“My weight is stable and my mood is escalating”

Per-Anders has a powerful and transformative story about how he turned his life around completely from a life with poor health, criminality and alcohol abuse. He lost 47 kg (104 lbs) and completely reversed his type 2 diabetes by incorporating intermittent fasting and low-carb:

The Email

Hello Diet Doctor,

My name is Per-Anders, and I’ve had weight issues for the greater part of my life. It peaked in 2013 when the scale showed 154 kg (340 lbs), and it was a weight I had reached mainly because of a very poor lifestyle, bad in many more ways than just diet.

I have a history of criminal activity, imprisonment, tagging, courts and everything related to this, so my starting position would probably make most people give up before even starting some kind of lifestyle change. I’ve lived with alcohol abuse for the greater part of my life (since I was 15 years old) where food quality wasn’t at the top of my priorities, or for that part, nothing to do with taking care of myself was a priority.

I abused drugs a lot, averaging 5-6 days per week from the age of 15 until I, at age 31, was transported away from my little cabin in Northern Sweden (where I lived) to a treatment center in the Southern parts of Stockholm county.

My weight was 153 kg (337 lbs) when I reached the treatment center, and I had done that to myself by drinking copious amounts of alcohol and if I even bothered to eat, I only had cheap, bad and carb-loaded junk food. I had drunk myself to a type 2 diabetes diagnosis, which was getting worse and worse and I was forced to start injections (Novo rapid and Lantus).

At this point, I was in so poor health that it was the last stop before I would die. Increasing blood sugar, a very high blood pressure and feeling very ill, and a weight that had reached a peak.

My primary goal with treatment was of course to break the cycle of a very destructive life, to detox, suffer through the abstinence, come out on the other side of it and get a fresh start to a new life after the year of treatment was over. When the worst damage from the alcohol and abstinence was healed, after six months or so at the center, I started focusing a little bit on what had been left in the shadow during the detox period until then, starting to focus on my weight and diabetes, so I started (like so many others) a low-calorie diet, and of course it didn’t work at all.

The insulin dosage needed to be increased continuously, even though I had stopped the abuse a long time ago and only ate (according to my beliefs back then) healthy low-calorie food, and ALSO worked out in a gym. We got cards to a gym which the treatment center provided us with so all patients could work out as much as we wanted to. And IN SPITE OF this ENORMOUS effort to lose the weight my blood sugar CONTINUED to rise.

When I had gotten my own home at last I could influence WHAT food I ate to a larger extent, and WHEN I ate, I had the freedom to be able to do so, through just having my own home, it was also a huge fight to get that (when I was released from the treatment center I had nowhere to live). Despite the sad fact that I didn’t have a home when I was released from the treatment center I was able to rent a room as a lodger at two different people’s homes until I got my own. I was able to, even during this critical time when my life was in limbo, reverse my diabetes, become declared as healthy and become free from insulin and pills.

Anyways, from the time I was released in December 2014 until some time in the middle of 2016 I spent quite a lot of time getting educated and reading a lot about diet and nutrition. But it wasn’t until I started watching Dr. Fung’s videos, presentation and advice that a real change could happen. I started in the beginning of 2017 to incorporate fasting, a few shorter such and other longer ones, and I still do, when I don’t fast I try to eat a strict low-carb diet. Sugar and carbs are completely gone from my menu.

The fasting really launched my rapid weight loss, I did a longer fast in February when I copied Mahatma Gandhi’s 21-day fast, and I only consumed water, salt, black coffee and a multivitamin per day, nothing else, and like I said it really got my weight loss started quickly.

Maybe I’m not a master in the kitchen, cooking very advanced or hard recipes, I haven’t really practiced gastronomy, but have been busy abusing drugs and commit devilry instead. That’s why I was very happy to discover the recipes at Diet Doctor which even I could cook, and through that sustain this new amazing low-carb life.

I have truly tried all possible ways to lose the weight I had gained, and I can say, after learning the hard way, with painful work outs to no use, that fasting and low carb really is the best method you can try to reach good results.

And with the help of fasting and LCHF I’ve gotten my life back, I’ve lost 47 kg (104 lbs) in total since the start of my journey back to life. And the main part of these 47 kilos (104 lbs) I’ve lost since the beginning of February when I started intermittent fasting and LCHF.

A person like me probably has a lot to catch up on, recover from, heal and learn about life. But at least my weight won’t be a problem any more, the yo-yo dieting is over, my weight is stable and my mood is escalating… Better and better…

…And better… ;-)

Kind regards,
Per-Anders

Comments

Thank you Per-Anders, for sharing your inspiring and amazing story!

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More

A Low-Carb Diet for Beginners

Intermittent Fasting for Beginners

How to Reverse Your Type 2 Diabetes

How to Lose Weight

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