How I lost 30 pounds in three months, the Natural Way: Backstory

This is the backstory with important dieting advice for the early-stage dieter … Alternate title; “Dieting advice for the woe-begone” (Please note that this is a Series, so there are further articles with specifics about diets, dieting strategies, and body sculpting that were also used in the project.)

When I first began my quest to lose extra weight, I was in a dark place and suffering from the three Ds of weight gain: divorce, depression, and donuts. (psst! I saw that donut! Put it down slowly … slowly…)

Then success! Over time, I lost at least 130 pounds through a mix of focus strategies, diets, supplements, and body sculpting devices.

I am writing a series of articles, where I spill my weight loss secrets and give you the skinny on how I became a weight loss winner, cracked the code, and eventually lost those last 30 (stubborn) pounds in three months.

In this, the first article, I’m going to tell you about how I began my weight loss journey. Then in the following articles I’ll tell you about the strategies, diets, and supplements I used — my recipe for success — and I’ll go on to show you to the various devices that were essential in reaching my weight loss goals.

It is important to realize that regardless of how you’ve gained weight, maybe prolonged illness, pregnancy, or even a change of work routine — like switching from in-office to work-at-home — you can improve your health by developing your own, unique weight maintenance strategies to establish and lock in a healthy body weight.

Here’s a snapshot of a life-changing day in my own weight loss journey —

So, this one day I made my regular trek to the gym, put my gym bag in the locker, grabbed my water bottle, weighed myself on the gym’s scales, and headed out to the cardio machines, hoping to find one that no one had sweated on too much.

I thought of the scale’s reading, and a sinking feeling in my gut told me something was wrong. Slowly and with bewilderment a realization dawned on me, setting off alarm bells it came to me clear as day that — despite all of my intense cardio efforts — I had stopped losing weight.

You see, four months previously, I had made a visit to the doctor, wanting his opinion on a cute-shoe foot blister that looked a little off, and I decided to pump him for advice on weight loss.

The doctor looked both ways and in a hush-hush manner (like it was a valuable secret) “from what he had heard in medical circles,” doing 45 minutes of cardio five days a week was sure to make a person lose weight. Since I was serious about losing weight – and I believed in following medical advice — I started doing 45 minutes of cardio, 5 days a week. (dun,dun,dun.)

Realizing Cardio was not enough —

Fast forward to that day at the gym, when I realized I had hit a plateau – when your weight loss hits a brick wall for some reason – it was beyond frustrating.

And suddenly the reality of it all became crystal clear: for four long months I had been doing 45 minutes of cardio five days a week, and in all that time I had lost no weight at all … nothing, nada, zero.

You have to understand that this type of cardio regimen was very time-consuming for me, and on top of that … I honestly had no choice but to trudge all the way to the gym for that cardio, due to outdoor weather conditions.

Just a few weeks after I realized that the doctor’s cardio-based method of weight loss was having no effect on me, I had a moment of inspiration … it was one of those amazing light bulbs of awareness …  When your golden goose finally lays the golden egg or a leprechaun finally lets you dig your fingers in that pot of gold.

And this flash of valuable understanding came while I was waiting for a dental appointment and reading the only magazine available: a magazine about men’s health. I immediately locked on to an article called something like, “Cardio doesn’t make you lose weight.”

It was a very thorough article, its large sized, shiny pages full of research and charts clearly explaining that 1. Cardio does not make you lose weight, and 2. Cardio can actually make you hungry.

No way! Can Cardio make you hungry? —

I began to examine my eating habits and had to begrudgingly admit that the article I read in the magazine that day might be right. And it was the darndest thing, I suddenly realized that since I had increased my cardio activity to 45 minutes 5 days a week, I had begun eating a lot of fast food (I was hungrier more often,) and for me, fast food can be difficult to digest.

I was also aware that after eating fast food, my body often reacted sluggishly to exercise. I began to think that maybe this whole situation was keeping me from losing weight.

That day in the dentist’s office, reading the magazine article about cardio, I thought about how my weight loss story began. I remembered that when I first started trying to lose weight, it was all about losing pregnancy weight that was just sticking around and being annoying, refusing to leave like a disrespectful house guest.

And weight loss was easy at first, my dieting efforts mostly involved eating light and fasting several days out of the week, protein shakes, and doing 30-minute walks 4 to 5 days a week. So, light activity — and light eating — was getting the job done.

Go to the gym? Yes please! —

That’s also when I began to go to the gym, which I found difficult for several reasons. In the first place, when you are just starting or getting back into fitness, you often find yourself stiffer than you used to be, and maybe you feel that you don’t look so good in the gym clothes, etc.

But I recommend the gym to anyone, because it helps you learn what types of exercises other people are doing, and it’s fun to try out the new exercise machines.-

Inspired by the article, I decided to cut down on the constant cardio and go for other types of exercise that wouldn’t make me so hungry. Starting with Pilates and yoga classes, I stretched and strengthened my body with the goal of sculpting a more supple me. (Yoga and Pilates also made me slimmer.)  

Another plus for Yoga and Pilates is that these systems help you to reduce pain and stiffness caused by fascia tissue: a tissue which surrounds the muscles and stiffens up over time. With all of that “mat work” and a gentler cardio routine, I began losing weight again.

First rule of DIY weight loss —

This brings me to my first major suggestion for DIY weight loss: Sometimes you are your best weight loss advisor! Periodically rethink your weight loss strategies, being very observant of your progress, and ask yourself if the methods you are using seem to be helping you.

For example, if I had never realized that expanded cardio was linked to a change in my eating habits, I would never have understood that the weight loss method I was using at that time (the expanded cardio) did not produce results for me.  

In fact, changes in lifestyle, age, and even stress levels can torpedo your dieting efforts. Also, when reaching a new level of fitness on your journey, you may find the strategies that resulted in your early weight loss success can lose their effectiveness: it may be that you’ve outgrown those original strategies.

And it’s also important to realize that just because a weight loss method worked for you in the past — or worked for someone else — does not mean it’s going to work for you at the present time. Don’t be afraid to rethink your strategy.

I reached a weight loss plateau in New York City –

At one point in my weight loss journey, I spent some years living and working in New York City. At that time, having lost another chunk of weight, I hit a serious weight loss plateau. And in fact, I got stuck at a weight that I knew well – I had seen it before — and that weight was a “set point” for me.

 A set point is basically a certain weight that seems determined to be permanent – feels like you can’t get past it no matter how hard you try — at least that’s what it wants you to believe.

I have reason to think that the tendency to hit a certain set point when you’re losing weight may be genetic, or it may be that set points occur when a person’s stubborn personality manifests in stubborn body processes (yeah, that’s the chickens coming home to roost.)

But honestly, hitting a set point can be very depressing; it fights you, torments you, tempts you to give up and otherwise thumbs its nose at your weight loss attempts.

In NYC, I did a lot of intense cardio and weight training in and out of the gym, attended Pilates and Hot yoga classes, and went all over the city to creative meet-up groups. I was in great physical condition, but I may have been adding muscle: even bulking up a bit.

It was very surprising to me that … even with such a large amount of activity and a light food intake … I could never lose that last 30 pounds. (Can you believe it?)

Muscle weighs more than fat —

I know they say that gaining muscle burns fat – makes you lose weight — but for me, it seemed like the more I focused on weight training, the more I stopped losing weight, and then my weight got stuck at a set point. My conclusion was this …

Second rule of DIY weight loss —

Second major suggestion for DIY weight loss: Some dieters are most successful when they focus on maintaining both a varied eating style and a varied system of exercise and weight training.  

Let me explain: To use this method, you focus on varying the amount of food you eat each day, so that you eat more on some days and less on others — along with periodic fasting (eating in the shape of a wave,) and this varied eating schedule keeps your body from instigating a set point.

The idea of using a varied schedule also works for strength training. I was always told that gaining muscle naturally makes you burn fat, and then strength training eventually makes you lose weight.

But for some reason, my body didn’t understand it that way … When my body gained muscle, I not only didn’t lose weight, but instead became bulkier. I eventually solved this problem by varying my strength training schedule.

I remember I had a friend in college who was lifting weights, and she complained that some guy told her “muscle weighs more than fat” and that she should lose weight before she did much weight training.

And at this point, I have to agree with the guy who told her to lose weight first. Because in my own case — and I have experienced this repeatedly (especially when dieting) — lifting heavier weights seems to bulk me up, instead of thinning me down.

For this reason, I also began to use a varied schedule when lifting weights: some days doing extra reps of arm circles with two-pound weights, and other days using heavier weights, from 5-pound up to the 10-pound kettle ball for cross-the-body lifts (good for the core.) In this way, I kept working at it, but I minimized my workout time with the heavier weights.

Country quiet can be peaceful and brutal –

Eventually, when I left the noisy, bustling city and moved out to a rural area to provide care for an ailing relative, I found the move – from city to country — to be very stressful, and this was partly because the country was so much quieter.

There’s an urban legend saying that many people who leave the city and move to the country get deathly ill and even pass away. And it is true that extreme changes in living environment can be an amazingly difficult adjustment for some. (It was for me.)

Caring for my dear oldest old relative who was at risk of falling and did not like to be alone, I decided to try a diet experiment. Based on the idea that excessive muscle building activities (muscle weighs more than fat, wink) were not tipping the scales in my direction.

I decided to see if I could lose that last 30 pounds with Keto dieting, intermittent fasting, and only a moderate amount of exercise … Sounds strange, but when you are fasting often, it’s important not to push yourself too hard, hence the reduction in cardio.

It was a “low carb diet and intermittent fasting” routine that worked for me and made the pounds literally melt right off, and I think it would be a very helpful weight loss method for people who often sit at a desk, or for people who work at home.

This type of diet and low-key exercise routine might also be good for people who don’t get out much, or less active people in general.

In future articles in the series, I’m going to continue the story of how I lost 30 pounds in 3 months by a combination of the keto diet and other diet strategies, with a focus on low impact exercise and effective slimming devices.

My main focus was on losing pounds, but I also found it important to maintain muscle tone through basic body sculpting and low-cost fitness devices. See you next time on Simply Natural Medicine!

This article was written by Vanna Silverwood, medical writer and outspoken advocate for natural medicine. See more articles atSimplynaturalmedicine.com … Encouraging stability, helping you clarify your health goals … we are always “Natural by nature!“

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For the book that made me into a world class dieter, Click here to see Josh Axe’s “Keto Diet: Your 30-Day Plan to Lose Weight, Balance Hormones, Boost Brain Health, and Reverse Disease” on Amazon!

Sources

West, Mary (2023) What is set point theory? Medical News Today.  https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/set-point-weight#what-is-it