3 low carb success stories
Thanks for the dozens of Low Carb success stories you sent me. I wish so much I could send you al a copy of Nina Tiecholz’s “Big Fat Surprise“. Alas, I have three copies only, and had to choose three from many.
Here are the three stories who are the competition winners. Congratulations and your copy of Big Fat Suprise will be in the mail.
Read, enjoy, be inspired…..
LCHF and I am at a weight I haven’t seen in 30 years + more
Eighteen months back, at the age of 58 and having had a gradually increasing waistline measurement since I gave up smoking 30 years ago, I decided to do a bit of research on how to lose weight. I had reached an all time high of 89kg at a height of 168cm – as had my wife. I was having problems with my knees and my 4 days of golf per week were having to be supported by the use of a cart. I’d also had intermittent problems over the last 10 years with irritable bowel syndrome. My wife had had a coronary event some 2 years earlier and was now on blood pressure pills and statins.
Most of my life I’d been an active eater of fat from animals – always enjoying a good steak or a large helping of cream or butter with anything. Roasts cooked in dripping were my pièce de résistance and you just couldn’t beat the spuds, kumara and pumpkin cooked in the same fat. I always resisted the urgings of those inclined to turn me away from those foods that I enjoyed so much. So when I saw Fat Head the movie – I felt like I’d been vindicated. Thus began my research into nutrition.
After a bit of Googling, I decided that LCHF (low carb, high fat) was more or less the route that I wanted to travel and rather than let my wife fall into the familiar habit of peeling spuds as the first step in preparing a meal, I took over the cooking completely. We stopped eating starchy foods like rice, potatoes and pasta overnight. I found ways to add fat into our meal using sour cream or cheese as the base for a sauce, we started looking at cauliflower as the new ‘rice’ – and so we began. Now, one and a half years later, I weigh 76kg and my wife 70kg. These are weights we haven’t seen in over 30 years!
I would be remiss not to mention my wife’s bout with cancer. Eight months into our new way of eating she was found to have a bowel tumour. Her subsequent chemotherapy and radiation treatment to shrink the tumour was successful and by the time they removed it the lesion was considered, “no more than an ulceration”, with no cancer cells detected in the margins. They told us that even though they had this result with no more than 16 percent of patients – they had no idea why (and they wouldn’t admit to it being something to do with the ketogenic, cancer starving diet we happened to be on). While I have since had a colonoscopy and been found to be clean as a whistle (even though I’ve had no fear of red meat), my wife, who has always been a carboholic and keen on bran, is the one that had the bowel cancer.
I tend to eat only once a day in the evenings, but have a coffee with cream in the morning. I don’t feel hungry during a day of heavy activity (playing golf in my case – or perhaps out in a kayak fishing) and I can easily go a couple of days without eating. My concentration levels are generally quite high as I spend time working on computers for people. While I have never exercised out of the normal during this period, I have found myself quite happy to do strenuous work without complaint.
I should also mention that I don’t have any regular medications for any conditions, my IBS has disappeared and my wife has also stopped her statins and reduced her blood pressure meds. We have what I would call ‘a healthy disregard’ for much of what the medical profession would have us do and instead have more regard for what we consider to be our evolutionary appropriate food.
Cheers
Gregg Sheehan
Grant’s comment: its amazing that modern scientific medicine has completely missed ht boat on the critical role food has in our health. They got the message wrong, the science wrong and the importance wrong. Thanks for a great story.
Everything in life improves
Gedday Prof Schofield …
Do I have a great success story for you!
I turned 60 last July (2013) and was about to become a grand mother for the first time …. non-genetic, but hey, I’ll take what I can get!
I decided to tidy up my life, get healthy and acquire some new information!
I enrolled for a Level 1 + 2 First Aid Certificate course (covering cardio and infant), and started researching to find a diet that actually worked for me. I had long suspected that wheat and grain did not agree with my body, and knew (with a handful of Smarties regularly inserted into my mouth) that I was totally hooked on sugar.
I read, and read …. and read some more. I came to the conclusion that Cereal Killers, Wheat Belly, Prof Tim Noakes, and so many others, were onto something. So I embraced LCHF with gusto.
ALL osteoarthritis pain disappeared within a couple of weeks …. I’m talking white-hot bolts through each knuckle, both ankles and feet, and spine.
ALL reflux and bloating disappeared within the same time frame ….. from sleeping propped almost vertical on three or four pillows, numerous cushions and neck rolls, and a Westie under each elbow, for around five or six years, I can now happily sleep on one pillow like a normal person. The Westies get my pain-free feet as pillows now … they’ve got used to it.
ALL asthma has ‘left the building’ ….. I no longer suck on puffers twice a day …. no more hairy tongue!
My brain is clear, sharp and back to working as it always had ….. especially after giving up the statins that had been prescribed, and like thousands of post-menopausal women, were worse than useless – and caused incredible muscle and tissue pain.
AND I shed 20 kg of visceral fat – with great ease!
I’m still researching and enjoying what I’m learning …. and know that I’ll never, ever, ever be tempted to give up my LCHF diet …. I don’t have a death wish!
So …. your post has probably delivered you enough reading material for the next ten years …. but I thought you’d appreciate my story anyway.
Keep up the damn fine work!
Regards
Helen Wood, Melbourne
Grant’s comment: The “damn fine work” has come from you.
LCHF, energy, weight, and a 10 year old girl
Hi Grant,
I have a good story part of which can be found on my blog www.fathergrowsless.com. My story is around my 10 y.o. Daughter’s increase in activity since taking on LCHF lifestyle. I think the angle I wish to take is to provide an example of her energy levels being affected by her diet rather than her being lazy or through lack of activity.
Although she’s no sports star, She has managed to improve her 1.5km x- country time now by over 1 min 30 sec and has great energy levels in her netball.. Her before and after photos are fantastic and she is the picture of health. I now have a number of family members and friend that I help with articles, tips etc. as they now pursue the LCHF based on our family’s appearance (healthier and slimmer looking), especially my daughter’s.
In terms of numbers, she has lost around 10kg since March, although we don’t measure that so closely now as we rely on how we look and feel to know that it is working.
I planned on writing a blog on this but it would be great if you Could and I could reference it on my blog.
My daughter’s story is a good one that certainly captured a good audience and plenty of community interest.
Cheers
Steve Lalor
Grant’s comment: The child weight and health issue is something close to my heart. Let’s not forget that kids are one of the main groups harmed by the low fat dogma. Kids do well on whole actual real foods, stop the processed stuff, eat some more natural fat and the whole nervy and weight situation changes more or less effortlessly. I do a bit of work with kids this age and its so rewarding. As parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents we need to help our kids get decent whole food. Thanks for your story Steve.
The Science of Human Potential 
Impressive!
Great stories …. Wish I could read them all!
Inspiring stories. Keep them coming.
Grant – thanks for posting these.
I’m a heavy guy, 125kg, but in 2010 I was 107kg, and finished ironman in Taupo. I just keep putting on weight, and I am struggling to find a solution, but have been reading your LCHF posts for a while.
I want to give this a go, but find it hard to let go of the idea of breads and cereals. If I reduce even just a bit, will I still get some benefits? i.e. if I halved my bread slices and breakfast cereal but changed nothing else, would that help me still, as a step along the way to LCHF? Gary Richardson
Email gary.richardson@xtra.co.nz
There are so many new substitutes for breads and pasta, and now even rice! Trader Joe’s and Amazon has a huge selection. I just ordered their 12 pack of noodles and rice. They are made from shirataki noodles and tastes just like regular pasta. You won’t miss it the regular stuff anymore.