The Diets I've Tried

I'm like many people who've struggled with their weight. We know we should get it off and we've tried multiple approaches to succeed. And we may actually succeed sometimes, but we struggle to keep it that way. With the diets I've tried, I've seen success, enjoyed them for a while, but never stuck with them, especially when things were hard from the mental side of life.

In high school, I felt overweight and like the "biggest" girl on my volleyball team. I recall being a size 8, but I often felt larger than I actually was. While I was working out regularly, I wasn't eating all that well. When I started college, I stopped consistently exercising, but poor eating habits remained. After all, a McDonald's Coke was practically the best drink ever and was only $1 for any size, so I might as well get the large, even if I don't drink it all (though I'd usually drink at least half, if not more like 2/3 of it). And don't even get me started on Taco Bell...inexpensive, but delightfully delicious wanna be Mexican food. Flour tortillas with tasty meat, beans, or cheese in the middle is a match made in heaven.

my Mom...approached me and asked if I would do Weight Watchers (WW) with her.

Three years later, I was graduating with my Associate's degree and was clearly overweight and inflamed. Even at that time, I saw my graduation picture and knew I looked fat. I transferred to University and continued my studies. During my senior year, my Mom, who was also struggling with her weight and health, approached me and asked if I would do Weight Watchers (WW) with her. She had a friend who was helping her pay for it and she offered to pay for me for a year so that she wasn't doing it alone. I agreed, and together we started the program. In case you aren't familiar with WW, it's a program that assigns points to foods. Participants are allotted a certain amount of points per day/week to meet their desired goals, whether losing weight or maintaining it. Often low fat foods are zero or few points, regardless of the ingredients list. We both found success and in about 6 months, I lost 40ish lbs and I dropped down from a size 12ish to a 4/6 and was close to 145lbs.

I ventured into Beachbody (now Bodi) and started following the 2B Mindset program.

Fast forward a couple of years after graduating with my Bachelor's degree and the COVID-19 shutdown hits. Like many people, I gained weight during this time. Nothing too crazy, but enough to feel it and be noticeable. Rather than dive back in to Weight Watchers, since I hadn't stuck with the program properly for a while, I ventured into Beachbody (now Bodi) and started following the 2B Mindset program. This program is all about veggies. Literally the motto is, "Water first, Veggies most". Basically, your plate is 50-75% veggies, 25% protein, and 0-25% carbs, depending on the meal time. I lost weight and got close to the weight I was at when I was dedicated to WW. This time, my weight loss was a little different because I was also following Beachbody workout programs. I felt strong and could see different toning in my body.

During all this, I was unhappy with my job and I was searching for a transfer or another job completely. Of course, this was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and landing a new job wasn't that simple. After some time, I was able to transfer to a different role in the company. This transfer wound up being the cherry on top to ruin my health. Long story short, I gained 30lbs in 3 months. I was no longer following the 2B Mindset closely, and even when I did get "back on track", I still was struggling to lose even a couple of pounds. At that time, I weighed about 195lbs - the heaviest I'd knowingly been. I quit my job and wound up in living situations that were unfavorable and struggled to find new work. My mental and physical health started to tank even more. Before I knew it, I was about 220lbs and a size 14/16. And by the way, I'm 5'2"...so I really shouldn't weigh anything that close to 200lbs or over.

After a bit of time, my living situation changed and I felt more comfortable cooking at home again. This led to me dropping about 15lbs in a few months. At this point though, I was beginning to figure out what was wrong with me. I was learning about hormone health and toxins and realizing that maybe losing weight was impacted by more than just what I ate. But at the same time, I didn't have the energy or mental capacity to make meaningful changes. At that point, I started to not really care what I ate (well that's not true - I always wanted it to be tasty). So, carne asada fries, carne asada burritos, and Taco Bell were definitely go-tos for me at that time.

After a lot of contemplation I ended up leaving the place I grew up and moved out of state to where my parents were living at the start of their retirement. This ended up being another beneficial lifestyle change which resulted in a 10lb weight loss with little effort. It was then that I saw first hand that stress and bad mental health really do have an impact on the body. Granted, I also decided to stop eating fast food with this move, so I'm sure that was a significant impact as well.

Go forward about a year and my Dad ended up in the hospital after a heart attack and was scheduled to have a quadruple bypass surgery. This inspired me to book an appointment to get blood work done and check over 100 different biomarkers. Additionally, I was about to turn 30 and I wanted to start that time of my life off with knowledge of where my health was at. Sure I was 190 something pounds, which was better than before, but my other symptoms were telling me that I had other things wrong with me.

Diving into Mary's work, I started the Reigns Method: Advanced Nutritional Therapy for Weight Loss.

After testing, I discovered my hs-CRP was high at a 4.7 (it's supposed to be less than 1 to be optimal). Thus, I began another dive into health and trying to figure out a new way of living and eating that would be something I could stick to and actually heal my issues, not just lose weight. Through my research, I found Mary Ruddick while watching Culture Apothecary on YouTube. Diving into Mary's work, I started the Reigns Method: Advanced Nutritional Therapy for Weight Loss. Within 4 months, I lost about 30lbs and my inflammation went down. Not only could I see inflammation down in that fact that my face was less puffy, but when I retested my hs-CRP during this, I was at a 2.

I am amping up to complete the Carnivore Cure elimination diet

As I write this, I am amping up to complete the Carnivore Cure elimination diet (via Judy Cho) to find out what foods I am most sensitive to and learn to tailor my lifelong diet to fit my body for optimal health. I am both looking forward to it, but also not looking forward to it. I am excited to learn more about healing my individual body, but it's also difficult sticking to strict ways of eating and trying to monitor my symptoms closely. Overall, I'm ready to keep progressing with health changes and change the way I live so that I heal and can live an even better life than before. I don't expect to keep carbs out forever and always, but I do expect to keep carbs low. However, completing the elimination diet will teach me to monitor how I actually feel when I eat different foods and if how a food is prepared affects the effects I feel from eating those foods.

Here's to being brave and being different from society in order to lead our best and healthiest lives!