Thursday, October 25, 2012

Diving into Primal waters

Mark

This is the basic overview of my 100 lb. weight loss. In future posts, I’m going to go into details about the challenges, successes, and adjustments I made to get this to work for me. But, as an opener, I thought I would give the full arc.

November of 2012  I discovered The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson, just an amazing book that I can not over hype, he also has a web page, Mark’s Daily Apple.

The first thing I liked from this book was Mark’s approach of saying challenge everything you have heard about health and weight  loss. I read the book cover to cover and dove right in. Please check out his book and site for his insights and detail, I owe a lot to his information.

The basics I went with were to give up sugar and  grains…so, no more pasta, breads, oatmeal, etc., not to mention all the candy and treats that got me so fat. My wife made a wonderful Thanksgiving meal and I even helped her out, but I only ate turkey and veggies. No pumpkin pie for me, no whip cream, no left over Halloween candy. I went for a walk while everyone else started too crash on the couch. It was actually very easy - eat less and move more.

The Primal Diet stressed having fun instead of hitting the gym for 4 hours a day. The next morning I walked again and discovered how good eggs were. My basic meals consisted of three scrambled eggs for breakfast, tuna for lunch, and some type of meat with a salad for dinner. I started making smoothies in my blender and found them to be better then any ice cream. I got a Juicer for Christmas and found out that carrot juice tastes great!

Every day, I tried something new, walked a little further, and kept on reading. I started to set goals. My doctor wanted me to get to 225 lbs. That seemed so crazy to me! I could not get below 250 lbs. even if I starved myself. Nonetheless, I set the goal of getting below 250 lbs. On the first day of the year of 2012, I was just under 260 lbs.!!

Now, I was set. I had survived Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years Eve without feeling I missed out. I really need to stress how damn good I was starting to feel! I started doing any little thing to add steps to my day – park at the far end of the lot, take the stairs two at a time, anything to add more movement to my day.

I started doing push ups every day and each week I pushed myself a little harder. My mother told me if I got down to 200 lbs. she would buy me a kilt. That’s a big deal to a Scot, but there was no way I would walk around in a kilt with my gut sticking out. I found that, after 3 months of being “primal,” I felt better! I started to sleep like a baby and looked forward to moving as much as I could. In the spring, I got out my bike and started riding a nice easy 5 miles after dinner. When I was dating my wife, I used to ride 15 miles at a stretch, but 5 was enough to start with.

I just kept a nice constant plan of a little bit of moving every day. I started to get compliments from people wherever I went. The best was always people I saw everyday, but were still noticing a difference in me! I added fish oil to my daily plan and soon saw great results in my dry skin! My mood started to improve and bad days were when I had to go out and buy new clothes. I started hiking and I found out how much I love the woods and the fresh air after spending a week in my office.

Summer came and I no longer hated the heat, which is a good thing if you live in St. Louis. I checked my weight and I was 215lbs. I could wear my wedding suit from 22 years ago, I was under the weight my doctor set for me and I had loss 100lbs. What would you do to celebrate reaching your goal? Me, well I got to wear a Kilt at the St. Louis Scottish games!

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2 comments:

  1. Truly inspirational, Mark. Thank you for sharing your story!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Tara!, I intend to share the things I learned and see if I can help anyone else out there.

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