I Lost 94lbs Following One Diet Rule—With No Exercise

I lost 94 pounds in eight months. The bulk of my weight loss was due to my doing the keto diet. I was roughly eating 20 grams total of carbs per day. Then, as I got into the diet more and the lifestyle, I began to figure out net carbs.

Net carbs are calculated by subtracting fiber and sugar alcohols from total carbs. People still track net carbs and lose weight, but I evolved from that because I was finding a lot of net carbs weren’t really healthy for me.

So, I began tracking regular carbs and keeping them under 20 grams. And this is how I lost most of my weight. However, I tried the carnivore diet, and I lost 13 pounds within a week and a half.

After figuring out how successful this was, I tried it for a couple of weeks. But after eating normal foods, I quickly gained the 13 pounds back that I’d lost, and it took me a couple of weeks to start dropping weight again.

This made me realize that it’s good to have a variation in my diet. I try to do keto one day and carnivore the next. I don’t track my calories anymore.

I think, early on, it’s important to track all of your nutrients and macronutrients because it gives you a good understanding of what causes weight gain in your body, and you can get a better idea of where you’ve been going wrong.

Initially, I got by with eating more carbs and still lost weight. Within the first two months of my weight loss plan, I lost around 35 pounds, but then it started to slow down. That’s why I had to modify some of my recipes.

Personally, my body works best when I eat two meals a day. I have lunch, and usually, it’s a breakfast item that I eat at lunchtime. If it’s a keto day, sometimes I’ll eat a taco salad.

But generally, I eat a lot of eggs, bacon, sausage, steak, pork chops, and chicken breasts. For some of those leaner cuts of meat, I added some butter to give me more fat, to drop my weight.

Different foods affect us differently. I had to change certain recipes and swap them with friendlier ingredients.

I loved pizza before. I still eat pizza on some occasions—but a chicken-crusted, homemade pizza so I can consider the ingredients I put in there. A lot of pizza sauces have more carbs or sugars, and I had to stay away from sugar as much as I could.

Mental Journey

Another thing that helped me lose a lot of weight was having the right thinking. I wasn’t just on a weight loss journey, I was on a mental journey, too. It’s important to heal your mind as you go along the weight loss journey.

You could go on this weight loss journey, and lose all this weight, and if you haven’t done anything mentally to heal from past hurts, there’s a good chance you’re going to gain all that weight back.

I had to understand why I was overeating in the first place and what caused me to overeat. That’s why I highly recommend people talk to a therapist, a counselor, or a good life coach.

It’s what I’d been doing for 14 years. I had to foster a lifestyle change, not just a diet. I see diets as a temporary means to get to your goal weight, but you want to maintain that weight loss. So, to me, it’s a lifestyle change. I haven’t gone back to my old way of eating.

I have a lot of arthritis issues. I’m not mobile like I used to be. I can’t do the exercises I used to do. It’s very painful for me to go for a long walk – I can only walk a block or two because my hips, legs, knees, and back would hurt. That’s why a low-carb, keto diet made sense to me.

My One Diet Rule

The one thing these diets all have in common is that they’re low-carb. Eating less than 50 grams a day is low carb. Keto is roughly 20 grams of carbs or less a day, and with a carnivore, you’re almost next to nothing for carbs.

I’d advise people to research the plan that works best for them, which doesn’t mean that a person’s diet won’t change or evolve.

With the keto and carnivore diet, I was able to understand what upset my stomach. It allowed me to eliminate the foods that weren’t making me feel well or weren’t making a difference in my weight loss.

Some people sometimes evolve to fasting, eating one meal a day, but it’s important to note that life happens. You may have a bad day, a bad weekend, or even a bad week. If you go on vacation, you go off your lifestyle.

I don’t recommend that because you’re not going to feel very good going back to eating your old foods, which will make it hard to diet again.

But if you do have a day where you slip up, I just want to remind you that things happen. Don’t let it ruin your crusade of changing your life. Get right back on the plan. Let it go and you’ll continue down the right path towards your goals.

I love how I’m feeling. What makes my journey more unique is that I lost 94 pounds with no surgeries, no medication, and no exercise, in eight months. I changed my diet and my style of eating. I’m 51 years old—I believe that if I can do it, anyone can do it.

For the past two weeks, I have been on the carnivore diet. I have less arthritis pain, more energy, and I feel great. I plan on staying on carnivore for some time, as my goal is to lose another 50-70 pounds.

Greg Wendel documents his fitness journey on YouTube.

All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.

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