Banting | LCHF go-getters – Minnaar Fullard

“The only way to feel comfortable about your body and successfully keep off lost weight is first to become aware that being overweight and chronically unhealthy is a symptom of lifestyle imbalance. It is time to balance the system.”

– Leiane Brebner, head of content, Real Meal Revolution

On these posts I celebrate success stories from achievers who have turned their life and health around.

First up is Minnaar Fullard from Pretoria South Africa:

Before weight: 103 kg

After weight: 85 kg

Before Banting

“Before I started Banting, I had been a runner and inclined to fitness all my life.

I have a compulsory fitness component to my life in that I am a Special Forces Operator that need to stay at a minimum level of fitness.

I was an active participant in road running and ran several marathons, including twice the Two Oceans and twice the Comrades.

I have always had a ‘sweet tooth’ and fond of pastas so the idea of carbo-loading was naturally appealing to me.

Despite my best efforts at staying and keeping fit, I had to experience my thighs “love handles” growing away from my body especially after reaching the forties.

I also started picking up quite a stomach.

I started experiencing discomfort while sleeping, my legs seems to have lost their feeling and I often woke up with pins and needles.

The sensation after eating a lot of bread or potato or in general a high carb meal really started becoming problematic. Discomfort and heartburn as well as deadly tiredness became regular symptoms of mine.

I started picking up weight despite my best efforts to train hard and run or exercise it off.

The worst part is that I often found myself over indulging when I consume a lot of sugar and carbohydrate rich foods. The craving for more and the lack of a feeling of being satisfied often got me in trouble with my wife. Compulsive eating habits were part of my daily regime often taking a second or a third helping during the evening meal. 

Then I heard about the LCHF way of eating from a friend and from the internet and due to my long standing respect for Prof Noakes, I use to own Lore of Running and also bought it as a present for friends, I started reading articles, googled podcasts and eventually bought The Real Meal Revolution.

Cut out sugar and starch

What happened next was I really became convinced of the theory behind the LCHF way and started experimenting with it seriously.

I cut all external sources of sugar and starch and moved over to a LCHF way of eating consisting of a solid breakfast of eggs, bacon or liver, tomato (sometimes fried onion), aubergine, avocado in season etc.

I started becoming a serious coffee drinker, preferring my coffee with full cream milk and cream (I like to froth my milk and cream).

Work snack

My snack at work consists of a couple of LCHF, nutty crackers (containing seeds and psyllium husk) that my wife make and I often make my own hummus from left over vegetables from the evening meal (according to the recipe in Real Meal Revolution). I found that the moment I started consuming psyllium husk, my constipation ended! I consider psyllium husk as one of the secret ingredients of a LCHF diet.

Supper

A typical supper would consist of a combination of the following vegetables: courgettes, pumpkin, cabbage, onion, sweet potato, oven baked or stir fried in coconut oil with a protein source like red meat stew or mince. It became such a pleasantry to not have cut away the fatty parts and this became my preferred portions. I regularly consume fresh vegetables with olive oil too.

The physical and mental results after a year of changing my eating pattern to LCHF:

I started of in April 2014 with a body weight of 103,4 kg, definite mental and physical symptoms of carbohydrate intolerance, tiredness and a general unsatisfied experience of food and the effect of exercise. I was visibly overweight, prone to gluttonous eating patterns, hunger cravings and tiredness.

Conclusion

After a very short time I physically started experienced the following:

I was losing weight without necessarily exercising more or better.

I was not feeling hungry for hours after having a good LCHF meal and my cravings for late night snakes or in-between eating disappeared.

I was able to cut out in between snacking and eating due to feeling satisfied for far longer.

I did not crave sugar anymore. A good cup of coffee with cream and full cream milk would almost act as a meal replacement for hours.

It was simple to become a ‘one platter’ something I could never succeed in doing while eating a high carb diet.

My energy levels picked up and I never experienced fatigue and tiredness after a meal anymore, on the contrary, eating the LCHF way leaves you satisfied and energized after a meal!

I could stay awake far easier in the evenings and experience less trouble waking up early.

Exercise became a pleasure again and not a burden.”

References:

www.realmealrevolution.com/real-testimonials

Photo credit – Unsplash Heng Films