I am a person who has dedicated his life to helping others achieve weight loss and better health, but what I have realised over the past 18 years as a personal trainer and nutritionist is that I can help someone for a session, for a day, for a month, but as soon as I stop coaching them, as soon as they no longer feel accountable, they would go back to eating the same way as before and in many cases, put the weight back on.
To be honest, it has been hard to not become cynical and feel bad for taking people’s money for my services knowing full well there was an 85% chance they will fail.
I started to wonder why people couldn’t seem to regulate and sustain their body weight and appetite through a “normal” healthy carb based diet and regular exercise. While constant coaching and holding people accountable can achieve short term results, it is restrictive and quite often comes with forced behavioural changes due to external pressure. This encourages us to make decisions out of a place of guilt as opposed to empowerment, creating a negative relationship with food.
I had athletes who were doing ten or more hours of exercise per week and they too struggled to reduce body fat and regulate their body weight. I have always personally exercised five to six times per week, but still, unless I was super strict, I could not drop body fat. To me this was frustrating, demoralising and just didn’t make sense. If I as a nutritionist of 16 years and personal trainer of 18 years couldn’t lose fat weight without thrashing my body with excessive exercise to do so, what hope did my clients have?
It wasn’t until my dear Mother was diagnosed with pancreas cancer and a friend of mine suggested I look into the ketogenic way of eating, that I realised the many real health benefits of eating a very low carb and high fat diet. Sadly, we found Mum’s cancer too late and lost her to the disease. There isn’t a day go by that I don’t miss my beautiful Mum and I can’t help but wonder if we had caught it earlier and got her on to a ketogenic diet, if we could have saved her.
When we knew Mum had very little chance of surviving, as a nutritionist and a caring son, I frantically researched everything I could in regards to how to best tackle cancer from a nutrition standpoint. And all my research pointed to the ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting. I wrote myself a meal plan and followed it to the T and I was blown away by the results. The fat loss was quick but that wasn’t my main aim. It was better health and increased energy that I was personally looking for and that is exactly what I got.
Since 2010, no matter what I did, I couldn’t get my weight down from 90kg. I was stuck. However after the first week on the KETOFAST program I lost three kilos (6.5lbs). The following week I dropped another three kilos. The third week I lost another two kilos and I am now at my healthy weight of 82kg and maintaining muscle mass and staying lean.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe that after all these years of trying to minimise fat in my diet, that it’s been so easy and I have done it while eating delicious high fat foods that I thoroughly enjoy.
I no longer have cravings for carb rich foods. I can control my appetite without having to think about it. I have constant energy throughout the day and my exercise performance is better than ever. I just feel great, strong, happy and healthy and that is why I am so passionate for people to try this way of eating.
That is why I designed the KETOFAST program. To simplify the process of knowing how to eat and what to eat so that anyone can follow a low carb, keto lifestyle and enjoy the many benefits. If you have ever struggled with your weight, health or energy levels, I encourage you to give it a go. You won’t regret it.
