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Me on the Snake River at my heaviest |
I’m not sure were to begin this story. I think I will start last July 2012. Our big extended family camping trip was
coming up and I just couldn’t get excited for it. In years past it was a highlight of our year.
I just didn’t have the energy to do much of anything but survive. Tasks such as packing and putting up the
tent took everything I had. My eyes were
opened when I was rafting down the Snake River and I fell out of the raft and I
had a panic attack. I was unsure if I
had the energy or strength to get myself back in the raft and out of the
rapids. Needless to say out of 14 or so
trips the raft made down the river that summer, I only was on two of them.


A few weeks after getting home I just knew something had to
change. I was at my highest weight
ever, 275. 11 years ago when I met my
(future) husband Josh I was 135 pounds.
I was eating fairly healthy, exercising regularly and was in the best
shape of my life. When we got married 10
years ago I had some health and emotional problems that led me to nearly double
my weight in a year. By our first
wedding anniversary I was probably 260 pounds.
Josh’s story is much the same having gained weight right along with me
after marriage, but he can tell you his story.
We spend the next 9 years cycling through trying different weight loss
plans, diets, exercise and then times of giving up and not caring, eating whatever,
and gaining back anything we had lost.
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Swimming at my heaviest |
In the spring my husband and I had spent 8 weeks doing a
weight loss challenge with some friends and family. We counted calories everyday, tried to get
some exercise in as many times a week as we could and we still only lost about
15 pounds each. Pounds that didn’t stay
off because as soon as it was over the scale started creeping back up. I started searching the Internet for a meal
plan with recipes and grocery lists. I
just didn’t feel like I had the energy to put anything together myself. I wanted it laid out for me. And I was ready to do something extreme if
need be. I came across an e-book called
The Paleo Plan. It had 6 weeks worth of
meal plans, recipes and weekly grocery lists.
I bought it. I read enough of it
to get us started. We cleaned out our
fridge and our pantry of items that wouldn’t keep for the 6 weeks we were
trying paleo. My husband would ask why we couldn’t eat a specific food and I had to just convince him to trust me because honestly I hadn't gotten far enough in the literature yet to even know why myself. I
was just going off the do's and don’t list. We just hit the ground running without really
knowing why we were doing everything We also
just thought this was a bit crazy and certainly extreme and that after the six
weeks were up we would just go back to trying to eat “healthy”. But this was going to jump start our weight
loss and get us on track.


For me the first day was good, the second ok, the third was
pretty bad, but day four was my hell. I
felt like an addict. I was jonsing for
some major carbs. I had no energy, I had
a headache, I was itching and felt like I was going to jump right out of my skin. I just layed in bed all
night long. I finally came out of our room,
opened a bag of Frosted Mini Wheats and went to town. I felt so much better and went to sleep. I woke up day 5 feeling great. And I never had a craving like that again. In fact things got so easy it was kind of
bizarre. We were feeling great! Like superheroes really. We had energy to do what needed to be
done. We felt satisfied all the
time. We were eating like kings, some
truly amazing food. We started doing
more research on why we were eating like this.
We couldn’t get enough. We got books
like Robb Wolf’s 'The Paleo Solution', we were looking on the Internet at sites like 'Mark’s Daily Apple', and finding podcasts like 'Latest in Paleo' to listen to. We couldn't get enough information.
Three weeks into being paleo we celebrated our son, Max’s,
first birthday. Everyone was amazed at
how much weight we had lost in such a short amount of time, but most crash
diets will do that right? After all, for
almost 9 years we had been King and Queen of dieting, if there was a diet we had
tried it, at least for a little while.
Our longest stint had been about 3 months on the South Beach diet, though most
were probably closer to about a 6 week run.
And of course, the weight always came back.
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Max's First Birthday |
While celebrating Max’s birthday we also decided to indulge
in a piece of pizza and a half a cupcake.
We had been good for three weeks and it was our son’s first birthday
after all. This is when we had a huge
light bulb moment. Gluten didn’t get
along with either one of us. And after
more research as to what gluten does to your body it made sense that when
eating gluten you can't absorb nutrients properly and your body is constantly calling
for more food to supply it with the nutrients it needs. That is a big reason why for the first time in our lives
we truly felt satisfied. I don’t know if
either of us has celiac. And I don’t
need to know, because we will never (knowingly) eat gluten again.
After just eight months we have totally changed our
lives. Our Sundays used to be filled
with sleeping in, junky food, & too much tv.
Now we spend Sundays at the farmers market getting our sunshine, family
time, walking and buying healthy food.
We want to spend time playing at the park with our son, instead of time
on the couch. We are so much happier. We are so much healthier. We have each lost over 85 pounds in just 8
months, but the weight loss really does feel like a side effect, as the greatest
thing has been the way we think & feel.
But perhaps the best thing of all is that our son will only
know his parents as healthy and active.
He will grow up with healthy habits and with a love of real foods. He loves his veggies & fruit, meat & healthy fat. How many 1 year old's go crazy over a red
bell pepper? He will have memories of
family dinners and being in the kitchen together preparing great food. He will
be happy & healthy too!
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Size 26 dress - Size 12 dress
100 lbs lost! |