Fat, And Not So Happy
Last Saturday night, Jeff and I went to see a piano concert at one of the local museums we often frequent. As we walked in, a couple of our expat acquaintances greeted us from their seats. After the pleasantries were over, the woman proceeded to state just how great Jeff and I were looking. At first, I didn’t really know what she was referring to until she went on, “You two have lost so much weight. You have to tell me how you did it as no matter what I do, I just seem to gain.” I let her know that it wasn’t easy, but that I went on a strict keto diet under the guidance of a local expat, Mary Beauchamp, who resides here in Guanajuato, Mexico.
The woman went on to exclaim, “Oh, that would never work for us, we don’t ever eat meat.” I let go of that conversation and looked over at the man sitting beside her, who I’ve met countless times, at a variety of other venues. His arm was in a sling, “Tom (not his real name), what happened to your arm?” He replied, “I wish it was from rescuing a kitten, but I broke it falling out of my very own hammock.” Then he proceeded to ask, “Have we met before?” Jane (not her real name) piped back in, “Surely you know Jeff and Ally, they’re natural doctors from Canada! They lived here for a long time!”
Tom did go on to say that he was tired of carrying the same extra thirty pounds around his middle, and that he’d found it hard to take it off as a vegan. When I furthered a tiny baby step into his midst, he admitted to being an ‘O’ blood type. This is when I fully dropped the rod of diagnosing his case and thankfully the pianist entered the stage. Whew!
O blood types in particular are humanity’s cave men and women. They thrive on organ meat, fish, eggs, bone broth, and very little else. Vegetables, fruits, or dairy of any sort should be more like 5 – 10% of their diet. If they’re not partaking in their optimal diet, they generally gain weight, develop chronic joint and muscle pain, brittle bones, and even issues with memory.
Out of the gate, what does Weston A. Price recommend we feed our babies if the mother is not available to breastfeed? Raw milk and cod liver oil to start (https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/childrens-health/formula-homemade-baby-formula/#gsc.tab=0), and then add in egg yolks, avocado, and fatty fish once they show interest in foods. They refer to these as ‘brain foods’, but what if we were to find out this is optimal for most folks who are metabolically challenged? If little kids are not supposed to have sugar, wheat, or pasteurized dairy, why do we think it’s ok for us adults?
If you read Paul Saladino’s book, The Carnivore Code: Unlocking the Secrets to Optimal Health by Returning to Our Ancestral Diet, or Mary Beauchamp’s book, Radical Health Makeover: The Science and Spirituality of Self-Healing, you will discover that this was the original diet before our blood types were ever discerned. Are you suffering from inflammation? Are you feeling fat and unhappy like I was?
The other book that we studied in Heilkunst medical school was, The Metabolic Typing Diet: Customize Your Diet To: Free Yourself from Food Cravings: Achieve Your Ideal Weight; Enjoy High Energy and Robust Health; Prevent and Reverse Disease, by William L. Wolcott and Trish Fahey. They speak to how we must address chronic inflammation by becoming metabolically sound first.
As Heilkunst Physicians, along with the authors above, we recognize that weight issues are inflammation gone astray, and that like our sequential approach to peeling the onion of shocks and traumas, the diet also needs to be applied in a more layered approach. As we learned under Rudi Verspoor, Dean of the Hahnemann College for Heilkunst, we need to start with a metabolic approach, and balance the endocrine system as per Dr. Abravanel, and then the patient neatly qualifies for their blood type diet in whole health, becoming their standard of excellence for the long term.
This is the way that I have finally proceeded and it has worked brilliantly for me. Jeff just followed suit, because I am the chief chef in our family. I was metabolically inflamed due to the high content of green smoothies and fruits I was eating. Mary was able to help me realize that these foods were causing my glycemic index to be off the charts (as indicated in a drop of my blood) and that I was not producing any ketones (what are required to burn fat).
So there it was, I was in the field of natural health for almost 20 years only to find out I was fat due to the foods I’d eaten and recommended to others for almost two decades. I was in tears with shame at not having wholly followed the protocols that I’d used to help others to achieve their goals. As I sat in a puddle of tears, Mary reached out to take my hand saying, “You’ve got this! You just need a little help.”
One by one, like an allergy sufferer, I eliminated all smoothies, fruits, and berries. Then when the glycemic meter didn’t decrease after two weeks, Mary instructed me to remove all the vegetables. Lo and behold, I dropped a pound, then two, then three, and on and on until I was down over forty pounds of buttery fat, while eating a ton of butter! My blood pressure normalized, I started to feel even better in my body and I started to develop a 6-pack at the age of 58. Crazy!
The hard part was realizing that I suffer addictions. While I’d not eaten bread at home for almost 25 years, I did love the occasional ice cream. Also, I was making a ton of keto treats like almond flour fat-boy bagels with mozzarella, and enjoying fat bombs with coconut oil. All of these so-called keto treats were definitely keeping me out of ketosis. Measuring my blood told a whole other story about my healthy delusions.
Also, I realized that I’d been loved, liberally, by my relatives on the farm after my mother had committed suicide with sweets; cookies, ice cream, tang, cakes, white rolls with molasses, and canned peas and carrots with a tiny piece of overcooked meat. My mother, or the way she died, was never discussed once afterwards. I was loved with food, and I learned to stuff it all down the hatch with sweets and carbs.
My diet literally needed to be turned on its proverbial hiney to fix the physical suffering, before I could default to my B Blood Type Diet. I first needed to admit that I needed Mary to coach me out of the dark places emotionally. Feeling all the feels after many decades was HARD! So hard, I wanted to quit multiple times.
It’s true that I found the process daunting and I found content in the strata of my fat that shocked me! To hear my grueling tale in detail and how I went about, “Untying the Emotional Knots That Cause Weight Gain,” go to Mary Beauchamp’s link here:
https://www.ketogenicdietcoach.com/untying-the-emotional-knots-that-cause-weight-gain
So what are the takeaways when someone says they’re suffering chronic weight gain on their frames? Well, there are a number of emotional etiologies from unresolved traumas, their diet is causing inflammation, they suffer a number of limiting beliefs about their health, and they probably need a hand to get unstuck. Even if they’ve been in the field of health for almost 2 decades!
Now I realize that I value how I feel in my body so much more than that hit of sugar or fruit. Also, sleeping 7-8 hours through the night without waking has to be one of my new favorite super powers. I also know that for the first time in my life, I’m eating to live instead of living to eat, which is one of my partner, Jeff Korentayer’s, most prolific sayings. My self-worth has increased monumentally and for the first time in 45 years, I’m super happy to live in my body. If I can do it, surely anyone can!
To reach Mary Beauchamp, Keto Coach Extraordinaire:
To reach Allyson McQuinn, Heilkünster, still learning every day:
*I find A and AB blood types can do pure keto for a shorter duration before needing to default to their blood type diet with chicken, turkey, fish, and vegetables. They tend to plateau and then suffer inflammation with dairy (yes, even raw), butter, and red meat.