Over the past 18 years since getting married, my weight slowly crept up to 185 lbs., mainly due to good cooking by my wife. I still considered myself healthy, went to various fast food joints for lunch and drank diet coke. I was addicted to diet coke. I was about 20 lbs over weight and a little belly started to show. After turning 40, I began to hike and sometimes hiked 20 miles per week. My weight did come down to about 170 lbs. and that is where it stopped. No matter how much I exercised, I could not break the 170 barrier. In the winter the weight would creep up to 175-180 lbs. I had stomach issues and joint pains that just became part of my life. My blood sugar was creeping up to high nineties. My blood pressure was also a bit on the high side. Exercising improved my health situation. My cholesterol went down and blood sugar also improved, but my weight was still stuck at 170 lbs. My weight remained the same, because I made no change to my diet.
In the fall of 2010, I made a slight change to my diet. Instead of eating two pita breads for dinner, I went down to one pita bread and kept everything else the same. This small change caused me to lose few pounds in a matter of month. I also kept a good steady weight of 170 lbs. during the winter. Basically, I was starving myself and making up the calories by eating fruits, nuts, and more desserts after dinner. Nonetheless, this simple change caused me to lose few pounds.
In 2011, my co-worker James had stumbled upon Gary Taubes' book "Why People Get Fat and What to Do About It?" through listening to one of his tech podcasts. He read the book and recommended it highly and somewhat started to follow the advice by giving up breads, pastas, and sugars. He immediately began to lose weight and few other areas of his health improved. I picked up the book around June or July time frame and read it. The rest is history. I gave up breads, pastas, sugars, rice, and legumes in August and within a month my weight started to go down. The weight went from 170 lbs. to 150 lbs. and then kind of settled around 152 lbs. My cholesterol went down, HDL went up a point, blood sugar was in the eighties. I felt better overall. My joint pains and stomach problems disappeared. Through the winter of 2011 not a single pound was added with very little physical activity other than normal going to work, sleeping, playing with kids. During these past months my diet has consisted of eggs for breakfast, salads with different types of meat for lunch and meats like beef, chicken, lamb, or fish cooked with vegetables or salad for dinner. I eat nuts sparingly. I use very little dairy, few table spoons per day in my coffee or tea. Sugar is also one or two spoons per day in tea or coffee. No sodas, no juices, no candies, or any other type of fancy drinks. I eat fruits sparingly. I just started to eat few seasonal fruits like mangoes. This diet has kept my weight at 152 lbs. and I feel great. My pants size 36 waist went down to 34 and now the 34 waist pants are big. Few of my co-workers and friends tried this and saw the benefits immediately. A friend lost over 40 pounds. A co-worker had a significant drop in his cholesterol that the doctor advised him to stop Liptor.
During this time I have read books, blogs, and few websites to learn more about the Paleo Lifestyle and the more I learn, more ignorant I feel and am humbled by the amazing biological and chemical reactions of food and our bodies. The learning journey continues. Here are few of my favorites websites and books:
1) Why People Get Fat and What to do About it by Gary Taubes
2) The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf.
3) www.robbwolf.com
4) www.paleodietlifestyle.com
5) www.marksdailyapple.com
6) www.garytaubes.com
I am posting my lipid panel to show you the improvement. The blood work speaks for itself. In 2007 my numbers were not good. From 2007 to 2011, I exercised and the numbers improved, but look at the sharp drop from August 2011 to October 2011. In such a short time the numbers improved much faster than they did with exercise. I plan to have another blood work done in August 2012 after completing one whole year. I will post those numbers as well.
| Name | Cholesterol | HDL | Low density lipoprotein calculated | Triglyceride |
| Standard range | < 239- mg/dL | > 40- mg/dL | < 129- mg/dL | < 199- mg/dL |
| 11/1/2007 | 214 | 43 | 138 | 167 |
| 8/4/2011 | 182 | 44 | 126 | 58 |
| 10/31/2011 | 152 | 45 | 98 | 45 |
I hope my story will motivate you to give this a try. I have no dog in this race and I am not trying to promote or sell anything. All is required is an open mind and some self discipline and you can say good bye to many of your health problems.
