“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
