Standard Australian Diet
To learn a little more about how I got here see My Story.
Timeframe Birth – 2014
Growing up in modern Australia I followed a typical Aussie kid diet. This consisted of lots of take away, bread, pasta, cereal, potato, bad oils and easily enough sugar to make the sweetest toothed sick. Just imagine a breakfast of coco pops with at minimum an added 6 heaped teaspoons of sugar... at the end of my meal anything remaining in the bowl was slurped up and scooped out as to not waste any of that precious sugar to get me through my day. Morning tea was some form of biscuits, lunch was sandwiches then afternoon tea more biscuits, milo and whatever other sugar rubbish I could get my hands on to tide me over till dinner. There was always some form of sweet drink mixed in their as well. Whether it be milk based or soft drink. I really didn't consume much water at all. Dessert was a staple.
Cooking was something that was very foreign to me. This was in part due to not wanting to and being scared of knives in the kitchen. I'm sure a very common occurrence for lots of boys out there.
Anyhow on to the fun stuff!
Health Issues
- IBS
- Rosacea
- Struggled to put on weight < 25yr
- Struggled to lose weight > 25yr
- Brain fog / Carb Coma
- Plantar fasciitis
IBS – How It All Began
My first signs of IBS that I can remember in retrospect were from my early childhood 10 possibly 12 years of age. I'd have milo and chocolate topping on top of ice cream and then not even 2 hours later I'd be glued to the toilet. At the time I didn't think anything of it, I mean who does at that age. I Just thought it was normal and didn't even think it was related to anything I was eating or drinking. That's how I continued on for too many years until I started having more serious issues. Polyps, bloody stool, ridiculous pain.
Rosacea – Along For The Ride
For as long I can remember I'd had issues with dry itchy skin on my face. This lead to the use of steroid creams... which then caused stretch marks to form on my arms and around my waist. Not exactly the most flattering thing for a scrawny teenage boy. And a very weird place for them to develop from a cream I was applying to my face.
Weight – The Struggle To Put On Weight
No matter what I ate or how much I ate until I was in my mid-twenties I could not for the life of me put on any weight... be it muscle or fat. I was stuck being scrawny. I never purposely tried to gain weight as I was too busy playing sports and running around all over the place. Basketball, rollerblading (yes, I know), badminton, sprinting and riding bikes and playing all over the neighbour were a common theme. So, I was probably just lucky in that regard that my body could expend all those carbohydrates I was feeding it. Thank you adolescent hormones!
Weight – The Struggle To Lose Weight
When I turned 25 the weight starts to pile on. I’d gone from roughly 70kg to 83kg. There were a number of different thing at play here; A job that I was always eating take away on the run at varied hours, physical activity was almost non-existent. I was becoming breathless just walking up the stairs :S. I attempted to lose weight for my wedding by putting myself through CrossFit style WODs 4 days a week... this resulted in a loss of just 2kg and little to no physical change after 10 weeks. Also, a lot of throwing up, IBS flare ups and migraines as a result.
Brain Fog / Carb Coma
I always remember eating breakfast before school at around 7:30am. Despite this massive sugar hit I was taking in I was falling asleep at my desk before 10am. Staying focused was near impossible, but it didn't help that I had no interest in learning at the time. I would have preferred to be out doing some form of physical activity.
Plantar Fasciitis – The Final Straw
This started one morning when I went to get up out of bed and collapsed in a heap on the floor. I couldn't put any weight on my right foot. My lovely wife carted me off to the nearest emergency room to see if we could find out what was going on.
Now this wasn't the first time I'd had this pain, it was just the intensity that I could not bear. Previously I'd just been told I'd most like jarred or bruised my foot. The advice was to stay off it and make sure to wear supportive shoes. This time the emergency doctor promptly said plantar fasciitis upon examination, this brought huge relief as I'd received an instant answer and something I could go home and find out more about.
From here I started to research plantar fasciitis as I really had little idea what it was. It was through this research that I somehow stumbled across the brilliant documentary Cereal Killers starring Professor Tim Noakes MD and Donal O'Neill. I don't remember how exactly but something about this resonated with me and I knew I had to see it.
This is where the journey into Low Carb High Fat began. Click here to learn more about what happened next.