Guest Post: The Primal (blueprint) and how Gwen Lost 66 pounds at age 62!

Gwen is taking over for the day while I'm getting my life together and avoiding another Dude Where's My Car sitch! Gwen has the best attitude and her blog is hilarious while very informative- follow her here.

I'm really excited to be doing a guest post for Lindsay!  She was impressed with my health turn-around, and asked me to talk a little bit about it, and the new food life style that has worked for me.  Maybe you've heard about it:  it's called the Primal (blueprint.)  It's basically next to no grains, sugars, or processed foods.  I'll put a primal food pyramid down a little further in the post.

I lost 66 pounds last year following it, and I'm 62!  The effect of what can happen to you when you give up grains and sugar IS that dramatic!  Believe me, I know how FOREIGN an idea that can sound.  I was a starch addict.  I used to ADORE warm buttered rolls, garlic bread, chips (with or without dips), crackers, fully loaded baked potatoes, pie, brownies, cookies, streusel topped muffins, donuts…yeah, ALL of it.

Out of control eating.  I got this five foot, 2 inches when stretching frame up to 195-204 pounds on two occasions after the age of 50.  DUMB.  But I ate with uncontrolled abandon.  I ate bored.  I ate stressed.  I ate happily with others.  I didn’t give a shit, enough, about what it was doing to me to attempt to break the eat-causes-craving cycle.  Hell, I didn’t even know that the cycle existed!  I lost over 70 pounds in 2009, doing the low carb / low fat South Beach diet, and thought I was on top the world.  But I didn’t keep it off, because I didn’t GET it, didn’t KNOW.  I gained 60 of those pounds back.  Sure, I had a medical situation that scared me into an even deeper ‘what’s the point, I don’t give a shit’ mind frame that made gaining all that weight back disgustingly easy.  But I still didn’t get it.  I thought moderation would work.  It didn’t, because I still didn’t KNOW.

Know that grains -even in moderation- can cause all this damage.  Damage that inflames your body internally, which leads to disease.  Eating grains IMMEDIATELY  leads to brain chemistry changes that make you crave more grains (and sugar) even more powerfully than alcohol, cigarettes, or illegal drugs cravings!!  IT’S TRUE.  Lots of studies to back this science up.

Unfortunately, simply limiting grains doesn’t stop the cravings.  That’s why so many people fail at maintenance, even if they lose a LOT of weight!!  Why dieting success rates are so poor.  Eventually, the grains-causing brain chemistry changes win.  You start feeling deprived.  You start with eating a little bit more, ‘just this one time.’  This one time becomes many times.  Before you know it, you are ‘up’ ten pounds.  Ten pounds becomes twenty, and by then you are established on a path of dieting failure.  Yet again.  Wash, rinse, repeat.

It’s not only me that’s ‘been there, done that.’  Thousands upon thousands have.

Little did I know it just took a couple of brave steps outside my comfortable (oh come on, but not REALLY comfortable when you factor in guilt and shame and fear)….box of loving/eating starches…  just a couple of brave steps...my life would change dramatically and radically for life.  (I know, I'm starting to sound like a late night infomercial.  LOL)

First step was:  being willing to admit that what I was doing wasn’t working for me.

Second step was admitting that maybe there were answers out there that I didn’t know about yet.  Even at the ripe old age of 61.

Third step was seeking out new answers.  New theories.  Not the socially acceptable/long established ones.

Fourth step was being willing to read data that challenged all that I knew, all that the FDA and  medical community that I knew…had told us all along.  That was actually the biggest step!

Fifth was reading this data, these books, with an open mind.  Once I did that, the seas parted.  I got so excited, so passionate, so angry at Big Agra and Big Pharmaceuticals, that it EASILY propelled me to DARE to attempt the changes necessary.

Sixth was giving up grains and sugars as an experiment of' n = 1', (the term means n=YOU, a study of one person.  Yourself.)  even though I had never heard of that term before or then. (or until almost a year later!)  It wasn’t cold turkey.  It took a couple of months of trying it, pulling back, trying it again.  Between November 2012 and March 2013.  I had a bout of ‘carb flu’ in December and then on another attempt in January.  But when I realized the ‘carb flu’ was just one more part of n = 1 / my body’s proof of how ADDICTED to grains I was, I became determined to kick grains fully to the curb to reach out and grab the brass ring of better health.  To stop the eat-crave cycle and WIN.  So I tried it a third time, and this time FULLY gave up grains, not just a half-assed few days attempt, and didn’t have carb flu this time and I have NEVER looked back!

Because a funny thing happens about a week or so after giving up grains.

The bloating stops.  The brain clears.  You literally start feeling lighter and more free-spirited.  Even though still quite overweight, you start feeling in charge and yet FREE AS A BIRD.

Again, not just me.  Happens to THOUSANDS.

But you never know until you give it a good college try.  I suggest a week, but if you can spare 30 days, I swear you will never be the same!  You will wonder how it took you so long!  You, too, will start shouting it from the rooftops!  Your success, physical and every bit as importantly, EMOTIONAL, will propel you the rest of the way and change your life forever.

I highly suggest two books:

Wheat Belly

and

The End of Overeating.  You can find both on Amazon (real books or Kindle versions.)

The transformed my life.

Come on, you’ve given 30 day attempts (if that still scares you, how about a simple 14 days?) to many different other diet plans.  Why not consider this one?  Sure it’s scary.  I PROMISE you the rewards will outweigh any ‘how could I ever give up THAT?!” mindset.  Or fear of how you will live the rest of your life eating so unlike those around you.  You will become a beacon of light for YOU.  Your 180 degree turn around will propel you to happily continue the changes in your diet that you have made.  It honestly becomes easy.  I promise.

But the first step is accepting that what you are doing really isn’t working.  Or that it’s hard to continue to fight the cravings.  To get feelings of deprivation.  And want all of that to STOP.  Want to find true, lasting success.  Want to learn a way to put your health above your temptations.

It CAN be done!!!  :)

I’m a 62.5 year old living proof!  :)

If you want to read more, my blog is:  http://www.againstthegrain.us/

Oh, and here is the Primal Food Pyramid: