In the photo above, the time elapsed from the guy on the left to the guy on the right is about one year. The difference in that year is 115 lbs. What many find shocking is that it was done with no exercise at all.
At my heaviest, I weighed 312 lbs. I was morbidly obese, and doctors advised me that I would not live long at that weight. I was a walking time bomb. Regardless, I ignored all the warnings until one morning I found that I could not put on a pair of shoes because I was so fat that I couldn’t bend over. I decided right then and there that I needed to make a change.
I felt helpless. I’d tried many times in the past to lose weight, but failed every time (and then put on extra weight). Many of these attempts ended in injury, as I believed as many people do that the key to losing weight is to exercise. It wasn’t until my cousin Sarah, a PA, told me about Whole30 and Paleo. I spent days doing research, reading, and learning about Whole30 and Paleo. I read success stories and saw photos of people who had lost in excess of 100 lbs on the Paleo diet. They had my attention.
I was intrigued, and I took this new-found information to my wife, Sherry, who immediately dismissed the idea. She had also failed many times at losing weight, and didn’t want to live without delicious foods. When I explained to her that while Whole30 can be restrictive, the Paleo diet was not. It had many foods that were delicious and filling. I also told her what the doctors told me, and that my very life was in jeopardy. She agreed to embark on this new lifestyle with me to support me.
We completed our Whole30, and while it was not without difficulty and challenges, we did it. By the end, I had lost 20 lbs in one month and she had lost 10 lbs. We felt energetic and we were free of our sugar cravings. We were excited to move into the Paleo phase of our new, healthy lifestyle.
For the following 9 months, I lost another 80 lbs. So far, as of this writing, I’ve lost over 140 lbs since I was at my heaviest. I’ve been keeping the weight off and improving my fitness since I’ve started running. However, the point here is that I was able to lose all this weight without doing any exercise at all.
So how did I do it? The rules are simple:
Eat meat, vegetables, and fruit.
Avoid sugar, grains, legumes, artificial sweeteners, and soy.
Sleep 8 hours each night.
There are many Paleo sites out there with an endless variety of recipes. The food is filling, tastes good, and many of the Paleo-friendly foods are the same foods you’ve been eating and enjoying your entire life: steak, chicken, sausage, brisket, pork, fish, lobster, crab, shrimp, etc. I’ve found that concentrating on the foods I can eat is a mind-hack that works well for me.
You can do this. I did it, and I couldn’t believe how well it worked. I felt like I was somehow cheating because the food was so delicious and so filling. I lost weight at a nice, steady pace, and I felt better and better as I went along. Best of all? I’m no longer diabetic.
Browse my site. Go to whole30.com and thepaleodiet.com. Read as much as you can. Visit Paleo sites. This can all be done for free, and there are no pills, shakes, powders, patches, surgery, or memberships to buy.
I went from being morbidly obese former active duty Marine to being a National Guard solder in a year and a half at age 49. You can do this.
Paleo Marine 