“What happened? How did I end up here?” I remember vividly asking myself those questions a decade ago. I was the heaviest I had ever been in my life. I had this vision of myself as being fit, healthy, and active, then I realized that was gone. On top of this realization was that my youngest daughter was about to be born and I was the unfit overweight father I did not want to be. Right then I decided to make a change for the better. To focus on getting healthy not only for myself, but to be the best father and husband that I could be.
I committed right then to restore my health and recapture my fitness. I immediately launched into a diet routine. I cut calories, I ran (a lot), and went back to the gym. This worked, but I did not realize what I had done to myself. I lost a lot of weight! The calorie cutting and the running turned me from a fat dad to a skinny fat dad….
That is when I realized I miss something in my transformation. I lost the weight (great!), but I was missing something. Around this time, I started to gain weight back, I developed arthritis in my foot (which stopped me from running), and I ached & hurt in general.
Three years ago, I just did not feel “right”. I decided to get some blood work done. I was shocked when I got the results. Looking back, it all made sense (the slow weight gain, arthritis, pain). The warning signs where there but I just thought it was part of getting older. I learned a lot from my blood work, but the two items that had the most impact on me mentally was that I had chronic inflammation and I was pre-diabetic. I could handle the autoimmune issues, I could handle the MTHFR gene mutation (a whole additional story). What really hit me mentally was the inflammation and being pre-diabetic. Basically, my genes did not process carbs efficiently. Which was part of the reason that I had started to gain weight back. Even though I was eating healthy, eating all the right things, it was not working.
It was devastating to me to hear “pre-diabetic”. My father battled being a diabetic most of his adult life, it took his leg, it brought on a host of other medical issues, and it attributed to him passing away this past year. I was not going to be victim of my genes, I was not just going to manage these conditions, I was going to change my genes.
Enter the Primal Blueprint. By following the Primal Blueprint, cutting my carbs out, and really focusing on healthy fats, I have been able to regain what I had lost. After 6 months of being on the Primal Blueprint I lost the weight that I had put on, I did not even feel the arthritis anymore, I can run when I want to now, and my chronic inflammation was gone! When I got re-tested at that 6-month time frame I had completely changed my genes. All those symptoms were gone, I was no longer pre-diabetic.
It has been nearly 3 years now and I have found the Primal lifestyle completely sustainable, practical, and holistic. My entire family follows that same path and it has truly been a blessing for us. After nearly a decade of living the paleo lifestyle, and now after building a solid foundation with the Primal Blueprint, I am excited to be working with others on helping them to reclaim their health.
