I have always been active throughout my life. In high school, I played football, wrestled and ran track. When I was 13, I bought my first barbell set and was bitten by the weight lifting bug. I couldn’t get enough time in the weight room. While on active duty in the Army, I was introduced to the sport of powerlifting. After I left the Army, I started competing in powerlifting meets while in college. I become quite strong and learned that if I gained weight I would get even stronger. Gradually over time, my body weight started to climb up wards from 225 lbs at age 21 up to 293 lbs by age 26. I never gave my body weight a second thought as I was too busy competing and trying to lift more weight. Of course as my body weight climbed, so did my body fat.
In 1999, the unthinkable happened to me, I damaged the cartilage in my knee and had to give up the sport of powerlifting. I continued to work out, but continued to eat like I was competing. My bodyweight continued to hover around 275 lbs for the next 14 years. Then one day, I saw a picture of myself playing in the pool with my kids. I could not believe my eyes. I was fat and I decided that I needed to do something about it. If not for me, for my kids. Not only was my body weight too high, but my blood pressure was also climbing up. I was gradually becoming a statistic and I knew that if I did not change my lifestyle, I may not be around much longer.
So I started out like most of us do. I cleaned up my diet and tried to eat healthier with more fruits and veggies. I even started to do more cardio on the recumbent bike that had been more of a clothes rack in the basement than a piece of exercise equipment. I gave up regular pop and switched to diet. It was hard, but I slowly lost about 25 lbs over the course of a year. Then I just hit the wall. My body just wouldn’t shed any more weight. I increased my cardio, ate more fruit and yogurt instead of McDonald’s. But it was like my body had just leveled off. I kept counting calories and steps that I had taken each day. But my efforts just didn’t pay off. It was at that time that I was introduced to the Ideal Protein weight loss method.
A friend of mine told me about Ideal Protein and that I could lose the weight by restricting the carbs and sugar and force my body into a state of ketosis to lose the fat. He told me that I would lose the weight without exercising. I thought he was crazy. Lose the weight without exercising? That went against everything that I had learned in physical therapy school and had learned in my years of working out. But what did I have to lose other than my weight. So in January 2014, I started on Ideal Protein.
I won’t lie. It was a very challenging program. I gave up pop (including diet), carbs, sugar and started eating Ideal Protein food that had just the right amount of protein to maintain my lean body mass. I ate eight ounces of meat a day along the four cups of veggies and two liters of water. This was a big change. I usually despised vegetables. But I wanted to succeed so I learned to like vegetables. Then an amazing thing started to happen in the first week, I started losing weight. By the end of March that year, I had lost 51 lbs. In three months, I lost more weight than I did in the whole previous year. Not only did I lose the weight, I was able to keep it off throughout that year. Then at the end of last year, I decided to go back on the Ideal Protein diet to lose a few additional pounds that I didn’t lose the first time. In eight weeks, I lost another 20 lbs. I was under 200 lbs for the first time in almost 25 years.
I felt like a new person. My knees did not hurt. I could move easier and get up/down from the floor when playing with the kids. I was no longer short of breath when climbing steps. My blood pressure was down too. Now that I am in the maintenance phase of Ideal Protein, I have the tools needed to keep the weight off and stay healthy. Ideal Protein is a very effective and efficient way to lose weight as I have found out personally. I am confident that I will be able to keep the weight off and live life to the fullest!
At Flex Physical Therapy, we offer free weight loss consultations with our Certified Health Coach. Call us at 712-256-1800 to schedule your consultation and start losing weight now. Or attend our next Ideal Protein Workshop!
