How Michael lost 80 pounds on low carb and exercise

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Michael Berta had 80 pounds (36 kg) of excessive weight, felt stripped of energy and suffered from bad acid reflux when he decided to start the simplest diet he could think of: low carb.

He has been greatly successful on the diet, and in this short interview he shares the insights he has reached from his journey.

Transcript

Michael Berta:  I was tired a lot, I didn’t have any energy, I had really bad acid reflux that was very hard to live with and the medications had some long-term side effects that I didn’t really want to find out if they applied to me or not.

My name is Michael and I am an engineer. As an engineer I wanted to be super-efficient and keep everything as simple as possible and I figured I could count to 2000, which should be calories, or I could count to 20, which should be carbs and I’m like, “I’m going to count to 20 instead”.

And so that is literally the reason I decided to go onto a low-carb diet. After my daughter was born I had gained a fair amount of weight over the years, but when she was born I knew that I needed to be healthier.

I’ve lost 80 pounds… I specifically say 80 pounds of fat because I’ve been gaining weight but that’s been at the gym, lifting, and I’m still wearing the same pants. After losing the weight I now have no more acid reflux, my blood pressure is totally fine and I feel fantastic.

I had some people who would ask me what it was and this was before keto got like as big as it is now and so I would tell people I’m doing a low-carb diet and I think people would think about the Atkins diet back in the day and like, “Oh, that’s cool”.

But then more recently as soon as keto took off like a year ago, now I’m having a ton of people like asking me a ton of questions. I’m fielding private messages all the time from friends, family, acquaintances, strangers… the whole nine yards.

This one here is about a year or so after I started doing weight training. I really enjoy hiking and it’s a lot easier for this guy to go hiking than it is for this guy to go hiking. I can go hiking now and then go play soccer the next morning. The transition was pretty easy for me actually.

I think it was just ongoing knowing that this process sort of takes a while. You won’t decide, “I’ll go on a low-carb diet and the next week I’m going to get to my goal weight”. So I think there was some mental blockage there.

I was just knowing that this thing actually takes a while. I think being overweight is a lot harder than being on a low-carb diet. If people were just eating real food… It’s so hard to see that as being unsustainable.

Transcript pdf

About the video

Recorded at the Low Carb Cruise in May 2018. Published in August 2019.
Interviewer: Kristie Sullivan
Camera operators: Simon Victor, Mattias Lindberg and Jonatan Victor
Light: Simon Victor
Sound: Simon Victor
Editing: Harianas Dewang

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