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Hi Guys,

I hope everyone is doing well. Today's blog is about what a lot of us dread doing and that is exercising. The bottom line is that no matter what dietary lifestyle you're doing if you don't exercise then you are not going to lose weight or fat. Frequent fasting is great for you especially if you are sitting at a desk all day not moving which is what I did when I was working a full-time job. I would get up around 6:30 and go into my garage to row and do 20 to 30 minutes every day before work until my position was eliminated mid-October. Losing my job motivated me to hit the gym hard taking things to the next level and spending my mornings at the gym, going to the gym after my am quiet time. I do work out at 5 to 6 days a week. 

This transitional time for me has been very emotional because getting laid off sucks, and being in the job market during a recession has been hard. A lot of my peers are in the same boat right now and my heart goes out to them especially the ones that weren't financially prepared. If Covid and the freeze of 2021 taught us anything it is that we should be prepared for anything and everything. One of my favorite you-tubers Jaspreet Singh has been saying that Americans are living a fat lifestyle he is talking about finance. From his perspective, a lot of us live beyond our means and are in a lot of debt and when job loss happens we are left with very few options. Our unhealthy lifestyle does catch up with us at some point. Look at how many people have diabetes now. That speaks volumes. Plus I am completely over people having a "this is the way it is" or "it's part of getting old" mindset. I have never been the type of person that does what everyone else is doing or just takes things at face value. I am a curious creature that is always learning, growing, and improving.

I am taking this time to better myself on all levels: I am working on updating my skills for my future job, learning new things, building my business, making more good low-carb/ keto foods at home, reading, and working out. I know that God has a plan and the right position will come and prepare me financially. I am honestly enjoying this process and it is crazy to see the results I am now seeing. I am wearing smalls again and my stomach is shrinking, but so is my butt that part does not excite me. The more I see results the easier it gets to maintain this lifestyle, and my insecure body issues have decreased too. I would get insecure when fit ladies would be around because it made me realize how fluffy and flabby I had become. It was my issue that I had to live with or do something about. Now most of the ladies that used to intimidate me are encouragers to me. They see how far I have come and it humbles me that they notice. 

The results have manifested so many emotions at this time. There are other factors like job loss and menopause that are at play here too. The fact that I am really losing fat is something that I see every day. It's like my body gets it but my mind doesn't.  I guess I really didn't think that I would get back to being fit at age 49. I had allowed myself to gain the weight because I wasn't working out intensely and thinking that I ate healthy when in all actuality I was eating 200 grams or more of carbs per day. I didn't fast then and would have eggs and potatoes for breakfast and sometimes in a flour tortilla potatoes have 46 grams of carbs for a 1/2 cup serving. I wasn't eating half a cup at a time. I was eating a cup or more plus a tortilla. Then for lunch, I would typically have sushi rolls. Get ready because sushi has so many carbs. The rice has carbs, plus all the sugar they put in it to make it sticky has carbs, plus if there is anything breaded in the roll that has carbs, the mayo sauce has tons of sugar and carbs. I lost track there alone, my favorite snack was chili mango slices with 33 grams of carbs in a serving. I don't think I ate the serving amount there either. Dinner would usually be a rice dish like paella don't even get me trying to calculate that one either the rice and peas in that plus I ate 2 bowls minimum. 

Those are a lot of carbs friends. I was always hungry too because the foods I ate were addictive and not satiating. The ones I didn't burn turned into sugar and made me fat. I had someone tell me that I really wasn't that big, and that is partially true. When they recently saw me they told me that I lost a lot of weight and asked what I was doing? Almost every time I share what I am doing people reply with " I can't do that. I thought that too, but if you really think about it a low-carb lifestyle makes sense because if you read the labels of the food you buy there are added sugars, especially in the middle aisles of the stores you shop.

I am also going to reiterate my why which is to encourage and motivate you to evaluate what you put in your body and make changes that will improve your lifestyle. If you truly are happy being overweight then I am happy for you. I wasn't but it's not just about weight loss for me it is gaining and sharing what I have learned with those of you that want to prevent health issues down the road. I am married to a medical professional and see firsthand how bad the situation is. I am not going to get into the data because I want you to do the research for yourself. My current workout schedule is to work out 6-7 days a week: 3-4 lower body, and 3-4 upper body days with cardio. If I can I will head back to the gym to walk/ run on the track for up to 3 miles. I am going to go to a class with a friend soon too. I am building out my website so stay tuned for that. 

Have a great day,

CML out

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 Did I celebrate the holidays and still stay in ketosis? I will answer that through out the blog, and it was and still is exciting to learn this lifestyle. Let's start with Thanksgiving, I normally really like hosting, but was not wanting to make the family eat keto or have Craig make extra food. Craig and Cambria have been very supportive and eat carbs. Making and getting food for them used to torture me, but I am in ketosis so it is all good. 

My approach to the holidays in general was to try, test, and make traditional favorite dishes keto. Some of these dishes like green-bean casserole and ham were easy.I had researched a lot of youtube and pintrest to gain inspiration and it did not disappoint because there are more and more people living a keto, Atkins, or lo carb lifestyle. Cranberry sauce and stuffing not so much. Some of the keto breads for stuffing were so expensive and horrible tasting that I gave up on them. I tried to make Cranberry sauce too and the second one I made turned out better, but was still not as good as the real one. 

The only time I got out of ketosis was ironically at a lunch date with my friend where I did not realize there where beans at the bottom of my burrito bowl even though I asked them to leave the beans & rice out. It took bites for me to realize it and was too late. I had been doing keto for about 4 months at that point and over came the keto flu to get there. I was so tired and felt like I took 5 steps back immediately. I came home and took a nap, and was ok the next day. The carbs and sugar are not worth the price to me anymore of being fat & sluggish and that was a harsh reminder that I have not repeated.

Now that my weight and fat-loss is noticeable I get asked what I am doing because the change has been pretty drastic at this point. There is way more to this experience for me than just loosing weight. I want change my quality of life as well as inform and inspire you to change yours. I let my self go to a certain extent and told my self that it is supposed to be this way. Actually I think society tells us that too, along with the connivence of processed foods, and the bulk of the food industry is filling our meals with sugar, inflammatory oils, and chemicals. Look all around you there are a lot more bigger people especially kids & for the first time in 50 years our life span has been reduced. 

Another resource that I had been evaluating is FlavCity he and his family do a paleo/keto lifestyle and he exposes the crap that is put into our food especially the processed convenient ones that are not even considered food in other countries. How do I know that because  I actually lived in Germany when I was stationed in the army. There were far less fast food places, the Germans ride their bikes everywhere, and a lot of them smoke. It will be very interesting when I go back to see if it is now the same as here. I makes me realize the trust that we have in our food industry, but a keto low carb diet will definitely change that. There is so much sugar in so many things that you have to be diligent especially in the beginning to understand what you are putting in your body. I learned all kinds of things and my hope is that you will go out and do your own research and make changes. 

Back to the holidays so this year Craig's birthday fell on Thursday the 22 and I finally got us reservations to Fogo De Cho and the family was going to join us so the day came and this was the beginning of the Arctic freeze. I will admit that this was pretty easy to stay on track because this amazing place is a Brazilian steak house and all of us got to experience this together. If you get a chance to do this go for it. Our holidays have been low key and at home for the past 4 years because Craig has worked. We did have the opportunity to go to a family members home, but I do not feel right going out on this day while my husband works.We made food and that really seems to be the trick with a healthy lifestyle. 

That is one of my goals this year is to make 90% of my food. I have noticed that people who pay attention to what is in their food and make the majority of their cleanish meals do have a healthy life style. I will say that keto lo carb has done more for me in 5 months over the past couple of years. I am not going to tell you that it is easy because it really isn't, but if you want to loose fat and weight then you should seriously give it a shot. Now that I covered the food for now, I will mention exercise in my next blog.

CL2Howdidigethere

 So have you ever seen you in a picture and didn't recognize the person in the picture? I am not a person that takes selfies and is hardly in any pictures to begin with, but the few pictures that I was in told a story. In every picture I was getting bigger, fatter, and not recognizable. I was also avoiding going to the dr. because I knew I was going to be told that. Before we go on I need to set some ground rules.  If you are the kind of person that is going to be offended by my story of being sick and tired of being fat and unhealthy, this blog may not be for you. I am sharing this experience to encourage you; no matter how old you are that  you can take control of your health by evaluating the things you eat, and moving your body to loose fat and weight. 

That is where I was this past August. I had started researching everything on weight-loss because I was exercising, eating fairly healthy, and still getting bigger. I was going to the gym daily and was still around 150 pounds. It was so frustrating to work out and see very little results.That is the kind of stuff that made me want to give up. I was starting to see that the best option was going to be intermittent fasting and keto. There are all different types of keto: strict, dirty, lazy, etc. There is so much data out there and there are some doctors that inspired me especially Dr, Berg.  He is an example of some one doing Keto and his journey and insights inspired me to start. I also need to shout out to keto with Sammy, the keto twins, lo carb love, & hifalutin lo carb, they also were inspiring to me.

I started fasting the week before labor day and it totally sucked. I was so tired and literally running on coffee. I discovered Jordans skinny syrups at marshalls, & months later they are still my goto. I started keto on labor day. I ate all the fat and meat that I wanted my goal was 10 net carbs per day because all the research suggested that once you were in ketosis all of the keto flu and cravings would go away. I had both I was tired and swear that I had carb "spidy" senses I could smell fries for miles. I ate lots of whipped cream and cream cheese for the next weeks. I did more research on the keto flu to find that electrolytes could and did help. 

Let's talk a bit on what is going on with our food.  As I mentioned earlier I thought that I was a relatively healthy eater. I never have been big on breads, sweets, or sugary drinks; love lean proteins and veggies. So why was I packing on the pounds? When I started to look into lo carb lo or no sugar options for my new lifestyle, it was like getting another degree. You have to really read your food labels very carefully. In my discovery I found out that sugar is in just about everything, and it is frustrating and scary. This lifestyle really makes you evaluate the stuff you are putting into your body including non sugar ingredients. Some of these products are even worse for you than sugar so please do your own research and read those labels.

Keto is 20 grams of net carbs per day and sometimes you have figure that out. I didn't want to deal with that in the beginning so I ate foods with no carbs like meat, olives, & cheese. I had my dr. visit and it went well I weighed 144 with a BMI of 27. Writing this still brings tears to my eyes because it had been years since I had seen the scale move down.  What is also interesting is that all of my menopausal symptoms especially hot flashes went away. My doctor encouraged me to continue down the path I was on. 

My husband Craig became concerned about my fat consumption because of my families heart disease history.  He was right as usual, so I would say that I am more on the low carb side of things now because I am not eating all the fat that I was before, but am still eating 10 net carbs per day.  I am in ketosis and it feels amazing. The fatigue is gone and so are the cravings. I can get my family food with fries and not have any issues where as before it was torture. I really learned  intuitive eating which is very different than what we are taught which is to eat small frequent or 3 meals a day. I only eat when I am hungry now and it is usually only two meals a day. If I have a hard work out, leg day and I am hungry then I will eat.

Now I am really seeing the impacts of this lifestyle I am in the120s, have more energy, enjoy my work outs and am wearing things I have not been able to get into in years. I had to go dress shopping for my husbands Christmas party and fit into a size 2 dress again I am an emotional mess about it so I will stop here for this blog. Please join me for my next blog where I talk about how I survived the holidays on keto. 

Thanks for reading. I am working on the website and will see you in the next blog

CLIntro1123

 Hi I am Carmen and I also go by Mindy to my family members. I am starting this blog because I am noticing some alarming trends about gaining weight, and aging. I am going to share my struggle with this very issue and my motivation in doing so is to help you understand what is going on with our food, the importance of exercise, and to adopt a healthy lifestyle for you to live a better hopefully longer life.

Ever since I can remember I have been chunky, thick, and called gordita.  As a kid growing up in the 80s I was the token fat girl and we were few and far between. I was also constantly compared by family members to my slim sister to boot. I can remember turning to food when my mother died it was my coping mechanism and the only thing that connected me to my dad. My dad was a provider but that was it for me. I am the middle child of 11 children that I know of, and I had daddy issues that I have worked through. My dad could have done better, it is not my place to judge him. In my healing process I have forgiven him, and have a better insights about why I had food issues.

As I grew up my food issues faded until high school where I wanted to be slim and had a friend that slimmed down by not eating that worked for me until I got into the Army where I was taught to eat three solid meals a day, and the importance of exercise. I bulked up & became fit thick which caused me to never make the Army's weight standards weighing 120 pounds. For the first time in my life I never cared about what I ate because it was so simple and don't care what anyone says mess hall food is amazing. I got to try so many scratch made meals that I never had before.

After the army, I moved back to Texas to go to school I was still fit and taught aerobics but was a starving student. Then I met Craig and we were both struggling students I lost 20 pounds and got pregnant and lost even more weight due to morning sickness and stress. Craig and I got married shortly after the birth of our daughter but that happiness was short lived due to multiple tragic events that shook my family to the core for the next decade. During that decade I got my education and started my IT career and Craig went nursing school. We bought our first house and we found out we were pregnant. I started the pregnancy at 117 pounds and lost a little bit of weight because I was sick for the first couple of months but I blew up to 153 pounds. I ended up having an emergency c section at age 36, and it was horrible. It was worth it for our second daughter.

At this point in my life I had postpartum, stress of being on one income, and starting life in our new home plus I had never had a surgery so I was also recovering from that. Earlier I mentioned that Craig was in nursing school and his amazing classmates brought us meals. It took me a while but I did get the weight down to about 135 where I was able to maintain this by working out and eating reasonably healthy. I was going on 47 when covid hit we have a home gym and I started off strong thinking  I could work out at home at the same level that I had at the gym. I ended up getting a job that allowed me to work from home and that is when I blew up to over 155 pounds and this impacted me more than I can admit.

I had a coworker that did intermittent fasting, and she mentioned it to me because that helped relieve some of her menopause symptoms. As I started my own research on this subject, keto kept coming up so I wanted to learn more and discovered that a recent friend lost 120 pounds doing keto for 2 years.  So on labor day of this year I started intermittent fasting and keto. In my next blog I am going to go into great detail about that so stay tuned, but I wanted to give you my stats. I started this journey with a BMI at 28 and 155 pounds. I am now at a BMI at 25 and 129 pounds at 49 years of age.