop watching the news (or anything negative or political), and try finding the plus points in every human being instead of the negatives. No matter how this takes place for you, find ways to reduce stress.
9. Increase Stomach Acid - I used to burp so much over nothing, and sometimes I would burp up food I had eaten and it would burn my throat. I had terrible constipation from an early age and my digestion was not good. I always thought it was normal. Once I fixed my eating, this changed drastically (though I still had some issues). Only until I increased my stomach acid did I start digesting things properly without smelly or acidic burps. To learn more about how stomach stomach acid can help with digestion, health, and weight loss, then click here.
10. Strict Keto or OMAD (One meal a day) - After losing some weight on Clean Keto, I had a stall in my weight loss. I had to become more strict with my eating window and the types of food I ate. To learn more about this, then click here.
If you want to join a challenge, try our 21 Day Keto Plan challenge. A new round starts every Monday! We are on a mission to help families worldwide to get healthy and lose weight. Stored fat is one of the beginning sign of health problems. Whatever your motivation is to lose weight, know that we want to help you become healthy to lose weight, and not lose weight in a way that will create other health problems. Many weight loss programs can be extremely difficult to sustain and the food is terrible! It's time to get started learning it the right way!
Xoxo,
Tiffany
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