CONTENTS
CONTENTS
Chapter 2 - Part TWO
Dealing with loss that results in gains....
So, back to the beginning of this story: almost two years ago, December of 2017, I had a miscarriage. I noticed the symptoms of something weird in November and just thought I was about the start my cycle. In 14 years with Josh, I never got pregnant, so I just assumed at 42 years old that ship had sailed and I never was capable of getting pregnant. Here I was, working with a new client who was highly demanding, on planes 3-5 times a week, trying to lose weight on 900 calories of mostly vegetables. I was under so much stress at work that I delayed taking a pregnancy test until after a major workshop I was hosting, as I did not want to be distracted by the results.
Part Two - Getting back on track
On Wednesday, December 13, 2017, I took the test… ok, I took three. All three showed positive/pregnant. For the first time in my life at 42 and single, I was pregnant. The father – a very amazing man – lives on the other side of the US. What was I going to do? I spent 24 hours deliberating… I called only one friend, and uttered it declaratively, no emotion, just a statement. I scheduled an emergency session with my therapist and asked about the impacts to one’s life of raising a child alone, if I should tell the father, and yes, I wondered if I should keep it. By Friday morning, I started bleeding, and that was it. About 36 hours of knowing I was pregnant, and my body made the decision for me. I had so many mixed emotions, but mostly, I was in the most excruciating physical pain I had ever endured as related to female menstrual issues.
From December 2017 – February 2018, I endured the absolute worst menstrual cramps, bleeding cycles, and emotional roller coasters of my life. I had packed on so much hormonal weight around my belly and none of my past strategies were working, so I decided I could not tackle this alone. Enter into the picture, the new fitness consultant, Jason, founder of Shredmode. A friend had worked with him prior and knew he would be able to provide consulting on stress management, hormone balance, rest & recovery, exercise and diet - the five areas where I was seeking guidance from a holistic approach.
BUILT LIKE MY POPS....
This is the last picture I have of my Dad. Whenever I cooked for him, he would lose weight and come off of insulin. So, why within 10 months of his passing (shown here) did I fall so far off the wagon and gain 30 pounds? I can't just blame the pregnancy; I can only blame my lack of consistency to what I believed to be true about food before he passed. My self talk was negative and I needed a reset.
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Starting to get shredded
Despite the fact that to look at him, one might assume Jason would only focus on muscle building, he sat me down, got out paper, and asked some very thought provoking questions across all five of these domains (stress management, hormone balance, rest & recovery, exercise and diet). He listened intently, took notes, and acted with deep interest and care as I laid it all out – the lifetime of struggle, the hereditary issues, the 2010 transformation story, starvation diets, the yo-yo effects, and now the pregnancy. He followed up immediately after the consultation with a plan of action – all very doable – and so easy. Instead of logging what I ate calorie by calorie, he gave me a chart of foods to focus on and set up a shared photo album in which he actually said, “Don’t tell me how much of it there is or count the calories, just tell me what it is, and we will continue to refine it.”
We started the fitness routine hyper focused on mobility and core and how to do weight training properly, finding ways to enjoy a work out and leveraged his very compelling (ok ladies reading – he’s super hot) videos to ensure I was conducting my solo and travel workouts properly. This was the first time I had a consultant who communicated with me literally every day on every photo of food and checked in on the exercise, sleep, and my stress management techniques.
Looking back at that food album and how we spent our first year on food, I would break it down into my business view of being a “quarterly” cycle before we made the next level of adjustment… 90 days to perfect it and then make it a bit more challenging and effective once I was ready and aligned with what kind of results I had. We did body photos, body measurements, the body fat percentage test, and hopped on the scale only monthly which was a massive change for me after doing that daily for so long. The first ninety days was a focus on animal protein (not just super lean ones) as the core, healthy fats, vegetables, a single daily berries/fruit serving – sometimes considered dessert, and the occasion oatmeal or complex carb like quinoa as a side with a dinner meal. Flash forward to cutting the unnecessary carbs for 90 days…. Then cutting the fruit and adding in the complexity of doing intermittent fasting, eating only between noon and 8 pm. I was on a positive progress track, losing a few pounds a month after a big loss the first two months simply by following a consistent plan on all categories for fitness, nutrition, sleeping and stress management.
Then, in July I met a guy in Europe, started dating long distance, and fell into the excess travel – “it feels like I am on vacation - wine drinking, I can cheat here and there” hole and hit a plateau. I was still being somewhat OK with my eating enough that the new guy recognized my preferred habits but I had not made it explicit. Then, we had a funny chat at breakfast one morning when he ordered an egg white omelette but also an orange juice. After what I learned from Jason about the importance of the fat I was eating, I said, “it cracks me up you’re more worried about the yolk in that egg than you are the sugar in the juice.” His colleague laughed and said, “you are the first American I have heard who really gets that.” I decided again to recommit that no matter who it is, nobody needs to change my food choices and in fact, I can impact theirs if I stay focused. I showed him my plan, photos of Jason, described how we eat, and he was sold to commit on my eating plan. After all, one of Jason’s core messages was about consistency and the more I let other people impact my choices, the less consistent I became and it showed in my stalled progress. My self talk moment here is this: STOP LETTING ANYONE ELSE INFLUENCE WHAT I EAT! It is of ZERO consequence to them - only to ME.
The Shredmode Philosophy
There are a thousand ways to get fit; none of them are wrong or right. Ultimately you have to figure out what works best for you. I will give you a starting point and teach you the rules so that over time you can find that for yourself. The name of the game is consistency. I don’t care how many 6-week transformation posts there are out there; if you can’t find a lifestyle that you can be consistent with long-term you will neither be happy nor shredded. The lifestyle that I promote here is meant to be efficient and balanced.
The First 90 Days
Another Turning Point
A few weeks later around New Year’s, back on plan, I had yet again (as with the last 11 months prior), a completely debilitating, painful and very heavy menstrual cycle. It was so bad this time that I called Jason and said I was ready to make a decision on how to address my hormones fearing anything medical (like a synthetic birth control) would impact my progress. When I tell my friends this part of the story, they are shocked with the reaction of, “You called your trainer - a MAN- to tell him about your menstrual issues?” Yes, yes I did, and that 5 minute decision further changed my life, not in an exaggerated way, but truly. He sympathized, careful not to “mansplain” my female hormones and menstrual challenges to me and then simply sent me an article - written by a woman - who had experienced similar issues with her health, weight, and menstruation. This article was all about moving to a carnivore – or predominantly/almost exclusively animal product based diet. I read it a few times, recounted my issues with anemia, high cholesterol, how I felt energy-wise when I tried Atkin’s in the late 90s, etc.
Then, I pictured a beautiful, lean, muscular white lion (the one from my home page) I saw on safari while in South Africa who ravenously ate a giant buffalo she and her crew had killed days prior and thought, OK…. We are not meant to be vegans, are we? I am going to try this… So I committed to Jason I would try this carnivore thing for 90 days.... eating nothing but meat (predominantly beef, some pork, some poultry), seafood, eggs, and cheeses for extra fat with lean meats or as a snack when I really needed one. I also continued my consistent weight training schedule, exercising with resistance as much as possible, walking everywhere I could, and limiting cardio to things I enjoy like hikes, my favorite short distance hill/stair runs, and of course dancing at all times.
The next 90 days were far easier than I ever imagined they would be. First of all, to combat all of the verbal abuse I got from my friends about how I “need my veggies,” I ensured them that there are plenty of vitamins in minerals in the meats. I had to insist it was temporary to stop some of the concern and share anecdotes about how I felt so much better to ease their minds. Though I love that they are concerned for my health, I had to remind many of them that I had counter concerns for them as I was watching them eat. So, here is why it was somewhat easy - but of course not for someone unwilling to understand why it is healthy, why it works, and how to behave consistently.... Number one, I was not counting calories. As long as it was meat, eggs, or cheese, preferably prepared by me in my kitchen, I ate it. I was not struggling to find food or say no to anything because I was getting to eat giant steaks, large omelettes with cheese and bacon, the occasional bag of pork rinds (chicharrones for the fancy folk) as a salty snack, and still use full cream in my coffee. I immediately noticed a change in my skin, hair and nails - all stronger and brighter. And again, the weight started to fall off while I watched my muscles get more and more defined. I remember at around 60 days, I took a bite of broccoli and it tasted like candy. I reported to Jason that I had this small “cheat” of a vegetable because I was given the wrong steak, which I ate, so they brought me the correct one (which I also ate - yes I ate two steaks) and the sides that came with it a second time. I didn’t want to waste it...haha.
In 90 days of carnivore - eating massive steaks impressing male servers and my friends’ husbands with my meat eating skills around the globe, I lost 14 pounds. That may not sound super impressive until I add this piece - 90% of that based on using the same machines - was FAT. I actually added a few pounds of muscle and burned fat. I was not counting calories, eating massive meals, and I completely transformed the look of my body in 90 days. I went back to some old body metric logs from 2010 that I still keep as a reminder to test this result. Though I am not down to the 128 of 2011 (actually ten pounds heavier), my hips, waist, and leg metrics are all SMALLER. I started wearing clothes that I could not wear at this weight before, was lifting heavier than I ever had in my life. Now - the most important part, if I am true to my word about this being focused on health…. I have not gotten a cold or any illness since I started eating carnivore, so all those vitamins and minerals I am allegedly missing are not impacting my immune system.
For the drumroll part of the whole story - to the joy of everyone everywhere, my headaches/migraines, PMS irritability, intense cramps, and uncontrollable bleeding during my menstrual cycle have almost completely subsided. I barely even know when I am about to start any more, other than I do get a bit more clumsy and horny - but that’s for a completely different blog. In May, I added some vegetables back in, had some cheats here and there on a few vacations, and with a transition to moving to the UK for 90 days and then to New Zealand after a 5 week sabbatical, I softened up a bit and put on a few pounds. So, now it’s time for a game time decision… If I can feel better, look better, lift better, stay healthy, avoid PMS symptoms, and get shredded on nothing but meat, eggs and cheese and still have cream in my coffee, and dark chocolate here and there, why isn’t this just how I live, permanently?
From a literal standpoint, I am a human, and according to our ancestry, this is our foundation. But, in also saying I am “human,” I am subject to peer pressure, the occasional craving, and the “social” side of all of this. I miss bread, I miss pizza, I miss ice cream, and I really really miss donuts and cookies and nachos. However, I don't miss breathing heavy when I reach the top of a flight of stairs, and I don't miss getting a cold every season, and I surely don’t miss having to hide out in the bathroom one week a month because I am a hormonal disaster. Mostly, I miss my Dad and I know I could have saved his life or at least made it better and longer if he made better food choices. Much like all major decisions we make in life, all of the advice and experience and testimonials from everyone else are only there as points of reference to help make the decision for ourselves. Nothing anyone has told me to do would work unless I decided I wanted to make the commitment for me and only me. I love the compliments I get on how I look, or the congratulations I get for making a transformation aesthetically, but I know why I really made this choice.
When you know your reason why, maybe you will take this story as part of your reference and order a massive steak, medium rare. Until then, I am back on carnivore full time monitoring my next phase of transformation and feeling like it’s what is best for me. I am forever indebted to those who gave me the tools, information, resources, and support to stay on this positive journey. Thank you Jason for being my number one…. Get shredded my friends!
My Results from February 2017 - June of 2019
I lost weight, but most importantly, I lost FAT and gained muscle. If you would like to see the body composition reports for this transformation or have questions, please request it via my Contact Me page.
Self Talk Highlights:
Inside my own head, these are the things that got me through this journey, yet again....
1. The only way I will get fit and stay fit is if I commit to it, long term. I am not on a diet, I am not training for a competition. I am focused on wellness and living my best life - I get joy from eating wholesome and vibrant foods and I love to be active.
2. I read this quote to myself this all the time: “For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life." (ALFRED D. SOUZA) - Why I read this is because, I am going to gain and lose weight for the rest of my life - it's a part OF my life. I will be different sizes and shapes depending on the time of year, my age, and my level of commitment to my health. However, I can't wait to be a size 2 and 125 pounds to live my life as if someone expects that of me. I also can't be bothered when a friend or colleague - with a deep sigh says, "What diet are you on this week."
3. I am not alone and there is always someone out there to help me be my best me. I just have to be prepared to ask and support myself with positive thoughts and being worthy of support, not just criticism.
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